Accession Number:

ADA355539

Title:

The CIA and the U-2 Program, 1954-1974.

Descriptive Note:

Corporate Author:

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WASHINGTON DC

Personal Author(s):

• Pedlow, Gregory W.
• Welzenbach, Donald E.

Report Date:

1998-01-01

Pagination or Media Count:

269.0

Abstract:

This History Staff Monograph offers a comprehensive and authoritative history of the CIAs manned overhead reconnaissance program, which from 1954 to 1974 developed and operated two extraordinary aircraft, the U-2 and the A-12 OXCART. It describes not only the programs technological and bureaucratic aspects, but also its political and international context. The manned reconnaissance program, along with other overhead systems that emerged from it, changed the CIAs work and structure in ways that were both revolutionary and permanent. The formation of the Directorate of Science and Technology in the 1960s, principally to develop and direct reconnaissance programs, is the most obvious legacy of the events recounted in this study.

Descriptors:

• *AIRCRAFT
• *RECONNAISSANCE
• MILITARY INTELLIGENCE
• MILITARY OPERATIONS
• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• HISTORY
• INTERNATIONAL
• MANNED

Subject Categories:

• Military Aircraft Operations
• Aircraft
• Military Intelligence

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE