Operation Overflight

by Francis Gary Powers

  Pausing only to light one cigarette after another, he gave me no time to reply, but after listening to him for a few minutes I had no inclination to do so.

  If the Soviet Union had a Chamber of Commerce, I decided, Mr. Hallinan could easily win its presidency.

  When he finished his spiel, he pumped my hand again and asked if there were any messages he could take to the United States for me.

  There were a number of things I was anxious to tell the CIA. But I didn’t think Mr. Hallinan was the man to serve as courier. Thanking him, I declined his offer.

  It was only after he left that the full irony of it hit me.

  During all the time I had been in the Soviet Union only one person had tried to indoctrinate me in the Communist form of government.

  And he was an American.

  I had thought my visits were over. On Wednesday, August 24, I had a surprise.

  My parents and sister were leaving for the US today; Barbara would be leaving Friday. I was on the roof, having my afternoon walk, thinking about their going, when the interpreter arrived with two guards.

  This was the first time I had seen the interpreter here, and it surprised me.

  “Would you like to see your wife again?” He paused, waited a moment, and added, “Without guards?”

  “You know the answer to that!”

  “Come with us.”

  I was driven across town to another prison and taken to a cell. Although there were bars on the windows, it was arranged like a sitting room, with an easy chair, a table with fruit and soda on it, and a couch. On the end of the couch, neatly folded, were blankets and sheets.

  Left alone, I inspected the room, looking for hidden microphones or peepholes, but could find none.

  Barbara was ushered in a few minutes later. She hadn’t expected the meeting either. Two Soviet officials had arrived at her hotel only a few minutes before and brought her here.

  Seeing her up close, I was shocked at how much she had changed. Somehow I had missed it in our earlier meetings. She was drinking heavily, I was sure. Her speech was slurred, the strong smell of alcohol on her breath. I was extremely worried about her, but this was neither the time nor the place for a lecture or an argument.

  We were left alone three hours.

  The last time I saw her, she was walking down a long hall with the interpreter and a major. She didn’t look back.

  I didn’t realize it then, but, in her own way, she was walking out of my life.

  Diary, August 26, I960: “I was told that Barbara and her mother left this morning. Feel all alone once more.”

  Letter to Barbara, September 5, I960:

  “So far my life has not changed much. I am still in the same cell, but I have more time on my hands, since there is no interrogation and no preparation for a trial. I am glad all that is over. I hope I never have anything like that to go through again.

  “I am very despondent today. I don’t know why so today more than any other day, but that is the way it is. Just the thought of spending ten years in prison is getting to me. … The way I feel now, I would much rather have stayed with the airplane and died there than spend any time in a prison.

  “I can’t help wondering if there will be a pardon of some kind or an exchange of prisoners, or maybe something will happen through diplomatic channels to set me free. I realize that any of these things could happen, but I cannot count on them. There is only one thing that is sure, and that is—my sentence is for ten years.

  “I doubt if I will ever be able to go to a zoo again—that is, if I ever get out of here—without having the desire to set all the animals free. I have never, before this, thought very much on the subject, but I think all men and animals were born to be free. To take away one’s freedom is worse than to take one’s life.”

  Unexpectedly, the following day I was taken back to one of the interrogation rooms. Several KGB officials and an interpreter were present. Their faces were stern.

  “On his return to the United States, your father told the American press that you did not believe you had been shot down at sixtyeight thousand feet.”

  Oh, God! All through the trial I had wanted to get one message across: that I had been flying at my assigned altitude when knocked down, that if other pilots were sent over it would be at the risk of their lives. And I had, I felt, succeeded in conveying this.

  Suddenly it was as if it had all been in vain.

  Ten

  Father of Powers Says Pilot Doubts U-2 Was Shot Down

  The story, which appeared on the front page of The New York Times, quoted my father as telling the Overseas Press Club: “He (Francis) said ‘if I were shot down, there would have been an explosion behind me and an orange flash around me.’ He didn’t believe he was shot down.”

  Had I told my father this?

