The OXCART program story began in 1957, when a contractor suggested that high-altitude supersonic flight was the only way to avoid Soviet air defenses. CIA's Richard M. Bissell, who was directing the 1954 U-2 spy plane program at the time, was concerned about their vulnerability to URSS radars and anti-air missiles. He was right: in 1960 the soviets shot down Francis Gary Powers' U-2 near Sverdlovsk.
By then the A-12 program was already under way: after Lockheed Aircraft completed "antiradar studies, aerodynamic structural tests, and engineering designs," the CIA gave the green light to produce the 12 aircraft on January 30th, 1960. It was still called the A-11 at the time and Lockheed engineer Clarence L. Johnson was the main designer. He also was responsible for the U-2 but, for some reason and after months of drawings and wind-tunnel model testing, people were still not convinced this beast could fly.
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