Operation Overflight

by Francis Gary Powers

  Both Secretary of State Herter and Vice-President Nixon had stated publicly that the flights over Russia would continue.

  To me this was the most incredible thing of all. They now knew I had been shot down, that Russia did indeed have missile capability, yet other pilots were to be sent on overflights anyway!

  I was still reacting from the shock of this, when, on May 16, I received some news more current.

  The Summit talks had collapsed. And I was responsible.

  Lacking a meeting point on the Berlin question, no one had anticipated much from the Summit. But there had been a slim chance something would come of it, that the world might move just a little bit closer to peace.

  That I was responsible for destroying this possibility shook me, hard. It still does.

  With this revelation, the Iron Curtain again descended. Whatever was happening beyond the borders of my very small world, I wasn’t told about.

  But I had been left with more than enough to think of.

  Although greatly depressed by the news, at least one portion of it was encouraging. I now knew that by May 7, the day on which Khrushchev announced my capture and details of my flight, my interrogators had bought my story, believed I was telling the truth, even to altitude, Khrushchev’s use of twenty thousand meters being the closest approximation to the sixty-eight-thousand-feet figure I had used.

  From this alone the CIA should know I hadn’t told everything.

  The problem, however, was that the Iron Curtain worked both ways. It not only denied me knowledge of what was happening in the rest of the world; it also kept the agency from knowing exactly how much I had told the Russians.

  There were things I knew which, if revealed, would create a far greater incident than had taken place. That this hadn’t happened should indicate to them I was still withholding the most important information. Yet, in consideration of Khrushchev’s trap, they couldn’t be sure. Maybe I had told everything, with Khrushchev only awaiting a more opportune time to reveal it.

  There were at this moment, I was sure, some very nervous people in the United States government.

  There was no way I could set their fears at rest.

  On Sunday, May 22,1 awoke with a bad cold, so hoarse I could barely speak. Interrogation was canceled.

  It was my first day off after twenty-one days of questioning. Despite the cold, I thoroughly enjoyed the respite.

  I was treated with the sun lamp and given extra time on the roof. My weed garden was thriving. All day I was able to rest and read. On Sunday the head guard was off; the other guard and the old woman who brought the meals came into my cell and tried to converse with me. We managed only a few words, but that they even ventured such a thing was encouraging.

  Small pleasures all, but greatly appreciated.

  The next morning the interrogations resumed.

  Now, with a trial in the offing, there was a greater effort to shape my answers.

  They were determined to make me say I had been hit on the first shot—so insistent that I seriously doubted it was true.

  The granger also became a matter of dispute. Hadn’t my detachment commander assured me that it would break the radar lock on both air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles?

  No, only those fired by aircraft. Nothing had been said about SAMs.

  I could see what they were getting at. Here the Americans used their foremost scientific know-how to create an electronic device to thwart all our rockets—and their best still wasn’t good enough.

  I was not about to give them that satisfaction.

  Two other pieces of “equipment” also received an undue amount of attention.

  One was the destruct device. Why hadn’t I activated the switches? Why had I climbed out, rather than using the ejection seat? Had I been afraid the CIA had linked the destruct device to the ejectionseat mechanism to make it explode if I tried to use it?

  They returned to this so often it seemed less to get a positive answer than to plant the seed of doubt.

  And there was the pin. They had tested the poison on a dog. It had died in ninety seconds. Had I used it, the same thing would have happened to me. But it would have been a horrible minute and a half. Because, according to expert analysis, the poison caused paralysis of the respiratory system. Unable to breathe, the dog had suffocated. Since such a death would resemble death from lack of oxygen, had it occurred to me that this might have been the reason for the U.S. releasing the story of my having trouble with the oxygen equipment?

  It hadn’t occurred to me until they mentioned it. Then it made a certain amount of sense. But I wasn’t about to admit anything of the sort.

  One day they brought in the device, now devoid of poison. Had I noticed how poorly it was constructed? The sheath covering the needle, supposedly to make it look like an ordinary straight pin, didn’t even fit tightly against the head.

  Examining it, I had to agree. It was badly made. Given time and tools, I probably could have done a better job of it myself. Obviously it had been designed to be used, not closely examined. But these thoughts I kept to myself.

  Why had I disobeyed orders and failed to use the pin?

  I had never been given any such orders. On the contrary, I didn’t even have to carry it. The decision was mine alone. And, since carrying it was optional, use was optional too.

  They returned to this subject many, many times.

  “The story is now circulating in Washington, D.C., your capital, that you were not shot down at the altitude you mentioned to us, but that after either engine trouble or a flameout you descended to thirty thousand feet, where the rocket reached you.”

  That bothered me. If U.S. authorities really believed that, there would be no reason not to continue the overflights.

  “They also say they knew this because you radioed such information to your base.”

  Now that the news of my capture had been released, there was no need to withhold information as to whether I had or hadn’t used the radio. I told them I hadn’t, that it would not have transmitted that distance, that this was simply conjecture on someone’s part. I had encountered neither engine trouble nor flameout. During training I had experienced the latter, on several occasions, and there was no comparison. Nor had I descended to thirty thousand feet. Whatever happened to my plane had occurred at my assigned altitude.

