Cold War aircraft shootdown
On 1 May 1960, a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down by the Soviet Air Defence Forces while conducting photographic aerial reconnaissance deep inside Soviet territory. Flown by American pilot Francis Gary Powers, the aircraft had taken off from Peshawar, Pakistan, and crashed near Sverdlovsk (present-day Yekaterinburg), after being hit by a surface-to-air missile. Powers parachuted to the ground and was captured.
Initially, American authorities acknowledged the incident as the loss of a civilian weather research aircraft operated by NASA, but were forced to admit the mission's true purpose a few days later after the Soviet government produced the captured pilot and parts of the U-2's surveillance equipment, including photographs of Soviet military bases.
The incident occurred during the tenures of American president Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, around two weeks before the scheduled opening of an east–west summit in Paris, France. Khrushchev and Eisenhower had met face-to-face at Camp David in Maryland in September 1959, and the seeming thaw in U.S.-Soviet relations had raised hopes globally for a peaceful resolution to the Cold War. The U-2 incident shattered the amiable "Spirit of Camp David" that had prevailed for eight months, prompting the cancellation of the summit in Paris and embarrassing the U.S. on the international stage. The Pakistani government issued a formal apology to the Soviet Union for its role in the mission.
Following his capture, Powers was convicted of espionage and sentenced to three years of imprisonment plus seven years of hard labour; he was released two years later, in February 1962, in a prisoner exchange for Soviet intelligence officer Rudolf Abel.
Background.
In July 1958, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower requested permission from the Pakistani prime minister Feroze Khan Noon for the U.S. to establish a secret intelligence facility in Pakistan and for the U-2 spy plane to fly from Pakistan. The U-2 flew at altitudes that could not be reached by Soviet fighter jets of the era; it was believed to be beyond the reach of Soviet missiles as well. A facility established in Badaber (Peshawar Air Station), from Peshawar, was a cover for a major communications intercept operation run by the United States National Security Agency (NSA). Badaber was an excellent location because of its proximity to Soviet central Asia. This enabled the monitoring of missile test sites, key infrastructure and communications. The U-2 "spy-in-the-sky" was allowed to use the Pakistan Air Force section of Peshawar Airport to gain vital photo intelligence in an era before satellite observation.
President Eisenhower did not want to fly American U-2 pilots over the Soviet Union because he felt that if one of these pilots were to be shot down or captured, it could be seen as an act of aggression. At a time like the Cold War, any act of aggression could spark open conflict between the two countries. In order to ease the burden of flying Americans into Soviet airspace the idea developed to have British pilots from the Royal Air Force fly these missions in place of the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). With the United Kingdom still reeling from the aftermath of the Suez Crisis and in no position to snub American requests, the British government was amenable to the proposal. Using British pilots allowed Eisenhower to be able to use the U-2 aircraft to spy for American interests in the Soviet Union, while still being able to plausibly deny any affiliation if a mission became compromised.
After the success of the first two British pilots and because of pressure to determine the number of Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles more accurately, Eisenhower allowed the flying of two more missions before the Four Power Paris Summit, scheduled for 16 May. The final two missions before the summit were to be flown by American pilots.
On 9 April 1960, a U-2C spy plane of the special CIA unit "10-10", piloted by Bob Ericson, crossed the southern national boundary of the Soviet Union in the area of Pamir Mountains and flew over four Soviet top-secret military objects: the Semipalatinsk Test Site, the Dolon Air Base where Tu-95 strategic bombers were stationed, the surface-to-air missile (SAM) test site of the Soviet Air Defence Forces near Saryshagan, and the Tyuratam missile range (Baikonur Cosmodrome).
The aircraft was detected by the Soviet Air Defense Forces when it had flown more than over the Soviet national boundary and avoided several attempts at interception by a MiG-19 and a Su-9 during the flight. The U-2 left Soviet air space and landed at an Iranian airstrip at Zahedan. It was clear that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had successfully performed an extraordinarily dangerous but productive intelligence operation. The next flight of the U-2 spy plane from Peshawar airport was planned for late April.
Event.
On 28 April 1960, a U.S. Lockheed U-2C spy plane, Article 358, was ferried from Incirlik Air Base in Turkey to the US base at Peshawar airport by pilot Glen Dunaway. Fuel for the aircraft had been ferried to Peshawar the previous day in a US Air Force C-124 transport. A US Air Force C-130 followed, carrying the ground crew, mission pilot Francis Powers, and the backup pilot, Bob Ericson. On the morning of 29 April, the crew in Badaber was informed that the mission had been delayed by one day. As a result, Bob Ericson flew Article 358 back to Incirlik and John Shinn ferried another U-2C, Article 360, from Incirlik to Peshawar. On 30 April, the mission was delayed one day further because of bad weather over the Soviet Union.
The weather improved and on 1 May, 15 days before the scheduled opening of the east–west summit conference in Paris, Captain Powers, flying Article 360, "56–6693" left the base in Peshawar on a mission with the operation's code word "GRAND SLAM" to overfly the Soviet Union, photographing targets including the ICBM sites at the Baikonur Cosmodrome and Plesetsk Cosmodrome, then land at Bodø in Norway. At the time, the USSR had six ICBM launch pads, two at Baikonur and four at Plesetsk. Mayak, then named Chelyabinsk-65, an important industrial center of plutonium processing, was another of the targets that Powers was to photograph. A close study of Powers' account of the flight shows that one of the last targets he overflew, before being shot down, was the Chelyabinsk-65 plutonium production facility.