  No. Obviously he had been confused by the testimony in court: the orange flash and the acceleration from behind were what convinced me there had been an explosion.

  Would I be willing to write a letter to The New York Times clarifying the matter?

  I hesitated just long enough not to appear too anxious.

  It was the first letter I had been allowed to write anyone other than my family. I spent some time on the draft, relating details of the crash; reemphasizing “I was at maximum altitude, as stated in the trial, at the time of the explosion. This altitude was sixty-eight thousand feet”; and observing that while my father apparently misunderstood me on this matter, he “did not misunderstand me when he stated that when this was all over that I was coming home. I do intend to come home, and I pray that I will not have to stay in prison for ten years.”

  For reasons known only to the Russians, the letter, written September 6, was redated September 18, I960, and mailed with a Moscow return address. By this time I was no longer in Moscow.

  The reference to “maximum altitude” was not overlooked. On the contrary, it got too much attention, almost giving the show away. As I learned later, The New York Times, in printing the letter, observed: “Military experts here said that sixty-eight thousand feet—the altitude at which Soviet reports have consistently said the plane was downed—was substantially under the maximum altitude of the plane, a fact that should have been known to Mr. Powers.”

  I couldn’t blame my father for being confused. Apparently a great many others were also.

  By now it was obvious that I had become the pawn in some sort of top-level power play, that there were some highly placed people in the United States unwilling to admit that Russia now had an effective defensive surface-to-air missile.

  If what the Russians had told me was true—and I could see no reason for them to deceive me on this—many newspapers and magazines in the United States, including aviation journals, had accepted the fiction that I had experienced oxygen and/or engine trouble, radioed my base, then descended to thirty thousand feet, at which point I was shot down.

  One of the most influential in spreading this nonsense, I later learned, was Representative Clarence Cannon, Democrat, Missouri, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. Cannon had told the press on May 11 that Khrushchev had lied when he said the U-2 was shot down, that its capture had resulted from either a mechanical defect of the plane or some “psychological defect of the pilot.”

  I could only conclude the lower-altitude story was a “controlled leak,” something someone in a high position, either in the military or the government, wanted disseminated and believed.

  Why?

  There were a number of possible explanations. The information I had conveyed was important intelligence. And perhaps that was the trouble. It was too important: it wreaked havoc with preconceptions, its implications extending far beyond the U-2 program itself.

  Accepting the hard fact that Russia’s defenses were much better than we had supposed meant reevaluating our own offensive capabilities, and, inevitably, spending more money for missiles, less for bombers. The United States was currently committed to the B-52 bomber. I
f the Soviets could down a high-flying U-2, the low-flying B-52 was a sitting duck.

  Too, it was impossible to discount the human factor. Someone in our intelligence apparatus had goofed, maintaining that Russia did not have missile capability, while Russia obviously did; quite possibly, face-saving was involved. Or it could be plain stubbornness, the refusal to accept any information contrary to one’s fixed preconceptions.

  Still another possibility occurred to me. While I didn’t like to think about it, I had to admit its existence—that this fiction was being told to bolster the self-confidence of other pilots and flight crews.

  What was most frustrating was the knowledge that so long as I remained a captive of the Russians there was nothing I could do to dispel the lie. Anything I said—whether in my trial testimony or my letters—was suspect: Powers is a prisoner of the Communists, either by torture or drugs or brainwashing, they can make him say anything they want.

  In time, I was sure, my story would be verified by other evidence. And the United States would have to face up to the unpleasant fact that Russia had effective SAMs. I could only hope the delay wouldn’t prove dangerous or that the supporting evidence didn’t consist of downed planes and dead pilots.

  Early on the morning of Friday, September 9, I960, accompanied by two guards, a lieutenant colonel, a major, a female interpreter, and a driver, I rode out the gates of Lubyanka Prison. A second car, containing three additional guards plus my few personal effects, followed.

