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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…
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Appendix B
331
Engineering Institute.I working on ways to re-
duce the U-2's vulne abliity to radar detection. In 1957 he founded
Itek Corporation.
LUNDAHL, Arthur E.
A Navy photointerpreter during World War II and afterward. Lundahl
became the chief of the Photo-Intelligence Division in 1953. To sup-
port the U-2 project, he established a separate photointerpretation
center under Project HTAUTOMAT. Under his leadership the Photo-
Intelligence Division grew rapidly and achieved office status as the
Photographic Intelligence Center in 1958. In 1961 Lundahl became
the first head of the National Photograhic Interpretation Center, which
combined the photointerpretation efforts of the CIA and the military
services.
McCONE, John A.
DCI from 1961 to 1965. A strong supporter of the CIA's manned re-
connaissance program, McCone presided over the OXCART's main
period of development and pushed for a greater role for the CIA in its
joint reconnaissance programs with the Department of Defense.
MILLER, Herbert I.
Miller worked in the Office of Scientific Intelligence's nuclear branch
and became Richard Bissell's first deputy for the U-2 project. He later
left the Agency to work for the Scientific Engineering Institute.
NORTON, Garrison
An assistant to Trevor Gardner, Norton became an early supporter of
the Lockheed CL-282 and started the CIA's interest in overhead re-
connaissance by informing Philip Strong about the aircraft. Norton
later became Navy Assistant Secretary for Research and Development
and was involved with the OXCART program.
OVERHAGE, Carl F. J.
After working on the development of Technicolor, Overhage went to
work for Kodak. He headed the Beacon Hill Panel in 1952 and later
became director of Lincoln Laboratories.
PARANGOSKY, John N.
Parangosky worked for Richard Bissell's Development Projects Staff
in the mid-1950s. He served as deputy chief of the Adana U-2 unit in
1959 and became project manager of the OXCART program from its
inception through the test flight stage.
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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.