The 68th Reconnaissance Technical Squadron was activated on 10 October 1951 at Lockbourne Air Force Base, Ohio as an original element of the 68th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, which was located at Lake Charles Air Force Base, Louisiana, and began to equip with Boeing B-29 Superfortresses borrowed from other units.

However, before the end of the year, Strategic Air Command decided to change the 68th Wing mission to bombardment and the squadron was inactivated on 10 December 1951.

Detachment 1 was the Air Intelligence Agency's only transportable system conducting radio frequency phenomenology studies.

Detachment 1 was discontinued on 8 June 2010 and merged with the 18th Intelligence Squadron, which moved from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California to Wright-Patterson.

Assigned personnel provide data in support of Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Agency, National Air and Space Intelligence Center, and United States Strategic Command missions as well as information critical to the National Security Agency and other national-level organizations.