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

Former U-2 pilot Carl Overstreet wished his old friend Frank could be there to see the big fuss.

As part of my effort to learn about my dad, I had gotten to know Carl and his wife, Elizabeth. “Carl thought very highly of [Frank] and he was able to tell Gary about his dad,” Elizabeth said. “Carl always said he was a good guy, a good pilot, and a hero.”

Seated in the front row, Jen fretted about nine-year-old Trey, who was about to play an important role in the ceremony. “I was worried that he would have stage fright and would be intimidated by all the cameras,” she said.

After speaking for a few minutes about Francis Gary Powers’s service to his country, General Norman Schwartz, the Air Force chief of staff, presented the box containing the medal to the grandchildren the pilot never got to know: Dee’s grown daughter, Lindsey, and Francis Gary Powers III, who impressed everyone with his poise and manners.

“I was just so proud,” Jan Powers Melvin said. “So many emotions pouring over me in that special room, which most people never get to see. I just wish Francis could have been there.”

All those years after my father returned home amid such ambivalence, the citation acknowledged that he was “interrogated, harassed, and endured unmentionable hardships on a continuous basis by numerous top Soviet Secret Police interrogation teams,” while “resisting all Soviet efforts through cajolery, trickery and threats of death,” and exhibiting “indomitable spirit, exceptional loyalty, and continuous heroic actions.” 11

Welling up with emotion, I felt a satisfaction I had been pursuing for much of my adult life. My father was now vindicated. Finally. “It’s never too late to set the record straight,” I told the packed auditorium. “Even if it takes fifty years.”

Closure comes in many forms. Sometimes it washes over you when you experience a moment that exceeds your wildest expectations. Vindication is especially sweet when it fills up a hole in your heart.

“To see Gary’s triumph on behalf of his dad was just so moving and inspirational,” said my friend Joe Patterson.

The Silver Star was an admission that Washington had treated Francis Gary Powers unfairly, that it had left a patriot out in the cold for far too long. It was a concession that the Cold War was a real war fought by men who made great sacrifices and sometimes got caught up in situations that forced the country to debate the meaning of heroism.

“These events,” wrote Adam J. Herbert in Air Force magazine, “are reminders that sometimes justice comes slowly.” 12

More than twenty-two years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when Francis Gary Powers officially became an American hero in the eyes of the military establishment, the delayed recognition felt like something even more profound: The last fading echo of the Cold War.

In June 2014, I heard rumors of a major motion picture in the works concerning the exchange on the Glienicker Bridge. Eventually I confirmed that Steven Spielberg was directing the film, a discovery that filled me with new anxiety on an old subject. Was Hollywood planning to smear my father?

After sending out a series of blind emails, expressing the Powers family’s “concern” at the potential negative impact of basing the movie off of debunked misinformation, I eventually heard back from Mark Platt, one of the producers, who is best known for his Broadway production of Wicked . This led to an hour-long telephone conversation in July 2014. After many of my fears were allayed, I signed on as a technical advisor as the $40 million film moved into production.

Although the Silver Star ceremony represented the dramatic completion of my decades-long battle to restore my father’s good name, I continued to make speeches and seek the still-hidden details concerning my father’s life. There was still plenty of unfinished business.

Realizing that a film “inspired by true events” could potentially reverse all of the gains we achieved, I worked closely with the Amblin Entertainment team to try to influence the picture’s portrayal of my father.

A staffer wanted to know if my father was tortured. When I said he was not, the staffer said: “That’s too bad. Not for your father, but for the suspense of the interrogation scenes in the movie.”

Some of my suggestions wound up informing the narrative, including when I told Spielberg that the United States had hidden a sniper in the trees near the Glienicker Bridge, aimed at Abel, in the event that something went wrong with the exchange. This became part of the climactic scene of the film, through the character of Tom Hanks, who portrayed James Donovan.

I also landed a cameo as an agency man walking out of a hangar, next to the actor portraying my dad, Austin Stowell. Along with other members of my family, I attended different premieres of Bridge of Spies , which opened to critical acclaim in October 2015.

The Powers family really liked the movie. However, one scene bothered me. During a briefing, the pilots were told to “spend the dollar,” an obvious reference to the use of the poison pin, which was not accurate. But beyond a few such instances of artistic license, I was gratified that the film portrayed my father accurately and pointed out at the end that he had been recognized as a hero for his service to his country.

The film is historically accurate in the big picture, but the details in each scene are not 100 percent accurate. That’s Hollywood.

As the production team wrapped the final day of shooting at California’s Beale Air Force Base, Dee and I were touched when Spielberg toasted Francis Gary Powers as an American hero. That meant an awful lot to me, for Mr. Spielberg to acknowledge my dad and show the respect he had for him.

Not long after the film completed a successful domestic run, I returned to my father’s roots to take another bow.

In March 2016, I represented the family when the terminal building at the tiny Lonesome Pine Airport in Wise, Virginia, just down the road from Pound, was dedicated in my father’s honor. “This is a very deep privilege,” I said, adding that I was “honored and humbled” by the gesture. 1

I shared a bit of my own personal journey with the home folks, and hinted at the mission that gave me purpose. “Through classified files and FOIA requests,” I said, “I was able to show that he did everything he was supposed to do, that he served this country honorably, that he did not betray the country.” 2

The decision to place Dad’s name on the building was Wise County’s way of saying it was proud of the U-2 pilot, which once would have been a rather-controversial stand for local politicians. It was yet another reminder that the world was a very different place.

“This, to me, is about family and community,” said Kim Mullins, who spearheaded the effort as a member of the Cumberland Airport Commission. “Francis Gary Powers left here a hero, came back a hero, and died a hero. And don’t let nobody tell you any different.” 3

In 2012, I filed a FOIA request seeking information concerning a long list of additional issues about my father. It took five years for some items to finally be released, and they provided some interesting news.

Nine years after he was rebuffed in his attempt to rejoin the Air Force, Frank hired an attorney to press his case for military retirement benefits.

In a letter addressed to President Richard Nixon on August 31, 1971, Jerry K. Staub, of the Glendale, California, firm Edwards, Edwards, and Ashton, argued:

I am unable to understand why Mr. Powers, who has made such a tremendous sacrifice for his country, is being denied those benefits on retirement that are being conferred to others under similar circumstances. Mr. Powers has played by all the rules. He has lived, since 1960, with the personal tragedy of the U-2 Incident. He has foregone substantial personal economic reward [by turning down his first offer of a $150,000 book deal, in 1962] at the request of the government. Why, then, has the government refused to honor its commitment to Mr. Powers? …I refuse to believe that his country is so entirely ungrateful. 4