Operation Overflight

by Francis Gary Powers

  If the Russians thought we had made ten overflights, and we had actually made more, we possessed an advantage.

  If they thought we had made ten, and we had actually made fewer, the advantage was still ours.

  The same was true if the number were a hundred or a thousand.

  It was possible they had radar-tracked all of the overflights. But I couldn’t risk making that assumption.

  Repeating “I don’t know” so often probably made me seem stupid, uncurious, unobserving.

  For once I was quite happy to give that impression.

  Yet one lie, exposed, could bring down the while structure.

  Even worse was the realization that, once it was discovered, they might not even bother to confront me with it.

  That the walk might not be to the interrogation room but to some soundproof courtyard.

  No, it was not a game.

  Four

  With the crossing off of May 7, I finished my first week in Lubyanka Prison. By now the days had developed into a routine, some of the strangeness had worn off, and I began to observe things missed earlier.

  If the wind was right, I could hear the Kremlin clock strike six A.M.. This was also the time the night light went off, the day light came on, and I was to get up.

  Hot tea was followed by a trip to the toilet, then breakfast.

  Several times I tried to eat. I would pick up the food, taste it, and put it down. I did drink the tea, however—hot in the morning, cold the rest of the day.

  As utensils I was given a fork and spoon but, for obvious reasons, no knife.

  After breakfast a doctor or nurse would arrive. Did I realize I had eaten nothing for a whole week? Yes. Was it because I didn’t like the food? No, I just had no appetite. This quite obviously worried my captors. They were anxious that I not ruin my health.

  At least not yet.

  Without access to a scale I couldn’t tell how much weight I had lost, but it was a good amount, since I had to knot my pants at the waist to keep them up. I was far more worried about my heart. It would beat irregularly, all at once stop, then a big beat, and back into sequence again.

  It was ironic. I was convinced that sooner or later they were going to shoot me. At the same time, I was worried about an irregular heartbeat, which might take me off flying status.

  After the doctors left I would be allowed to shave. There was an electrical outlet outside the cell. The guard would plug in the electric razor, hand it to me, then stand in the door watching until I was through. Without a mirror I had to learn to do it through feel.

  Then I would be escorted to the morning interrogation.

  I never saw another prisoner. Elaborate precautions had been taken to ensure that there were no chance encounters. The elevator cage was just one such precaution. In each of the halls, in both the prison and the administration building, was a series of three lights—white, green, red. The white light was strictly for illumination, since it was on all the time. The green light indicated the passageway was clear. When the red light was on, however, it meant another prisoner was being escorted down the hall. Whenever this happened, I was quickly placed in an empty cell until after they had passed.

  Occasionally, en route or returning, I’d pass a cell whose door was open, indicating its occupant had been taken out. Looking inside, I could see clothing, the kettle on the table, books on the shelves. For some reason all the beds looked more comfortable than mine.

  Morning interrogation always began the same way. I was asked to initial each page of the interrogation record of the previous day.

  But they’re in Russian, I argued, and I can’t read Russian.

  That does not matter. It is required.

  Finally, seeing my argument was without effect, I gave in, at the same time pointing out that with no knowledge of the language it was a ridiculous, meaningless procedure, certifying nothing.

  That might be. But it was required.

  They were incredibly bureaucratic. Many things were done not because of necessity but because these were the rules. And they were not about to question them. Even if they made no sense.

  After the first several days there had been a welcome addition to the routine. Following lunch I would be taken up onto the roof for about fifteen minutes of exercise.

  The roof, which I estimated was on about the twelfth floor of the prison, five stories above my cell, was divided into tiny courtyards about fifteen by twenty feet each. High walls separated them.

  Atop the walls a lone guard patrolled with a submachine gun.

  The adjacent administration building was three or four stories taller than the prison. From the antennae on the roof, I guessed the upper floors to be the KGB’s communication center. Sometimes I’d see people standing in the windows looking out.

  One thing struck me as unusual. Along the side of the building, workers were scraping paint off the storm gutters. Although it was a high building and the work looked very dangerous, all were women.

  It reminded me a little of the old WPA. No one seemed in any great hurry to get the job done—a typical government project.

  Up here, where I could see the open sky, my thoughts were often on escape. Yet the more I thought about it, the more hopeless it seemed. The walls were too high to climb. The guard and his submachine gun remained well out of reach.

  Occasionally, although talking was forbidden, the guard would speak to someone in one of the other courtyards. The replies were always in Russian, never English. Were there any other Americans here? I wondered. And if there were, how could I get a message to them? I’d already ruled out one possibility—leaving a note. The guard would spot it.

  There were two things in my courtyard that especially interested me.

  The walls were covered with tin. One rusty piece was loose. Each time I came up, I checked to make sure it was still there. If things got really bad, I intended to wait until the guard was looking the other way, then break it off. Since I was searched after each walk, getting it to my cell would be a problem. I had noticed, however, that during the searches the guards were frequently lax, not bothering to make me take off my shoes.