  In a short time we left “modern Russia” behind. The roads were narrow, primitive, and in bad repair, necessitating frequent detours. The occasional villages did not seem to have changed much since Tolstoy’s day, their inhabitants still living in log cabins. But, though the day was overcast, the countryside was green, the horizons vast, after so long between four walls, and I saw trees, the first in over four months. I wondered how long it would be before I saw them again.

  It was a pleasant drive. I wished it could have gone on forever. But in a little more than three hours we reached our destination, Vladimir Prison, located near the Trans-Siberian railroad, about 150 miles east of Moscow.

  The approach to Vladimir Prison was deceptive. All you saw was the large gray administration building, and no walls.

  Once inside, I was turned over to prison officials. Whether a country is Communist or democratic, there are common denominators—bureaucracy and red tape. More than an hour of answering questions and filling out forms was required before my assignment to building number 2. Exiting from the other side of the administration building, I could have no doubt where I was: the walls were better than fifteen feet high, brick; guards with machine guns and searchlights were stationed in towers at the corners.

  As we walked through the long empty courtyard, past several buildings, then through an arched gateway, they watched our every step.

  Surrounded by its own walls, building number 2 was a prison within a prison. Four stories high, its outside red firebrick, it looked all too secure.

  The building superintendent was a roly-poly little major named Dimitri. Quite jolly, he seemed an unlikely jailer. Shortly after my arrival in his office, another man entered. He was about my height, but fairly thin, with a gaunt face that made it difficult to guess his age. He wore a black beret. I thought perhaps he worked in the prison.

  “My name is Zigurd Kruminsh,” he said in English, shaking my hand. Since handshaking was something my Russian captors never did, this should have been a clue. But I missed it.

  I tried to pronounce his name, failed. “Sorry,” I apologized, “but I’m still having trouble with these Russian names”

  “I’m not a Russian” he barked. “I’m a Latvian!” He said it less in anger than in pride.

  The major said something, pointing to Zigurd’s beret. This time his reply was angry, and defiant. I asked him what the major had said.

  “He told me to remove my beret. I refuse to do so. They have cut off all my hair, and until the day they let me grow it back, I shall wear this. Because of my self-respect.”

  I liked him immediately.

  While still at Lubyanka I had been asked whether on arrival at my permanent prison I wished to remain in solitary confinement or to have a cellmate. Knowing all too well that loneliness was my worst enemy, I had replied that most definitely I would like a cellmate; then, tempting my luck, I had requested one who spoke both English and Russian. This would eliminate the need for an interpreter, and I could learn Russian at the same time. My request had been granted. Zigurd Kruminsh (pronounced Zoo-gurd Crewmage) I now learned, was to be my cellmate. He not only spoke and read English and Russian, but Latvian and German, knew considerable Esperanto, some French, and was currently studying Spanish.

  After I had been searched by one of the guards, the two of us were taken to the second floor of the building to our cell, number 31.

  It was twelve feet long, eight feet wide. The floor was wooden. The walls were painted a dark gray on the lower part, the upper portion and ceiling white.

  Having become “stir wise,” one of the first things I checked, once the guard had locked us in, was the window, to see if there was any way to look out. There were two. The glass in the upper section of the window was clear. From the floor you could see a bit of the sky. Standing on one of the beds, or the cabinet directly in front of the window, you could see a great deal more. But this, I presumed—correctly—was zahpretne, forbidden. However, in the lower section, there was a narrow crack, with a tiny hole in the end. Looking through, I could see the tops of several buildings passed on the way from the administration building, the wall separating our building from the rest of the prison, and the arched gateway. It wasn’t exactly the kind of view one would pay a high rent to enjoy, but it had a distinct advantage. I would be able to see at least some of the other prisoners, whenever any were escorted through the gate. And that in itself was a big improvement over Lubyanka.

  Looking through the hole, I noticed a few other things. The first sheet of glass was opaque. Behind it was a dead-air space about six inches deep, another window, this one clear glass, another space of about six inches, heavy bars, then about a foot to the outside. From this I was able to estimate that the brick walls were at least two feet thick.

  In front of the window was a small cabinet. We could store our bread ration and extra food there, Zigurd told me.

