| U-2 INCIDENT |
| On May 1, 1960, an American U-2 unarmed reconnaissance plane, piloted by Francis Gary Powers, working for the CIA, was shot down about 1,200 miles inside Soviet airspace near Sverdlovsk. Just at the peak of peace between the Soviet Union and the United States, this affair happened. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev had met with President Eisenhower on a tour of the US and what appeared to be a friendly visit, and planned a peace conference in 1960. All of that came to a screaming halt. All progress for peace had been lost. Powers had been flying a surveillance mission over the Soviet Union from an airbase in Pakistan. After turning on his anti-radar scrambler, he thought he would be safe. But the Soviets had increased their anti-aircraft surveillance and picked him up right when he crossed into the Soviet Union. Powers was a very lucky man. Spies when shot down were supposed to die. When Powers ejected from the plane, he pulled his cord for his parachute. Spies’ parachutes were supposed to be intentionally defective, but his worked. Also, it would be necessary to put on a mask when falling through the thin air of the high altitude, but he passed out and landed unharmed on the ground. He didn’t take his cyanide pill, because he didn’t know where he was. He was then arrested by the KGB, put on public trial for display, and sentenced to 3 years in prison and 7 years in a labor camp. The CIA denied it at home. They said it was a stray weather balloon. But when people saw the wreckage and saw Powers talking, people instantly started to doubt their government. Why would we be doing this when we are on such good terms? The questions went unanswered and still the same questions are asked. After serving one year, nine months, and nine days of his sentence, the US and Soviet Union came to an agreement, to exchange Powers for convicted Soviet spy Colonel Rudolph Ivanovich Abel. Powers was now a free man in the United States. The U-2 Incident was not the lowest point in relations between the Super Powers, but it did take a turn for the worst, with the Cuban Missile Crisis. |