The CIA and the U2 Program: Declassified CIA Document

by Gregory W Pedlow, Donald E. Welzenbach

This volume presents to scholars and the public the CIA's newly declassified internal history of the U-2 program. The original study, written by Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach for the CIA History Staff in the 1980s, was published in 1992 under the title The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead The U-2 and OXCART Programs, 1954- 1974. Sections of that study on the U-2 program have been included here to mark the occasion of the September 1998 conference "The A Revolution in Intelligence." The entire study is being reviewed under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. The product of a remarkable collaboration between the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States Air Force, Lockheed Corporation, and other suppliers, the U-2 collected intelligence that revolutionized American intelligence analysis of the Soviet threat. Although the U-2 has been one of America's best known intelligence achievements, significant aspects of the U-2's story have remained unknown outside the US Government. This volume tells much of that story in a clear and engaging manner, providing a fuller context for understanding some of the most dangerous moments of the Cold War. The U-2 stands as a monument to the many ways in which intelligence has upheld the security of the United States and furthered the possibilities for peace around the world.  

275 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 15, 2019

Reviews

[Tanvi Prakash · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heavily censored but gives great first hand facts about one of the most extraordinary military aircraft programmes in human history.

[Javier Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) history series document (having recently been mostly declassified and running at about 430 pages) is a great summation of the agency's technology, impetus, and changing nature. As it moved away from espionage and spycraft toward more technological sources of intelligence gathering, the CIA was in need of a device that would allow it to photograph vast areas of 'denied' airspace, such as that of the Soviet Union. Knowing that such a capability would ultimately run out with advances in Soviet radar and interceptor technology, Lockheed's Kelly Johnson and his 'Skunkworks' proceeded on a crash program to develop a stealth sub-sonic reconnaissance airplane that could collect the largest amount of intelligence yet behind the Iron Curtain. The product was the U-2, a plane of such revolutionary design and capacity that it is still flying today.

The story goes from initial design and construction to its first testing and development flights from the still-secret Area 51 complex in the Southern Nevada desert. From there, the plane would make several dangerous overflights of Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and take photographs of the battlefields of various Middle Eastern Wars. The plane would also conduct reconnissance of the People's Republic of China (PRC) using nationalist pilots, as tensions between the U.S. and China reached a cold war high, The prorgam would be unceremonously revealved when Francis Gary Powers and his plane (Article 360) were shot down on Sunday, May 1, 1960 attempting the longest overflight of the U.S.S.R. ever attempted. Despite the political fallout and embarrassment of the Eisenhower Administration at the revelation of this program, U-2 continued to provide valuable information to U.S. intelligence planners and analysts, from its flights over Cuba during the Cuban Missle Crisis, to tactical intelligence as U.S. participation in Vietnam continued to rise.

While the history does mention many individuals who play an important role in this history, it does not stray too far from the basic story to flesh them out, lessening the reader's burden and livening the story. What is most captivating is the candor and incisive nature of the narrative, outlining all the great innovations and discoveries the program made while it was under the control of the CIA to 1974. The OXCART program, which would have been the follow-on successor to the U-2, sadly fell victim to the rise of the satellite program, which by the mid-60s was delivering intelligence that far exceeded the capacity of the U-2, all without the risk of international furor or danger of capture. Today, the CIA relies solely on intelligence gathered from satellites in space to determine their current estimates and analysis, thus ending a unique and trail-blazing chapter in aeronautical development and espionage. Truly a good book worth reading if you want the entire history laid out as much as the CIA will allow you to know.