U2 Spy plane shot down over Russia


I can just remember this happening and following events with great interest in the newspaper. The names and events have stuck with me.
    Powers on trial

On May 1, a U.S. U - 2 unarmed reconnaissance plane, piloted by Francis Gary Powers who was employed by the Central Intelligence Agency, was shot down by Soviet military authorities 1,200 miles inside the Soviet Union near Sverdlovsk. In the following days, Nikita Khrushchev exploited the incident to sabotage the summit meeting between the Heads of Government of the United States, Soviet Union, France, and the United Kingdom, which began in Paris on May 16.

In a long speech to the Supreme Soviet in Moscow on May 5, Khrushchev referred to an overflight by a U.S. plane on April 9 as an "aggressive act," and then announced that a U.S. spy plane had been shot down deep in Soviet territory on May 1. Soviet authorities, he continued, determined that the plane crossed into the Soviet Union from Turkey, Iran, or Pakistan.

Despite this warning that the pilot might be alive and subject to Soviet interrogation, the Eisenhower administration had already decided to continue with at denial of the incident.

On May 6, Pravda published an account of how the Soviet military shot down the reconnaissance aircraft. In another long speech to the Supreme Soviet on the next day, May 7, Khrushchev said, among other things, that the pilot was alive and that Soviet authorities had recovered parts of the airplane. He also displayed samples of the developed film allegedly taken by camera equipment installed on the plane and charged that Powers had flown out of Peshawar airfield in Pakistan, which was correct, and not out of Turkey, and his landing destination was Bodo airfield in Norway.

In response to this speech, the Department of State issued a statement on May 7 admitting that while the inquiry ordered by the President established that "insofar as the authorities in Washington are concerned there was no authorization for any such flight as described by Mr. Khrushchev," such a flight over the Soviet Union to gather information was probably undertaken, and it justified such activities as necessary "given the state of the world today" and the Soviet Government's rejection of the President's "open skies" proposal in 1955.

Powers was tried and convicted of espionage by the Military Division of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R. For the Soviet announcement of criminal proceedings, indictment, composition of the court, a transcript of the trial August 17 - 19, and the verdict that sentenced Powers to 10 years of confinement.