U-2 incident

U-2 incident in U.S. and Soviet history, the events following the Soviet downing of an American U-2 high altitude reconnaissance aircraft over Soviet territory on May 1, 1960. The incident led to the collapse of a proposed summit conference between the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France in Paris. President Eisenhower's initial claim that he had no knowledge of such flights was difficult to maintain when the Soviets produced the pilot, Francis Gary Powers, who had survived the crash. Eisenhower met Khrushchev's demand for an apology by suspending U-2 flights, but the Soviet Premier was not satisfied and the summit was canceled. Powers was sentenced to ten years in prison, but was released in 1962 in exchange for convicted Soviet spy Rudolph Abel.

Bibliography: See M. R. Beschloss, Mayday (1986).

U-2 incident the shooting down of a U.S. spy plane (named U-2) in the first week of May, 1960. The plane, flown by Gary Powers, had departed from Peshawar, Pakistan on May 1st, bound for Bodo, Norway, where it never arrived. The Soviet government revealed that it had been shot down. The United States initially denied that it was on an intelligence mission, but later owned up and accepted responsibility, without apologizing. The tensions that the incident created led to Nikita Khrushchev refusing to attend an already scheduled summit between the two countries, and diminished the standing of President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the waning days of his administration.

U-2 Incident On 1 May 1960 a US high-altitude Lockheed U-2 spy plane was shot down by Soviet forces over Soviet territory, and its pilot Gary Powers taken prisoner. It worsened already tense relations between the USSR and the USA at a time when the cold war was at its peak. The USA has been careful to assert that no subsequent flights over the USSR took place. Powers was exchanged for a Soviet spy in February 1962.

Eisenhower, Dwight David