Documents / FOIA release

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. 195 …were consolidated into Detachment G at Edwards Air Force Base, California, 1Detachment G now comprised eight…
  • p. 222 …CIA's U-2 Detachment at Edwards Air Force Base on 11 October, and the CIA…
  • p. 234 …were incorporated into Detachment G at Edwards Air Force Base in California. This detachment was now…
  • p. 269 …s Detachment G at Edwards Air Force Base could deploy air- craft nd begin filming the…
  • p. 308 Chapter 6 295 CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED these aircraft were hastily flown to Edwards Air Force Base. From…
Chapter 6
301
OSA History. chap. 20, pp. 90-91 (TS Codeword).
"OXCART Story," p. 21 (S).
E0 12958 1.6191111>1045Yrs
Is]
005653421 UNCLASSIFIED
growing hazards confronting aerial reconnaissance of the
n three years
and the Air Force had lost numerous reconnaissance drones.
ree men agreed to go ahead with all the preparatory steps
needed for the OXCART to operate over o that it would be
ready in case the President decided to authorize such missions.
Project BLACK SHIELD, the plan for Far East operations.
called for OXCART aircraft to be based at Kadena airbase on
Okinawa. In the first phase, three planes would be flown to Okinawa
for 60-day periods, twice a year, an operation which would involve
about 225 personnel. Later there would be a permanent detachment at
Kadena. In preparation for the possibility of such operations, the
Defense Department spent $3.7 million to provide support facilities
and real-time secure communications on the island by early autumn
[0 12958 1.61M11>1045Yrs
[012950 1.6191161>101010<25Yrs
OXCART to Okinawa to overfly Southeast Asia and Although
develop-
Is)
the committee did not approve deployment, it ordeieu we
ment and maintenance of a quick-reaction capability, ready to deploy
to Okinawa within 21 days after notification.
There the matter remained for more than a year. During the first
half of 1966, DCI Raborn raised the issue of deploying the OXCART
to Okinawa at five separate 303 Committee meetings but failed to win
ret
UNCLASSIFIED

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