Operation Overflight

by Francis Gary Powers

  Grinev was done. There remained only my final statement and the verdict.

  PRESIDING JUDGE: Defendant Powers, you have the word for the last plea.

  I stood, facing the judges. The lights of the television cameras were so bright that I had trouble reading the statement. But we had gone over it so often that I knew the words. Some went against the grain; some were deeply felt. I could only hope that in reading them the American people could distinguish among them.

  “You have heard all the evidence of the case, and you must decide what my punishment is to be.

  “I realize that I have committed a grave crime, and I realize that I must be punished for it.

  “I ask the court to weigh all the evidence and take into consideration not only the fact that I committed the crime but also the circumstances which led me to do so.

  “I also ask the court to take into consideration the fact that no secret information reached its destination.

  “It all fell into the hands of the Soviet authorities.

  “I realize the Russian people think of me as an enemy. I can understand that, but I would like to stress the fact that I do not feel nor have I ever felt any enmity whatsoever for the Russian people.

  “I plead the court to judge me not as an enemy but as a human being who is not a personal enemy of the Russian people, who has never had any charges brought against him in any court, and who is deeply repentant and profoundly sorry for what he has done.

  “Thank you.”

  PRESIDING JUDGE: The court retires to determine the verdict.

  It was 12:50 P.M. I was taken directly to lunch, but couldn’t eat. Learning that I would see my family directly after the verdict gave me something to look forward to. But my anger with Grinev remained, overwhelming any sense of relief I otherwise would have felt about knowing I wasn’t going to die.

  Grinev had gone out of his way to “make” the state’s case. What Rudenko couldn’t prove, Grinev had freely conceded.

  Several times he had negated my own testimony. With great care I had thwarted each attempt to extract a so-called “admission” I had been ordered to kill myself. Ignoring this, Grinev had stated that I had been so ordered as if it were an established fact.

  He had gone further, implying in closing that the CIA knew I would be shot down, thus setting the stage for the Summit’s collapse.

  He had introduced into evidence statements never made. One—“I was deceived by my bosses; I never expected to find such a good treatment here”—wasn’t even the way I talked. Bothering me even more, however, was one statement I had made which, taken out of context of the interrogations, gave an entirely false impression. At one point I had indicated that if I returned to the United States I would probably be tried there also, for revealing the details of my CIA contract. I didn’t really believe this, but had said it to make my answers and my hesitations about answering appear more believable. However, I had gone on to add, “But this worries me little, because I am not likely to return home.”

  By this I had meant I was sure of being executed.

  Grinev made it sound as if I intended to remain in the Soviet Union.

  But worst of all, speaking as my representative, he had given the impression that I authorized and agreed with his attack against the United States.

  But I was not without a voice now. I would be seeing my family. And they could convey to the press my entire repudiation of my “defense counsel” and his charges.

  Should I go beyond that, try to give them a verbal message for the agency?

  Though hopeful we would be left alone, I doubted that we would be. I had managed to get across, in my trial testimony, most of the things I wanted the agency to know. And, no matter how carefully worded, such a message could place my family in jeopardy. That was the last thing I wanted. I decided against it.

  My anger with Grinev had at least one positive effect. It helped pass the time. At 5:30 P.M., four hours and forty minutes after the judges went out, I was summoned back into the courtroom.

  While I stood, my hands gripping the wooden railings on either side of the prisoner’s dock, the presiding judge read the verdict. It was a lengthy document, so long in fact that I suspected it had been written well in advance and not during the few hours the judges were out. That it was available to reporters, in printed form, immediately upon conclusion of the trial, would appear to confirm this. Again there was a recitation of the charges, during which it became obvious that the judges had not only accepted the prosecution’s case in its entirety, including the testimony of the “expert witnesses,” but that they had, in some instances, even gone beyond Rudenko, as when they stated that “subsequent events confirmed that the aggressive intrusion of the U-2 intelligence plane into the airspace of the Soviet Union on May 1 was deliberately prepared by the reactionary quarters of the United States of America in order to torpedo the Paris Summit meeting, to prevent the easing of international tension, to breathe new life into the senile cold-war policy….”

  I was guilty not only of espionage but all this too.

  As, in absentia, was my co-defendant, the United States of America.

  The judge was now nearing the end. It came across in his tone, and was communicated to the whole auditorium, which became very still.

  Having heard all the testimony, and having examined all material evidence, the judge said, “the military division of the USSR Supreme Court holds established that Defendant Powers was for a long time an active secret agent of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, directly fulfilling spy missions of this agency against the Soviet Union, and on May 1, I960, with the knowledge of the government of the United States of America, in a specially equipped U-2 intelligence plane, intruded into Soviet airspace and with the help of special radio and photographic equipment collected information of strategical importance, which constitutes a state and military secret of the Soviet state, thereby committing a grave crime covered by Article 2 of the Soviet Union’s law ‘On Criminal Responsibility for State Crimes.’”