  I’d have to wait until the same day I intended to use it because my cell was searched also. One morning I’d arranged my paper and pencil in such a way as to tell if they had been moved during my absence. They had. Apparently they were interested in learning what I was writing, and must have been disappointed to find only doodling and a calendar.

  I’d asked for permission to write letters. It had been denied.

  The other thing in my walk area which interested me greatly was my “garden.” The prison was an old building. Over the years thousands of feet had paced these courtyards, wearing down the cement, leaving dirt in the cracks between the slabs. Carried by the wind, seeds had lodged in the crevices and, now that it was spring, had sprouted and begun to grow into weeds. After a rain the water would accumulate in little puddles. The problem was getting it to my garden. Then I devised a technique. I’d stand in the puddles until the soles of my shoes were wet, then flip the water on the weeds as I walked by.

  Each day I’d watch their growth. When several days passed with no rain, I’d become very despondent, afraid they were dying.

  Occasionally, rather than taking the elevator, the guard would walk me back down the stairs from the roof. It was this way I discovered that most of the prison was not in use: there were guards on only a few of the floors.

  There was one other break from routine. Every five days I would be allowed to take a shower, and issued clean underwear and socks.

  The water was scalding hot. I luxuriated in it, remaining until the guard ordered me out. The soap was of the homemade variety, like the kind my grandmother used to make on the farm.

  The first time I was taken to the shower room, the guard had pointed to a large tub. It was filled with something greenish-brown and slimy. Not understanding what he meant, I had ignored it, but later asked the interpreter what it was. He
roared with laughter, as did the others when he translated my question.

  It was seaweed, he explained. Russians used it as a washcloth.

  I tried it once; it was slimy, and thereafter I decided to forgo this particular native custom.

  Afternoon interrogation; supper; toilet; evening interrogation, toilet; than I was alone and could read. The mysteries were American paperbacks, by Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, Rex Stout, and others. I’d finish one each night; then, when I had gone through all, I would go back and read them over again. And again.

  I owe those authors my sanity.

  At ten P.M. the light in the ceiling went out and the light over the door came on. There was no attempt to regulate my activities within the cell. Often I’d read until the streets were silent and I could hear the Kremlin clock.

  Thus were my days and nights spent.

  Hour after hour, session after session, the interrogations continued. As the experts studied the wreckage, there were new questions. Usually, however, they were the same old ones, rephrased, approached from a different direction, in an attempt to catch me off guard, or simply repeated, over and over:

  “Your identification says you work for the Air Force. Your maps are stamped ’Confidential: U.S. Air Force.’” Among the items in my survival pack was a set of maps of the Soviet Union. Originally stamped “Confidential” and “U.S. Air Force,” someone had thoughtfully scissored out these identifying marks. Someone else, however, had apparently stuck another set in the cockpit, identical to the first, but with the marks left on them.

  They’d go on: “You were flying an Air Force aircraft: half the parts are labeled ’Department of Defense.’ You took off from an Air Force base. Your detachment commander was an Air Force colonel. Why do you continue to maintain that you are a civilian?”

  If I wanted to stop the interrogation and think a bit, I would ask them a question about the Soviet Union. They would usually take time to answer it. And often such questions led to inquiries about the United States.

  Mostly these were easy to answer, and bought me more time. Occasionally, however, a question would stop me cold. One such was: “What is the difference between the Democratic and Republican parties?”

  I had to confess that I didn’t know the answer, that it stumped even the political scientists.

  As other delaying tactics, I could request a glass of water or ask to be taken to the toilet. Realizing that they could interpret these interruptions to mean that I was avoiding answering a question, I used them sparingly, not to avoid a particularly bothersome query but when I was concerned about the direction in which a line of questioning was heading.

  Occasionally they came close to extremely sensitive subjects, then veered away.

  Often I led them off. I was surprised how easy it was to change the subject. The safest way was to begin talking about something related and interesting. Usually they would get back to the original topic, but often it would be a day or two later, after they had had time to reread the interrogation records.

  But what amazed me most were the questions never asked. For example, although they knew I had been assigned to the Strategic Air Command, it never seemed to occur to them I might have had training in the use of atomic weapons.

  I had worried about this question, trying to foresee ways they might trap me into an unintentional admission. Instead, it never came up, while some areas even touchier were passed over quite casually.

  In many ways their thinking was highly parochial. I was never asked, for example, about U-2 flights over Communist China, Albania, or other Eastern European countries. Had I been, I could have answered, quite honestly, that I had no personal knowledge of such flights. But that they never asked was indicative of their singlemindedness. And on these and other areas, I wasn’t interested in expanding their horizons.

  One session, they brought in an American road map and asked me to point to Watertown. They already knew its location, they warned me. They just wanted to see if I was telling the truth.

  I pointed to a spot in the desert, neglecting to mention that the map was of Arizona, not Nevada.

  Such slips on their part made me question seriously the quality of their intelligence.

  Perhaps they intended it that way. But I think not. It was to their advantage to have me believe them omnipotent.

  Thinking this over, I began to wonder if we weren’t greatly overrating their espionage skills.

  As the interrogation continued, this conviction grew.

  We had presumed the Russians knew a great deal about the U-2 program. Our intelligence officers had assured us that they probably not only had spies who noted every time we took off and landed, but that the KGB might well have a file on each of the pilots.

  “They probably know more about you than you know about yourself,” was one comment I recalled.

  In attempting to get me to reveal the names of the other pilots, they had claimed already to know them. Yet the one thing that would have convinced me—the mention of a single name other than mine—was never tried. Which convinced me they didn’t know.

  Overrating an enemy can be just as serious an error as underrating him. Because I had been led to believe that the Russians knew more about us than they probably did, I undoubtedly told them things they didn’t know, gave them information which, had we been realistic as to their capabilities, need never have been mentioned.

  In retrospect, I regret most having named Colonel Shelton. Not because the information mattered one way or the other to the Russians, but because following the release of the news, he was transferred to an obscure duty assignment at a base in upper Michigan.

  That what I told the Russians was a great deal less than I had been told to tell them, and that I withheld the most important information in my possession, was not the point. We should have known better.

  From an intelligence standpoint, this was another bad mistake.

  I’d known the moment was coming. But I had hoped it could be postponed just a little longer.

  “Our technical experts have been studying the radar plots of your flight. And they have some questions about your altitude.”

  It was obvious they had already been given considerable study. Someone had even transposed my coordinates onto a map. Looking at it, I felt a flicker of encouragement. They had me off course far more often than I actually was.

  But it was the height-finding radar that most worried me.

  All the measurements were in meters. Nervously I waited as they translated them into feet.

  As they read the figures, I began to disbelieve them. Surely this was some cruel hoax, designed to throw me off guard. No one could be so lucky. Not only was their height-finding radar off—the figures were up, down, above, below—but some were actually at sixty-eight thousand feet!

  It took a tremendous effort to hide my relief. This part of my story had been verified and proven true by their own evidence.

  And it was a lie!

  Reading, I would see the words, follow the lines, turn the pages. But my thoughts were elsewhere.

  If I hadn’t made the flight that day, what would I be doing now?

  Probably drinking an icy cold drink rather than lying here imagining one.

  But this was no good, I knew. Because if I hadn’t made it, someone else would have. And there were none of my friends on whom I would wish this.

  For a few more minutes I’d read, really concentrating on the words. Then a wave of depression would sweep over me. And I’d again think the forbidden thoughts, the ones I tried so hard to avoid.

  Like imagining what Barbara was doing now.

  Or, subtracting eight hours, picturing what was happening at home in Virginia.

  Or, worse, I would visualize the base, and see a pilot, someone I knew, being awakened by the message center and getting ready to report to Prebreathing to prepare for a flight. Unaware that the Russians now had missile capability.

  Convincing the Russians that the U-2s flew at sixt
y-eight thousand feet wasn’t enough, I realized. It might save someone from flying into a preset trap. But I had been shot down, and I had been at my assigned altitude.

  Some way I had to get word back to the agency that Russia did have a rocket capable of reaching us.

  From what I had been taught about brainwashing, I had anticipated certain things: I would be lectured about Communism, given only propaganda to read. Food would be doled out on a reward-punishment basis: if I cooperated, I would be fed; if I didn’t, I wouldn’t. Interrogation would be at odd hours, under bright lights. No sooner would I fall asleep than I would be awakened, and it would start all over again, until eventually I lost all track of time, place, identity. And I would be tortured and beaten until, finally, I would beg for the privilege of being allowed to confess to any crime they desired.

  None of this had happened. And yet, more than anything else, the loneliness began to get to me. When in the cell. Even in the interrogation room, surrounded by people.

  Later, after having asked some questions about Communism as a stalling tactic during an interrogation, I was given a book on the subject. It was a Penguin paperback, published in England, and written by a British M.P.

  One day in the midst of questioning I suddenly interrupted myself in mid-sentence and said, “Why should I talk to you? You’re going to kill me anyway. Why should I bother answering your questions, when, as soon as you have everything you want, you’re going to take me out and shoot me? Why should I even open my mouth when there’s no way out of this for me?”

  “There may be a way,” one of the majors said.

  “If there is, I can’t see it,” I replied. “As far as I can see, my situation is hopeless.”

  “There may be a way.”

  “Then tell me what it is!”

  “You just think about it.”

  “I have, for hours at a time. And I can’t see any way out except death.”