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.
“United Press”17 pages
133 Seeret NOFORN Chapter 3 boom, which could lift entire airframes 50 feet in the air, technicians could change the airframe's attitude and run radar tests almost contin uously without having to fuel and fly the plane.n By the summer of 1957, testing of the radar-deception system was complete, and in July the first "dirty bird" (DB) arrived at Detachment B. The first operational use of this aircraft occurred on 21 July l 957 in mission 4030 over Iran, Iraq, and Syria. On 31 July, the same aircraft made a run over the Black Sea. There were a total of nine DB missions over the USSR. The antiradar system did not prove very effective, and its use was curtailed in May 1958.79 THE NEW DETACHMENT C On 8 June 1957, a U-2 took off from Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska to conduct the first intentional overflight of the Soviet Union since December 1956. This mission broke new ground in two re spects: it was the first overflight conducted from American soil and • -the first by the new Detachment C. Detachment C (known officially as Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, Provisional-3) was composed of the third group of pilots to complete their training in Nevada. In the autumn of 1956, this third detachment needed a new base because Area 51 was about to become the training site for a large number of Air Force pilots who would fly the 29 U-2s purchased by the Air Force. The Agency decided that the best location for Detachment C would be the Far East and begao looking for bases there. Even without the arrival of the Air Force pilots, Detachment C could not have stayed in Nevada much longer. In June 1957, the en tire facility had to be evacuated because the Atomic Energy Commission was about to conduct a series of nuclear tests whose fall out was expected to contaminate the Groom Lake facility. All remain ing CIA personnel, materiel, and aircraft were transferred to Edwards AFB, California, and became known as Detachment G. " Ibid (S). ,., Cunningham interview (TS Codeword}. Soe11et
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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.