Documents / Official release
This is a Secret History Staff monograph by Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach of the Central Intelligence Agency, published in 1992. It gives a history of the CIA's manned overhead reconnaissance program from 1954 to 1974, covering the development and operation of the U-2 and the A-12 OXCART aircraft. It covers overflights of the Soviet Union, the 1960 downing of Francis Gary Powers, and later operations. One section is titled "U-2s, UFOs, and Operation BLUE BOOK."
From the source:Release of 2026-06-12 This CIA History Staff document chronicles the complete history of the U-2 and OXCART (A-12) high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft programs from 1954 to 1974, detailing their development, operations over the Soviet Union and other targets worldwide, the famous downing of Francis Gary Powers in 1960, organizational reforms following that incident, and the eventual transfer of operations from CIA to Air Force control. A more redacted version of this document has been available on CIA's public website.
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98 ioe,et ().IQFORN Chapter 3 Colonel Goodpaster with President Eisenhower wke it as a certainty that no pilot would survive .. . and that al though they would know where the plane came from, it would be difficult to prove it in any con vincing way." CIA assurances that the U-2 would probably not be detected. and that a crashed U-2 could not be traced back to the United States, helped overcome the President's worries about overflights. The most important reason why President Eisenhower decided to send recon naissance aircraft over the Soviet Union, however, was the urgent need for accurate intelligence to confirm or disprove claims of Soviet advances in long-range bombers and missiles. The initial sighting of the new Soviet Bison bomber in the spring of 1954 had been followed by reported sightings of more than 30 of these bombers in the spring and summer of 1955 (in reality these were sightings of the same group of IO aircraft that circled around out of sight and made several passes during a Soviet air show). Soon members of Congress were calling for investigations into the relative strength of the US and " Quoted in Bc:schloss, Mayday. p. 118. 6eeret
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Official release, from the pursue 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.