Soviet Union
Beginning in 1956, CIA pilots began flying high-altitude U-2 spy planes over the Soviet Union to photograph a variety of missile and defense related installations. On May 1, 1960, Francis Gary Powers, a CIA pilot, had his U-2 plane shot down over Sverdlovsk in the Soviet Union, prompting Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to cancel his scheduled conference at Paris with President Dwight Eisenhower.
