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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. 16 …An RB-29 lost in the Sea of Japan on 13 June 1952 was probably also…
  • p. 38 …off to about 6 percent of its sea-level thrust. Finally, low structural load factors, like…
  • p. 75 …with a boiling point of 300T at sea level. Manufacturing this special fuel required petroleum byproducts…
  • p. 80 …heavier and delivered only 10,200 pounds of thrust at sea level; the resulting --soarer UNCLASSIFIED
  • p. 89 …that they could not be flown at sea level faster than 190 knots in smooth air…
  • p. 98 …southern Europe and then across the Black Sea and the desert areas of China. These bal…
  • p. 102 …working on a cover story for over- seas operations. It was important to have a plausible…
  • p. 120 …neanteagon • 724744 (8009071 4-92 Finland Baltic Sea ükranian Italy ROME IUMIS Tunisia Mediterranean Sea UNCLASSIFIED
  • p. 139 …Soviet border from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea and on to Afghanistan. The System…
  • p. 146 …aircraft made a run over the Black Sea. 'I here were a total of nine DB…
  • p. 148 …space launch taciitty east of the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan. None of the mission planners was…
  • p. 158 …it turned abruptly upward over the Bering Sea just west of Alaska, climbed to 110,000…
  • p. 166 …the Soviet border and over the Black Sea without entering Soviet airspace. In late August, as…
  • p. 215 …F"••• N. ' :\ ■ Caribbean Sea Ceyrnen Islands M FL) .r, Unttad ) ' ^ Gulf of Mexico NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN…
  • p. 216 …Isle of P,floo Caribbean Sea ••• Corn. Islands IWO Janss — 200 kilometers 100 200 Miles ".! SgsgalgOidaRte…
  • p. 217 SAM Sites in Cuba, August 1962 Caribbean Sea Gulf of Mexico NORTH A TLANTIC OCEAN 9…
  • p. 316 …Shortly before Leningrad, the A-12 would head west-southwest down the Baltic Sea, skirting the…
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.