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

“In my opinion, Francis Gary Powers handled himself perfectly under the circumstances,” argued longtime military and intelligence writer Norman Polmar, who also worked inside the defense establishment. “But the agency could not defend him. The agency did what it should have done at that time. It had the right and responsibility to protect itself…. [The CIA] didn’t know that they weren’t going to have to send another U-2 back over the Soviet Union, and they had to protect those secrets.”

During his time in prison, Powers was allowed no access to Western news sources, except for the American socialist publication the Nation . So when he returned to the United States and began to be inundated by articles questioning his patriotism, he was shocked.

In one article, John Wickers, a onetime Virginia politician and longtime member of the American Legion, told a reporter, “I view the exchange with astonishment and disgust. Powers was a cowardly American who evidently valued his own skin far more than the welfare of the nation that was paying him so handsomely.” 33

US Senator Stephen Young, a Democrat from Ohio, said, “I wish this pilot… had shown only ten percent of the spirit and courage of Nathan Hale.” 34

Immediately after hearing his apology, Philadelphia Mayor Richardson Dilworth blasted the “disgraceful performance” as a “terrible example to the rest of the world.” 35

Each negative article was like a gut punch to a man who had been deprived of his liberty for nearly two years but returned an ambivalent figure, repatriated as something less than a hero.

One of the most devastating blows was delivered by President Kennedy. On March 6, Powers was waiting for a car to take him to the White House for a personal meeting with the president. At the last minute, however, someone from the White House called to say the meeting had been postponed. In fact, it had been canceled. No explanation was ever offered. Previously, the pilot had been told that Attorney General Robert Kennedy favored trying him for treason. “Bobby Kennedy made the initial judgment that the guy was a traitor,” said longtime CIA man Kenneth Bradt. Clearly, some within the administration considered him too politically toxic to be seen with the president, in sharp contrast to the RB-47 survivors, who had been welcomed into the Oval Office.

Frank would be haunted by the snub for the rest of his life.

The controversy surrounding him was somewhat analogous to the situation faced by Mercury astronaut Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, who on July 21, 1961, became the second American in space. After splashing down, explosive bolts fired for some reason, flooding the capsule and eventually sending it to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Grissom was rescued but widely blamed for the mishap. Kennedy shunned him. Long after he died in the January 27, 1967, launch-pad test fire of Apollo 1 that also claimed the lives of fellow astronauts Ed White and Roger Chaffee, Grissom’s memory remained clouded by the mysterious loss of Liberty Bell 7 .

About two hours after his White House meeting was called off, while testifying in a public hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Powers discussed the fateful day in great detail, telling the senators: “I can remember hearing, feeling, and sensing an explosion…. I felt that the explosion was external to the aircraft and behind me.” At one point he employed a model of the plane, demonstrating how the right wing “dropped slightly, not very much. I used the controls. The wing came back up level[,] just before or after it got level, the nose started going down, very slowly. So I applied back pressure to the control column and felt no resistance to the movement of the control column[,] and it kept going faster and faster. So I immediately assumed at that time the tail section of the aircraft had come off, because it—a very violent maneuver happened in here….” 36

After listening to his testimony, Senator Leverett Saltonstall of Massachusetts commended Powers as a “courageous, fine, young American citizen.” 37

Like the CIA panel, the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee determined that Powers acted appropriately. But the details of the reports remained secret, ostensibly for national-security concerns, and therefore exerted virtually no impact on public opinion, which was being shaped to a great degree by negative media reports.

In his prepared remarks to the committee, McCone struck a legalistic tone when explaining one aspect of the Prettyman board’s finding:

Some information from confidential sources was available. Some of it corroborated Powers and some of it was inconsistent, was in part contradictory with itself and subject to various interpretations…. Some of this information was the basis for considerable speculation shortly after the May 1 episode and subsequent stories in the press that Powers’ plane had descended gradually from its extreme altitude and have been shot down by a Soviet fighter at medium altitude. On careful analysis, it appears that the information on which these stories were based was erroneous or was susceptible to varying interpretations…. 38

On the same day Powers appeared in a public session with the Armed Services Committee, Senator John J. Williams, a Republican from Delaware, asked McCone, during his executive-session testimony to Foreign Relations: “Don’t you think he is being left with just a little bit of a cloud hanging over him? If he did everything he is supposed to do, why leave it hanging?” 39

When Frank returned to Pound to see the family, the town held a celebration in his honor, including two high-school bands and a large crowd of locals. His father was recognized for starting the ball rolling on the trade. Many welcomed Powers home, willing to accept the shades of gray he was forced to negotiate; but in others, Walton Meade, Powers’s brother-in-law, saw the subtle signs of disapproval. “Some people said he was a traitor,” he said. “‘He didn’t do what he should’ve done. He ought’ve killed himself.’ That’s how a lot of people felt.”

The Pound was a proud place, teaming with patriotism, full of veterans who had served in both world wars. Francis Gary Powers was their sort of man. Until he got caught up in something they didn’t fully understand.

“There’s people here, some of ’em would’ve killed him, if they’d gotten a chance,” Meade said.

The talk wounded Powers deeply. Spending all that time in a Soviet prison was a kind of torture, but returning to his own country and having his patriotism questioned was the most hurtful blow of all. The infamy now attached to his name represented a special kind of confinement from which he could never hope to escape.

Why did he not use the poison pin?

Why didn’t he destroy the plane?

Is it true he descended to a lower altitude?

What secrets did he reveal to the Soviets?

Why did he say what he said?

The people who were willing to believe Powers betrayed his country hated him for how his failure made them feel.

At the triumphant height of the American Century, when the country was unaccustomed to foreign-policy debacles and unwilling to concede its limitations, the profound humiliation of hearing him apologize to the Soviets was not something they would soon forget.

They needed someone to blame for their shame.

In a world tantalized by James Bond and other fictional spies, the lore of the poison pin captured the public’s imagination, playing into preconceived ideas about the shadowy world of espionage. It was easy to believe such a man, shouldering the risk of flying into denied territory for the nefarious purpose of taking photographs of sensitive military sites, would be ordered to prick himself and be done with it—taking one for the team and denying the enemy the opportunity to gain information, leverage, and propaganda points.