Operation Overflight

by Francis Gary Powers

  In part, I was witnessing a vast organizational shake-up, due to President Kennedy’s vow to restructure the agency following the failure of the Cuban invasion. In a world of secrets, the least kept was that John McCone, although an astute businessman—according to the General Accounting office, his California shipbuilding company had turned a hundred-thousand-dollar investment into forty-four million dollars during World War II—knew little about intelligence. He was a political appointee, and, I now learned, Robert Kennedy’s personal choice as successor to Dulles. According to rumor, he was not the first choice. Although I found it difficult to believe—it has since been brought out in other accounts—Robert Kennedy had apparently wanted to take over as director of Central Intelligence, in addition to being attorney general, the idea being scotched because it would have lent fuel to the argument that the Kennedys were attempting to create a dynasty.

  If true, it would provide another possible explanation for the story that he had wanted to try me. Powers could be made a symbol of the failure of the old order.

  Maybe the shake-up was long overdue. Maybe the CIA had acquired too much independent power and needed to be brought under closer control of the President. I only knew what I saw— bureaucratic chaos. Divided loyalties. Jockeying for favor. A half-dozen people doing jobs previously done by one. Paperwork increasing at such a rate that one suspected the task of collecting intelligence could be dropped, with the paperwork alone sufficient to keep everyone occupied.

  Undoubtedly only a portion of this was due to McCone. Perhaps what I was witnessing was simply that the CIA, having outgrown its youthful exuberance, was suffering the middle-age spread that seems to be the lot of most government agencies.

  Admittedly I saw only part of the whole picture. But it bothered me.

  Another thing also bothered me. Even within the agency many people were unsure of my exact status: had Powers been cleared, or hadn’t he? The people at the top knew, but hadn’t let the word filter down. I encountered no animosity, but I did find a great deal of puzzlement. The CIA clearance, with its evasive wording, had raised almost as many doubts as it had laid to rest.

  My attitude toward this remains today much as it was then. I knew what I had and hadn’t done. I did not feel I had to clear my name. Nor did I feel I had to justify my conduct to anyone. People would have to accept me as is. Those who couldn’t, I wasn’t interested in having for friends. Fortunately, over the years the former have predominated.

  Yet this did not mean that I was happy at having been placed in this position.

  I enjoyed my work with the training section because I felt it was important. The tricks the Russians used in their interrogations, the difficulty of improvising a workable cover story, the decision of how much to tell and how much to withhold, how to avoid being trapped in a lie, how best to cope with incarceration—these were only a few of the problems we explored. I also read the accounts of other prisoners, pointing out where my experiences differed or were the same. And I consulted with the people in psychological testing to give them clues as to what to look for in screening certain covert personnel.

  It was satisfying work—later I learned that a number of my suggestions had been incorporated into the training program for certain personnel—but I was also aware that it was temporary, something to do until such time as I could make some decisions. Not all of them concerning my future employment.

  Nothing had changed with Barbara, except to grow worse. Again there were the suspicions: unexplained absences from the apartment; charges on the phone bill for long-distance calls I thought were in error but had been made to an unfamiliar number in Georgia; constant pleading to be allowed to go back there for a visit, although, estranged from her mother, she could never provide a good explanation for the necessity of such a trip. And the certainties: bottles under the bed, in closets, in dresser drawers. One night in April, following a familiar argument, in which I insisted that if she couldn’t stop drinking by herself she would have to have medical aid, she swallowed a whole bottle of sleeping pills. I rushed her to the hospital, just in time.

  Following her recovery, I tried to get her to remain in the hospital for treatment of her alcoholism. But she refused; she still would not admit she was an alcoholic. I had hoped this close call would bring her to her senses, make her realize she needed competent help. It didn’t. Upon her release the situation remained unchanged. In May she simply packed a bag and returned to Georgia.

  On returning from a trip to the West Coast, I stopped in Phoenix to see some friends. While deplaning I was paged to contact TWA for a message. Few people knew my itinerary; so I knew it was something out of the ordinary. Checking with TWA, I was given a local number to call; on calling it, I was given still another number, this one in Washington, D.C. The CIA agent who answered informed me that Barbara and a male companion had been in some kind of trouble at a drive-in restaurant in Milledgeville. Refusing to leave when asked to do so by the management, they had caused such a scene that police had to be called. By some means, word of the incident had reached the CIA. The situation had been resolved, but the agency felt I should know what had happened.

  On arriving in Milledgeville, I laid down the law. She had to have medical help, had to leave Milledgeville, and had to stop seeing certain people, including her male companion. I was going back to Washington, I told her; if she wanted to accompany me, it would have to be under those conditions. Otherwise I was going alone and would take whatever action I deemed necessary. Believing this was just another empty threat, Barbara chose to stay in Milledgeville.