  I had already convinced the Russians of this. Now, ironically, I was faced with the problem of convincing my own government.

  Unbeknownst to me, I had become a pawn in the missile-gap controversy then raging in the United States.

  “You will be permitted to write two letters, one to your wife, the other to your parents.” With this they gave me a fountain pen and several sheets of paper.

  The letters were extremely difficult to write. Not wanting my family to worry any more than they already had, I tried to be as cheerful as possible—emphasizing that I had been well treated, that I was taking walks, even sunbaths, that I had been given cigarettes and books to read—but found it impossible to eliminate the hopelessness I really felt.

  “Barbara, I don’t know what is going to happen to me. The investigation and interrogation is still going on. When that is over, there will be a trial. I will be tried in accordance with Article 2 of their criminal code for espionage. The article states that the punishment is seven to fifteen years’ imprisonment and death in some cases. Where I fit in, I don’t know. I don’t know when the trial will be, or anything. I only know that I don’t like the situation I am in or the situation I have placed you in… .

  “I was told today that I could write letters to you and my parents. That was good news. I was also told that there appeared in one of the U.S. papers a statement that my father had made that he would like to come here and see me. I was told that if the U.S. government would let any of you come that you would be allowed to see me. I would rather you waited until the trial or after so that I could tell you what the results were. But I will leave the decision of when to com
e up to you. …”

  The following day both letters were returned to me. Certain remarks were unacceptable and had been crossed out. Words had been changed, sentences and paragraphs transposed. I was to recopy both letters, as indicated, also wording them in such a way that it appeared I was alone in my cell while writing them.

  Since there was no pattern in the content of the deletions, this meant only one thing: they were watching for a code, and were using this method to frustrate it.

  Also, rewritten, the letters gave no indication of censorship.

  There was no need for such niceties when it came to the letters I received, toward mid-June. They were butchered. Not just single lines or paragraphs, but half-pages cut out. A code, as the Russians well realized, can work both ways.

  There was little in the way of encouraging news, except that both my wife and my parents wanted to come to Moscow, if they could get visas. My father had written to both Premier Khrushchev and President Eisenhower, asking them to help me. My mother urged me to be a good boy and read my Testament.

  A photo of her was enclosed. She was in bed, obviously ill.

  I could have done without that.

  From the moment I had been told I would be allowed to receive mail, I had anxiously awaited its arrival, asking each and every day if any letters had come.

  Now that they had, the loneliness became even more acute.

  Earlier, the evening interrogations had been discontinued. Now, as June passed and spring turned to summer, there were no more Sunday interrogations; then I was given Saturdays off too; and occasionally, without warning, there would be no questions for a whole morning or afternoon.

  I learned a new way to tell time. From the gap at the top of my cell window I could see two office windows across the courtyard. They were opened each weekday morning at nine, then closed each evening at six. On Saturdays they were opened at nine, closed at two. Sundays they remained closed all day. But on Sunday the streets outside the prison were quiet, and I could hear each hour as the Kremlin clock tolled the time.

  It hung very heavy.

  Often I’d wondered whether there were other Americans in Lubyanka. Maybe even as I took my walks there was someone in one of the adjoining courtyards, waiting for a signal.

  Desperate for communication of any kind, I hit upon a way to make my presence known. Although I was forbidden to speak, no one had said anything about whistling.

  As I walked, I’d whistle American songs.

  Finishing one, I’d listen for a reply.

  That there wasn’t one today didn’t mean there mightn’t be one tomorrow, or the day after.

  On June 30 I was informed that the investigation was officially completed. There would be no further interrogations.

  My first reaction was relief. After sixty-one days the questioning was finally over. Despite all their tricks, I had succeeded in keeping from them the most important things I knew.

  The self-congratulatory feeling lasted only until I was returned to my cell. Then I realized that except for reading and walks, there was no way to fill my days.

  Another realization followed. Now that the investigation was finished, I was that much closer to the trial. And whatever came after.

  Six

  On July 9 I had a visitor.

  Mikhail I. Grinev was a small, balding man in his early sixties, with horn-rimmed glasses and a wispy goatee. His English was so poor as to be nearly unintelligible—he had studied it in school, used it little since—but as interpreter he had brought along an English teacher from Moscow University.

  Grinev informed me that he was a member of the Moscow City Collegium of Lawyers and had been appointed my defense counsel.

  I had been hoping for a lawyer of my own choice, an American.

  Not permitted.

  For seventy days I had been held in solitary confinement. Except for a few heavily censored letters, no communication with the outside world had been allowed. Repeated requests to see a representative of my own government had been denied. Albeit involuntarily, I was learning a few of the differences between Soviet and American law. Grinev would teach me quite a few more.

  This was a courtesy visit, he explained. We could not actually start work on my defense until we received a copy of the indictment.

  When would that be?

  Sometime before the trial; the date was not yet set.

