Francis Powers - Operation Overflight

This is my most serious regret. I have others, of course. But my participation in Operation Overflight isn’t one of them. I’m very proud of that. While I might wish that many of the things that followed had never happened, I have the satisfaction of knowing that I served my country—and, I believe, well.

That is no small satisfaction.

On that day when all men and all nations agree, there will be no more need for U-2s, RB-47s, EC-121s, spy ships, and surveillance satellites, and their successors.

Until such time, it is almost inevitable that there will be more “incidents.”

But that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn from our mistakes.

The Cold War lasted for another thirty-one years after my father was shot down over the Soviet Union. The U-2 Incident forced the U.S. government to admit publicly that a worldwide intelligence network operated by the CIA was able to penetrate the Soviet Union. This effort, in the words of President Eisenhower, was a “vital but distasteful necessity in order to avert another Pearl Harbor.”

Although my father’s flight—the twenty-fourth over the Soviet Union—was the last to overfly that country, U-2s operated by the CIA continued to fly reconnaissance missions over Cuba, the Middle East, China, Southeast Asia, and other areas. And more U-2s were shot down by SA-2 missiles, the same weapon that downed my father’s aircraft on May Day 1960. The CIA operated the U-2 until 1974, when the agency’s surviving U-2s were transferred to the U.S. Air Force.

After his return to the United States, my father worked briefly at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., training agents on how to conduct themselves if captured and subjected to interrogation. One day, as my father turned a hallway corner, he bumped into an attractive woman. Coffee was spilled. He offered to buy Sue Downey another cup and, with his car in the shop, managed from the subsequent conversation to get a ride to work from her. In repayment, he asked her out to lunch. She accepted that invitation and soon lunch turned into dinner, and dinner into romance. My father and his first wife, Barbara, were separated. That marriage, rocky from the start, didn’t survive the shootdown, his imprisonment, and the subsequent press coverage. They divorced officially in January 1963.

Dad tired of the desk job at CIA. Upon his return from the Soviet Union, Dad had been told by Kelly Johnson, who had designed the U-2, that he could work at Lockheed anytime he needed a job. In the fall of 1962, Dad took Johnson up on the offer. After he passed the physical and psychological examinations and was requalified in the U-2, Dad moved to California to work for Johnson at the Lockheed Skunk Works. In the meantime, not content with his longdistance relationship with Sue Downey, Dad invited her to Los Angeles for a visit. He proposed marriage to her a few weeks later. She received two diamonds, one for each year that they had known each other. They married and started a family, which included my sister, Claudia, a daughter from Mom’s previous marriage. I came along in 1965.

In 1969, Dad started working on his autobiography. Shortly before Operation Overflight was published in early 1970, Kelly Johnson called him into his office at Burbank to inform my father that there was no more work for him at Lockheed. Kelly also told him that the CIA had been paying his salary directly to Lockheed for his work as a U-2 test pilot. (The U-2s were being transferred to the Air Force at the time.) The agency, it appeared, was willing to pay Dad’s salary so long as he kept quiet about the U-2 Incident, but the book’s publication had ruffled some feathers at Langley, so Lockheed had to let him go.

In 1972, after two years of promoting the book and appearing on the lecture and talk show circuit, my father found a pilot’s job, in this case reporting on weather, traffic, and news for KGIL Radio Station in Los Angeles. In 1976, he became a helicopter traffic pilot-reporter for KNBC News Channel 4. On August 1, 1977, while conducting a traffic report over Los Angeles, his helicopter crashed, killing him and George Spears, his cameraman.

The events between that day in August and weeks later, when I started junior high school, are a little blurred. Everything was in a whirlwind. A friend’s dad had driven me home from summer school. It was about 1:15 p.m. No sooner had I set foot inside our home than Mom dragged me out again to catch a quick meal at a local restaurant and to pick up some groceries. We missed the breaking news about my dad’s fatal crash because the car radio was broken. When we arrived home, two close family friends, Mrs. Neff and Mrs. Marlow, greeted us. Mrs. Marlow was the wife of Jess Marlow, who was the anchorman and my dad’s colleague at KNBC. Mrs. Neff said, “Sue, you had better sit down.” In reply, Mom asked her to help with the groceries and they would talk in a minute. Again Mrs. Neff said, “Sue, you had better sit down.” Suddenly my mom’s expression changed; she looked as if she had seen a ghost. As the groceries dropped, I heard my mother say, “Oh my God, it’s Frank. If he is alive, take me to him; if he is dead let me know.” All the two women could do was shake their heads and shrug their shoulders because they didn’t know yet or weren’t telling.

I found myself in my room staring out the window thinking that Dad had been in an accident and had broken an arm or a leg. Mrs. Neff talked with me a bit, nothing that I remember other than being asked if there were a friend I would like to go visit. My automatic response was Chris Conrad, a life long friend and son of actor Robert Conrad of “Wild, Wild West” and “Baa Baa Black Sheep” fame. Chris and I had met in the second grade and grown up together.

After a telephone call to Chris, Mrs. Neff drove me to the Conrad home in Encino. About the time we arrived, Mrs. Conrad came home and asked Mrs. Neff why we were there. Mrs. Neff explained that there had been an accident and that my father had been injured. They talked alone for a while in whispers as Chris and I poked each other. When Mrs. Conrad gave me a huge bear hug, my eyes started to water and I wiped away the tears that were forming, not realizing why I was crying and trying not to cry in front of one of my friends.

Within a half-hour after Mrs. Neff had left, the phone rang at the Conrad’s home. Mrs. Conrad answered and I heard her say, “Yes, I know, Gary is here now.” With that she asked me to come to the phone because “Duke,” as Bob Conrad was known, wanted to speak with me. Mr. Conrad gave me a pep talk and told me how much my father meant to a lot of people and some other remarks that were meant to comfort and console me. I remember him saying that my father was a great man, a true American hero, and that I should be proud to carry his name.

I think I spent the night at the Conrad’s house. I returned home to find a large number of people there, including another good friend of my dad’s, Gregg Anderson, who was coordinating the phone calls, burial plans, airline reservations, hotel reservations, and the press. For the next several hours different people arrived and departed, with more friends and family arriving over the next several days. A memorial service was held and I heard that Barbara, my dad’s first wife, attended, although I do not remember her. I remember riding to the service with my mother, sister, and aunts, and gazing out of the window as we pulled up to the church, which overflowed with people. The limousine doors opened and many of my friends and their parents greeted me. I also saw a gaggle of news reporters with cameras and microphones extended toward us. As we entered the church, Mom whispered to me that I should not say a word.