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CIA/CSI/ History Staff Monograph, The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2 and Oxcart Programs, 16 July 2002.

Central Intelligence Agency · 406 pages · text from the file's own layer

This is a CIA History Staff monograph by Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach, written in 1992 and approved for release in 2011. It covers the CIA's manned overhead reconnaissance program from 1954 to 1974 and its two aircraft, the U-2 and the A-12 OXCART. It follows their development, the overflights of the Soviet Union, the downing of Francis Gary Powers in 1960, and later operations. One section is titled "U-2s, UFOs, and Operation BLUE BOOK."

  • p. 18 …Leghorn persuaded his superiors to submit his suggestion to the . Pentagon for funding. He had not…
  • p. 20 …Meanwhile Leghorn, frustrated by the rejection of his original concept, had transferred to the Pentagon in…
  • p. 22 …become the assistant director of Lockheed's Advanced Development Program, was in the Pentagon on business…
  • p. 24 …for the construction and maintenance of 30 aircraft to a group of senior Pentagon officials that…
  • p. 26 …He had been present at Kelly Johnson's presentation on the CL-282 at the Pentagon…
  • p. 27 …with Strong in the Pentagon on 12 May 1954. six days before the Wright Air Development…
  • p. 52 …Late on the morning of 2 December 1954, Dulles told Bissell to go to the Pentagon…
  • p. 91 …1-le then briefed a high-level Pentagon panel that included the Secretary of the Air…
  • p. 92 …After a half hour passed, the base commander called the Pentagon to ask where the crippled…
A-12s
005653421 UNCLASSIFIED
Chapter 6
298
EO 129581.6(dli1l>1010<25Yrs
[Si
Defense McNamara told DCI McCone that he doubted that the
OXCART would ever be used and suggested that improvements in
1 jwould very likely eliminate the need for the
expensive OXCART program. Strongly disagreeing, McCone told
McNamara that he had every intention of using OXCART aircraft to
fly over the Soviet Union.
McCone raised this issue with President Kennedy in April 1963,
at a time when the nation's I were experiencing a great
number of failures and the intelligence community was clamoring for
better photography to confirm or disprove allegations of the existence
of an antiballistic missile system at Leningrad. Unconvinced by
McCone's arguments for OXCART overflights, President Kennedy
expressed the hope that some means might be devised for improving
instead. 9'
"'John A. NIcCone, Memorandum for the Record. ''Summary of meeting with Secretary
McNamara and Secretary Gilpatric. General Carter and Mr. McCone on 3 July 1962."
6 July 1962. DC1 records (S): McCone. Memorandum for the File. "Meeting with the
President-5:30-15 Apr 1963 in Palm Beach. Florida. - DCI records (S).
UNCLASSIFIED

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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 406 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.