  I was curious to know whether the trial would be open to the public. My wife and parents had applied for visas; if granted, would they be allowed to attend?

  Grinev didn’t know, or so he said. I was to be tried before the military division of the Supreme Court of the USSR. Often in cases involving state security, as did mine, such trials were closed to the public. The military division, he went on to explain, consisted of three generals—Lieutenant General Borisoglebsky, chairman; Major General Vorobyev, of the Artillery; and Major General Zakharov, of the Air Force—who acted as judges.

  I was civilian, I noted, not military.

  That was not important, Grinev said. In the USSR all espionage cases came under jurisdiction of the military division of the court.

  Would there be a jury?

  There were no jury trials in Russia. I should realize, he added, I was being tried before the highest court in the land. And the procurator general himself, Roman Rudenko, would act as prosecutor. Remembering Rudenko from the interrogations, I wasn’t surprised at this.

  Procurator general, Grinev explained, was a position corresponding to that of Attorney General of the United States.

  The following background piece on Rudenko appeared in The New York Times on August 18, I960, the second day of the trial. Although I was not to read it until much later, it bears reprinting here for its insight into his character and motivations:

  “Traditionally, there is only one side of criminal law in the Soviet Union that offers the attorney opportunities for fame, stature, and high office. That is the right side, the prosecution side. It is the side that Roman Andreyevich Rudenko, meticulously and without ostentation, as traveled for thirty years. He revealed his traits again yesterday in prosecuting Francis Gary Powers, the American reconnaissance pilot. Mr. Rudenko appeared in court as chief prosecutor, not because he is an unusually brilliant lawyer or because he is a particularly striking performer in public, like the late Andrei Y. Vishinski. He apparently holds the office of prosecutor general because he has been a faithful and thorough executor of whatever law was decreed by his superiors in the worst days of Stalin as well as in the best days of Premier Khrushchev.

  “He has purged and he has purged the purgers. He has helped to concoct false confessions and fantastic indictments, and he has dealt affably and studiously before a tribunal run in the Anglo-Saxon manner.

  “He has stretched the law as ordered, to arrange secret and unconstitutional proceedings, and he has presided over efforts to reestablish the law against the former ’abuse.’”

  Reviewing his career, The New York Times characterized this adaptable man as “careful, capable, and colorless.”

  I had the distinct feeling that Grinev expected me to feel grateful for these honors. But he went on to add the liabilities. Since I was to be tried before a branch of the highest court, there could be no appeal of the sentence. While technically possible to appeal to the full bench of the Supreme Court, such requests were almost always refused. Of course, a personal appeal could be made to Premier Khrushchev or to President Brezhnev.

  It was interesting. I felt, that we were discussing appeals even before we got around to a defense.

  I was fortunate, Grinev continued. In 1958 Soviet criminal law had undergone a tremendous reform. Previously the penalty for espionage had been twenty-five years’ imprisonment, with death in some cases. Now maximum imprisonment was fifteen years.

  But still death in some cases?

  Yes, he admitted.

  Was this one of them? In short, what were my chances?

  He couldn’t tell me that, not unt
il after he had seen the indictment. Also, a great deal would depend on my testimony in court.

  We wouldn’t have to worry about that factor, I told him, because I didn’t plan to testify. Since there was no question of my guilt, my intention was to plead guilty and let the court sentence me.

  That was not the way the law worked in the Soviet Union, he explained. Even should I plead guilty, a trial would still follow, with the prosecution introducing its evidence. As for not testifying, the prosecution would simply read the transcripts of all my interrogations into the record.

  Also, my refusal to testify would be held against me.

  The explanation that followed was highly technical but boiled down to this: in the Soviet Union there was no such thing as the right to remain silent, no privilege against self-incrimination. They could not force me to testify. But if I didn’t, the judges could draw unfavorable inferences from my refusal. Too, this would show that I was uncooperative and did not feel sincere repentance. And these mitigating circumstances were my only chance to reduce the sentence.

  If I had no further questions, he would see me again when he received the indictment.

  I had one, though I suspected his presence was in itself the answer. Was he a member of the Communist party?

  He nodded affirmatively.

  I observed that in my particular circumstances, being both defended and tried by Communists, I could see no prospect of having a fair trial.

  On the contrary, he replied, the state guaranteed every accused person a defense. And it was his job to supply it.

  Escorted back to my cell, I thought about another important difference between American and Soviet law. In the United States there is a confidential relationship between attorney and client. You can tell your lawyer things you do not wish the prosecution to know, things instrumental in shaping your defense. In short, you can trust your attorney. I couldn’t trust mine.

  Perhaps it was fortunate that I did not learn, until much later, the track record of my so-called “defense counsel.”

  Mikhail I. Grinev specialized in losing important state cases. When Lavrenti Beria, head of Stalin’s secret police, was tried for treason, Grinev defended him. Beria was executed. In 1954 and 1956 Grinev defended twelve of Beria’s former secret-service officials following purges. All twelve were convicted; four were given stiff sentences, eight executed.