  In August I returned to The Pound, ostensibly for a visit but really to think things through. When I did, I was forced to admit there was no helping Barbara, not without her agreement; that in continuing the marriage I was only holding onto the shell of what was and what might have been; all else was ashes—had been for a long time. Before returning to Washington, I took off my wedding ring.

  Georgia was still my legal residence. Not long after this I returned to Milledgeville to consult an attorney. While there I asked the questions avoided since my return. The answers confirmed my worst suspicions while in prison. But now it no longer mattered. I filed suit for divorce. The decree became final in January, 1963.

  In May, 1962, I was given verbal permission to write the book. I was not informed as to who made the decision, but I was sure the request had gone all the way up to McCone, since no one else would be willing to take such responsibility.

  Consulting with an attorney, I went through the offers, finally deciding on a joint proposal advanced by the publishing firm Holt, Rinehart and Winston and the Saturday Evening Post. Negotiations began and had reached the contract stage when, in early July, I was informed, again verbally, that upon reconsideration it had been decided that a book at this time would not be advantageous either to me or to the agency. While they could not forbid me to publish the book, they strongly suggested that I not do so.

  Word had filtered down through several levels. However, it was clear that the decision to grant permission had been vetoed by someone higher up than McCone. That left few possibilities.

  A good amount of time and money had been spent on the negotiations, and a number of people inconvenienced. I didn’t like that. Neither did I appreciate the implication that I might be adversely affected if the truth were told.

  Yet I also felt something else, something perhaps only a person who has spent time in prison can fully comprehend. I was deeply grateful to the agency and to the government for effecting my release. They could just as easily have left me in prison until May 1, 1970, had I lived that long. In a sense, each day of my freedom before that time I owed to them.

  That that freedom was to be qualified, however, that silence was the price I would have to pay for it, was not a pleasant realization. Especially when I suspected that the chief motivation behind the decision was political, the fear that what I had to say might embarrass the agency.

  I spent the weekend of
the Fourth of July trying to decide what to do.

  On July 6 I wrote the following letter:

  Dear Mr. McCone:

  Recently there has been communicated to me your views concerning my intention to publish an account of my personal experiences preceding, during, and after my imprisonment by the Russian government.

  While you have been correctly informed that I have been negotiating with interested publishers with a view toward publishing my personal account, I wish again to dispel any doubts concerning my initiating these negotiations without prior consultation. The invitations to discuss the publishing of my experiences were received from various publishers both before and immediately upon my return to the United States. These invitations were directed not only to me but to various agency officials, including yourself. I made no effort to discuss these offers until I had been advised that there was no objection on the part of the agency or the government to my doing so. While I did not expect any encouragement in this matter, I am distressed that I was misled in believing there was no objection.

  I understand now that you are of the opinion that in view of the public acceptance of the presentation of my account to the Senate Armed Services Committee, any further effort by me to comment in extenuation of my experiences would only result in possible injury to the agency and to myself.

  I will, therefore, accept your feeling on this subject, and although I am not persuaded by the logic thereof, I will abide by your desires not to publish a book on my experiences at this time. I would be less than candid if I left the impression that I am taking these steps willingly. I am not, however, unmindful of the great effort which was made by the government to obtain my release from imprisonment, and am most grateful for this interest in my behalf. Accordingly, I am advising those publishers with whom I have been negotiating and who have shown an active interest in publishing my experiences that I will not entertain any further consideration of their offers.

  Very truly yours,

  Francis Gary Powers

  I had been muzzled. It was only then that I began to have doubts whether the story would ever be told.

  Four

  My decision to leave the Central Intelligence Agency was motivated by three factors:

  1. Suppression of the book, to which I had reluctantly acquiesced. Already one book, the first of several on the U-2 incident, had appeared, its authors, so far as I knew, having made no attempt to contact me.

  2. The obvious fact that I was just killing time. Though I had my own office, with the implication that I could stay on at the agency as long as I wished, I had run out of meaningful work.

  3. I was itching to fly.

  With nearly twelve years of service, and only a little more than eight to go until retirement, I couldn’t afford not to go back into the Air Force. Yet I still wasn’t ready to lead a regimented life: I wanted to be able to go where I pleased, do what I wanted to do. On checking with the Air Force, I was told there was no hurry as to a decision; I could take my time.

  One of my friends at the agency knew “Kelly” Johnson and offered to call him to see if the job at Lockheed was still open. Johnson suggested I fly out to California and talk to him. In September, 1962, I did so.

  I was about ready to say I was interested only in a flying job when he asked: Would you like to be a test pilot?

  I suspect that at one time or another this has been almost every pilot’s ambition: I knew it was mine. I said I would.

  Flying U-2s?

  The answer was written across my face in a big grin.

  On returning to Washington, I submitted my resignation to the CIA, and reported to work at Lockheed on October 15, 1962.