  The photographers moved into place. I was determined to show no emotion, whatever the sentence. But my fingers gripped the railing even tighter.

  “At the same time,” the judge continued, “weighing all the circumstances of the given case in the deep conviction that they are interrelated, taking into account Powers’ sincere confession of his guilt and his sincere repentance, proceeding from the principles of socialist humaneness, and guided by Articles 319 and 320 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Soviet Federated Soviet Republic, the military division of the USSR Supreme Court sentences:

  “Francis Gary Powers, on the strength of Article 2 of the USSR Law ‘On Criminal Responsibility for State Crimes,’ to ten years of confinement….”

  I didn’t hear the rest. I looked for my family, but in the confusion couldn’t see them. All over the hall people had stood and were applauding. Whether because they felt the sentence suitably harsh or humanely lenient I did not know.

  From the moment Rudenko had said he would not ask for the death sentence, I had expected the full fifteen years.

  Only as I was being led from the courtroom did the full impact of the sentence hit me.

  Ten long years!

  My mother, father, sister Jessica, Barbara, and her mother were already in the room when I was ushered in. I couldn’t help it. Seeing them, I broke down and cried. They were all crying too.

  My hopes for a private meeting were overly optimistic. Besides four guards, two interpreters, and a doctor, there were also, for the first few minutes, a half-dozen Russian photographers.

  A table had been set up in the center of the room, with sandwiches, caviar, fresh fruit, soda, tea. None of us touched it. We just looked at each other. For three and a half months we had been awaiting this moment, fearful that it might not occur, but still saving up things to say. Now that it was here, they were all forgotten. There would be long silences; then everyone would try to talk at once. I hadn’t realized
how much I’d missed hearing a Southern accent, until hearing five of them.

  It was mostly small talk, but I’d had very little of that. Family news. Messages from sisters, nephews, nieces. A report on how our dog, Eck, was adjusting to Milledgeville. Decisions—whether to sell the car, rent or buy a house, ship the furniture from Turkey.

  I now learned the rest of my sentence, which I had not heard in the courtroom. “Ten years of confinement, with the first three years to be served in prison.” This meant, one of the interpreters explained, that after three years in prison I might be assigned to a labor camp in some obscure part of Russia. With permission, my wife could live nearby and make “conjugal visits.” There was also the possibility, one of the American attorneys had told my father, that I could apply for the work camp when half my prison time was served, in other words in a year and a half. And my sentence started from the moment of my capture, which meant I had served over three and a half months of it already. Of course, there were still other possibilities. They were appealing to both President Brezhnev and Premier Khrushchev. They had tried to see the premier, but he was vacationing at the Black Sea, although his daughter, Elena, had attended the trial.

  We grasped and held tightly like precious things the little bits of hope in the sentence. But the words “ten years” hung over the room.

  We tried to make plans, but too much remained unknown. Barbara wanted to stay in Moscow, possibly get a job at the American Embassy. I was against that. There was no assurance they would let her visit me, and I would soon be transferred to a permanent prison outside Moscow; I hadn’t been told where or when.

  I learned another bit of news. The Russians had shot down an RB-47 on July 1, somewhere in the Barents Sea. The Soviets said it had violated their territory; the United States declared it hadn’t. The pilot had been killed; the two surviving crew members—Captains Freeman B. Olmstead and John R. McKone—were being held by the Russians. There was no word yet as to whether they would be brought to trial.

  I knew neither man. But I knew how they felt.

  My mother had brought me a New Testament. One of the guards took it; it would have to be examined, the interpreter explained. Barbara brought a diary, which I’d asked for in one of my letters. That was taken too. I wondered whether my captors were worried about hidden messages or whether they thought my own family was trying to smuggle poison to me.

  Noticing I was without a watch, my father offered me his. No, I told him, they probably wouldn’t let me keep it, and if they did, I’d only be watching the time.

  My mother was concerned about my loss of weight. I was concerned about their health. All showed the tremendous strain they had been under, Barbara especially. Her face was very puffy, as if she had been crying or—I hated to think it—drinking heavily.

  The friction between Barbara and my parents was obvious, though the cause remained a puzzle. I was determined that if allowed to see them again—the interpreter had said this might be possible—I would try to arrange separate visits.

  The interpreter warned us that our hour was nearly up.

  I had a message for the press, I told them. Grinev’s denunciation of the United States had come as a shock to me. I had not known what arguments he would use, until hearing them in court. I repudiated them, and him, entirely. As for his statement that I might remain in the Soviet Union, I would leave Russia, and gladly, the minute they let me do so. I was an American, and proud to be one.

  The hour was up. The guards led me away.

  That evening the guards brought me the New Testament and the diary. The latter was a five-year diary. I would need two of these, I realized, before my sentence was completed.

  My first entry was brief, purposely. I was afraid that once starting to write, I would release a well-spring of pent-up emotions.

  August 19, I960: “Last day of trial. 10 yr. sentence. Saw my wife and parents for one hour.”

