Francis Powers - Operation Overflight

“Why?” I asked.

“Because,” he explained, “reading while eating is bad for the digestion.”

The irony of his concern gave me my first laugh of the day.

But it was momentary. My depression intensified. The first session had begun at ten A.M. and lasted nearly four hours, the major part of which I had been on the stand. The emotional strain weighed greater than at any time since my capture. Several times I had been on the verge of screaming: I’m guilty! Sentence me to death and end this farce!

I hadn’t expected a showcase trial. In a sense, my replies didn’t even matter. I was present merely as a symbol. And they were using that symbol to embarrass the United States, to put it on trial by proxy in the court of world opinion. I wanted no part of it. I wanted to bring the trial to an end, get it over with.

When taken outside after lunch, I got my chance.

Seated on a bench in the sun, the guards alongside and behind me, I saw in front of us an empty parking lot, beyond that the open street.

For the first time since my capture there was an opportunity for escape.

The longer I sat there, the more appealing the idea became. It had been years since my college track days, yet, looking at my musclebound guards, I knew I could outrun them.

Would they try to shoot me? Probably. Yet that would be an escape too, an end to the trial. And it was just possible, considering the propaganda use to which the trial was being put, they would hesitate, fearing what their superiors would say. And that hesitation, brief though it might be, would be all I’d need for a head start.

I had no plans as to what I would do on reaching the open street. But that wasn’t important. What was important was that after more than one hundred days of captivity I had an opportunity.

I tensed my legs, learned forward slightly.

A guard put his heavy hand on my shoulder. Time to go back in.

I was surrounded again. I’d waited too long, and lost my chance.

With the start of the second session, at four P.M., Rudenko resumed his questioning.

It was a stacked deck. Rudenko, holding all the cards, was dealing them out one by one.

He concentrated now on my surveillance flights along the border.

Had I been in an American court, with an American attorney, he would have immediately objected to such questions as irrelevant and prejudicial, since they bore no connection to the charge against me.

But Grinev said nothing. He had yet to make a single objection. He too was a symbol, his presence giving the appearance of my being represented by counsel. Thus far, where my defense was concerned, he might as well have stayed home.

Rudenko then switched to my earlier use of Peshawar, Giebelstadt, Wiesbaden, and Bodö. He was building up to something, I felt, but I couldn’t discern what, when suddenly, without warning, he announced he had no further questions at this time.

It was now Grinev’s turn.

When my parents had consulted with him prior to the trial, they were accompanied by Carl McAfee, a lawyer whose office was located above my father’s shoe-repair shop in Norton, Virginia. McAfee had prepared a set of photographs of my parents’ home and The Pound, to show the poverty of the area and, hopefully, gain the sympathy of the court. After introducing these into evidence, Grinev began his questioning, establishing that I came from a working-class family: that my parents were poor, my father not a capitalist, that is, did not employ any labor in his shoe shop but did all the work himself; and that the money offered me by the CIA was the most I had ever received, and had enabled me to pay my debts and live in relative prosperity for the first time in my life.

Further questions brought out that I was not political, had never even voted in a U.S. election, knew very little about the Soviet Union except for what I had read in the American press.

I could see what he was trying to do. Though not at all sure this was the best possible defense, it was the only one I had, and, like it or not, I had no choice but to go along with it.

In our brief preparatory sessions, however, I had insisted that certain matters be included in my defense. Though Grinev seemed less convinced than I that they were important, he went into them now.

Q. Was the flight of May 1 your only flight over Soviet territory?

A. Yes, it was the only flight.

Q. Were you consulted about the program of spy flights over the Soviet Union?

A. No, I knew of no such program.

Q. Were you acquainted with the special apparatus on the plane?

A. No, I have never seen any of the special equipment loaded or unloaded. It was never done in my presence. My knowledge of the special equipment was to follow instructions on my map.

Q. Did you know any of the results of your reconnaissance flights?

A. I was never informed of the results of my missions and did not know whether the equipment worked properly, except as indicated by signal lights in the cockpit.

At the interrogations I had admitted some hesitation when it came to renewing my CIA contract. I hadn’t given the reasons, which were strictly personal, but had let my interrogators assume I found the job too nerve-racking and exhausting.

Grinev now asked me: Q. Were you sorry you renewed your contract?

A. Well, the reasons are hard to explain.

Q. Why are you sorry now?

A. Well, the situation I am in now is not too good. I haven’t heard much about the news of the world since I have been here, but I understand that as a direct result of my flight, the Summit Conference did not take place and President Eisenhower’s visit was called off. There was, I suppose, a great increase in tension in the world, and I am sincerely sorry I had anything to do with this.

And I was.

One by one Grinev was establishing the mitigating circumstances.

Q. Did you resist detention or did you contemplate resisting?

A. No, I did not.

Q. Have all your statements till now been truthful?

A. Yes, it is impossible to deny what I have done. Once in a while I will change my mind in some little details on this or that question.

Complete cooperation.

And, again, sincere repentance.

Q. What is your present attitude toward work in the CIA, and do you now understand the danger the flight entailed?

A. I understand a lot more now than I did before. At first I hesitated as to whether I should renew the contract. I did not want to sign. If I had a job, I would have refused to sign, now that I know some of the circumstances of my flight, though I don’t know all of them, by any means. But as indicated a few moments ago, I am profoundly sorry I had any part in it.

DEFENSE COUNSEL GRINEV: I have no more questions for today.

PRESIDING JUDGE: The court will adjourn until ten A.M. tomorrow, the eighteenth of August.

Like a well-coordinated team, my so-called “defense counsel” and the judge had arranged for this to be the last question. Now the headlines for the first day of the trial could read: POWERS “PROFOUNDLY SORRY” HE HAD ANY PART IN SPY FLIGHT.

Prior to the conclusion of the trial’s first day I had given Grinev messages for my family. I told him to tell Barbara that I was anxious for the trial to end so I could see her. I thanked my parents for the birthday present of the handkerchiefs; kidded my father about his natty bow tie—the first time I had seen him wearing one; and asked that my mother not attend the second day, but remain in her hotel room and rest.

As I was escorted back into the dock next morning, I noticed she wasn’t present. Despite my instructions, this worried me. Maybe she was really sick and no one had told me. But then I saw my sister Jessica in her place. I hadn’t realized she also had made the trip to Moscow. I knew that if she was here, my mother was all right; otherwise Jessica would have been with her. Her presence would, I knew, make the ordeal much easier for my parents, as she had a way of teasing that put them at ease.