Approved for Release: 2013/06/25
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Secret NOFORN
Chapter 3
138
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Semipalatinsk Nuclear
Weapons Proving Ground,
22 August 1957
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[figure]
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part of the world.”⁸⁴ The Soviet announcement made the intelligence community want even more information on Tyuratam, and a second U-2 piloted by Edwin K. Jones flew over the area on 28 August 1957, just one week after the Soviet ICBM launch. This mission obtained excellent vertical photographs of the main launch complex, and photointerpreters soon determined that the Soviets had only one launchpad at Tyuratam. The base was not photographed again until 9 July 1959, at which time it still had only one launch pad, although two more were under construction.⁸⁵
On 20 and 21 August 1957, U-2s conducted the first overflights of the Soviet nuclear testing grounds at Semipalatinsk, north-north-west of Lake Balkhash. The first mission, piloted by Sammy V. C. Snider, passed over part of the proving grounds, flew on to Novokuznetsk, and then proceeded to Tomsk, where it began its return leg that included coverage of a very large uranium-processing facility at the new city of Berezovskiy. In the second mission, James Cherbonneaux flew directly over the Semipalatinsk proving grounds only four hours before a half-megaton device was detonated. In fact, the U-2 unknowingly photographed the aircraft that was to drop the
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⁸⁴ “Is Russia Ahead in Missile Race,” *US News and World Report*, 6 September 1957, pp. 30-33.
⁸⁵ Mission folders 4058 (28 August 1957) and 4125 (9 July 1959), OSA records, job 67-B-972, boxes 8 and 11 (TS Codeword).
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Secret
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Approved for Release: 2013/06/25