VOL 59: Behind Enemy Lines: When a US Spy Plane Was Shot Down Over the USSR
One of the most infamous Cold War episodes began in 1960, when American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down and captured on a spying mission over the Soviet Union.
Today at a Glance:
IntroductionThe StoryFrancis Gary Powers CapturedU.S. Government LiedThe United States and Soviet Union Swap SpiesPast Greats 👴Random Tech Fact
Quote of The Week
“With stealth technology, the U.S. could spy on its Cold War adversaries without running the risk of getting caught.”
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Annie Jacobsen
Introduction
The recent incident involving a Chinese Spy Balloon in the United States has caused an understandable uproar. However, it is important to remember that the U.S. has also engaged in its fair share of covert spying operations throughout history.
The United States has always been involved in numerous high-stakes confrontations with opposing forces, from the Cuban Missile Crisis to more recent airborne aggressions with Russia and China. While many of these incidents did not escalate to a boiling point, there are several notable cases where these encounters have had a significant impact on the course of history.
The U-2 spy plane incident is a major one, though overlooked at times, it was an event that drove U.S.-Soviet relations back to the beginning of the Cold War.
The Story
During a photographic aerial reconnaissance mission on May 1, 1960, a U.S. U-2 spy plane flown by Francis Gary Powers was shot down by the Soviet Air Defense Forces inside Soviet territory. The plane, which had departed from Peshawar, Pakistan, was hit by a surface-to-air missile and crashed near Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), Russia. Fortunately, Powers managed to parachute to the ground, but he was soon captured by Soviet forces.
The U-2 spy plane was an American reconnaissance aircraft built in the mid-1950s. Its major goal was to fly at high altitudes above areas of interest (to avoid detection) and collect sensitive photographic material to provide the CIA with proof of dangerous activities on foreign land. The 1960s were the height of U-2 operations.
The U-2 spy plane, which took its first flight in 1956, was a top-secret aircraft used by the United States to gather intelligence from behind the Iron Curtain. It could fly higher than any other plane at the time, and it was designed to take high-resolution photos from the stratosphere over hostile countries, including the Soviet Union.
The U.S. President at the time, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and the CIA had already used the U-2 on 23 separate occasions to fly over the Soviet Union and gather intelligence. The Russian leader, Nikita Khrushchev, had complained about these missions, but he was unable to prevent them because the U-2 flew too high to be detected by ground missiles or fighter planes. As a result, the Soviet Union lacked effective countermeasures until 1960.
Francis Gary Powers Captured
Francis Gary Powers was recruited by the CIA as a pilot for spy planes in 1956, after serving in the U.S. Air Force. He was the most experienced pilot in the program, with over 600 hours of flight time. Powers was used to the extreme conditions of flying the U-2 plane, including the high altitude, isolation, and tight flight suits. He carried a silver dollar with a needle dipped in poison in case he was captured and subjected to torture by the Soviets, he could take his own life.
On his 28th mission flying the U-2, Powers flew for nine hours over Soviet airspace to take photos of missile and nuclear sites. This was to be the first attempt "to fly all the way across the Soviet Union,” but it was considered worth the gamble. “The planned route would take us deeper into Russia than we had ever gone, while traversing important targets never before photographed," he said.
Unknown to Powers and the CIA, the U-2 spy plane had motivated the Russians to develop better surface-to-air missiles. When Powers was 1,300 miles inside Soviet territory, one of these missiles hit his plane and caused it to crash.
“Suddenly, there was a dull ‘thump,’” he later wrote in a memoir, “the aircraft jerked forward, and a tremendous orange flash lit the cockpit and the sky.” The U-2 broke apart and began hurtling toward the ground.
A total of 14 surface-to-air missiles were launched, one of which hit a Russian jet fighter that was sent to intercept the U-2 but could not reach a high enough altitude. Its pilot, Sergei Safronov, ejected but died of his injuries.
He couldn't reach the plane's self-destruct switch before tearing open his canopy and bailing out. His parachute landed him in a field near Sverdlovsk, a city in the Ural Mountains, where he was caught by Russian civilians. Within a few hours, the Soviet authorities had captured the US's top spy pilot.
U.S. Government Lied
After Powers' plane was shot down, he was too far away from radio range to communicate what had happened. The Eisenhower administration only realized something was wrong when Powers didn't arrive at his intended landing site in Norway. A few days later, on May 5th, Nikita Khrushchev confirmed that an American U-2 plane had been shot down over Russia.
Although Khrushchev didn't mention Powers' fate in his speech, the Americans assumed he had died. The U-2 plane was fragile and usually broke apart upon impact, so it was unlikely that a pilot would survive a surface-to-air missile hit. With this in mind, the Eisenhower administration came up with a cover story that:
“A NASA weather plane had experienced oxygen difficulties over Turkey and drifted off course.”
To cover up the U-2 plane's true purpose, the Eisenhower administration quickly painted another U-2 with the NASA logo and showed it to reporters. A State Department spokesperson denied any espionage and stated that “there was no intention to violate Soviet airspace”.
However, this claim was challenged during nuclear arms talks at the Paris Summit between the U.S., USSR, France, and the UK. The argument escalated and eventually led to the collapse of the talks. A few days later, the US was forced to admit that the U-2 mission was indeed a spying operation. This came after the Soviet government displayed the captured pilot and parts of the U-2's surveillance equipment, including photographs of Soviet military bases.
The United States and Soviet Union Swap Spies
Francis Gary Powers was tried for espionage in Moscow and convicted. He was sentenced to 10 years in jail but was released after serving less than two years as part of a prisoner exchange with Soviet spy Rudolf Abel and a detained American student in February 1962.
After this incident, President Eisenhower stopped surveillance flights over Russia. However, U-2s continued to make flybys over Cuba and other Soviet allies, until they were replaced by more advanced spy satellites that could gather information from space.
The Pakistani government issued a formal apology to the Soviet Union for its role in the U-2 mission.
PAST GREATS
ÉTIENNE BONNOT de CONDILLAC (September 1714 – August 1780)
Etienne Bonnot de Condillac was a French philosopher and epistemologist born in 1715 in Grenoble, France. He was educated by the Jesuits and went on to become a prominent figure in the Enlightenment movement. Condillac's work focused on the philosophy of language and the development of human knowledge through sensory experience.
In 1746, Condillac published his first major work, "Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge," which proposed that all knowledge is derived from sensory experiences. He believed that the mind is a blank slate, or "tabula rasa," at birth and that all knowledge comes from the senses. Condillac argued that language is essential to the formation of thought and that all ideas are derived from the manipulation of sensory experience through language. He also believed that language should be studied scientifically in order to understand the workings of the human mind. Condillac's work influenced many later philosophers, including John Locke and Immanuel Kant. He died in 1780 in Flux, France.
Random Tech Facts
Google was misspelt; Google was originally supposed to be named Googol, which is the mathematical term for the number one followed by 100 zeroes (so like the term “million,” etc.). but it was misspelt, and they ended up just sticking with Google.