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
339 Secret NOFORN- Appendix E APPENDIX E Unmanned Reconnaissance Projects AQUILINE In the early l 960s, there were many problems in obtaining coverage of hostile territory. The U-2 was too vulnerable to Soviet sur face-to-air missiles, as had been demonstrated by losses over the Soviet Union, Cuba, and the People's Republic of China. The OXCART was still under development and even when completed might prove vulnerable to Soviet radars and missiles. Although safe from interception, the newly developed photosatellites could not pro vide coverage of a desired target on short notice. Because several of the intelligence community's primary targets such as Cuba and the new Soviet radar installation at Tallinn (Estonia) were not located deep in hostile territory, CIA scientists and engineers began to con sider the possibility of using small, unmanned aircraft for aerial reconnaissance. They believed that recent advances in the minia turization of electronic technology would make possible the development of a reconnaissance vehicle with a very-low-radar cross section and small visual and acoustical signatures. Such a vehicle could reconnoiter an area of interest without the hostile country real izing that it had been overflown. In mid-1965, David L. Christ, chief of the Office of Research and Development's Applied Physics Division, and Frank Briglia of the same office began working on the concept of a small, inexpensive aircraft that would be about the size of a large bird and could carry various payloads for photography, nuclear sensing, and ELINT collec tion. ORD soon formed a Special Projects Group to develop the air craft with Briglia as the project manager. Only one firm-the Douglas Aircraft Company-responded favorably to a request for proposal to study the feasibility of a low-altitude reconnaissance system. On 15 November 1965, Douglas received a study contract. This was followed by two Agency contracts on 21 November 1966 for the development of an operational low-altitude intelligence-gathering system. Further contracts followed in 1968 and 1969. The AQUILINE prototype developed by Douglas Aircraft (which became part of McDonnell-Douglas in 1969 as the result of a merger) was essentially a powered glider with an 8.5-foot wingspan. The aircraft weighed only 105 pounds. AQUILINE's tail-mounted en gine drove a two-bladed propeller. Powered by a small 3.5-horse power two-cycle engine originally developed by the McCullough 5-eeret
Not linked to a story yet.
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.