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'The aircraft spiralled downwards, tail first': The CIA spy shot down over Russia in 1960

On 19 August 1960,karmen blaze creampie 65 years ago this week, a court in Moscow handed a US pilot, Francis Gary Powers, a 10-year sentence after he was apprehended by Soviet security forces. The BBC reported on what became a Cold War diplomatic disaster.

Francis Gary Powers was on a CIA spying mission over Soviet Russia when his U-2 plane was hit by a surface-to-air missile. "I looked up, looked out, and just everything was orange, everywhere," Powers recalled. "I don't know whether it was the reflection in the canopy itself or just the whole sky. And I can remember saying to myself, 'By God, I've had it now.'"

In fact, Powers managed to parachute to safety, but his troubles were far from over. Having been arrested and interrogated by the KGB, he was put on trial in Moscow, where his family could only watch helplessly. "He said that he knew that we were present at his trial," his wife Barbara Powers told the BBC. "He didn't know beforehand. But he saw me wave. And he said he just couldn't bear to look towards the box where we were all sitting, because it upset him too much, and he knew it would upset us." On 19 August 1960, 65 years ago this week, Powers was sentenced to 10 years – three in a Russian prison and seven in a labour camp. His capture and trial would have a devastating impact on East-West relations at the height of the Cold War.

Powers was 30 at the time. A coal miner's son from Kentucky, US, he studied chemistry and biology before joining the US Air Force in 1950. In 1956, he was recruited by the CIA to pilot U-2 spy planes over enemy territory. These U-2s could fly at 70,000ft (21.3km), which was supposedly above the range of Soviet defences, and yet the cutting-edge camera on board could take detailed photographs of military installations far below. On 1 May 1960, Powers took off from Peshawar, Pakistan, with a brief to fly across the USSR and land in Norway. "The planned route would take us deeper into Russia than we had ever gone, while traversing important targets never before photographed," he wrote in his memoir, Operation Overflight.

But Soviet authorities had detected previous U-2 flights, and were determined to stop this one at all costs. MiG-19 jet fighters were scrambled, and S-75 Dvina missiles were launched. Four hours into the mission, Powers' plane was hit by one of those missiles near the Russian city of Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg). One of its wings was torn off, and the aircraft spiralled downwards, tail first. Powers' son, Gary Powers Jr, recounted the story on the BBC's Witness History podcast. "He thinks about ejecting – that's the first thing pilots are trained to do, that's to get out of a plane that's been damaged or crippled. But he realises that if he does eject, he will sever his legs on the way out. The U-2 cockpit is very small, very tight, very compact. In order to eject, you have to be in the perfect position to clear the airframe, or you could lose a limb."

Powers' solution was not to use the plane's ejector seat: he would simply open the canopy and clamber out. But as soon as the canopy was open, he was "sucked up half-way out of the airplane", said Gary Jr. And he was unable to reach the self-destruct button on the U-2's dashboard. "He's still connected by his air hose, so here he is, half in the plane, half out of the plane, spinning down towards the ground, in and out of consciousness, being banged around."

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Somehow, Powers broke free of the U-2, and he parachuted onto collective farmland on the outskirts of Sverdlovsk. But he had already noticed a dark car tracking him on the road below as he descended. State security officials soon had him in custody. They also had the wreckage of the U-2, its camera included.

The problem for the US government was that they had no way of knowing that Powers had survived, and no way of knowing that the U-2 hadn't self-destructed. The US State Department released a cover story claiming that Powers had been flying over Turkey, studying weather patterns for Nasa, when he had accidentally strayed into Soviet airspace. The story even included photographs of a U-2 with a hastily added Nasa logo. But instead of keeping the mission secret, this hurried attempt at subterfuge would help it become a major public embarrassment.

The USSR's Premier, Nikita Khrushchev, announced to the world that Powers was alive and well – and that his camera and photographs had been recovered intact, proving that he was a spy. Forced to admit that he had lied, US President Dwight D Eisenhower blustered that the US was within its rights to keep tabs on its enemy. The timing was disastrous, as both men were due to attend a conference in Paris alongside the heads of the French and British governments. This was the first summit in five years to be attended by Soviet and US leaders, and it was hoped that it might boost friendship across the Iron Curtain. The Powers debacle made that impossible.

"Mr Khrushchev demanded an apology before discussions could begin," reported the BBC on 17 May. "He also said the USA should promise never to violate Soviet airspace again and should punish all those responsible for the incident. President Eisenhower rejected the demands, leaving the hoped-for peace summit in tatters… Both sides are now blaming each other for the failure of the conference." Powers, too, had to shoulder some of the blame for this diplomatic catastrophe.

By the time he was put on trial in Moscow in August, the tone of the BBC's coverage was politely patronising. One reporter, Ian McDougall, described him as "an astonishingly naive person… a frightened man with his back to the wall… [who] bungled his job… wasn't very brave… [and] clearly followed closely the suggestions of his Russian defence counsel".

Fortunately for Powers, he was released two years later, in 1962. According to a BBC report, Soviet radio presented his release as an act of mercy "in response to the request of Powers' parents and relatives, and because of his honest admission of his heavy guilt". Actually, Powers was sent home in exchange for a KGB agent in US custody, William Fisher, aka Rudolf Abel. This prisoner exchange would be the subject of Bridge of Spies, a Steven Spielberg film released in 2015 – although Powers, played by Austin Stowell, was only a minor character. Back in 1962, an espionage expert, Bernard Newman, told the BBC that the USSR had done better out of the swap than the US had. Abel was a highly trained and knowledgeable spy, after all, whereas "Captain Powers was a very good pilot, but from the espionage point of view, all he had to do was press buttons".

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Some of the media coverage was even harsher, as Powers was viewed by many US commentators as a coward and, perhaps, a traitor. "Editorials had been written while he was in prison," said Gary Jr. "These editorials in the American and British press basically said that he had defected. He had landed the plane intact, he had spilled his guts and told the Soviets everything he knew, or that he hadn't followed orders… all of which were part truths, mistruths, some outright lies and innuendoes." Conspiracy theories revolved around the facts that Powers didn't press the U-2's self-destruct button, and that he let himself be arrested, rather than killing himself. "My father, however, the person that he was, it didn't bother him," said Gary Jr. "He didn't care about what other people thought he should or shouldn't have done."

The US authorities made some efforts to restore Powers' reputation. He was commended for his bravery by several senators after his appearances at a Senate Armed Services Select Committee in 1962, and in 1965 he was awarded the CIA's Intelligence Star. Having divorced and remarried, he worked as a test pilot for Lockheed, then as a helicopter pilot for a Los Angeles television news station, KNBC Channel 4. But he was killed while doing this job when his helicopter crashed in 1977.

Gary Jr was just 10 years old at the time, so there was much he didn't know about his father's missions. He took it upon himself to research the period, and eventually, in 1996, he co-founded the Cold War Museum in Warrenton, Virginia, to preserve the stories of Powers, and others like him. "As a kid, I grew up knowing that my dad had been shot down over the Soviet Union, imprisoned by the KGB, and ultimately exchanged for a Soviet spy," said Gary Jr. "But as a kid, that's all very normal. It was something we talked about. I thought that everybody's dad had gone through something like that."

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