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.
“Cooper”12 pages
1 Seeret NOFORN Chapter 1 Searching for a System THE NEED FOR HIGH-ALTITUDE RECONNAISSANCE For centuries, soldiers in wartime have sought the highest ground or structure in order to get a better view of the enemy. At first it was tall trees, then church steeples and bell towers. By the time oif the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, ob se_ryers were using hot-air balloons to get up in the sky for a better view of the "other side of the hill." With the advent of dry film, it became possible to carry cameras into the sky to record the disposi tion of enemy troops and emplacements. Indeed, photoreconnaissance proved so valuable during World War I that in 1938 Gen. Werner von Fritsch, Commander in Chief of the German. Army, predicted: '·'The nation with the best aerial reconnaissance facilities will win the next war." 1 By World War II, lenses, films , and cameras had undergone many improvements, as had the airplane, which could fly higher and faster than the primitive craft of World War I. Now it was possible to use photoreconnaissance to obtain information about potential targets be fore a bombing raid and to assess the effectiveness of the bombing afteiwarcl Peacetime applications of high-altitude photography at first in cluded only photornapping and surveying for transcontinental high ways and mineral and oil exploration. There was little thought given to using photography for peacetime espionage until after World War II, when the Iron Curtain rang down and cut off most fonns of communi cation between the Soviet Bloc of nations and the rest of the world. ' Roy M. Stanley II, World War I/ Photo Intelligence (New York: Scribners. 1981), p. 16.
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Official release, from the pursue 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.