Operation Overflight

by Francis Gary Powers

  Q. Were you tortured?

  A. No.

  Q. How did the interrogation authorities treat you?

  A. I have been treated very nicely.

  Compared to what I had expected, this was quite true.

  It was then established that the U-2 shown to me in Gorky Park was the same one I had flown from Peshawar, though, as I noted, not in exactly the same condition. From here Rudenko went back in time to the particulars of my contract with the CIA, such as my pay and duties.

  A. I was told that my main duties would be to fly along the Soviet border and collect any radar or radio information. I was also told there would possibly be other duties.

  Q. Did you sign the contract?

  A. Yes.

  Q. Who signed on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency?

  Finally!

  A. I don’t exactly remember, but it was a Mr. Collins. I think he signed in my presence, but there were others who signed it too.

  “Collins” hadn’t signed it. But this was the only way I had found thus far to get his “name” in.

  Rudenko then attempted to get me to admit that I knew I would be making overflights when I signed the contract. Failing in this, he moved on to Incirlik and Detachment 10-10. And again the attempt to make the operation military:

  Q. What were the purpose and aims of the detachment in which the defendant was assigned?

  A. In general, to gather information along the borders of the Soviet Union. We likewise conducted weather-research reconnaissance to determine radioactivity.

  Q. Who was immediately in charge of the 10-10 detachment?

  A. The immediate supervision over the 10-10 detachment was under a military commander, but to whom he was responsible, I did not know.

  Q. But it was a military commander?

  A. The head of the detachment was a military man.

  Q. I understand.

  A. But the bulk of the detachment were civilians.

  Rudenko didn’t appreciate the qualification.

  Who were some of the visitors to the base? he asked. I repeated the names I had given in interrogation.

  Q. So Cardinal Spellman interested himself in military bases?

  A. I would say that he was interested in military personnel, not bases.

  Q. Would Cardinal Spellman give his blessings to persons engaged in spy operations?

  A. He was a well-known church figure. I think he wouldn’t think so much of what a person does as what he is.

  Following a long series of questions which established that although I carried NASA identification I had no actual relationship to that agency, the presiding judge announced, “We will take a recess until the afternoon session.”

  From the hall I was taken to a comfortably furnished anteroom. There was a couch, permitting me to lie down if I cared to. And lunch included the first fresh fruit I had seen since my arrival in Russia—bananas and a piece of watermelon.

  Next to my chair was a news magazine called New Time. Published in English in Moscow, it was an obvious imitation of the American Time. I was leafing through it, hopeful of picking up some outside news, when one of the guards, through the interpreter, ordered me to put it down.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because,” he explained, “reading while eating is bad for the digestion.”

  The irony of his concern gave me my first laugh of the day.

  But it was momentary. My depression intensified. The first session had begun at ten A.M. and lasted nearly four hours, the major part of which I had been on the stand. The emotional strain weighed greater than at any time since my capture. Several times I had been on the verge of screaming: I’m guilty! Sentence me to death and end this farce!

  I hadn’t expected a showcase trial. In a sense, my replies didn’t even matter. I was present merely as a symbol. And they were using that symbol to embarrass the United States, to put it on trial by proxy in the court of world opinion. I wanted no part of it. I wanted to bring the trial to an end, get it over with.

  When taken outside after lunch, I got my chance.

  Seated on a bench in the sun, the guards alongside and behind me, I saw in front of us an empty parking lot, beyond that the open street.

  For the first time since my capture there was an opportunity for escape.

  The longer I sat there, the more appealing the idea became. It had been years since my college track days, yet, looking at my musclebound guards, I knew I could outrun them.

  Would they try to shoot me? Probably. Yet that would be an escape too, an end to the trial. And it was just possible, considering the propaganda use to which the trial was being put, they would hesitate, fearing what their superiors would say. And that hesitation, brief though it might be, would be all I’d need for a head start.

  I had no plans as to what I would do on reaching the open street. But that wasn’t important. What was important was that after more than one hundred days of captivity I had an opportunity.

  I tensed my legs, learned forward slightly.

  A guard put his heavy hand on my shoulder. Time to go back in.

  I was surrounded again. I’d waited too long, and lost my chance.

  With the start of the second session, at four P.M., Rudenko resumed his questioning.

  It was a stacked deck. Rudenko, holding all the cards, was dealing them out one by one.

  He concentrated now on my surveillance flights along the border.

  Had I been in an American court, with an American attorney, he would have immediately objected to such questions as irrelevant and prejudicial, since they bore no connection to the charge against me.

  But Grinev said nothing. He had yet to make a single objection. He too was a symbol, his presence giving the appearance of my being represented by counsel. Thus far, where my defense was concerned, he might as well have stayed home.

  Rudenko then switched to my earlier use of Peshawar, Giebelstadt, Wiesbaden, and Bodö. He was building up to something, I felt, but I couldn’t discern what, when suddenly, without warning, he announced he had no further questions at this time.

  It was now Grinev’s turn.

  When my parents had consulted with him prior to the trial, they were accompanied by Carl McAfee, a lawyer whose office was located above my father’s shoe-repair shop in Norton, Virginia. McAfee had prepared a set of photographs of my parents’ home and The Pound, to show the poverty of the area and, hopefully, gain the sympathy of the court. After introducing these into evidence, Grinev began his questioning, establishing that I came from a working-class family: that my parents were poor, my father not a capitalist, that is, did not employ any labor in his shoe shop but did all the work himself; and that the money offered me by the CIA was the most I had ever received, and had enabled me to pay my debts and live in relative prosperity for the first time in my life.

  Further questions brought out that I was not political, had never even voted in a U.S. election, knew very little about the Soviet Union except for what I had read in the American press.

  I could see what he was trying to do. Though not at all sure this was the best possible defense, it was the only one I had, and, like it or not, I had no choice but to go along with it.

  In our brief preparatory sessions, however, I had insisted that certain matters be included in my defense. Though Grinev seemed less convinced than I that they were important, he went into them now.

  Q. Was the flight of May 1 your only flight over Soviet territory?

  A. Yes, it was the only flight.

  Q. Were you consulted about the program of spy flights over the Soviet Union?

  A. No, I knew of no such program.

  Q. Were you acquainted with the special apparatus on the plane?

  A. No, I have never seen any of the special equipment loaded or unloaded. It was never done in my presence. My knowledge of the special equipment was to follow instructions on my map.

  Q. Did you know any of the results of your reconnaissance flights? />
  A. I was never informed of the results of my missions and did not know whether the equipment worked properly, except as indicated by signal lights in the cockpit.

  At the interrogations I had admitted some hesitation when it came to renewing my CIA contract. I hadn’t given the reasons, which were strictly personal, but had let my interrogators assume I found the job too nerve-racking and exhausting.

  Grinev now asked me: Q. Were you sorry you renewed your contract?

  A. Well, the reasons are hard to explain.

  Q. Why are you sorry now?

  A. Well, the situation I am in now is not too good. I haven’t heard much about the news of the world since I have been here, but I understand that as a direct result of my flight, the Summit Conference did not take place and President Eisenhower’s visit was called off. There was, I suppose, a great increase in tension in the world, and I am sincerely sorry I had anything to do with this.

  And I was.

  One by one Grinev was establishing the mitigating circumstances.

  Q. Did you resist detention or did you contemplate resisting?

  A. No, I did not.

  Q. Have all your statements till now been truthful?

  A. Yes, it is impossible to deny what I have done. Once in a while I will change my mind in some little details on this or that question.

  Complete cooperation.

  And, again, sincere repentance.

  Q. What is your present attitude toward work in the CIA, and do you now understand the danger the flight entailed?

  A. I understand a lot more now than I did before. At first I hesitated as to whether I should renew the contract. I did not want to sign. If I had a job, I would have refused to sign, now that I know some of the circumstances of my flight, though I don’t know all of them, by any means. But as indicated a few moments ago, I am profoundly sorry I had any part in it.

  DEFENSE COUNSEL GRINEV: I have no more questions for today.

  PRESIDING JUDGE: The court will adjourn until ten A.M. tomorrow, the eighteenth of August.

  Like a well-coordinated team, my so-called “defense counsel” and the judge had arranged for this to be the last question. Now the headlines for the first day of the trial could read: POWERS “PROFOUNDLY SORRY” HE HAD ANY PART IN SPY FLIGHT.

  Eight

  Prior to the conclusion of the trial’s first day I had given Grinev messages for my family. I told him to tell Barbara that I was anxious for the trial to end so I could see her. I thanked my parents for the birthday present of the handkerchiefs; kidded my father about his natty bow tie—the first time I had seen him wearing one; and asked that my mother not attend the second day, but remain in her hotel room and rest.

  As I was escorted back into the dock next morning, I noticed she wasn’t present. Despite my instructions, this worried me. Maybe she was really sick and no one had told me. But then I saw my sister Jessica in her place. I hadn’t realized she also had made the trip to Moscow. I knew that if she was here, my mother was all right; otherwise Jessica would have been with her. Her presence would, I knew, make the ordeal much easier for my parents, as she had a way of teasing that put them at ease.

  These concerns out of the way, I had to concentrate on my own fate.

  The session began promptly at ten A.M. Grinev asked half a dozen more questions, then turned me over to Rudenko for reexamination.

  This time there was no question what he was attempting to establish.

  Q. When you took off from Peshawar on May 1 for your flight, what countries did you fly over?

  A. A part of Pakistan, a small part of Afghanistan—I do not know how much—and the Soviet Union.

  Q. In other words, you violated the airspace of Afghanistan?

  A. If there were no permission obtained by the authorities, then I did.

  Q. No Afghan authorities gave you their permission?

  A. They did not give me permission personally.

  Q. Your superior officers did not say anything?

  A. No.

  Q. You thereby violated the sovereignty of the neutral state of Afghanistan?

  A. If no permission was given to my detachment, then yes.

  Q. But did your detachment ever get any permission to make flights along the borders of the Soviet Union?

  A. I have no idea.

  Still not a single objection from Grinev, though the introduction of such evidence was damning.

