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.
“Headquarters”22 pages
Secret fdOFORN Chapter 6 302 sufficient support. The JCS and the PFIAB supported the CIA's advo cacy of OXCART deployment. Top State and Defense Department of ficials, however, thought that the political risks of basing the aircraft in Okinawa-which would almost certainly disclose it to the Japanese-outweighed any gains from the intelligence the OXCART might gather. On 12 August I 966, the divergent views were presented to President Johnson, who upheld the 303 Committee's majority opin ion against deployment for the time being.5' The CIA then proposed an OXCART overflight of Cuba in order to test the aircraft's ECM systems in a hostile environment. On 15 September the 303 Committee considered and rejected this idea on the grounds that sending OXCART over Cuba "would disturb the ex isting calm prevailing in that area of our foreign affairs." 57 With operational missions still ruled out, proficiency training re mained the main order of business. This led to improvements in mis sion plans and flight tactics that enabled the detachment to reduce the time requi~ed to deploy to Okinawa from 21 days to 15. Records con tinued to fall to the OXCART. On 21 December 1966, a Lockheed test pilot tlew an A-12 for 16,408 kilometers over the continental United States in slightly more than six hours, for an average speed of 2,670 kilometers per hour (which included in-flight refueling at speeds as low as 970 kilometers per hour). This flight set a record for speed and distance unapproachable by any other aircraft. 58 Two weeks later, on 5 January 1967, an A-12 crashed after a fuel gauge malfunctioned and the aircraft ran out of fuel short of the run way. Pilot Walter Ray ejected but was killed when he could not become separated from the ejection seat. To preserve the secrecy of the OXCART program, the Air Force informed the press that an SR-71 was missing and presumed down in Nevada. This loss, like the three preceding crashes, did not result from difficulties caused by high-speed, high-temperature flight but from traditional problems in herent in any new aircraft. Proposals for OXCART operations continued to surface, and in May 1967 the CIA forwarded a detailed request to the 303 Committee to use the OXCART to collect strategic intelligence about a new '• Minnich ...OXCART Story:· p. 23 (S): OSA History. chap. 20. pp. 110-111 (TS Codeword). "OSA History, chap. 20. p. 112 (TS Codeword). "Minnich. "OXCART Story:· p. 24 (S). Seeret
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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.