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.
“Donald A. Johnson”17 pages
Se1.ret NOfiORN Chapter 2 66 led Bissell and Cunningham to approach Dr. A lex Batlin of Technical Services Division in the Directorate ,of Plans )1 for ideas to help "cap tured" U-2 pilots avoid such suffering. Battin suggested the method used by Nazi war criminal Hermarnn Goering, a thin glass ampule containing liquid potassium cyanide. He said a pilot had only to put the ampule in his mouth and bite down on the glass; death would fol low in 10 to 15 seconds. Project AQUATONE ordered six of the poi son ampules, called L-pills, and offered one to each pilot just before a mission. It was up to each pilot to decide if he wanted to take an 33 L-pill with him. Some did; most did not. DELIVERY OF THE FIRST U-2 On 25 July. less than eight months after the go-ahead call from Trevor Gardner, Kelly Johnson was ready to ,deliver the first aircraft, known as article 341, to the " Paradise Ranch" site. With its long, slender wings and tail assembly removed, the airc:raft was wrapped in tarpaulins, loaded aboard a C-124, and flown to Groom Lake, where Lockheed me chanics spent the next six days readyi.ng the craft for its maiden flight. Before "Kelly's Angel" could actually take to the air, however, it needed an Air Force designator. Col. Allman T. Culbertson from the Air Force ·s Office of the Director of Research and Development pointed this out to Lieutenant Colonel Geary in July 1955, and the two officers then looked through the aircraft designator handbook to see what the options were. They decided that they could not call the project aircraft a bomber, fighter, or transport plane, and they did not want anyone to know that the new plane was for reconnaissance, so Geary and Culbertson decided that i t shou ld come under the uti lity aircraft category. At the time, there were only two utility aircraft on the books, a U- l and a U-3. Geary told Culbertson that the Lockheed CL-282 was going to be known officially as the U-2.39 " At the time this Direc1ora1e was known as th,e Deputy Directorate/Plans. with the slash interpreted to mean eith.:r "for" or "of."· Terminology for the major subdivisions of the CIA and their directors ha.~ varied over the pa.~t four decades. For the sake of consistency. all titles of Directorates and Deputy Directors h,1vc bc:c:n placed in the curre nt Agency for mat: the organization is known a., the "Directorate of x·· and the head is known as the ··Deputy Di rector for x:· " Information supplied by James Cunningham to Donald E. Wdzenbach: Sayre Stevens. Memorandum for the Record. ·•Discussion with Dr. Alex Batlin Re Project MKNAOMI."' July 1975 (S). •• Geary intervic:w (S). $1)Qf8t
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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.