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

Gary Powers Jr. (In person, telephone, and email) — Multiple, 2013–2018

Harry Andonian (Telephone) — August 18, 2016

T. D. Barnes (In person) — October 7, 2015

Betty George Baugh (In person) — April 26, 2018

Michael Betterton (In person) — October 7, 2015

Tony Bevacqua (In person) — October 6, 2015

John Birdseye (Telephone) — September 4, 2018

David Boyd (In person) — January 12, 2018

Liz Boyd (Telephone) — November 12, 2017

Kenneth Bradt (Telephone) — March 26, 2018

Buz Carpenter (Telephone) — February 12, 2017

Chris Conrad (Telephone) — March 2 and 4, 2018

Robert Conrad (Telephone) — June 5, 2018

Frank Cruz (Telephone) — August 9, 2018

Johnny Estep (In person) — February 17, 2015

Mary Finch (Telephone) — October 18, 2016

Bob Gilliland (In person) — April 14, 2015

Jack Goff (In person) — March 12, 2016

Jim Herbert (Telephone) — August 7, 2018

Deborah Jaffe (Telephone) — May 22, 2018

Steve Justice (In person) — February 2, 2018

Bob Kallos (Telephone) — March 4, 2018

Sergei Khrushchev (Telephone) — April 14, 2018

Jake Kratt (Telephone) — November 14, 2017

Pete Law (Telephone) — July 22, 2017

Walton Meade (In person) — March 12, 2016

Chris Means (Telephone) — March 1, 2018

Joe Murphy (Telephone) — April 2, 2018

Carol Osborne (Telephone) — September 12, 2018

Elizabeth Overstreet (Telephone) — April 11, 2018

Joe Patterson (Telephone) — March 1, 2018

Norman Polmar (Telephone) — September 27, 2018

Jeannie Popovich Walls (Email) — March 5–May 13, 2018

Dee Powers (Telephone) — April 10, 2018

Jan Powers Melvin (Telephone) — April 6, 2018

Jennifer Powers (In person and email) — Multiple, 2014–2018

Joan Powers Meade (In person) — March 12, 2016

Rosa Anne Speranza (Telephone) — April 11, 2018

Jon Teperson (Email) — July 10, 2018

Trisha Thompson (In person) — April 26, 2018

Svetlana Tumanov (Email) — March 30–April 16, 2018

1. Francis Gary Powers and Curt Gentry, Operation Overflight: A Memoir of the U-2 Incident (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1970), p. 4.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Personal tapes of Francis Gary Powers, 1969.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Winston Skinner, “The Marriage of U-2 Spy Pilot,” Newnan-Coweta Magazine , September/October 2011, pp. 78–79.

1. Evan Thomas, “Spymaster General: The Adventures of Wild Bill Donovan and the “Oh So Social” O.S.S.,” Vanity Fair , March 2011, https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2011/03/wild-bill-donovan201103.

2. Stephen Kinzer, The Brothers : John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War (New York: St. Martin’s, 2013), p. 1.

3. Michael R. Beschloss, Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev, and the U-2 Affair (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), p. 126.

4. Allen W. Dulles, The Craft of Intelligence (Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2016), pp. 157–58.

5. Ibid., p. 194.

6. Nikita Khrushchev, Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, vol. 3 , ed. Sergei Khrushchev (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, Thomas J. Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University, 2013), p. 241.

7. Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: Solider and President (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), p. 378.

8. Clifford Johnson, in video interview with Carol Osborne, June 6, 1993.

9. Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson with Maggie Smith, Kelly: More than My Share of It All (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985), p. 97.

10. Tony LeVier, in video interview with Carol Osborne, September 18, 1982.

11. Johnson with Smith, Kelly .

12. Chris Pocock, The U-2 Spyplane: Toward the Unknown (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Military History, 2000), p. 9.

13. Ibid., pp. 9–10.

14. Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson, Skunk Works Program Log, Project X, December 1953.

15. Ibid., December 19, 1954.

16. Ibid.

17. Pocock, U-2 Spyplane , p. 27.

18. Johnson, Skunk Works Log, April 13, 1955.

19. Richard M. Bissell Jr., with Jonathan E. Lewis and Francis T. Pudlo, Reflections of a Cold Warrior (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), p. 23.

20. Nick Sabides Jr., “A Spymaster’s Son, Bangor Man Seeks Traces of His CIA Dad,” Bangor Daily News , August 25, 2013.

21. Johnson, Skunk Works Log, July 15, 1955.

22. Bissell with Lewis and Pudlo, Reflections , p. 99.

23. Ben R. Rich and Leo Janos, Skunk Works (New York: Little, Brown, 1994), p. 134.

24. Ibid., p. 135.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid., p. 140.

27. Francis Gary Powers and Curt Gentry, Operation Overflight: A Memoir of the U-2 Incident (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1970), p. xi.

28. Ibid., p. xii.

29. Ibid., p. xiv.

30. Bissell with Lewis and Pudlo, Reflections , p. 107.

31. Powers and Gentry, Operation Overflight , p. 10.

32. Personal tapes of Francis Gary Powers, 1969.

33. “Eisenhower Presents His ‘Open Skies’ Plan,” History.com, last updated August 21, 2018, www.history.com/this-day-in-history/eisenhower-presents-his-open-skies-plan.

34. Johnson, Skunk Works Log, May 3, 1956.

35. Pocock, U-2 Spyplane .

36. Rich and Janos, Skunk Works , p. 146.

37. Powers and Gentry, Operation Overflight , p. xv.

38. Beschloss, Mayday , pp. 136–39; Ambrose, Eisenhower , pp. 424–26; Pocock, U-2 Spyplane , pp. 54–56.

39. Powers and Gentry, Operation Overflight , p. 39.

40. James B. Donovan, Strangers on a Bridge (New York: Atheneum, 1964), p. 189.

41. Ibid., p. 260.

42. Kurt Loft, “Sputnik Began Space Race 40 Years Ago,” Tampa Tribune , October 4, 1997, p. 1.

43. Carl Nolte, “Warm Welcome during Cold War,” San Francisco Chronicle , May 26, 1990, p. C9.

44. Pocock, U-2 Spyplane , p. 160.

45. Dulles, Craft , p. 195.

46. Powers and Gentry, Operation Overflight , p. 57.

1. The Last Overflights of the Soviet Union, 1959–60 (Washington, DC: National Security Agency Report, June 25, 2013), chap. 4, p. 170.

2. Nikita Khrushchev, Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, vol. 3 , ed. Sergei Khrushchev (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, Thomas J. Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University, 2013), pp. 236–37.

3. George B. Kistiakowsky, A Scientist at the White House (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), p. 328.

4. Richard M. Bissell Jr., with Jonathan E. Lewis and Francis T. Pudlo, Reflections of a Cold Warrior (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), p. 121.

5. Chris Pocock, The U-2 Spyplane: Toward the Unknown (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Military History, 2000), p. 167.

6. Francis Gary Powers and Curt Gentry, Operation Overflight: A Memoir of the U-2 Incident (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1970), p. 49.

7. Last Overflights .

8. Personal tapes of Francis Gary Powers, 1969.

9. Bissell with Lewis and Pudlo, Reflections , p. 124.

10. Last Overflights , chap. 4, pp. 175–76.