Francis Powers - Operation Overflight

Barbara was doing nothing to help my state of mind. After a spurt of letters—four in one month—they had again become infrequent. I knew I was receiving all she sent, since, at my insistence, she was now numbering them. On August 17, my thirty-second birthday, she had given a reporter a long interview, a copy of which my parents had sent me. In it she stated that as soon as I was transferred to a work camp she would come to Russia, to live near me. But she hadn’t thought to write me this, although that news, if true, would have meant a great deal to me. She had also told the reporter she had just finished a long birthday letter to me. As I noted in my journal, apparently talking about the letter so exhausted her that she didn’t get around to writing it. She hadn’t bothered to send a birthday card.

In late September we heard that two junior officers in the Dutch Merchant Marine, Ewert Reidon, thirty, and Lou de Yaher, twenty-five, had been arrested and charged with spying in the Soviet Union for NATO. The pair had been arrested near the Czechoslovakian border following a month-long auto trip through the Ukraine. Brought to trial in Kiev in early October, they had been given thirteen years, an indication that Russia was currently pursuing a hard line.

Shortly afterward they arrived at Vladimir. Peeping through the crack in the window, I spotted them being escorted through the gate, each carrying a bag. They looked very young and very forlorn. I wished there was some way to contact them, but I doubted if I would have an opportunity, and in this I was right. In the way that prisons have of swallowing up people, I never saw them again.

Letter from my father, dated September 16, received October 10: “The letter I have been expecting has not come through yet. I was told by Mr. Donovan that I would hear from her [Mrs. Abel?]…. Carl and I are going to Washington to see about a few things…. I have also written to Khrushchev.”

Included was a clipping. I had never thought I would be happy to find myself considered unimportant. But this time I was.

NEW YORK (AP)—Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev says Francis Gary Powers may be released before his 10-year sentence is up, but international tension makes it impossible to free the U-2 pilot from his Soviet prison right now.

Khrushchev told C. L. Sulzberger of The New York Times in an interview published today that “Powers himself is not of such value that we would consider it necessary to make him serve his full sentence.”

Powers was shot down over the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk May 1, 1960, and subsequently convicted as a spy.

Although the time obviously wasn’t yet right, I found the news encouraging. And my mood was helped by a letter from Barbara, the first in a long time.

The feeling did not last long. On Friday, October 13, an unlucky day if ever there was one, I received a letter from Barbara’s mother. She did not know how to tell me this, writing it to me pained her greatly, but on September 22, following a family conference and on the advice of doctors, she had been forced to have Barbara committed to a mental institution.

The news came as a tremendous shock. Barbara’s last letter had been written on September 18, just four days before the commitment, and, though brief, as usual, there had been no indication she was ill.

Now, for the first time, I had an inkling as to why Barbara had done some of the things she had: the incidents in Florida, Athens, Tripoli; her conflicting stories; and, since I’d been in Russia, her erratic letter writing. She was ill and had been for a long time. The news, in a way, was almost a relief. It helped explain so much. And now, maybe, under the proper medical treatment, she would get well. God, I hoped and prayed for that! But I needed to know more.

My mother-in-law’s letter was short on details. All she said was that Barbara had been drinking heavily and that the doctors said she was emotionally disturbed. There was no mention of the names of her doctors, or of the hospital.

Immediately I wrote letters to Barbara’s mother, her sister, and her brother, an Air Force chaplain, asking for more information.

My feelings were a mélange of concern, helplessness, guilt, and understanding. Coupled with the terrible uncertainty was the realization that there was nothing, absolutely nothing, I could do. If I weren’t in prison, this probably wouldn’t have happened to Barbara. If I had been firmer with her about her drinking, when I first realized it was a problem, maybe this could have been avoided. If it hadn’t been for the frequent separations…. These recriminations changed nothing, yet I could not stop blaming myself.

Journal, October 14: “I am very upset and cannot get it out of my mind. If only I knew exactly what is going on, I think I would feel much better. I am sure that a great deal is my fault….”

Not for another thirteen days did I receive a letter. In the interim, in my desperation, I exhausted the possibilities. As I wrote in the journal, “I have even conceived the crazy idea of writing to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to ask them to let me go home for a short while to see if I can help in any way…. I would promise to return. I realize it is a crazy idea, but it might work, because they could get a lot of favorable publicity from it.

“I know it is stupid, but I am grasping at straws. If I have no mail by early next week, I will try it.”

The next letter, from Barbara’s sister, was more detailed. Barbara’s drinking had gotten completely out of control. It had reached the point where her mother was no longer able to remain in the house with her because of the fights that resulted. Under these circumstances they had felt the best thing for her was medical help, and she had been committed to the Psychiatric Center of Augusta’s University Hospital. She had an excellent doctor, Corbett H. Thigpen, author of the book The Three Faces of Eve , and was receiving the best care possible. They were sorry they hadn’t been able to contact me first, but because of her condition they felt it best for Barbara if they acted promptly.

It was a very considerate letter, and it relieved my fears somewhat to know she was being helped. But I had the feeling they were withholding something; I wrote, begging for more information, asking that they not treat me as a child but tell me exactly what was happening. I pointed out that my imagination would create fears far worse than anything they could write.

On November 1 I received two letters. One was from Barbara. Although written October 7, she made no mention of being in the hospital. The other was from Barbara’s brother, the Air Force chaplain, who had handled the details of the commitment and who had been appointed Barbara’s legal guardian in my absence. He stated that she was now free to leave the hospital at any time she wished.

Another letter from Barbara arrived November 5, this one, written October 15, explaining that she hadn’t told me about being in the hospital in her earlier letter because she had not wanted me to worry. There was no mention of drinking; tension was given as the reason for her being there. She had high praise for Dr. Thigpen, although she complained about his strictness; he wouldn’t even let her have matches.

Although I was already well over my monthly quota for outgoing letters, I wrote Dr. Thigpen, as well as Barbara’s own doctor in Milledgeville, asking for more information. I hoped the Russians would let them go through.

Because of the delay between the time a letter was written and the time I received it, I was unsure whether Barbara was still in the hospital. The thought that she might be better, might even have been released, made living from day to day a little easier. That sort of hospital must be very like a prison, I thought, and I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.