Francis Powers - Operation Overflight

We came now to my treatment after capture.

CHAIRMAN RUSSELL- Did they threaten you at any time when they were examining you?

POWERS: There were no definite threats, but they didn’t let me forget that this crime was punishable by death. Anytime they would mention it was seven to fifteen years or death, and they wouldn’t let me forget that.

CHAIRMAN RUSSELL: Did you ever manifest any reluctance in answering the questions that they asked you, or did you answer them immediately?

POWERS: I refused to answer several of their questions. I showed reluctance on many.

CHAIRMAN RUSSELL: Pardon?

POWERS: I showed reluctance on many, some that I couldn’t see how they could be of any interest to them at all, but I was just reluctant in answering all questions.

I was caught in a trap, and not one of my own making. I wanted to say more, but couldn’t. I had no idea how much McCone had told the committee. I could only hope he had made clear that important information had been withheld.

CHAIRMAN RUSSELL: That was not exactly in conformity with your instructions there to cooperate with your captors, was it?

POWERS: Well, you shouldn’t go overboard with this cooperation….

CHAIRMAN RUSSELL: YOU were quoted in the press as having stated at your trial that you had made a terrible mistake in flying over Russia and apologized to the Russian people and would never do it again. Was that a misquotation, or did you make that statement at your trial?

POWERS: NO, that wasn’t a misquotation. I made this statement on the advice of my defense counsel, and also because it was easy to say I was sorry, because what I meant by saying that, and what I wanted them to think I meant, were quite different. My main sorrow was that the mission failed, and I was sorry that I was there, and it was causing a lot of adverse publicity in the States. But, of course, some of these things I couldn’t say in that statement.

Russell then questioned me at some length about my imprisonment, the food, whether I felt my cellmate was a plant, how I was treated generally.

CHAIRMAN RUSSELL: I can’t refrain from saying that the Russians were much more gentle with you than I would ever have expected they would have been to one who was taken under those circumstances.

POWERS: It surprised me also. I expected much worse treatment than I received.

CHAIRMAN RUSSELL: I rather think you got off somewhat better than a Russian spy would in this country under the same circumstances.

POWERS: I really don’t know.

CHAIRMAN RUSSELL: It might depend on where he happened to land. Undoubtedly he would have a rough time in the section of the country from which I come.

Russell then turned the questioning over to the other senators. White-haired Senator Saltonstall from Massachusetts, looking every bit the formidable New Englander, led off.

SENATOR SALTONSTALL: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Powers, I think I only have one or two questions. I have listened with interest to what you have said. I have listened to what Mr. McCone has told us, what he has given out in unclassified information, and I have listened to the chairman. My question would be this: Did I understand you correctly that when you were coming down in the parachute you threw away your instructions and threw away your map?

POWERS: No, I had no written instructions with me, but I did have a map, and I tore that up in very small pieces and scattered it out in the air as I was coming down.

SENATOR SALTONSTALL: So that your instructions were in your head, so to speak?

POWERS: Yes.

SENATOR SALTONSTALL: Now, did you have a briefcase or something else in which these other things, your special food, and these other things, were that they looked through afterward?

POWERS: Yes, I had what we call a seat pack. In this seat pack was a collapsible life raft, some food, some water, matches, several other items necessary to, say, live off the land or survive in an unpopulated area.

SENATOR SALTONSTALL: In other words, nothing except survival kit?

POWERS: Yes. There were also some cloth maps for escape and evasion.

I was anticipating another question, and what came next caught me completely off guard.

SENATOR SALTONSTALL: Mr. Powers, I will just say this: After listening to Mr. McCone and after listening to you, I commend you as a courageous, fine young American citizen who lived up to your instructions and who did the best you could under very difficult circumstances.

I managed to say “Thank you very much,” but my voice choked. I was deeply moved by his response. Excepting only the private remarks of Allen Dulles, this was the first commendation I had received since my return.

CHAIRMAN RUSSELL: Senator Byrd?

SENATOR BYRD: The chairman has very ably covered the ground, and I will not ask any questions. I do want to join with Senator Saltonstall in expressing my opinion that this witness, Mr. Powers, has made an excellent presentation. He has been frank, and I am also very much gratified that Mr. McCone has testified before the committee that so far as he knows no action has been taken by you which was contrary to your instructions or contrary to the interests of this country.

CHAIRMAN RUSSELL: Senator Smith?

SENATOR SMITH. Mr. Chairman, my questions have been covered, thank you.

Senator Stennis then questioned me regarding Grinev, my defense counsel, inquiring: “He rendered you a valuable service, did he?”

POWERS: Well, I really don’t know. I never did trust him any more than the rest of them.

SENATOR STENNIS. I mean by that he gave you information and talked to you, and you think you were better off at the trial than you would have been without his aid. What about that?

POWERS: I really don’t know.

SENATOR STENNIS: You have understood, I suppose, that at the time this occurred there was some publicity here, not a great deal, but some, that was not altogether favorable to you. Did you know about that?

POWERS: I have heard about this since I—

SENATOR STENNIS: This is just a prelude for my saying this—that it is with satisfaction that I learn that you have been fully exonerated by the men who most know how to judge what you did, what the facts were, by your superiors and those who employed you. Not only that, but they found that you have discharged all of your obligations to your country, and it is with satisfaction to us here, and I think to the American people, to learn that, to know it is true. I know it makes you feel mighty good.

POWERS: There was one thing that I always remembered while I was there and that was that “I am an American.”

SENATOR STENNIS: You are an American.

POWERS: Right.

SENATOR STENNIS: And proud of it?

POWERS: Right.

There was a spontaneous burst of applause from the audience which lasted several minutes. It more than made up for the applause that had greeted my ten-year prison sentence in Moscow.

After asking several questions about the wreckage of the plane, Senator Case brought up the subject of the timing of the flight. I was hoping the senators could enlighten me on this, for I was as curious as anyone else as to why approval had been given so close to the Summit. But, aside from my bringing out that weather conditions had determined the particular day, we got no closer to an answer.

Senator Symington, who had once visited Incirlik but had been denied information on Detachment 10-10 because he lacked the proper “need-to-know” approval (a refusal that greatly impressed him with our security), followed with a number of technical questions about the explosion. What did I think caused it, the former Secretary of the Air Force asked. I observed that the Russians had “stressed many, many times that they got me on the very first shot of a rocket, but they stressed it so much that I tend to disbelieve it.”