The U2 Spy Plane shot down over Russia. The Francis Gary Powers Cold War affair. Original reportage.
Francis Gary Powers was born to Oliver and Ida Powers on August 17, 1929, in Burdine, Kentucky, and raised in Pound, Virginia, during the Great Depression. He graduated from Grundy High School, Virginia in 1946 and four years later graduated from Milligan College, Tennessee; he then enlisted as an Aviation Cadet, USAF.
Powers received his wings and commission in December 1952 and flew F84s until he was recruited in May 1956 to become a civilian U2 pilot for the CIA. He began highaltitude surveillance and overflights of the USSR in 1956, which provided vital intelligence photographs of Russian military activity to the Eisenhower administration. On May 1, 1960, Powers was shot down over Sverdlovsk, USSR, by a newly developed SA2 missile. Powers was captured, sentenced, and held prisoner until his exchange on February 10, 1962, for Russian spy Colonel Rudolph Abel. Although Captain Powers was criticized at the time (some believed he should have died rather than allowed himself to be captured), 1998 declassified documents show that he followed orders by maintaining a cooperative attitude, gave out no secret information, and refused to denounce the United States of America. As a result, Russian intelligence gained no vital information from him.
As depicted in Steven Spielberg’s 2015 movie “Bridge of Spies,” Powers was exchanged for Soviet Spy Colonel Rudolph Abel on February 10, 1962. Following his return to the United States, he was extensively debriefed and cleared by the CIA and shown "to be a fine young man performing well under dangerous circumstances" by the Senate Select Committee assembled to investigate the U2 Incident. Within months of his return home, his marriage fell apart, and he divorced his first wife. In October 1963, he married Claudia "Sue" Edwards. Powers flew for Lockheed as a U2 test pilot from 1963 until early 1970. In 1970, he published his book, "Operation Overflight," which detailed his account of the U2 Incident. From 1972 to 1977, he flew for radio and television stations in Los Angeles, doing onair weather, news, and traffic reports. He was killed in a helicopter crash on August 1, 1977, in Los Angeles, California, while working for KNBC News. Powers is the father of Dee Powers and Francis Gary Powers, Jr. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

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