  The nineteenth was a Friday. Saturday and Sunday were very hard. Everything went on as usual in the prison, yet, knowing I had ten years to look forward to, everything was subtly, immutably changed.

  Looking back, I could see I had brainwashed myself into anticipating the death sentence. Perhaps it was a trick of the mind, an escape device. Perhaps unconsciously I had realized all along that for me the worst possible punishment would be a long imprisonment.

  On Monday, August 22,1 was taken to the Supreme Court Building in central Moscow for my last meeting with my mother, father, and sister, during which my father several times referred cryptically to “other efforts” being made to secure my release.

  I had no idea what they were. But he obviously did not wish to elaborate, with my jailers present.

  He was extremely angry with Grinev. McAfee had sent him, weeks ago, a detailed brief with suggestions for my defense. He had given no indication of having read it.

  I said that I was not exactly happy with his “defense” myself, that Grinev had made it through the trial with a perfect score—not a single objection, not one statement which contradicted the prosecution.

  As my father had already told the press, he was convinced that the Russians wouldn’t make me serve my full sentence. If for no other reason, they wouldn’t want the expense of feeding me.

  I hoped he was right, but was afraid it wouldn’t be quite that simple.

  It was a difficult parting: my parents leaving their only son in this hostile land; I was not sure, considering their age and health, whether I would see either of them again.

  After they left, Barbara and her mother came in. They brought along a United States Embassy “News Bulletin,” with quotations from President Eisenhower’s last press conference. The President regretted “the severity of the sentence,” noted that the State Department was still following the case closely and “they do not intend to drop it,” and added that there was no question of my being tried on my return to the United States. As far as the government was concerned, I had acted in accordance with the instructions given me and would receive my full salary while imprisoned.

  The Moscow embassy personnel had been very helpful, Barbara said. Although they had failed in all their attempts to see me, they had collected over fifty paperback books for me from their private libraries. And they would handle arrangements for my monthly package.

  Under Soviet law, each prisoner could receive one seventeenpound package from home each month. On receiving the money and being informed what I needed, the Embassy would purchase the items and see that I received them. Although not sure what was and wasn’t permitted, we made up a list of items I most wanted: American cigarettes, shaving gear, instant coffee, sugar, canned milk (to go over the boiled oats sometimes served for breakfast), news magazines, books, and more books. Asking the interpreter what I would need in the way of clothes—he suggested heavy shoes, work clothes, a warm topcoat, winter underwear, a fur cap with earflaps—Barbara promised to obtain them before leaving Moscow. She intended to stay until Friday, hoping to see Khrushchev on his return.

  Thoughtfully, Barbara’s mother then left, so we could be alone. As alone as you can be with an interpreter and two guards.

  Through the use of guarded phrases, I was able to piece together a number of things. Arrangements had been made by the “U.S. government,” by which I assumed she meant the agency, for her to receive five hundred dollars from my pay each month, the balance to be banked pending my return. My “employers” had also paid her way to Russia and arranged for two lawyers, members of the Virginia Bar Association, to accompany her. Their major task, I gathered from her remarks, was to interview me for the agency, but they had been refused permission to see me.

  My father has arranged with Life to pay his and mother’s expenses. And this, apparently, was what had caused the schism between my wife and my parents. The agency had offered to pay their fares also, but my father had refused, wanting to remain a free agent. Barbara, quite bitterly, declared that she wasn’t. She couldn’t speak to the press without perm
ission. Everywhere she went, she was followed.

  Time was up, the interpreter said.

  After Barbara had been escorted out, the interpreter returned and said, “There’s an American here who would like to see you.”

  Though I had dreamed for months of just such words, actually hearing them startled me.

  “An American? Who?”

  I thought perhaps it was someone from the embassy.

  “An American tourist who has been given permission to visit you. Do you wish to see him?”

  “Of course.”

  While I was waiting, another thought occurred to me. Maybe the agency had managed to get someone in.

  Although his clothing obviously marked him as an American, the man wasn’t familiar. Middle-aged, florid faced, he seemed very nervous. Pumping my hand, he told me his name and said, “Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”

  I had to admit I hadn’t.

  This seemed to deflate him somewhat; reaching inside his wallet, he extracted a sheaf of clippings. “These are all about me,” he said, “when I was a candidate for the Presidency of the United States, in 1956.”

  Looking at the clippings, I saw that he had run as the candidate of the Progressive party. But the name, Vincent Hallinan, still meant nothing to me.

  He was an attorney, he explained, and had attended the trial as a guest of the Soviet government. The trial, in his opinion, was absolutely fair—

  I was more than tempted to interject a dissenting opinion, but he gave me no chance.

  —and my sentence very lenient. Now, as for ways of spending my time, I should start by learning the language.

  I agreed with that. In fact, this had been one of my intentions, although I was put off a bit by having a stranger tell me what to do.

  Then I should spend my time studying the Communist form of government. It was a remarkable system. If I approached it with an open mind, realizing that the American system had grave flaws, I would learn a great deal.