Francy Powers Jr. - Spy Pilot - Francis Gary Powers, the U-2 Incident, and a Controversial Cold War Legacy

“On the pistol,” he said, “it was given to me and I took it strictly for hunting. Unfortunately, nobody knows that I couldn’t kill a person, even to save my own life.” 109

Borisoglebsky interrupted him. “You are aware no doubt that at 68,000 feet it is difficult to hunt for game.” 110

The coverage by state media was predictably dripping with familiar propaganda themes, including one Radio Moscow broadcast, which noted his roots as the son of a Virginia cobbler: “Does an American cobbler, an American farmer, an American worker have any need of war? Can a genuine son of a man of labor voluntarily devote himself to the cause of preparing and unleashing nuclear war? Can he of his own free will, without any compulsion, become an accomplice and hireling of the inveterate spy Allen Dulles? No, you are not the son of a man of labor, Francis Gary Powers. You are the bondsman of the Rockefellers and the Morgans.” 111

Another broadcast spoke of the base in Turkey as a place where “young bloods are trained for the purpose of committing villainous, provocative flights into the skies of foreign countries, and in particular the airspace of the Soviet Union.” 112

Moving toward establishing the crime on the second day of the trial, Rudenko began asking Powers about his May 1 flight.

Question: How did you feel?

Answer: Physically, I was all right. But I was nervous, scared.

Question: Why were you scared?

Answer: Well, just the idea of flying over the Soviet Union. It was not something I would like to do every day.

Question: Do you deny that you violated Soviet air space?

Answer: No, I do not deny it. I had instructions to do this and I did it.

When Rudenko completed his cross-examination, Borisoglebsky asked several questions.

Question: What was the main objective of your flight on May 1?

Answer: As it was told to me, I was to follow the route and turn switches on and off as indicated on the map.

Question: For what reason?

Answer: I would assume it was done for intelligence reasons.

Question: You testified in this court yesterday that Colonel Shelton was particularly interested in rocket-launching sites.

Answer: Yes, he did mention one place on the map where there was a possible rocket-launching site.

Question: Do you think now you did your country an ill or good service?

Answer: I would say a very ill service.

Question: Did it not occur to you that by violating the Soviet frontier you might torpedo the summit conference?

Answer: When I got my instructions, the summit conference was the farthest from my mind. I did not think of it.

Question: Did it occur to you that a flight might provoke military contact?

Answer: The people who sent me should have thought of these things. My job was to carry out orders. I do not think it was my responsibility to make such decisions.

Question: Do you regret making this flight?

Answer: Yes, very much. 113

In mounting a defense for his client, Grinyov felt compelled to do the bidding of his government, which included a complete refusal to challenge the allegations. He introduced statements that Powers later insisted he never made, including the suggestion that he had been “deceived” by his superiors. After condemning the behavior of the Eisenhower administration in great detail, he told the court, “Ruling reactionary forces of the United States had sent Powers to sure death and wanted him to die.” 114

Powers bristled at such talk, which made him angry at Grinyov. “Since I had refused to denounce the United States,” Frank said, “Grinyov was doing it for me.” 115He bit his tongue.

As Grinyov predicted leniency for his client in the final verdict, Radio Moscow softened its tone, telling listeners that the spy pilot had made “a clear distinction between him and those who sent him.” 116

Virtually every night during their twelve-day stay in Moscow, Barbara retreated to her room at the Sovietskaya Hotel and got sloppy drunk. She was often accompanied by journalist Sam Jaffe, who covered the trial for CBS television. Whether Jaffe was merely pumping her for information or engaged in an illicit affair has been debated by certain parties for more than half a century. Baugh suspected they were doing something more than drinking, but Jaffe, a onetime FBI informant who later struggled to combat charges of a collaboration with the KGB, which led him to sue the American government, ultimately winning a federal judgment that cleared his name, told the FBI “at no time was I intimate with her.” 117

By the third day, Frank was visibly tired. He often squinted in the intense lights and no doubt felt the burden of his circumstances, wondering whether he had gone too far down the road to cooperation while trying to save his own neck.

In his closing argument, Rudenko carefully laid out the details of the aircraft, the violation of the Soviet airspace, the mission, and Powers’s motivation, as a man who grew up of modest means, having “voluntarily sold his honor and his conscience… for dollars.” 118

When the prosecutor asked for fifteen years instead of death, Frank immediately felt relieved.

But Oliver leapt to his feet. “Give me 15 years here! I’d rather get death!” 119

After Grinyov conceded the facts of the case but asked the court for leniency, Powers was given an opportunity to make a statement:

The court has heard all the evidence and now must decide my punishment. I realize that I committed a grave crime and that I must be punished for it. I ask the court to weigh all the evidence and to take into consideration not only the fact that I committed the crime, but also the circumstances that led me to do so. I also ask the court to take into consideration that no secret information reached its destination; it all fell into the hands of the Soviet authorities. I realize that the Russian people think of me as an enemy. I understand this, but I would like to stress the fact that I do not feel and have never felt any enmity toward the Russian people. I plead with the court to judge me not as an enemy but as a human being, not a personal enemy of the Russian people, who has never had charges against him in any court, and who is deeply repentant and sincerely sorry for what he has done. 120

Baugh could understand the pressure the defendant felt, and the way the message sounded back home. It was a humiliating moment for America. Even before his conviction, newspapers had printed banner headlines such as “Powers Pleads Guilty.” His carefully worded statement after his conviction hit the papers in the context of three months of swirling doubts. The indignity of a US serviceman apologizing to the Soviets was difficult for many of Powers’s fellow citizens to accept.

Writing about the situation, Baugh said, “Clearly there had been some coaching… that [this approach] would be the only way to save his life…. I’m sure he was sorry to have been responsible for creating the incident that worsened the Cold War… [but] he certainly didn’t impress us as having defected. He did not criticize or disavow our government.” 121

After a deliberation lasting four hours and forty minutes, the court reconvened and the defendant was ordered to rise. He stood in the dock, his hands holding onto the wooden railings. The three judges began reciting the charges and went further, effectively indicting Powers as complicit in an American scheme to destroy the Paris summit as a means to deepen the Cold War.

In the family section, Ida leaned in and whispered to her husband and daughter. “Don’t shed a tear. Don’t show any emotion.”

When Borisoglebsky announced the sentence of ten years’ confinement, including three years in prison, the room erupted in cheers as the defendant tried to keep his cool. He looked for his family but could not see them. He later wrote, “Only as I was being led from the courtroom did the full impact of the sentence hit me.” 122