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. 24 …Instead of a conventional landing gear, Johnson proposed using two skis and a reinforced belly rib…
  • p. 25 …a perceived shortcoming of the Lockheed design."' Another factor in the rejection of Kelly Johnson's…
  • p. 26 …interview by Donald E. Welzenbach, Corona del Mar. California. 20 May 1985 (S). Johnson, "Log for…
  • p. 27 …Gardner described Kelly Johnson's proposal and showed the drawings to Strong. After this meeting. Strong…
  • p. 30 …To make Kelly Johnson's revolutionary design a reality, one additional source of support was necessary…
  • p. 42 …When James Killian asked Land to head Project Three, Land had to make a major decision…
  • p. 48 …do the job in Johnson's airplane. And further, 1 overlaid a curve showing that with…
  • p. 57 …demanding, and Kelly Johnson agreed that such a move would save a lot of money. Lockheed…
  • p. 58 …a week after he had been authorized to begin the project, Kelly Johnson wrote a 23…
  • p. 69 …project staff) flew LIZ with Kelly Johnson in a small Beechcraft plane piloted by eed's…
  • p. 72 …This responsibility has placed a heavy burden on the Office of Security for establishing procedures to…
  • p. 79 …Batlin suggested the method used by Nazi war criminal Hermann Goering, a thin glass ampule containing…
  • p. 81 …Kelly Johnson used a "wet-wing" design for the U-2, which meant that fuel was…
  • p. 89 …Airspeed was such a critical factor that Kelly Johnson added a vernier adjustment to the throttle…
  • p. 162 …By late 1957, Johnson agreed that something had to be done. After a series of tests…
  • p. 276 RN Chapter 6 263 Johnson, "Archangel log," 17-24 CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED Lockheed design for a hydrogen…
  • p. 324 …OXCART did win a temporary reprieve in late November 1967. The Johnson administration decided to keep…
005653421 UNCLASSIFIED
Se OFORN
Chapter
59
SECURITY FOR THE U-2 PROJECT
On 29 April 1955, Richard Bissell signed an agreement with the Air
Force and the Navy (which at that time was also interested in the U-2)
in which the services agreed that the CIA "assumed primary respon-
sibility for all security" for the overhead reconnaissance project
(AQUATONE). From this time on, the CIA has been responsible for
the security of overhead programs. This responsibility has placed a
heavy burden on the Office of Security for establishing procedures to
keep large numbers of contracts untraceable to the Central
Intelligence Agency. The Office of Security has also had to determine
which contractor employees require security clearances and has had
to devise physical security measures for the various manufacturing fa-
cilities. Keeping the U-2 and subsequent overhead systems secret has
been a time-consuming and costly undertaking."'
The most important aspect of the security program for the U-2
project was the creation of an entire new compartmented system for
the product of U-2 missions. Access to the photographs taken by the
U-2 would be strictly controlled, which often limited the ability of
CIA analysts to use the products of U-2 missions.
129581.6(011>10<25Yrs
(Si
Even the aircraft's onboard equipment required the involvement
of CIA security planners. Thus, when Kelly Johnson ordered altime-
ters from the Kollman Instrument Company, he specified that the
OSA History. chap. 7. pp. 4-6 (TS Codeword).
Information supplied by James Cunningham to Donald E. Welzenbach (S).
Sbiet
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.