The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2 and OXCART Programs, 1954-1974

by Gregory W. Pedlow, Donald E. Welzenbach, Cia History Staff

Please include this as the description: "On May 1, 1960, the news that the Soviet Union had downed a CIA high-altitude spy plane added the names "U-2" and "Francis Gary Powers" to the convoluted narrative of Cold War espionage. Yet this celebrated episode was only one aspect of an extraordinary history of covert, high-tech intrusion of secret U.S. aircraft into other nations' air space worldwide. Now, The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2 and Oxcart Programs offers an official, comprehensive, and authoritative history of this manned overhead reconnaissance program. Long classified, it describes not only the program's technological and bureaucratic aspects, but also its political and international context. The book begins by carefully documenting the origins of the U-2, the top-secret testing of the plane, its specially designed high-altitude cameras and complex life-support systems, and even the suggested use of potassium cyanide capsules by the pilots if captured (it was up to each pilot to decide if he wanted to take one with him?some did, most did not). Once operational, its flight over the USSR in July 1956 immediately made the U-2 the most important source of intelligence on the Soviet Union, but its use against the Soviet target for which it was designed produced a persistent tension between its program managers and President Eisenhower, with the former much more eager to expand its use and the latter going along only reluctantly. After the 1960 U-2 incident and the capture of pilot Gary Francis Powers, the President forbade any further U-2 flights over the USSR. This was hardly the end of the U-2's participation in the Cold War. From the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban missile crisis to the skies of Laos and North Vietnam, the U-2 provided the same top-secret intelligence data as it had in the 1950s on revolts in Indonesia and Tibet. Even after the end of the U-2 era, the CIA attempted to continue its work via the Oxcart project?the A-12 surveillance aircraft?until fiscal pressures and CIA-Air Force rivalry caused its demise. Based upon both full access to CIA records and extensive classified interviews of its participants, along with maps, drawings, and low-resolution photographs, this important study provides an engrossing and timely look into the development and implementation of a top-secret U.S. intelligence effort, its technological wizardry, notable accomplishments?and the worldwide negative repercussions when it was revealed. Both fascinating history and cautionary tale, The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance will be of immense interest to students of military aviation, intelligence operations, international relations, history of the Cold War."

Genres: History, Nonfiction

400 pages, Hardcover

First published September 2, 2013

Reviews

[Michael Burnam-Fink · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exactly what it says on the title, this is the comprehensive and official account of the CIA's U-2 and OXCART projects, including technological, organizational, political, and operational. All the things you'd expect to be in are there: Kelly Johnson being a boss, the Gary Powers Shootdown, Coffin Corner. I particularly enjoyed plans for prototypes A-1 through A-11, and the various insane schemes considered in trying to get a radar invisible plan up to 70,000 feet and mach 3.

Only downside is that the writing is a little dry, and a lot of the photos in my FOIA copy are blurry messes. That said, if you enjoy reading government reports about aerospace projects, this is a good one.

[Matt Sikes · Rating 4 out of 5]

The official declassified historical record of the U-2’s contributions to the CIA’s reconnaissance efforts. It is quite dry at times, but is full of operational details about the flights. I didn’t realize how important the logistic considerations were for flight planning, especially the political considerations.

This book pairs well with Skunkworks by Ben Rich.

[John Irving · Rating 5 out of 5]

excellent review of the CIA and its relationship with the US Air Force

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was very well researched and documented and the footnotes were excellent. A particular of just to be were the CIA role in the development of what became the SR-71.
I recommend this book without reservation.

[Vince · Rating 3 out of 5]

This really wasn’t what I was expecting, as I’m interested in the hardware and operations of machinery. This book delves into the details of policy making that involved the U-2 and Oxcart projects.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, a quick note on the available versions of this document. There are at least three PDF versions of the book available on the Internet, each having different redactions, that can be differentiated by a release number in the upper-left corner. The first was declassified in 2011 and is numbered CO5653421, and it has the most redactions. The second version from 2013 has the best text quality and was acquired by the National Security Archive at GWU, bearing number C00190094. The most recent version from 2016 is available on archives.gov is numbered C01462740, which has the fewest redactions and the best quality photos (which are still not great).

This is a unique account of U.S. history from 1954-1974 told through the lens of technology. There's not much narrative structure, this is an accounting of the facts as told from the U-2 and OXCART program managers, as well as the primary sources of the projects' documents. The book covers the design and development of these two unique aircraft, each of which pushed the boundaries of the state-of-the-art; the difficulties around building, testing, and maintaining secrecy of the crafts; and the real-world tradeoffs and consequences of deploying them operationally.

The only disappointing aspect of these books are the poor reproductions of the pictures, especially the overhead photography taken by U-2 and OXCART. Given that both aircraft were built for photoreconnaissance, having a good sample of the photos would have added to the understanding of their unique capabilities.

[Jouni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally classified as secret/NOFORN. Approved for release on 2013/06/25. Has still some cencored parts.