Kerr: Francis Gary Powers, a Cold War legend and hero to remember

Sixty-two years ago, almost to the month, Francis Gary Powers was one of the most famous names on the planet. I’m talking international-front-page-headline, cover-of-Time-magazine kind of notoriety.

This name became synonymous with America’s U-2 spy plane, and together their story would resonate for decades. In 2015, movie legends Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks teamed up to put this tale to film. Piano man Billy Joel name-checked the incident in his ubiquitous 1989 hit “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” and the plane also inspired the name of my wife’s favorite superstar Irish rock band.

In May 1960, Powers became one of the most notorious figures of the Cold War when the U-2 aircraft he was secretly flying over Russian airspace was shot down. The former Air Force pilot was taken prisoner by the government of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and subsequently subjected to a highly-publicized trial that captured the world’s attention.

And this is how Americans – and everyone else – learned of the spy program being conducted on the Soviet Union by the Central Intelligence Agency. The incident escalated tensions between the Cold War superpowers and completely scuttled a planned summit between Khrushchev and leaders of the Western world.

Powers was eventually returned to the US through a prisoner swap – a moment depicted in Spielberg’s Academy Award-nominated film “Bridge of Spies” – and died tragically in a helicopter crash in August 1977, just shy of his 48th birthday.

But on Thursday, June 20, his namesake and only son Francis Gary Powers Jr. will appear at Kittery’s Rice Public Library to highlight his father’s legacy with younger generations, and perhaps rekindle memories for older ones.

Francis, just 12 years old when he lost his dad, has spent much of his life making sure the senior Powers receives the honor and respect he believes was denied to the famous pilot. In 1996, Francis co-founded the Cold War Museum, now located in Vint Hill, Virginia, near Washington DC. In 2015, he served as a consultant on Spielberg’s movie based on his father’s experiences, and in 2019, Francis published his book “Spy Pilot” through Prometheus Books, along with co-author Keith Dunnavant, to make sure readers understood what really happened to Powers.

In the days immediately following his capture – and for the rest of his life, really – a cloud of mystique and mistrust hung over the famous spy, according to his son. Some suspected him of being a traitor, and others called him a coward for not killing himself rather than being captured alive by America’s Cold War nemesis.

The future spy was born in rural Kentucky in 1929 and enlisted in the Air Force during the Korean War, according to his son’s book. He later qualified as an aviation cadet and trained as a fighter pilot, but the war ended in 1953 before he saw any combat.

In late 1955, the young lieutenant was recruited by the CIA for a secret new program. His main mission, he was told, would be “to fly over Russia.” And he was to do this in an innovative long-winged Lockheed aircraft known as the U-2, capable of flying as high as nearly 70,000 feet.

This altitude was supposed to be out of range of Soviet weapons and radar, but unfortunately for Powers, this notion proved to be inaccurate.

Powers flew surveillance missions for nearly four years, telling family and friends he was just conducting weather research. But on the fateful day of May 1, 1960, while attempting to gather data on a ballistic missile facility at Plesetsk, Russia, Powers’ plane was blasted out of the sky and he was forced to parachute to safety. Coming to earth at a Russian farm, he was taken prisoner.

What’s more, because of g-forces and other factors, Powers was unable to hit the plane’s self-destruct buttons when bailing out. As a result, the wreckage was recovered in Russia. After President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration initially continued the fabrication that the U-2 was simply conducting weather research, the United States was forced to acknowledge the truth.

Powers was subjected to interrogation for 19 days straight, for up to eleven hours a day, and confined to a 12- by 5-foot cell, Francis wrote in “Spy Plane.” Through it all, the pilot anticipated he would be tortured or executed by firing squad. He had flown with an American silver dollar containing a poison pin to be used if he wished to kill himself to avoid torture, and initially hid the pin in his pocket in case he decided to use it later. However, his captors found the device when they searched him and confiscated it.

Incredibly, Powers had received no training or formal instruction in how to respond to captors if taken prisoner.

There was public speculation at the time that Powers had been brainwashed or had willfully defected, along with other conspiracy theories. His public trial in Moscow started on Aug. 17, 1960, the morning of his 31st birthday. Powers ultimately apologized to the Russian people for his actions, but declined to denounce his country.

Khrushchev used the incident to cast America as an aggressor violating the sovereignty of the Soviet Union. At a planned summit in Paris with the leaders of the United States, France and England, he demanded an apology from Eisenhower and dramatically departed when he didn’t get it.

After Eisenhower’s vice president Richard Nixon lost the presidential election later that year, the Soviet leader claimed, “Relations deteriorated due to the U-2 and I consider that the American people’s vote for Mr. Kennedy was against Nixon, the U-2 and the Cold War policy.”

Powers received a ten-year sentence from the Russian court, but was released after two years in exchange for a Soviet spy. He was not allowed to rejoin the Air Force as he had hoped and became a traffic helicopter pilot for a Los Angeles news station. Francis noted the irony of his father’s death in his book:

“A man who had once survived a violent crash in the stratosphere followed by twenty-one months in a Soviet prison died because he ran out of gas less than five miles from his Sherman Oaks home,” he wrote.

In the years following Powers’ death, his family has worked to restore his status as an American hero, starting with his burial at Arlington National Cemetery.

Asher Littlefield of Rice Public Library pointed out this week that Powers’ story should particularly resonate in Kittery, which has “its own rich military history.”

“People from around the seacoast region will enjoy his intimate knowledge of his father's story, including the access he has to private letters, audio tapes, and recently declassified documents,” Littlefield said.

The event, to take place from 6 to 7 p.m., is free and open to the public, but requires registration. The library is located at 8 Wentworth St.

It’s worth noting that the foreword of Francis’ book about his father was written by Sergei Khrushchev, the son of the former Soviet leader.

D. Allan Kerr is an ex-dockworker, former newspaperman and U.S. Navy veteran living in Kittery, Maine.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Kerr: Francis Gary Powers, a Cold War legend and hero to remember