  During the interrogations I had felt safe in mentioning the bordersurveillance flights. Presuming there was nothing illegal about them, I had even emphasized them, to take attention off my “oneoverflight” story. Now I could see this had been a mistake. If no permission had been obtained from the countries overflown, these flights were also illegal. And this being the case, I was not a “first-time offender,” but a man guilty of a number of previous “crimes.”

  The dialogue immediately following was ridiculous enough to bring laughter from the spectators. But it was important to Rudenko’s case.

  Q. And did your detachment ever get any permission to make penetration flights over Soviet territory?

  A. I would assume not.

  Q. You assume. Perhaps you can tell us something more definite?

  A. If any permission would have been obtained, it would have concerned higher authorities, and I would not have known anything about it.

  Q. If there would have been such permission, you obviously would not be in the prisoner’s box today.

  A. That is why I assume we had no such permission.

  Again Rudenko established my altitude as sixty-eight thousand feet, then asked, “It was at that altitude that you were struck down by a Soviet rocket?”

  A. It was at that altitude that I was struck down by something.

  Q. You say you were struck down by something?

  A. I had no idea what it was. I didn’t see it.

  Q. But it was at that altitude?

  A. Yes.

  The report of a Major Voronov, said to have been in charge of the rocket crew, was read. According to the report, “As the plane entered the firing range at an altitude of over twenty thousand meters, one rocket was fired and its explosion destroyed the target.”

  Rudenko and I then reached a draw on the subject of my radio, his contention being that I didn’t use it because of fear of detection, mine because of its limited range.

  Then my maps got a going-over, the alternate routes through Finland, Sweden, and Norway drawing extra attention.

  With the mention of Bodö came a special pleasure, one of the few thus far, the “black flag.”

  Q. Before your flight on May 1, I960, Colonel Shelton handed you a piece of black cloth. For what purpose was this cloth?

  A. I don’t know. I was already in the airplane when I got it from Colonel Shelton. He ordered me to give this piece of black cloth to the representatives of the 10-10 detachment who were to meet me in Bodö.

  Q. In the event of your successful flight over the Soviet Union?

  A. At that time he thought it would be successful.

  Q. This was your point of destination, and you were to have been met by representatives of the 10-10 detachment?

  A. Yes.

  Q. And you were to have handed them this piece of black cloth which was given to you by Shelton before your flight to the USSR?

  A. Yes.

  Q. In other words, this cloth was something in the nature of a password?

  A. I have no idea.

  Q. But what do you think?

  Thus far I had resisted the temptation to get smart with Rudenko, knowing it could be held against me. But he had led himself up this blind alley.

  A. I did not think I would need a password; the plane itself was proof who I was.

  Q. The plane itself and Powers himself. But why this piece of cloth?

  A. I don’t know. This was the only instruction I received on this. Plainly exasperated, Rudenko said, “Let’s leave this subject.”

  Unimportant though it seem
ed, this exchange marked a turning point. Realizing that I could occasionally shake up Rudenko, I was no longer completely on the defensive. From now on I was determined to make him work doubly hard for his answers.

  He immediately stumbled into another thicket, with the duplicate maps.

  As noted earlier, I had been given a set of survival maps, which, in the event I went down, were to enable me to find the borders of the USSR. These had originally been stamped “Confidential” and “U.S. Air Force,” but someone had thoughtfully scissored out the words. Someone else, however, had stuck a second set in the plane, words still intact. A typical service snafu. But Rudenko was incapable of seeing that. He had to provide an explanation.

  Q. This is quite clear, Defendant Powers. The two maps with these identifications cut out were in your possession and were to assist you, as you said, in getting out of the Soviet Union, but the other two maps were in the plane which you were to have destroyed on the orders of your masters.

  That the explanation was nonsensical did not seem to occur to him. Apparently I had brought along an extra set of maps just so I could destroy them.

  We came now to the watches and gold coins: Q. All these things were for bribing Soviet people?

  A. It was to help me in any way to get out of the Soviet Union.

  Q. I ask, for bribery?

  A. If I could have done it, I would have resorted to bribing. If I could have bought food with the money, I would have bought it, for I would have had to make a fourteen-hundred-mile walk. In other words, the money and valuables were to be used in any way to aid myself.

  Q. But you, of course, found that you were unable to use the money for bribing Soviet citizens. The very first Soviet citizens whom you met disarmed you and handed you over to the authorities.

  A. I didn’t try to bribe them.

  Rudenko had no further questions. I was not finished testifying, however. It was now the turn of the presiding judge to examine me. I was getting a course in Soviet courtroom procedure, one which I could very well have done without.

  PRESIDING JUDGE VIKTOR V. BORISOGLEBSKY: Defendant Powers, I ask you to answer my questions. What was the main objective of your flight on May 1?

  A. As it was told to me, I was to follow the route and turn switches on and off as indicated on the map.