Francis Powers - Operation Overflight

Sensing my skepticism, Zigurd assured me the story was true. When the guard took the boy out, Zigurd said he could hear the tin pieces rattling in his stomach as he walked.

It wasn’t long before I accepted such stories as fact, the incredible all too soon becoming, if not acceptable, understandable. Many prisoners committed suicide. Others went mad. One, whether insane or merely feigning it to be transferred to a mental hospital, painted the walls of his cell with his excreta. Believing that he was faking his insanity, the prison officials left him in his own filth.

During his time at Vladimir, Zigurd had had several cellmates. Often he told me stories about them. Also, from shortly after his arrival, he had kept a journal. Sometimes he read me passages. Through him I was able to put together a comprehensive picture of prison life in Russia. And, I suspect, one much more honest than my captors wished me to have.

About once a month all prisoners were visited by a representative of the KGB, at first a major, later a colonel, who asked us if we needed anything, had any complaints or questions. Major Yakovlov was the political commissar for Vladimir, and it was apparent from his questions that “the people in Moscow” were anxious that their well-publicized American convict have as good an impression of Russia as possible, under the circumstances.

Why? Again it seemed to be evidence that I might be released shortly.

We requested books. There was a prison library, but none of its volumes were in English. There were English books available from Moscow University library, and Major Yakovlov arranged for them to send some. It took about a week to ten days before the first ones arrived.

Our greatest need was work. Zigurd asked the Little Major if there was anything we could do. All that was then available was a device for making fishnet-type shopping bags. Having made them previously, Zigurd showed me how. It was a complicated procedure, involving tying tight knots in cotton string, then pulling them together with a wooden shuttle. The cheap string filled the air with lint and dust. When after several days we began coughing up the lint, we started worrying about the effect on our lungs. Fortunately, by this time other work was available. The guard brought in paper, a pattern, glue, and a sharp knife, and we set to work making envelopes. Because paper was in short supply, we’d ration it, making only a certain number at a time in order to have work left for the following day. Aside from the few we used ourselves, I never learned what happened to the envelopes we made. Perhaps they helped fulfill some Five Year Plan.

At first the guard took the knife away each night. Later, apparently more sure of us, he allowed us to keep it in the cell.

With the envelope-making we could keep busy about an hour each morning and afternoon.

Still, time hung heavy. Zigurd did his best to lighten it. One day, reading a copy of O. Henry’s Short Stories, one of the paperbacks I’d brought from Moscow, he came across the word “snoozer” and asked what it meant. I told him. That afternoon when I woke up from my nap there was a hand-lettered sign on my chest: “Biggest Snoozer South of the Arctic Circle.”

I still thank God he had a sense of humor.

During his long imprisonment Zigurd had developed good study habits. I hadn’t. Often, out of boredom, or just to escape having to memorize the Russian words, I’d look out the window. The guard didn’t seem to mind when we peeked through the crack, but if we attempted to stand on the bed and look out the top, he’d either bang on the door or come in. One afternoon while looking out I had a surprise. A group of women was escorted through the gate. For some reason I had never imagined there were female prisoners here. Wearing black shawls, dresses that reached nearly to the ground, and felt boots, they were nearly all very old. Most, Zigurd told me, had been imprisoned as “religious fanatics.” In a godless country, that category, I supposed, was a most comprehensive one. A they went through the gate, many of the women would cross themselves. I wondered if they were former nuns.

There was no difference between days of the week, with one exception. On Sundays the work camp was closed and the prisoners didn’t march by. Yet we anticipated several other occasions far more than any holiday.

Every five days we were allowed to change our underwear, socks, and sheets. And every ten days was shower day.

On shower day, the usually strict security was relaxed somewhat. The bathhouse was located in the same building that housed the kitchen, on the other side of the gate, to the left as you walked toward the administration building. We were taken there at the same time as five to seven of the work-camp prisoners. There were several guards. And conversation was supposedly forbidden. But it went on anyway.

Each man was locked in a separate shower stall. The water was scalding hot, and the guards let you soak in it almost as long as you wanted.

There were several washbasins, and since hot water was available, which was not so with the sinks in our cellblock, the prisoners often used this opportunity to shave. Some, like Zigurd, had small pieces of mirror. One man had taken a regular double-edged razor blade and fastened it onto a stick with a bent nail. He shaved with it as deftly as if it were a straight razor.

The only other time we were taken outside our cells, other than for walks or to go to the toilet, was when we received a package. My first from the American Embassy in Moscow arrived on the twenty-fifth of September, and from then on, with one notable exception, the package came every month.

Escorted downstairs to the office of the building superintendent, we had to open the container in the presence of prison officials. On top were various magazines— Time, Newsweek, Life. These were placed in a stack to the side. Zahpretne. Unfavorable to the USSR. Not allowed. But, with scarcely a glance at their titles, books were allowed. As were the writing tablets, pen and pencil set, cigarettes, toothpaste, soap, deodorant, Chapstick; several items of clothing; and food.

We could now not only vary our menu somewhat—there were six cans of meat, four cans of fish, one jar of pickles, one jar of mustard, and nine boxes of cookies—but for breakfast we could have instant coffee, complete with sugar and Pream.

Zigurd also received one package a month, from his parents, usually containing some kind of smoked meat. The two package days became major events in our lives.

There were other, unexpected variations in our routine, not always pleasant.

Occasionally the lights would go off, power failures being fairly common in our part of Russia. If this happened at night it was a startling experience. We were accustomed to a light twenty-four hours a day, and it was amazing how dark the dark was. The only thing similar I had experienced was a spelunking expedition while in college, when a friend and I had become lost in a cave and turned out the flashlight—very briefly—to conserve the batteries.

At such times the guard would go from cell to cell distributing candles. Blowing them out, I was informed, was a punishmentcell offense.

I’d seen the outside of the punishment cells, located in the basement of the building between the administration building and the work-camp barracks, but had never seen inside one. Zigurd—whether from personal knowledge or hearsay, I never knew—said they were located half-underground, with a single window at the top for light and air. The furnishings consisted of one wooden bench. No blankets. And there were no sanitary facilities.

Late one night, within several weeks after my arrival at Vladimir, I discovered the one thing a prisoner fears more than any other.