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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. 24 …Advanced Development Projects Division, Burbank. California. ED 129581.131011>10<25Yrs IS1 UNCLASSIFIED
  • p. 58 …Pedlow, Burbank, California, 26 August 1988. Sbc.et UNCLASSIFIED
  • p. 85 …how to transfer Lockheed employees from Burbank to Iwithout arousing a great deal of curiosity. The…
  • p. 273 …SP-1362, "History of the OXCART Program," Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, Burbank, CA. 1 July 1968, p…
  • p. 287 …designed trailer truck that carried it from Burbank By 18 November 1959, the mockup was in…
  • p. 297 …Construction began in September 1960; a C-47 shuttle service ferried work crews from Burbank to…
  • p. 299 …The plane left Burbank on 26 February 1962 and arrived at two days later. After the…
  • p. 304 …into the engine nacelles during assembly at Burbank were sucked into the power plant during initial…
The Steuart Building, home
of the Photo-Intelligence
Division
005653421 UNCLASSIFIED
Secre N
Chapter 2
83
flood of photographs that the U-2 would bring back, so in May 1955
the Directorate of Support (DS) authorized expanding PID tor -1)er-
sons. Soon afterward the division moved from its room in M Building
to larger quarters in Que Building.
The Photo-Intelligence Division continued to expand in anticipa-
tion of large quantities of U-2 photography. Its authorized strength
doubled in January 1956 when a new project known as
HTAUTOMAT came into existence to exploit U-2 photography. All of
the products from this project would be placed in the new control sys-
tem. By the summer of 1956, the PID had moved to larger quarters in
the Steuart Building at 5th Street and New York Avenue, NW. PID
photointerpreters had already begun to work with U-2 photography
following a series of missions in April 1956, when U-2s photo-
graphed a number of US installations that were considered analogous
to high-priority Soviet installations. As a result of these preparations,
PID was ready for the mass of photography that began coming when
U-2 operations commenced in the summer of 1956.m
(0 12958 1.6(011>1010<25Yrs
IS)
For a more detailed history of photointerpretation in the CIA. see The
National Photographic Interpretation Center. vol. I. Antecedents ana curly rears.
Directorate of Science and Technology Historical Series NPIC-2, December 1972, pp.
171-194 (S).
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.