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

I would give anything I possess if this had not happened. Not only because of the position that I find myself in but because of the worry and trouble I have caused you, not to mention an increase of tension in the world.

One can always look back and say that I wish I had not done that, but no amount of wishing or hindsight can change the results of something already done.

I hope that one of these days I will be able to do something that will make up for all the pain and sorrow I have caused you. If God is willing I will do my best. I know you are disappointed in your son and I know that I have not always been the dutiful son that you desired. For this I am very sorry. I want you to know that no one could have had better parents than I have had.

How I wish I could be there telling you this in person instead of writing it from a prison cell in Moscow. There are so many things I would like to tell you, things that I can’t seem to find words to express but things that I feel very strongly in my heart.

I am still getting along all right. I am being treated good and I have read numerous books. I am now studying or attempting to study Russian.

The weather here is warm now. Not quite as warm as it is there now but it is very nice. It rains a little more often here I think than it does there at this time of year.

I have been taking a walk and getting some sun every day. They still bring me too much food and I cannot eat it all. I have learned to like their yogurt very much. When I need cigarettes all I have to do is ask and they give them to me.

The people here have been much nicer to me than I expected them to be and I appreciate it very much. I think the Russians and American people would like each other if they knew each other better.

Well I guess I will stop for now. Please tell all my sisters and their families that I think of them often and wish them the best of everything. Please take care of yourselves and remember that I love all of you very much.

After one especially long and exhausting interrogation, he was taken back to his cell and fell into a deep sleep. He dreamed about being back on the farm in Virginia, with all of his family around. They were walking along a road toward the house when suddenly, he began to experience a severe pain in his leg, which caused him to fall behind. “They kept getting farther ahead of me and I tried to call to them to slow down,” he noted in his journal, “but for some reason could not do so…. I sat down beside the road watching all my family walking away from me, seeming not to know or to care that I was not with them….” 25

Dad’s feelings of abandonment and isolation were easy to understand. He was especially concerned that he had heard nothing from Barbara.

When he finally received a reply from his wife, he quickly put pen to paper:

28 June 1960

My Dearest Barbara,

I cannot find words to describe what it meant to me to receive your letter. I have been very worried about you and could not understand why I had not heard from you. Knowing that you are okay has made me feel much better.

There is very little I can say about myself. Nothing has changed since I last wrote you. I still do not know any more than I did then about what is to happen to me or when my trial will be.

I am still taking daily walks and am getting a suntan. I still have plenty to eat and books to read. I have no complaints for the treatment I am receiving. My only complaint is that I am not there with you.

There is no need for you to try to send anything to me at the present time. There is nothing I need. If in the future I need anything and I am allowed to have it I will let you know.

Darling I am very sorry for the mess I have made out of our lives. All our plans and all our hopes seem to have been in vain. Needless to say my life would be much different if I had it to live over again. What’s done is done and there is nothing I can do about it now.

Stateside life apparently agrees with Eck. I can remember how we tried to get him to gain weight before. I suppose he gets better food there. Take good care of him Barbara for he is a fine dog.

I hope your mother is getting along all right. Tell her to take care of herself and not to work too hard.

Barbara try to keep my mother from worrying too much, and I would appreciate it very much if you would get in touch with her doctor and find out how her health is and let me know. I have been afraid that my being here might cause her to have another heart attack. I could never forgive myself if I were responsible for that.

I remember how you used to try to get me to write home more often.

I always kept putting it off even though I know they wanted to hear from me. They desired a better son than they had. Maybe I can make up for it someway in the future.

Darling I can’t tell you how much I miss you or how sorry I am that all this has happened. You also deserved better than this. It seems I have done nothing but hurt the people I love most in the world. I hope that I will have the opportunity to do better in the future, but the future doesn’t look very bright.

Barbara I can’t find words to express what I feel for you. You mean everything to me and I love you very much. Please take care of yourself Darling and don’t worry about me. You have your life and future to think of.

Well Darling I will stop for now. Remember that I love you very much and miss you more than I can say.

Not until I began listening to the tapes did I realize how much care the Soviets took to censor his letters while he was at Lubyanka. They often would make him rewrite a letter, with words changed and paragraphs moved.

In time, CIA officials wondered why he had not tried to communicate by inserting coded messages into his letters, which the government men pressed him on after his repatriation:

US Interrogator: Did you at any time, in any of your letters, attempt to make use of the Air Force communications system?

Powers: At first it was impossible—before the trial when I really wanted to do this it was impossible because it takes a little preparation work to do this and at first I had no paper and pencil. They gave me some a little later, but they kept track of the number of sheets of paper they gave me and counted them and there was—I could tell that someone was in my cell occasionally when I was out—apparently nosing around through things—and some of the letters I even had to write in the presence of someone. They weren’t particularly watching what I was writing, but they were sitting around somewhere in the room so it was impossible at that time. Later on I attempted to write twice. That was after the trial. After I’d been transferred to another prison and—well—my cellmate I think was all right, but I thought I couldn’t trust him. One day he was asleep and I started doing this and he woke up and I immediately stuck the stuff in my pocket. Another time he had gone to a dentist or something—I don’t remember what—and I started to do this, but he came back too soon and other than that we were constantly together all the time and it was impossible to do it without someone knowing you were doing something.

US Interrogator: In other words, this required certain deliberate arrangements of your writing in such a manner that you just couldn’t sit down—?

Powers: Well, I don’t know whether it would require all people to do this, but for me. I had to sit down and figure out this particular code and so forth on paper where I could watch it and continuously refer to it while I was writing and count up letters and words, etc. If there was some little simple arrangement, but if it is simple, then it might be caught too easily.

US Interrogator: In other words you found that it was just a little too complicated, the system itself was a little too complicated to apply under the condition that you were living in?