Documents / FOIA release
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."
“Hill”13 pages
82 Arthur C. Lundahl CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED ARC gave the top priority target list to the Project Director, and the project staff's operations section then used the list to plan the flightpaths for U-2 missions. Although the requirements committee was not responsible for developing flight plans, it assisted the plan- ners with detailed target information as required. When a flight plan was ready for submission to the President for approval, the committee drew up a detailed justification for the selection of the targets. This paper accompanied the flight plan.'" In developing and prioritizing lists of targets, the committee members had to take into account the varying needs and interests of their parent organizations. Thus, the CIA representatives generally emphasized strategic intelligence: aircraft and munitions factories, power-generating complexes, nuclear establishments, roads, bridges, inland waterways. In contrast, the military services usually placed a heavier emphasis on order-of-battle data. The Air Force, in particular, had a strong interest in gathering intelligence on the location of Soviet and East European airfields and radars. Although the committee members kept the interests of their ser- vices or agencies in mind, their awareness of the vital nature of their mission kept the level of cooperation high. The group always attempted to reach a consensus before issuing its recommendations, although oc- casionally this was not possible and one or more agencies would add a dissent to the recommendation of the committee as a whole."' PREPARATIONS TO HANDLE THE PRODUCT OF U-2 MISSIONS On 13 December 1954, DCI Allen Dulles and his assistant, Richard Bissell, briefed Arthur C. Lundahl, the chief of CIA's Photo- Intelligence Division (PID), on Project AQUATONE. At Da Dulles's direction, Lundahl immediately set in motion within his divi- sion a compartmented effort, known as Project EQUINE, to plan for the exploitation of overhead photography from the U-2 project. With only 13 members, the ND staff was too small to handle the expected " Ibid.: James Q. Reber. interview by Donald E. Welzenbach and Gregory W. Pedlow, Washington, DC, 21 May 1987 (S). " Reber interview (S). Shiet 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.