U‐2 Incident

U‐2 Incident (1960). On 1 May 1960, a U.S. spy plane—a U‐2—departed from Peshawar, Pakistan, on a reconnaissance mission over the Soviet Union. It never arrived at its destination—Bodo, Norway. On 6 May, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev announced that the aircraft had been shot down by a surface‐to‐air missile deep inside Soviet territory. Washington countered by saying that the aircraft was on a weather research mission when it strayed off course after the pilot's oxygen system failed. Khrushchev then revealed that the U‐2's film magazines had been recovered and that the pilot, Francis Gary Powers, was alive and in Soviet custody.

The incident created a sensation and threatened to scuttle the Soviet‐American summit conference scheduled to convene in Paris on 16 May. In a controversial move, President Dwight D. Eisenhower accepted responsibility for the flights rather than let the world believe that lower‐level functionaries had such authority. He also promised an end to the missions, but refused to apologize. The overflights, he asserted, had been necessary to safeguard American security. An angry Khrushchev refused to attend the summit conference.

The summit's cancellation was both a public humiliation and a personal blow to Eisenhower. He had hoped to make what would have been his final summit meeting a fitting capstone to his presidency by reaching agreement on a number of critical issues. The president even spoke of resigning, but soon changed his mind.

Powers was convicted of espionage by a Soviet court and sentenced to ten years' “deprivation of liberty,” the first three to be served in prison. He served less than two years before being exchanged in January 1962 for a Soviet agent in Western custody. He died in a helicopter crash in 1977.
[See also Cold War: External Course; Cold War: Domestic Course; Intelligence, Military and Political; U‐2 Spy Planes.]

Bibliography

Michael R. Beschloss , Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev, and the U‐2 Affair, 1986.

Vance O. Mitchell