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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. 4 …Search for a New Reconnaissance Aircraft 8 Lockheed CL-282 Supporters and the CIA 13 Scientists…
  • p. 6 …260 Competition Between Lockheed and Convair 267 The Selection of the Lockheed Design 270 Efforts To…
  • p. 12 …excellent technical study of the U-2: Lockheed U-2 (1983). E0129581.131d111>10<25Yrs…
  • p. 21 …August 1953, OS1 records (S). " Jay Miller, Lockheed U-2, Aerograph 3 (Austin, Texas: Aerofax, 1983…
  • p. 22 …Immediately after returning to California, Carter proposed to Lockheed Vice President L. Eugene Root (previously the…
  • p. 23 …high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft Chapter 1 10 Lockheed also submit a design. Carter noted that the…
  • p. 24 …Miller, Lockheed U-2, p. 12. For more details on Kelly Johnson's original proposal. see…
  • p. 25 12 The Lockheed CL-282 CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED Chapter 1 Development Planning. According to Wienberg, General LeMay…
  • p. 26 …Despite the Air Force's selection of the X-16, Lockheed continued to work on the…
  • p. 27 …six days before the Wright Air Development Command began to evaluate the Lockheed proposal. Gardner described…
  • p. 28 …range are not as good as the Lockheed CL-282. Gardner's enthusiasm for the CL…
  • p. 29 …Few details about Dulles's precise attitude toward the proposed Lockheed reconnaissance aircraft are available, but…
  • p. 30 …At this point, the summer of 1954, Lockheed's CL-282 proposal still lacked official support…
  • p. 37 …ISP chairman Baker then urged Donovan to travel to southern California to evaluate the Lockheed design…
  • p. 39 …Thus, even though the Lockheed CL-282 had several important sources of support by September 1954…
  • p. 40 …Council.46 Project Three Support for the Lockheed CL-282 Even before the final Technological Capabilities…
  • p. 42 …Agency.49 Land learned the details of Lockheed's proposed CL-282 aircraft soon after he…
  • p. 43 …Chapter 1 30 briefly mention a Lockheed design for a high-flying aircraft at the 24…
  • p. 44 …During September and October the Project Three study group met frequently to discuss the Lockheed design…
  • p. 47 …The Lockheed super glider will fly at 70,000 feet, well out of the reach of…
  • p. 48 …Putt, to oppose the adoption of the Lockheed design. The officials ar- gued that the Bell…
  • p. 49 …He used Gardner's statement to convince Lockheed's senior management to approve the project, which…
  • p. 50 …small group of prominent scientists that the Lockheed design represented the best possible overhead reconnais- sance…
  • p. 52 …afternoon of 3 December, they Although the Lockheed CL-282 was not designated as the U…
  • p. 53 …Eventually Bissell asked who was going to pay for the airframes to be built by Lockheed…
  • p. 55 …This category in- cluded maintenance personnel from Lockheed (five per aircraft), the pilots, and support personnel…
  • p. 57 …Then on 22 December 1954, the Agency signed a letter contract with Lockheed, using the codename…
  • p. 58 …The U-2 would have a The Lockheed "Skunk Works" was named after the Kickapoo Joy…
  • p. 59 …Johnson, -A High-Altitude Reconnaissance Aircraft, - 9 December 1954, Lockheed Contract Files, OSA Records (S). UNCLASSIFIED
  • p. 61 …Reconnaissance Aircraft, Lockheed Aircraft Corporation Report 10420. 28 January 1955. pp. 7-9, OSA Recordsi \ (5…
  • p. 63 …1954, even before the CIA adopted the Lockheed proposal. Baker quickly recognized, however, that he would…
  • p. 69 …Miller, Lockheed U-2. pp. 19-20. Sè'biet UNCLASSIFIED
  • p. 74 …aircraft—remained the ex- clusive province of Lockheed:9 As a result of this agreement, CIA…
  • p. 77 …The first model of the pressure suit, used by Lockheed test pilots, made no provision for…
  • p. 79 …Geary told Culbertson that the Lockheed CL-282 was going to be known officially as the…
  • p. 81 …former director of Lockheed's Skunk Works, to Donald E. Welzenbach, 14 March 1986 (U): Miller…
  • p. 84 …7 (TS Codeword); Miller, Lockheed U-2, p. 22. OSA History, chap. 8, pp. 12-14…
  • p. 85 …how to transfer Lockheed employees from Burbank to Iwithout arousing a great deal of curiosity. The…
  • p. 88 …Colonel Yancey was in charge of six SAL pilots who were to be trained by Lockheed…
  • p. 90 …CIA, which then placed an order with Lockheed for 29 U-2s in configurations to be…
  • p. 107 …U-2 cover story stating that a Lockheed-developed aircraft would be flown by the USAF…
  • p. 143 …Lockheed mechanics had mounted the various RAINBOW devices on the prototype U-2, a Lockheed test…
