U-2 INCIDENT

U-2 INCIDENT. On 1 May 1960 a U-2 reconnaissance and research aircraft piloted by Francis Gary Powers, on a surveillance mission for the CIA, was shot down over the Soviet Union (over Sverdlovsk, now Yekaterinburg) by a SAM-2 missile. The mission had originated in Peshawar, Pakistan, and aimed at capturing aerial pictures of military installations to monitor the progress of the Soviet missile programs. Upon entering Soviet air space Powers activated his antiradar scrambler, but the plane was spotted by Soviet military authorities. The Soviets shot the plane down; Powers surprisingly enough survived the crash unharmed but unconscious due to lack of oxygen. (Spy plane pilots were not expected to be captured alive if their mission could not be completed.) He was arrested by the KGB and admitted being a spy who had flown across the USSR to reach a military airfield in Norway while collecting intelligence information. On 5 May Premier Nikita Khrushchev denounced this act of U.S. aggression. The U.S. government and the CIA responded by denying that they had authorized the flight, but the Kremlin remained unconvinced. Powers was tried publicly (from 17 to 19 August) and sentenced to three years in prison and seven years in a labor camp. Finally, the United States admitted that the U-2 flights were supposed to prevent surprise attacks against American interests.

This incident disrupted the peace process between Washington and Moscow and ruined the Paris summit: the conference was adjourned on 17 May despite President Eisenhower's promise to stop the flights. On 19 February 1962 Powers was finally exchanged for Colonel Rudolph Ivanovich Abel, a Soviet spy.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gaddis, John L. We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History. Oxford University Press, 1998.

Powers, Francis G., and Curt Gentry. Operation Over flight: A Memoir of the U-2 Incident. Brasseys, Inc., 2002.

Frédéric Robert

See also Cold War.