  By this time the U-2 had proven itself again. While at the agency, I had kept abreast of developments in the program, and was aware that Air Force pilots, under the command of SAC, were making overflights of Cuba. I also knew that late in August a U-2 had spotted a number of Soviets SAMs, probably similar to the one that brought me down. What no one knew for certain, however, until a U-2 returned from its overflight along the western edge of Cuba on October 14 and its photographs had been processed and studied, was that sites were being built for medium-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching targets in the United States.

  We were to pay a high price for our intelligence on the Cuban missile crisis. While overflying Cuba, USAF Major Rudolph Anderson was shot down by a Soviet SAM.

  With his death, no one could any longer doubt that Russian missiles were capable of reaching the U-2’s altitude.

  My work at Lockheed was as an engineering test pilot. This consisted of test-flying the planes whenever there was a modification, a new piece of equipment installed, or the return of an aircraft for maintenance.

  Getting back into the tight pressure suit was an odd sensation— uncomfortable as ever. But there was one improvement. It had been found that an hour of prebreathing prior to flight would suffice. Again I was back in the high altitudes. Perhaps needless to say, my insurance premiums rose even more astronomically.

  Except for a few close calls, I thoroughly enjoyed the work. Two times hatch covers blew out. One knocked a hole in the wing and in the tail. The other jammed the canopy so I couldn’t get out. But each time I managed to make it back. And, while I was working at high altitudes, where the aircraft was most temperamental, there were, I’ll frankly admit, occasions when I was scared. But my confidence in the U-2 remains unshaken. It was and still is a remarkable aircraft, one of a kind.

  I only wish there were more of them around.

  In 1963 I received the first of what was to be a number of rude awakenings.

  You’re going to have to make up your mind, Powers, the general said. If you want to go back into the Air Force, you’ll have to do it soon.

  With nearly twelve years toward retirement—

  Five and a half, he corrected me. Your time in the CIA won’t count.

  On joining the U-2 program in 1956 I had signed a document, cosigned by Secretary of the Air Force Donald A. Quarles, promising me that upon completion of service with the agency I could return to the Air Force with no loss of time in grade or toward retirement, my rank to correspond with that of my contemporaries. This had been a major factor in my accepting employment with the CIA. The same was true of the other pilots, all of whom had signed the same document. A number of them had already returned to the Air Force under those conditions.

  The general knew this. But there had been too much publicity about my case. Although they would let me reenlist at comparable rank—an old captain, or a new major—they would have to renege on their promise regarding my CIA service counting as time toward retirement.

  I was being penalized for doing my duty, for having spent twenty-one months in a Russian prison!

  He was sorry, but that was the way things were.

  I could have fought it, I suppose. However, as with my agency contract and numerous other documents I had signed, the CIA retained the only copy. To contest this, I would have to use other pilots as witnesses. Some of them, I was quite sure, wouldn’t lie. But it would be damn rough on them. My attempt to obtain what I had been “guaranteed in writing” might mean the Air Force would penalize them, too.

  The agency knew me well, perhaps too well. They were gambling on my not causing a fuss, for just this reason. And, in this instance, they read me right.

  The general also informed me that for the same reason I wouldn’t be allowed to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded to me in 1957.

  The second disillusionment came in April. Compared to the broken promise regarding my Air Force service, it was decidedly minor. (Many of my contemporaries in the program have retired or will become eligible for retirement in 1970 as lieutenant-colonels or better, at six to seven hundred dollars a month for life.) Yet, indicative of a pattern, it was in its own way decidedly important.

  On April 20, 1963, at a secret ceremony which took place in the Los Angeles area, a number of the pilots who had particip
ated in the U-2 program were awarded the Intelligence Star, one of the Central Intelligence Agency’s highest decorations.

  There was one exception. Francis Gary Powers hadn’t been invited.

  “Kelly” Johnson and a couple other people who worked with me attended. They were very secretive about it, however, because they had been instructed not to let me know what was going on. I knew all the time, from pilot friends with whom I had kept in contact.

  It was more than a slight, more than the failure to receive an award. It was confirmation of what I had half-suspected for some time, but didn’t really want to admit. I was, to borrow from John LeCarré, the spy who was to stay out in the cold. Things began fitting into place: the agency’s failure to clear up the misconceptions regarding my orders, and by so doing lending credence to the criticism; the canceled White House visit; the smudged clearance.

  It wasn’t too difficult to deduce the reasoning behind it. I could almost hear the discussion:

  The public is already down on Powers because they think he told more than he should. We can’t divulge what he withheld. Since he’s already been made the scapegoat, why not leave it at that? Otherwise there will be questions. The agency has been under enough fire already. This will divert the criticism.

  Conjecture, of course, but I suspect it’s fairly close to what happened.

  As to who made the decision, I have only suspicions. As to when it occurred, it must have been sometime prior to the issuance of the clearance. That the Senate hearing went as favorably as it did was, I believe, a surprise to almost everyone concerned.

  I was to be the scapegoat.

  And there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

  Ironically, not all of the pilots who received the award had made an overflight of Russia.