Approved for Release: 2013/06/25
---
Secret NOFORN
Chapter 4
171
---
[figure]
*SA-2 surface-to-air missile*
---
strengthened when the Soviet Union did not protest the 9 April mission. As Presidential science adviser George Kistiakowsky later remarked about the lack of protest, “This was virtually inviting us to repeat the sortie.”²²
Although President Eisenhower had authorized another overflight for April, he left the designation of its targets up to the experts at the CIA. Of the three missions that remained under consideration, one—Operation SUN SPOT—would overfly southern targets, Tyuratam and Vladimirovka, while the other two would cover railroad networks in the north-central portion of the Soviet Union. The intelligence community had been interested in this area ever since late 1959, when there were indications that the Soviets were building an SS-6 launch facility there. This was the first indication that SS-6s might be located anywhere other than Tyuratam testing facility, where the missiles were launched from a general purpose launching pad. The intelligence community was anxious to obtain photography of a
---
²² George B. Kistiakowsky, *A Scientist at the White House* (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976), p. 328.
---
Approved for Release: 2013/06/25