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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. 18 …Leghorn persuaded his superiors to submit his suggestion to the . Pentagon for funding. He had not…
  • p. 20 …Meanwhile Leghorn, frustrated by the rejection of his original concept, had transferred to the Pentagon in…
  • p. 22 …become the assistant director of Lockheed's Advanced Development Program, was in the Pentagon on business…
  • p. 24 …for the construction and maintenance of 30 aircraft to a group of senior Pentagon officials that…
  • p. 26 …He had been present at Kelly Johnson's presentation on the CL-282 at the Pentagon…
  • p. 27 …with Strong in the Pentagon on 12 May 1954. six days before the Wright Air Development…
  • p. 52 …Late on the morning of 2 December 1954, Dulles told Bissell to go to the Pentagon…
  • p. 91 …1-le then briefed a high-level Pentagon panel that included the Secretary of the Air…
  • p. 92 …After a half hour passed, the base commander called the Pentagon to ask where the crippled…
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.