Francis Powers - Operation Overflight

Considering the space satellites soon to take over many of the espionage functions of the U-2, it was, and remains, an interesting question. To parody a popular song title: How High the Spy?

My last meeting with Grinev took place on Tuesday, August 16, the day before the trial. And Grinev had some news. Barbara and my parents were in Moscow. He had conferred with them the previous evening. My mother was accompanied by a physician, but wanted to assure me she was feeling fine. The trial would be open to the public, and Barbara, she, and my father would be there. I wouldn’t be allowed to see them privately, however, until after conclusion of the trial.

They had sent me something. Grinev handed me a package. Inside were several handkerchiefs and a birthday card.

Just before leaving, Grinev sternly warned me that if I made a demonstration in the courtroom it would be held against me.

Prior to the trial I had four meetings with my defense counsel, for a total of not more than five hours.

As I figured it, the prosecution had used well over a thousand hours of my time in the preparation of their case.

It didn’t seem a fair balance.

Knowing that my family was in Moscow, so close and yet so completely separated from me, was rough. I slept little the night before my thirty-first birthday.

Blinded by the flash bulbs and TV lights, with a guard holding either arm, I was escorted into the wooden prisoner’s dock.

Only then was I able to make out my surroundings.

This was no courtroom, but an immense theater. Tall white columns flanked all four walls. Hanging between them and from the ceiling were more than fifty chandeliers, all brilliantly lighted.

The major participants, myself included, were at one end of the auditorium, on an elevated stage. Grinev occupied a desk before the prisoner’s dock. In a corresponding spot on the opposite side loomed Rudenko, wearing what looked like a streetcar conductor’s uniform. Center stage, on a raised dais, were the three judges, all in military dress. Above and behind them, on the wall, rested a mammoth state seal, with large gold hammer and sickle in the center.

The audience, which filled the rest of the auditorium and its several balconies, numbered close to a thousand.

Grinev had given me no warning. This was like being tried in Carnegie Hall!

As a boy in school I had suffered stage fright. Despite my attempts to hide it now, I was extremely nervous. The previous day I had been issued a double-breasted, blue pinstripe suit, again several sizes too large. The poor fit didn’t make me any more comfortable.

I looked intently for my family, but could not find them in the crowd.

The presiding judge was speaking to me. The trial was to be conducted in Russian but simultaneously translated, via a headset arrangement, into English, French, German, and Spanish. Did I have any objections to the interpreters? I replied no.

There was a bench built into the dock. Noticing that everyone else was seated, I sat down.

“Defendant,” observed the presiding judge. “You are obliged to stand when the Court addresses you.”

While I was still smarting from the rebuke, the judge asked my name, nationality, date and place of birth, family status, occupation, and whether I had received a copy of the indictment.

Four witnesses were then introduced. I recognized them as the men who had helped me when I had landed in the field. Following this, some dozen “expert witnesses” came forward. I had never seen any of them before.

PRESIDING JUDGE: Defendant Powers, you also have the right to challenge the selection of experts.

I hesitated before answering. Having no idea as to who they were, their qualifications, or the nature of their testimony, how could I challenge them? This was my defense counsel’s job. But Grinev remained silent.

DEFENDANT POWERS: I have no objections.

The secretary of the court then read the indictment, in full. Aloud, it became even more a propaganda attack.

PRESIDING JUDGE: Defendant Powers, you have heard the reading of the indictment against you. Do you understand the charge brought against you? Have you understood?

DEFENDANT POWERS: Yes.

All too well. This was no trial, but a show. And I wanted no part of it.

PRESIDING JUDGE: Accused Powers, do you plead guilty of the charge?

DEFENDANT POWERS: Yes, I plead guilty.

The judge then ordered a twenty-minute recess. As I was being led out, I spotted Barbara, waving from a box in the rear of the courtroom, and saw my family for the first time. Neither of my parents had ever been outside the United States before. They looked so alone, so alien in this strange land, that I choked up.

I was thankful for the break. I didn’t want a thousand people to see the tears in my eyes.

Hundreds of foreign journalists were attending the trial, an interpreter effused during the recess. Interest was so great, he said, that crowds had to be turned away. Television crews were photographing the entire proceedings, so they could be shown on Soviet television and in movie theaters.

As for the auditorium in which the trial was being held, he went on, it was known as the Hall of Columns. Built in the first year of the reign of Catherine the Great, it had been the setting for many historic events. While a concert hall, its performers had included Liszt, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninoff. For a time a private club, it had numbered Pushkin and Tolstoy among its members. And both Lenin and Stalin had lain in state here following their deaths.

He neglected to mention that it was here that the infamous purge trials of the 1930’s had taken place, also before the military division of the Supreme Court of the USSR.

I was not in any frame of mind to appreciate the fact that a new chapter was being added to the history of the Hall of Columns.

Returned to the dock, I learned another difference between U.S. and Soviet courtroom procedures. The first witness against the accused was to be the accused himself.

Prosecutor Rudenko asked the questions.

Q. Defendant Powers, when did you get the assignment to fly over the territory of the Soviet Union?

A. On the morning of May 1.

If a representative of the agency was present, and I was sure there must be at least one in the huge crowd, he would know this was a lie. Thus alerted, I hoped he would listen carefully to my further replies, especially if the altitude of the flight was mentioned.

Additional questions established that the order for the flight had come from Colonel Shelton, that he was commanding officer of the 10-10 detachment at Adana, Turkey, that the flight had taken off from Peshawar, Pakistan.

Q. How did the U-2 plane get to the Peshawar airfield?

A. It was brought to the airfield the night before, April 30.

Q. By another pilot?

A. Yes.

Q. But it was brought for you to fly in it into the Soviet Union?

I spotted his trap. All through the interrogations I had maintained I had learned of having to make the flight only a couple of hours before takeoff. He was attempting to make me admit otherwise.

A. At the time, I didn’t know I had to make the flight, but, apparently, the plane was brought there for that purpose.

Q. Were you the only one prepared for the flight, or were there other pilots prepared too?

A. There were two of us being prepared at the same time.

Q. Why?

A. I had no idea why….

This was typical of the dilemmas that had confronted me during interrogation. How much was it safe to tell them, how much safe to hold back? I was unsure what information the United States would release concerning the flights. If I failed to mention the backup pilot, and the United States did, the Russians would know I was intentionally withholding something. On the other hand, mention of him might set them to wondering about the other flights.