Gary Francis Powers was an American pilot whose [[U-2 Spy Plane]] was shot down over the [[Soviet Union]] on May 1, 1960, leading to a major international incident. Powers and his colleagues continued intermittently to overfly the [[Middle East]], and were steadily back at work in the area in 1958, when the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s photo interpreters began seeing significant activity at an Israeli Air Force practice bombing range south of [[Beersheba]], which turned out to be the early signs of the [[Dimona]] nuclear reactor.[^1] ### Footnotes [^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 4.