The U-2 flight was expected, and all units of the Soviet Air Defence Forces in the Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Siberia, Ural, and later in the USSR European Region and Extreme North, were placed on red alert. Soon after the aircraft was detected, Lieutenant General of the Air Force Yevgeniy Savitskiy ordered the air-unit commanders "to attack the violator by all alert flights located in the area of foreign plane's course, and to ram if necessary".
Because of the U-2's extreme operating altitude, Soviet attempts to intercept the aircraft using fighter aircraft failed. The U-2's course was out of range of several of the nearest SAM sites, and one SAM site even failed to engage the aircraft since it was not on duty that day. The U-2 was shot down near Kosulino, Ural Region, by the first of three S-75 Dvina surface-to-air missiles fired by a battery commanded by Mikhail Voronov. The S-75 site had been supposedly identified previously by the CIA, using photos taken during Vice President Richard Nixon's visit to Sverdlovsk the previous summer.
Powers bailed out but neglected to disconnect his oxygen hose first and struggled with it until it broke, enabling him to separate from the aircraft. After parachuting safely down onto Soviet soil, Powers was quickly captured. Powers carried with him a modified silver dollar which contained a lethal, shellfish-derived saxitoxin-tipped needle, but he did not use it.
The SAM command center was unaware for more than 30 minutes that the aircraft was destroyed. One of the Soviet MiG-19 fighters pursuing Powers was also destroyed in the missile salvo, and the pilot, Sergei Safronov, was killed. The MiGs' IFF transponders were not yet switched to the new May codes because of the 1 May holiday.
American cover-up and exposure.
Four days after Powers' disappearance, NASA issued a very detailed press release noting that an aircraft had "gone missing" north of Turkey. The press release speculated that the pilot might have fallen unconscious while the autopilot was still engaged, even falsely claiming that "the pilot reported over the emergency frequency that he was experiencing oxygen difficulties". To bolster this, a U-2 was quickly painted in NASA colors and shown to the media. Under the impression that the pilot had died and that the plane had been destroyed, the Americans had decided to use the NASA cover-up plan. Nikita Khrushchev used the American misstep to embarrass President Eisenhower and his administration.
That same day, on 5 May, the Senate made its first comments on the U-2 incident and began a domestic political controversy for Eisenhower. Mike Mansfield, the Senate Majority Whip, stated, "First reports indicate that the President had no knowledge of the plane incident. If that is the case, we have got to ask whether or not this administration has any real control over the federal bureaucracy." Mansfield, more than any other person, highlighted the dilemma Eisenhower faced—Eisenhower could admit responsibility for the U-2 flight, and likely ruin any chances for détente at the Paris Summit, or he could continue to deny knowledge and indicate that he did not control his own administration.
After Khrushchev found out about America's NASA cover story, he developed a political trap for Eisenhower. His plan began with the release of information to the world that a spy plane had been shot down in Soviet territory, but he did not reveal that the pilot of this aircraft had also been found and that he was alive. With the information that Khrushchev released, the Americans believed that they would be able to continue with their cover story that the crashed U-2 was a weather research aircraft and not a military spy plane. The cover-up stated that the pilot of the U-2 weather aircraft had radioed in that he was experiencing oxygen difficulties while flying over Turkey. From there they claimed that the aircraft could have continued on its path because of auto-pilot, and that this could be the U-2 that crashed in the Soviet Union. The final attempt to make the cover story seem as real as possible was the grounding of all U-2 aircraft for mandatory inspection of oxygen systems in order to make sure that no other "weather missions" would have the same result as the one that was lost and possibly crashed in the Soviet Union.
On 7 May, Khrushchev sprang his trap and announced: ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;I must tell you a secret. When I made my first report I deliberately did not say that the pilot was alive and well ... and now just look how many silly things the Americans have said.
Also, because of the release of some photographs of the aircraft, there was evidence that most of the covert U-2 technologies had survived the crash. From this Khrushchev was able to openly embarrass the Eisenhower administration by exposing the attempted cover-up.
Khrushchev still attempted to allow Eisenhower to save face, and possibly to salvage the peace summit to some degree, by specifically laying the blame not on Eisenhower himself, but on Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles and the CIA: Khrushchev said that anyone wishing to understand the U-2's mission should "seek a reply from Allen Dulles, at whose instructions the American aircraft flew over the Soviet Union". On 9 May, the Soviet premier told US ambassador Thompson that he "could not help but suspect that someone had launched this operation with the deliberate intent of spoiling the summit meeting". Thompson also wrote in his diplomatic cable that Khrushchev suspected it was Allen Dulles, and that Khrushchev had heard about Senator Mansfield's remarks that Eisenhower did not control his own administration.
Upon receiving this cable, Eisenhower, who frequently was very animated, was quiet and depressed. The only words he said to his secretary were, "I would like to resign." Meanwhile, the domestic pressure continued to mount. Eisenhower then accepted Dulles's argument that the congressional leadership needed to be briefed on the U-2 missions from the last four years. Dulles told the legislature that all U-2 flights were used for aerial espionage and had been flown pursuant