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
CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED Se OFORN Chapter 2 86 , NUCLEAR STORAGE s - , ,, Ctt. AREA ..:.-. . , .. • /, _ _ 7-1.:...s.4...■ 7 'a"- _ ' ...,. WI. '..• _ .. . HEAD FRAME AREA ---n1111111r, Photograph of Dodonovo Atomic Energy complex taken by a Project GENETRIX balloon All of this publicity and protest led President Eisenhower to con- clude that "the balloons gave more legitimate grounds for irritation than could be matched by the good obtained from them," and he or- dered the project halted. On 7 February 1956 Secretary of State Dulles informed the Soviet Union that no more "weather research" balloons would be released. but he did not offer an apology for the overt' ights.7u Despite the furor caused by GENETRIX, Air Force Chief of Staff Twining proposed yet another balloon project only five weeks later, in mid-March 1956. This project would employ even higher fly- ing balloons than GENETRIX and would be ready in 18 months. President Eisenhower informed the Air Force, however, that he was "not interested in any more balloons." 'I Andrew J. GoocIpaster, Memorandum for the Record, -10 February 1956 Conference of Joint Chiefs of Staff with the President." WHOSS, Alpha. DDEL (TS, declassified 1980): Stephen E. Ambrose. Eisenhower. The President vol. 2 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), p. 310. Quoted in Ambrose, Eisenhower: The President. p. 310. 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.