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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. 12 …later, at press conferences in February and July 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson revealed the existence…
  • p. 40 …MIT Press. 1977), p. 68: Beschloss, Maplay, p. 74: TCP Report. pp. 185-186 (S). UNCLASSIFIED
  • p. 98 …The Soviet Union sent strongly worded protest notes to the United States and the nations from…
  • p. 102 …not only press releases and the public line to be taken, but also the suspension of…
  • p. 107 …The "provisional" designation gave the U-2 detachments greater security because provisional Air Force units did…
  • p. 112 …at a press conference that the Soviet Union might be ahead of the United States in…
  • p. 125 …Dial Press, 1982), pp. 45-47. Lundahl and Brugioni interview (TS Codeword). UNCLASSIFIED
  • p. 174 …McElroy stressed that the gap would be temporary and that at its end the United States…
  • p. 195 …in the press about the presence of "spyplanes" on Japanese territory, asked the United States to…
  • p. 198 …DCI records (S). " United States Congress, Senate. Foreign Relations Committee, Executive Sessions of the Senate Foreign…
  • p. 307 …By 1962 the United States had become aware of the effectiveness of a new Soviet radar…
  • p. 315 …To preserve the secrecy of the OXCART program, the Air Force informed the press that an…
  • p. 328 …at times when the press and Congress alleged that the United States was falling behind the…
  • p. 362 …MIT Press, 1977. Kistiakowsky. George B. A Scientist at the White House. Cambridge: Harvard University Press…
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.