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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. 4 …Scientists and Overhead Reconnaissance 17 The BEACON HILL Report 17 Concern About the Danger of a…
  • p. 14 …view of the "other side of the hill." With the advent of dry film, it became…
  • p. 30 …of this new advisory body." The BEACON HILL Report In 1951 the Air Force sought even…
  • p. 31 …Their head- quarters was located over a secretarial school on Beacon Hill, which soon became the…
  • p. 32 …to implement the ideas of the BEACON HILL Report until the summer of 1953. By this…
  • p. 34 …Created in July 1953, the Intelligence Systems Panel (ISP) included several experts from the BEACON HILL…
  • p. 37 …reconnais- sance needs expressed in the BEACON HILL Report. Theoretically, he explained to the panel, any…
  • p. 41 …H. T. Friis R. Mettler A. G. Hill E. Purcell W. H. Radford E. H. Plesset…
  • p. 44 …6(dli1i>10<25Yrs since the BEACON HILL and Intelligence Systems Panel meetings. (Si James Baker…
  • p. 45 …Having participated in the BEACON HILL Study and the Intelligence Systems Panel, several Project Three members…
  • p. 344 …He headed the Beacon Hill Panel in 1952 and later became director of Lincoln Laboratories. PARANGOSKY…
  • p. 345 …of several advisory panels, including the BEACON HILL project. He helped Baker decide what cameras to…
  • p. 364 …BEACON HILL Report: Problems of Air Force Intelligence and Reconnaissance. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 15 June…
Chapter 2
51
A- 1 camera
005653421 UNCLASSIFIED
his research associate duties at Harvard and his service on govern-
ment advisory bodies, Baker established a small firm known as Spica,
Incorporated, on 31 January 1955.
The A-1 camera system consisted of two 24-inch K-38 framing
cameras. One was mounted vertically and photographed a 17.2° swath
beneath the aircraft onto a roll of 9.5-inch film. The second K-38 was
placed in a rocking mount so that it alternately photographed the left
oblique and right oblique out to 36.5° onto separate rolls of 9.5-inch
film. The film supplies unwound in opposite directions in order to
minimize their effect on the balance of the aircraft. Both cameras
used standard Air Force 24-inch focal-length lenses adjusted for max-
imum acuity by Baker. The development of the special rocking mount
by Perkin-Elmer's Dr. Roderic M. Scott was a major factor in reduc-
ing the size and weight of the A-1 system, because the mount pro-
vided broad transverse coverage with a single lens, ending the need
for two separate cameras:6
OSA History, chap. 1, annex 3. pp. 1-3 (TS Codeword).
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.