February 10, 1962 – American Gary Powers, is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel

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On February 10, 1962, Francis Gary Powers, the pilot of an American spy plane was freed from the Soviet Union in exchange for the Russian spy Colonel Rudolf Abel who had been captured by the US in what came to be known as the U-2 incident. Following World War II, the development of a Cold War between the US and USSR caused much tensions to rise between the two nations. An arms race started to develop and as a result, the US launched an espionage program to gather information about the technological advancements in the USSR. In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower (Office: 1953 to 1961), approved of a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) program that sent high-altitude reconnaissance spy planes to fly over Soviet territory and to capture images of the military facilities in the country. For nearly four years the American spy planes conducted successful sorties in the Soviet airspace. While the Russians could spot the U-2 planes on their radars, they were unable to take any action as they lacked the technology to target these planes that flew at least 13 miles from the ground. By early 1960, however, the USSR had developed the Zenith surface-to-air missiles capable of taking down the U-2 planes. In 1957, the US had obtained permissions from Pakistan to fly U-2 missions from the Peshawar Air Station (Badaber). On April 29, 1960, Article 360, an American Lockheed U-2C spy plane was sent to Peshawar from Incirlik Air Base (Turkey). Pilot Francis Gary Powers was chosen to fly the late-April mission over the USSR but the mission got delayed by two days. Powers had been a pilot with the US Air Force before being recruited as one of the earliest CIA U-2 pilots in 1956. He had flown 27 successful U-2 missions, though not all of them were over the Soviet airspace. On May 1, 1960, Powers took off from Peshawar on what was at the time assumed to be a regular U-2 sortie. The operation codenamed Grand Slam was meant to bring back images of Soviet Intercontinental Ballistic Missile sites such as the Baikonur Cosmodrome and Plesetsk Cosmodrome, and head to Bodø in Norway. While he was over Kusulino in the Ural region, Powers was brought down by a SA-2 Guideline (S-75 Dvina) surface-to-air missile. Powers bailed out but was unable to trigger the spy plane’s self-destruct mechanism. He was taken by the KGB. The Soviet Union also recovered unassailable proof of the espionage program from the plane’s photography equipment and from Powers who was interrogated for over 3 months. In August he was convicted of espionage and sentenced to three years rigorous imprisonment and seven years of hard labor. While initially the US tried to deny any charges of espionage by claiming that the craft was a weather plane, Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev provided indelible proof of the U-2’s intended mission and called off the East-West Summit to be held in Paris. President Eisenhower was forced to admit the program causing much embarrassment to the US. In 1957, Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher better known by his assumed alias, Colonel Rudolf Abel, had been arrested in New York by the FBI for his involvement in the Holloe Nickel case. He was convicted of being a Russian spy and had served about four years out of his 45-year sentence at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary in Georgia. In 1962, the USSR announced that it would release Francis Gary Powers, pilot of the U-2 spy plane that had been shot down as a goodwill gesture subsequent to a petition sent in by his family. The US, however, made it clear that the “gesture” was part of an exchange whereby Colonel Abel would simultaneously be released. The USSR, however, refused to recognize Colonel Abel or any espionage attempt. The exchange took place on the Glienicke Bridge that connected East (Postdam) and West Berlin. The bridge later came to be known as the “Bridge of Spies” since the two countries used the bridge thrice to exchange spies. Colonel Abel was released in East Berlin and sent on a walk towards the West while Captain Powers was sent to walk in the opposite direction. At precisely the same moment, American student Frederic Pryor, who had been held in Ease Germany without any charges since August 1961, was also released. Powers went through extensive debriefing with the US Air Force, CIA, and Lockheed. He underwent a hearing session with the Senate Armed Services Select Committee chaired by Senator Richard Russell. Eminent statesmen and American leaders such as Senators Prescott Bush and Barry Goldwater Sr were part of the hearing. It was determined by the committee that Powers did not divulge any sensitive information and had conducted himself well. The pilot, however, faced much criticism back home. He had been called a coward for not using the poison-filled needle, called a suicide pin that the CIA had provided its spy pilots to be used in case of a capture. Powers ended up working for KNBC reporting weather and was killed in 1977 due to the crash of his helicopter. Powers was awarded the Intelligence Star by the CIA in 1965. In 2000, he was posthumously awarded the Prisoner of War Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the National Defense Service Medal. In 2012, he was posthumously awarded the Silver Star medal for demonstrating ‘exceptional loyalty’ as a prisoner of war in Moscow. The Soviet Union’s announcement that Powers had been released out of “a desire to improve relations between the Soviet Union and the United States” did help ease tensions between the two nations in the midst of a raging Cold War. While the US did certainly treat the gesture with caution, the leaders of both nations – Soviet Premier Khrushchev and President John F. Kennedy seemed genuinely committed to defusing the situation and the exchange was part of their efforts. The warm memory of the exchange was, however, short-lived as the Cuban Missile Crisis escalated tensions between the US and the USSR once more. You may also like : February 10 1258 – The Mongols Conquer the Abbasid Caliphate and Seize Baghdad February 10 1870 – The YWCA was founded in the New York City