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.
“Hill”15 pages
303 Soviet missile system. As early as 1962, the intelligence community began to be concerned about the actual purpose of new missile instal lations that first appeared near Tallinn, Estonia, and soon spread along the northwestern quadrant of the Soviet Union. Attempts to photo graph the sites using reconnaissance satellites had been frustrated by the prevailing cloud cover in the region. Because of the lack of accu rate information about the missile sites, there was a wide divergence of views within the intelligence community about their purpose. These views ranged from the CIA's belief that the installations con tained long-range, surface-to-air missiles designed to counter strate gic bombers, to the Air Force's contention that Tallinn sites represented a deployed antiballistic missile system. Photointerpreters insisted that imagery with a resolution of 12 to 18 inches was necessary to determine missile size, antenna pattern, and configuration of the engagement radars associated with the sys tem. Electronic intelligence (ELINT) analysts also needed data about the Tallinn radars, but there were no collection sites that could moni tor the Tallinn emanations when the radars were being tested. Moreover, the Soviets never operated the radars in the tracking and lockon modes, a fact that prevented analysts from knowing the fre quencies or any other performance characteristics of the radar. To settle the question of the purpose of the Tallinn installations. Office of Special Activities planners proposed a mission that would use the high resolution of the OXCART's camera along with the U-2's sophisticated ELINT-collection equipment. This project's un classified name was Project SCOPE LOGIC; its classified title was Operation UPWIND. The proposed project involved launching an A-12 OXCART air craft from Area 51 in Nevada and flying it to a Baltic Sea rendezvous with a Project IDEALIST U-2 flying from an RAF facility in Great Britain. The OXCART would fly north of Norway and then turn south along the Soviet-Finnish border. Shortly before Leningrad, the A-12 would head west-southwest down the Baltic Sea, skirting the coasts of Estonia, Latvia. Lithuania, Poland. and East Germany before heading west to return to Area 51. The entire flight would cover 11,000 nauti cal miles, take eight hours and 38 minutes, and require four aerial re fuelings. Although the A-12 would not violate Soviet airspace during this dash, it would appear to Soviet radar network operators to be headed for an overflight penetration in the vicinity of Leningrad. It was 6ee1 et NOFOFUil Chapter 6 &eeret
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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.