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Gary Powers
(1929-77) was a spy and aviator, born Francis Gary Powers in
Jenkins, Kentucky, with Melungeon ancestry, and raised in Pound,
Virginia. Born August 17, 1929, Powers attended Milligan College in
Johnson City, Tennessee. After graduating from Milligan College, he
was commissioned in the United States Air Force in 1950 becoming a
military pilot. Powers received training in resisting brainwashing,
survival techniques, and protocol in the event of capture, and he
also was trained in the dropping of atomic bombs. Upon completing
his training (52-H) he was assigned to the 468th Strategic Fighter
Squadron at Turner Air Force Base, Georgia as an F-84 Thunder jet
pilot. He was assigned to operations in the Korean War, but was
recruited by the CIA because of his outstanding record in single
engine jet aircraft. By 1960, the 31-year old Powers was already a
veteran of many covert aerial reconnaissance missions.
When he was
recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency, they trained him in
piloting the U2, a top-secret high-altitude reconnaissance plane
used to photograph enemy installations, and he made a number of
flights over the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. He left the Air
Force with the rank of Captain in 1956, to join the CIA U2 program.
Francis Gary Powers was the U2 pilot who was shot down while flying
over Soviet Union airspace on May 1, 1960, sparking one of the
greatest international crises of the Cold War. At the time he was
shot down, Francis Gary Powers was married to Barbara Moore. They
were married in 1955 and remained married until 1962.
Powers was flying
a U2 high-altitude, photographic, surveillance plane over Russian
airspace. When he was shot down, Powers bailed out of the crashing
plane and was captured by the Soviets. Since the U2 was
designed for covert surveillance, the Soviet government immediately
imprisoned Powers as a spy.
In May 1960, as
President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev
met in Paris to attempt to defuse Cold War tensions, a U2 piloted
by Powers was shot down by a surface-to-air missile over Soviet
territory. At first the U. S. government claimed Powers had been
conducting weather research, but later admitted that the U2 was a
spy plane. The United States initially denied the plane was on a spy
mission, but the wreckage was sufficiently intact for the Soviets to
discern the plane's function, and Eisenhower was forced to admit the
truth. The summit collapsed amid angry charges from Khrushchev;
Powers was tried as a spy, convicted of espionage, and sentenced to
10 years in prison. After two years, Gary Powers was pardoned by the
USSR in February of 1962 and sent back to America in exchange for
captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.
When he was
released on February 10, 1962, Gary was exchanged for Soviet Col.
Rudolf Abel, in a dramatic East-West spy swap, which took place on
Berlin's Glienicke Bridge spanning the River Havel. Powers stood at
the eastern end of the bridge, Abel at the western end, and at the
appointed time, the men walked towards each other, crossing with a
nod, in the middle of the bridge. This was the first of many such
swaps between the two super-powers. Gary was awarded the
Intelligence Medal in 1963.
Gary married
Claudia "Sue" Edwards in 1963 and they remained married until his
death in 1977. |
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