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Francis Gary Powers...
Francis Gary Powers...
Item # 553127
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May 09, 1960
SPRINGFIELD REPUBICAN, Massachusetts, May 9, 1960
* Francis Gary Powers
* U-2 spy plane incident
* Soviet Union - Russia
This 22 page newspaper has a six column headline on the front page: "IKE AND HERTER CONFER; PLANE PROBE DEMANDED" with subheads that include: "Spy Flight Incident Believed Unlikely to Deter Summit Trip" and more with related photo.
Other news of the day throughout. Light browning around the margins, otherwise in nice condition.
source wikipedia: He left the Air Force with the rank of captain in 1956, to join the CIA U-2 program. U-2 pilots carried out espionage missions using a spy plane that could reach altitudes above 70,000 feet, essentially making it invulnerable to Soviet anti-aircraft weapons of the time. The U-2 was equipped with a state-of-the-art camera designed to snap high-resolution photos from the edge of the atmosphere over hostile countries that included the Soviet Union. These cameras systematically photographed military installations and other important intelligence targets.
Soviet intelligence, including the KGB, had been well aware of U-2 missions since 1956, but lacked the technology to launch counter-measures until 1960. Powers’ U-2, which departed from a military airbase in Peshawar [2] and may have received support from the US Air Station at Badaber, near Peshawar in Pakistan, was shot down by an S-75 Dvina (SA-2 Surface to Air) missile[3] on May 1, 1960, over Sverdlovsk. Soviets had shadowed his plane from a lower altitude, then took him down as he crossed over Sverdlosk, which was deep in enemy territory. To make matters worse, Powers was unable to activate the plane's self-destruct mechanism, as instructed, before he parachuted to the ground, right into the hands of the KGB.
When the U.S. government learned of Powers' disappearance over the Soviet Union, it issued a cover statement claiming that a "weather plane" had crashed down after its pilot had "difficulties with his oxygen equipment." What U.S. officials did not realize was that the plane crashed almost fully intact, and the Soviets recovered its photography equipment, as well as Powers, whom they interrogated extensively for months before he made a "voluntary confession" and public apology for his part in U.S. espionage. Ultimately the whole incident would set back the peace talks between Khrushchev and Eisenhower for years. On August 17, 1960, Powers was convicted of espionage against the Soviet Union. He was sentenced to a total of 10 years in prison, three years of imprisonment followed by seven years of hard labor. However, on February 10, 1962, twenty-one months after his capture, he was exchanged along with American student Frederic Pryor in a spy swap for Soviet KGB Colonel Vilyam Fisher (aka Rudolf Abel) at the Glienicke Bridge in Berlin, Germany.
Category: The 20th Century
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