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

If I didn’t feel I could trust you I would never agree to buying a house. I want you to know that I love you more now than before if that is possible. I know I will love you always even if I am required to stay here ninety more years instead of nine and it is because I love you so much that I want you to be happy.

As I said before, please don’t be angry with me for stating what I feel. I only want to be fair with you in all respects.

Well. To get back to answering your letter, I have only read one of the sixteen books that you sent. I haven’t received them yet but expect and hope they arrive about the sixteenth of this month when I usually receive the package from the Embassy. Don’t worry about the selection of future books; the important thing is that I have something to read so that I can pass the time easier.

You ask about the temperature in Moscow in the hottest summer months. All I can go by is last summer’s experience. July was uncomfortably hot. June was very nice a little cold around the latter part of May but comfortable. Around the middle of August it began getting cool again as you know. The sun has been shining a lot during the last two or three weeks of April. It snowed a little on the first of May (yesterday) but when the sun is shinny [ sic ] it is nice but rather cool in the shade or when it is cloudy.

Well, Darling, I guess that is all for this time. Thanks for bringing up the buying of a house. I guess we should have considered it earlier but up until lately I thought that we might have the opportunity to do it together.

Bye for this time. Remember Barbara, I love you very much and want your happiness above all else. Take care of yourself and tell all I send my love,

With his marriage crumbling, Dad was confronted with a news report that left him angry and feeling even more powerless than usual.

4 May 1961

Dear Mom & Dad,

I was quite shocked when I read the news clipping you sent in your number 9 letter, (which you forgot to number), written on April 10th.

You seemed worry that it was true even though in the article you said you didn’t believe it. Well you can set your mind at rest on that account. I do not intend to stay in the Soviet Union when I am released. I have never said to anyone that I intended to do so. I am a citizen of the United States and am proud to be one. I might not like all the policies of the US government but I feel sure there are many millions of people in the States who disagree with them also.

I cannot imagine where the correspondent John Mossman got his information unless he invented it himself. You may rest assured that I will return home, where I belong and want to be, as soon as I am released. Remaining here has never entered my mind.

I noticed in the article that “John Mossman quoted no source for his story.” Apparently he had none.

Once again I want to state that I do not intend to remain in the S.U. when I am released. No one has asked me if I wanted to and I don’t even know whether or not I would be allowed to.

As far as Barbara coming to Russia I have heard nothing about it. She said earlier that when I was transferred to a work camp and if I were allowed to see her often, she would want to come and live near the camp until my sentence was up. If I could see her often enough to make it worth while then I would allow it. But you can rest assured that even if it were allowed, we both would return as soon as my sentence was up.

Don’t worry about my doing anything or giving any cause for my country to doubt me. It looks as if this British correspondent is trying, for some reason I don’t know, to tell the people that I have renounced my country. I would never do this. I was born an American and intend to die an American.

You wrote on the back of your envelope “Remember what Patrick Henry said.” He is remembered, much to his credit, for what he said. It looks as if I will be remembered, much to my discredit, for what some correspondent writes even though there is not one word of truth in what he wrote.

I wish there was some way to force him to disclose where he got his information. I know my friends and family will not believe this but probably many Americans will. I certainly hope not.

You asked me to let you know if your note was censored. All mail coming and going is censored but there has never been anything marked or cut out of your letters since I have been in Vladimir. I think all prisons all over the world censor mail so that there can be no plans of escape etc.

I suppose Jean has her new baby boy by now. I am very anxious to hear about it. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Everything here is the same. The weather is becoming very nice. Still a little cool when the sun isn’t shining and we had a little snow on the morning of the first of May. Even though John Mossman said I would be released, I am still occupying the same cell in the same prison.

Well I guess that is all for this time. Please don’t worry about the article in the paper. It isn’t true. In fact I have been wondering just how much that is written in papers can be believed. Very little apparently.

P.S. This is primarily a letter to you but you may use it to refute the story if you think it necessary. 52

Emphasizing the point in a letter to his sisters Jess and Jan, Frank said, “When I am released I intend to return home even if I have to walk and try to swim the Atlantic…. I have no idea what the purpose of such a lie could be, but it will be believed by many American people much to my future disadvantage.” 53

When the summit meeting between Kennedy and Khrushchev produced no movement on his issue, Dad’s dashed hopes could be felt in his June 15 letter to Barbara: “Darling, I am sorry that I wrote that I might be released after the meeting between K+K. I cannot help grasping at each little ray of hope and amplifying it into a beacon of optimism but I can keep from telling you and maybe raise your hopes also…. One thing that makes me pretty sad is if nothing happens as a result of this meeting then I have very little chance of being released at all. If a meeting between the two will not do it then what will?” 54

Around this time he became aware of his father’s communicating with Rudolf Abel. “I know nothing will come of the negotiations,” he wrote to Barbara on August 10, 1961, “because as far as I know, Abel is not a Soviet citizen and why should the SU agree to an exchange for a non citizen? It is just that my father is grasping at straws.” 55

Frank kept writing to Barbara, not realizing the level of her distress. He was painfully aware of his wife’s alcohol problem, but he did not know she was dealing with significant psychological problems. The news of her commitment back in Georgia left Frank reeling, as his journal entry of October 14, 1961, made clear:

According to the letter [from Mrs. Brown, Barbara’s mother] she has been under a great mental strain. My mother-in-law stated that when my wife was drinking that she [my wife] could not stand her mother and would have to go somewhere out of her sight…. I am almost completely in the dark…. I can only assume that alcohol has a lot to do with it…. I cannot understand how such a drastic action could be taken without consulting me…. I am worried to death and feel so helpless that I don’t know what to do. 56

When Barbara wrote to him without mentioning the situation, Dad recognized it as part of a larger pattern of dishonesty. In a letter dated November 1, 1961, he said:

I expected you to be honest with me and tell me what has been happening since the latter part of September but you never mentioned it at all. You seem to have made a habit of forgetting to tell me many of the things I have a right as your husband to know. Even though I am in a prison in another country, the fact remains that I am still your husband and cannot help but be interested in all you do and all that happened to you. When you do not tell me things and I find out from other people I cannot help but wonder how many things there are I should know that neither you nor other people tell me…. I will not hesitate to get a divorce when I return to the States if your conduct has been such that it merits such an action. 57