  The beds stretched alongside the two walls, separated by a space of about two and a half feet. I tried mine, the one on the left. Had I checked into a hotel in the United States and been given such a bed, I would have complained immediately. But compared to the iron slats at Lubyanka, it was comfort personified. I was rapidly learning that pleasures are relative.

  At the foot of each bed was a cabinet and small wooden stool. The top of the cabinet could be used as a desk or table, the inside as storage space for underwear, socks, towels, cigarettes, toothbrush, toothpaste, shaving gear—which just about completed the inventory of our personal possessions.

  At one corner near the door was an old-fashioned radiator. At the other, on Zigurd’s side, a five-gallon can. I didn’t have to ask what it was for.

  The lighting arrangement was similar to that at Lubyanka—the night light an unshaded hundred-watt bulb over the door, the day light an identical bulb in the ceiling. But we had one item in our cell not in the earlier prison. On a shelf on the right-hand wall was a squawk box. From six A.M. to ten P.M., with a silent period between 2:30 and four P.M., it broadcast Radio Moscow. It offered music—folk, opera, classical; news; and lots of propaganda. You could turn the volume down but not off.

  The door, complete with peephole, was similar to the one at Lubyanka, with the exception that in the lower portion there was a smaller door, about a foot square. At suppertime I learned its purpose: unlocked from the outside, it folded down into a shelf; when we slid our tin plates and bowls out, the serving woman would ladle our meals from a huge vat, and pass them back.

  Supper the firs
t night consisted of one item—boiled potatoes.

  You could hear the serving woman moving the food cart from cell to cell. Later I counted them. There were ten on our side of the cellblock, twelve on the opposite side.

  Of the four floors in our building, Zigurd told me, there were cells on the first and second, the third vacant, the doctors’ and dentists’ offices and the hospital on the fourth. Until a few days prior to my arrival, Zigurd had occupied a cell on the first floor. Building number 2 housed the worst political prisoners—those who had committed serious crimes against the state: for example, writers and intellectuals who had dared criticize the Soviet regime publicly, and people who had attempted to overthrow it.

  Zigurd belonged in the latter category. Convicted of treason, he had received the maximum prison sentence, fifteen years. Of this, he had already served more than five, the first three in solitary confinement.

  He was not reluctant to tell me his story. Rather, he seemed excited at the prospect of having someone to talk to.

  What did I know about Latvia?

  Very little, I admitted.

  He described it—its forests and trees, its little villages, its people, their fierce nationalism—with an eloquence that could arise only out of deep love for one’s homeland.

  In 1940 Latvia had been overrun by the Russians, who had incorporated it as the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic. Only thirteen at the time—he was now thirty-three, two years older than I—Zigurd had, like many of his countrymen, nurtured a hatred for the Russians stretching back through centuries of invasion and annexations. In 1941 Germany had invaded Latvia, driving the Russians out. To many of the Latvians, to whom German was a second language, this seemed less a conquest than a liberation. In 1944, when Russia again attempted to reclaim Latvia, Zigurd had joined the German Army, over the opposition of his parents, in order to fight the Russians. What followed was one continuous retreat, while the Red Army pushed their unit back into Poland, then all the way into Germany. By this time it was apparent even to the troops that Germany had lost the war. Many conscripts from Latvia, Poland, and other occupied countries were willing to battle the Russians, but they felt no animosity toward France, Britain, or the United States. Ordered to fight the Allies, they deserted in great numbers, Zigurd among them. Knowing that if he was caught by the Russians he would be shot as a traitor, he headed west, trying to make his way to the American lines. Before reaching them, however, he was captured by the British and placed in a POW camp. There, and later, in a displaced persons’ camp, he had learned English, which enabled him to get a job as guard at one of the British bases. While working there, he had been recruited by British intelligence, who flew him to England and put him through a special agents’ school. Trained to operate and repair radio transmitters, he was eventually returned secretly to Latvia by boat, where he went to work in the underground, transmitting messages, helping to smuggle people in and out of the country, and working to overthrow the Soviet puppet regime in Latvia.