Observation Balloons and Reconnaissance Satellites
With all the attention being generated by the CIAs impending release of their “family jewels”, it’s perhaps worth looking at some of the other goodies they’ve made public over the years to considerably less fanfare and attention.
Very quietly, the Agency has put literally thousands of documents online on their website, though there isn’t much of an index, per se - you have to search on keywords. They do provide a list of (supposedly) all relevant keywords, taken from what seems like a full-text search of every document released. This is frustrating, however, because they only make the documents available as a series of low-resolution images, not PDF files or anything machine-readable.
That quibble aside, there is some neat stuff to be seen, particularly now-declassified historical articles from internal newsletters and publications. One I found particularly interesting is Observation Balloons and Reconnaissance Satellites, which details some aerial reconnaissance programs from the really early days of the cold war.
Finding stuff on their website can be really hit and miss, but it’s an entertaining way to spend a few hours, and you never know what you might stumble across…
(You’ll want to see this page, too)
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