Approved for Release: 2013/06/25
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Secret NOFORN
Chapter 2
74
recruits in mid-1955. Geary arranged for an Air Force officer of [redacted] to stay with the group during a preliminary training program at Luke Air Force Base. The plan to use foreign pilots soon ran into trouble when only [redacted] pilots passed the school and reported to Area 51. They made only a few flights in the U-2, and by the autumn of 1955 they were out of the program.⁵⁰
Even before the elimination of the [redacted] it was clear that there would not be enough trained foreign pilots available in time for deployment. Bissell therefore had to start the search for U-2 pilots all over again. Lt. Gen. Emmett (Rosy) O’Donnell, the Air Force’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, authorized the use of Air Force pilots and provided considerable assistance in the search for pilots who met the high standards established by the Agency and the Air Force. The search included only SAC fighter pilots who held reserve commissions. The use of regular Air Force pilots was not considered because of the complexities involved in having them resign from the Air Force, a procedure that was necessary in order to hire them as civilians for the AQUATONE project.
SAC pilots interested in the U-2 project had to be willing to resign from the Air Force and assume civilian status—a process known as sheep-dipping—in order to conduct the overflights. Although Air Force pilots were attracted by the challenge of flying U-2s over hostile territory, they were reluctant to leave the service and give up their seniority. To overcome pilots’ reluctance, the Agency offered handsome salaries, and the Air Force promised each pilot that, upon satisfactory conclusion of his employment with the Agency, he could return to his unit. In the meantime, he would be considered for promotion along with his contemporaries who had continued their Air Force careers.⁵¹
The selection process for Agency U-2 pilots was very rigorous. Because of the strain involved in flying at extreme altitudes for long periods of time, painstaking efforts were made to exclude all pilots who might be nervous or unstable in any way. The physical and psychological screening of potential U-2 pilots was conducted by the Lovelace Foundation for Medical Education and Research in Albuquerque, New Mexico, under a contract signed with the CIA on
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⁵⁰ *OSA History*, chap. 10, pp. 1-10 (TS Codeword); Geary interview (S).
⁵¹ *OSA History*, chap. 10, pp. 5-6 (TS Codeword); Geary interview (S); Francis Gary Powers with Curt Gentry, *Operation Overflight* (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Wilson, 1970), pp. 25-27.
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Secret
Approved for Release: 2013/06/25