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.
“The Pentagon”12 pages
20 Sec, et NOFOAN Chapter 1 scientists. Thus, new and extremely powerful weapons were coming into the hands of a government whose actions greatly disturbed the leaders of the West. Only two months before the successful hydrogen bomb test, Soviet troops had crushed an uprising in East Berlin. And, at the United Nations, the Soviet Bloc seemed bent on causing dissen sion between Western Europe and the United States and between the developed and undeveloped nations. This aggressive Soviet foreign policy. combined with advances in nuclear weapons, led officials such as Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to see the Soviet Union as a menace to peace and world order. The Soviet Union's growing military strength soon became a threat not just to US forces overseas but to the continental United States itself. In the spring of 1953. a top secret RAND study pointed out the vulnerability of the SAC's US bases to a surprise attack by Soviet long-range bombers.-'• Concern about the danger of a Soviet attack on the continental United States grew after an American military attache sighted a new Soviet intercontinental bomber at Ramenskoye airfield. south of Moscow, in 1953. The new bomber was the Myasishchev-4, later designated Bison by NATO. Powered by jet engines rather than the turboprops of Russia's other long-range bombers. the Bison appeared to be the Soviet equivalent of the US B-52. which was only then going into production. Pictures of the Bison taken at the Moscow May Day air show in 1954 had an enormous impact on the US intel ligence community. Unlike several other Soviet postwar aircraft, the Bison was not a derivative of US or British designs but represented a native Soviet design capability that surprised US intelligence ex perts. This new long-range jet bomber, along with the Soviet Union's large numbers of older propeller and turboprop bombers, seemed to pose a significant threat to the United States, and, in the summer of 1954, newspapers and magazines began publishing articles highlight ing the growing airpower of the Soviet Union. Pictures of the Bison bomber featured prominently in such stories. 1; " RAND Corporation. Plans Analysis Section. ··V11/11aahi/ity of U.S. Strategic Power to a Surprise A/lack in /956, .. RAND Special Memorandum No. 15. Santa Monica. California: the RAND Corporation, April 15, 1953 (TS. dcclassiticd May 1967). '' "AF Cites Red Bomber Progress," Aviation Week. May .2-t 1954. p. 14; "Is Russia Winning the Arms Race?, .. US News cmd World Report, June: 18. 1954, 'pp. 28-19; "Russia Parades Airpower as 'Big Stick'." Aviation Week. June .28. 1954. p. 15; "Red Air Force: The World's Biggest." Newsweek. August .23, 1954. pp. 28-33. Sec,et
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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.