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. 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…
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-
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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 under it. 406 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.