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.
“RAF”18 pages
i 156 Secret NOFQRO.L Chapter 3 to working closely with the British from his wartime experience and believed that their involvement in the U-2 program was a natural as pect of their alliance with the United States. 113 On the British side, participation in U-2 flights was a logical ex tension of the close cooperation that already existed between the two countries on the U-2 program . T he direct involvement of the British also enabled them to conduct additional flights in areas such as the Middle East that were of more intelligence interest to the United Kingdom than to the United States. T he British also may have rea soned that direct participation in the program was the best way to en sure that they had a right to share in the U-2 's take. Otherwise, the United States might decide at some: point to cut off the flow of U-2 photography, as it had done during the 1956 Suez Crisis. By November 1958, British pi lots had joined Detachment B, and arrangements had been made for the: title to the aircr.ift they would be using to be transferred on paper to the British Government. In a final exchange of letters between President Eisenhower and Prime Minister Macmillan in December, the President summarized the lines of au thority for the joint program: "Br itish missions are carried out on your authority and are your responsibility just as our activities are au thorized and controlled here in accordance with the procedures I have established. In this sense, it could be: said that we are carrying out two complementary programs rather than a joint one.·· IIJ Richard Bissell had achieved his goal of gaining another source of approval for overflights of the Soviet Union. In late 1959 and early 1960 , this arrangement proved its value when British pilots conducted two highly successful missions over Soviet missile testing facilities at a time when President Eisenhower had not authorized an overflight for almost six months (see chapter 4). Most flights by the RAF pilots in Detachment B, however, took place in the Middle East. where the United Kingdom carried out 27 missions during the two years its pi lots took part in overflights. In Britain, the cover story for the RAF participation in the U-2 program was that British fliers were being trained to fly high-altitude weather-sampling missions for the !RAF weather service. To support this cover, a U-2 was ferried to Watton RAF Base, England, in early '" Goodpaster interview (S). ,,. OSA History. ch:ip. 13. pp. I 0-11 (TS Cod,:word). £ee.ot
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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.