  • p. 144 …Unable to restart the power plant, Lockheed test pilot Robert Sicker bailed out but was struck…
  • p. 145 …The loss of one of Lockheed's best test pilots, as well as the pro- totype…
  • p. 157 …As a substitute, Lockheed began working to develop a paint with radar-suppressant qualities, but this…
  • p. 162 …a series of tests over Edwards AFB. Lockheed began coating the 11-2s with a standard…
  • p. 188 …Although it haL refurbished by Lockheed and now had the more powerful 175 engine that would…
  • p. 200 …Beschloss claims that Powers was fired by Lockheed for criticizing the Agency in his memoirs (which…
  • p. 209 …Some poetic justice in this.' One week later Colonel Geary called to order Lockheed to up…
  • p. 211 …In May 1961, Lockheed began modifying Agency U-2s so that they could be refueled in…
  • p. 220 …story, which was that its pilots were Lockheed employees on a ferry flight to Puerto Rico…
  • p. 230 …CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED Chapter 5 Late in 1958, Lockheed began refitting the Agency's 13 remaining U…
  • p. 264 …1966 decided to place an order with Lockheed for ei g ht more aircraft to be…
  • p. 265 …Francis Gary Powers was one of the Lockheed test pilots who checked out this new aircraft…
  • p. 266 …began coming off the production line at Lockheed in-the autumn of 1968, CIA and the…
  • p. 273 …SP-1362, "History of the OXCART Program," Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, Burbank, CA. 1 July 1968, p…
  • p. 275 …Personnel at Lockheed's Skunk Works referred to these aircraft concepts as "Archangel-1," "Archangel-2…
  • p. 276 RN Chapter 6 263 Johnson, "Archangel log," 17-24 CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED Lockheed design for a hydrogen…
  • p. 280 …During the first half of 1959, both Lockheed and Convair worked to reduce the radar cross…
  • p. 281 …In early June, Lockheed submitted a design for a ground-launched aircraft known as the A…
Secret
Chapter 2
85
CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED
the People's Republic of China. This project had its origins in a
RAND Corporation study from 1951. By the end of 1955, the Air
Force had overcome a number of technical problems in camera design
and recovery techniques and had manufactured a large number of bal-
loons for use in the project. President Eisenhower gave his approval
on 27 December 1955, and two weeks later the launches from bases
in Western Europe began. By the end of February 1956, the Air Force
had launched a total of 516 balloons.°
Project GENETRIX was much less successful than its sponsors
had hoped. Once launched, the balloons were at the mercy of the pre-
vailing winds, and many tended to drift toward southern Europe and
then across the Black Sea and the desert areas of China. These bal-
loons therefore missed the prime target areas, which lay in the higher
latitudes. Large numbers of balloons did not succeed in crossing the
Soviet Union and China, some because they were shot down by hos-
tile aircraft, others because they prematurely expended their ballast
supplies and descended too soon. Only 46 payloads were eventually
recovered (one more than a year later and the last not until 1958)
from the 516 balloons that had been launched. In four of these pay-
_loads the camera had malfunctioned, and in another eight the photog-
raphy was of no intelligence value. Thus, only 34 balloons succeeded
in obtaining useful photographs."
The low success rate of the Project GENETRIX balloons was not
the only problem encountered; far more serious was the storm of pro-
test and unfavorable publicity that the balloon overflights provoked.
Although the Air Force had issued a cover story that the balloons
were being used for weather research connected with the International
Geophysical Year, East European nations protested strongly to the
United States and to international aviation authorities, claiming that
the balloons endangered civilian aircraft. The Soviet Union sent
strongly worded protest notes to the United States and the nations
from which the balloons had been launched. The Soviets also col-
lected numerous polyethelene gasbags, camera payloads, and trans-
mitters from GENETRIX balloons and put them on display in
Moscow for the world press."
P. G. Strong. Attachment to Memorandum for DCI Dulles. -Project GENETRIX
Summary." 15 February 1956 (S).
Final Report, Project 119L. 1st Air Division (Meteorological Survey) Strategic Air
Command. 5 March 1956. D-582, General Summary (S. declassified 1979).
iVew York Times, 10 February 1956. p. It Omaha World Herald, II February 1956 p 1
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.