U-2 FELL ON FRONT PAGE 5 YEARS AGO

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000400100048-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 8, 1999
• Sequence Number: 48
• Publication Date: May 1, 1965
• Content Type: NSPR

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T AILy, NEWS
elease TCIA-
Sanitized - Approved Fo
r'
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A
Y
2 1965
CPYRGHT
The news. item from Turkey on
May 1, 1960 was brief. It said
simply that a United States re-.
1search plane had vanished on a
high-altitude rvent}ter -mission
near, the Turkish-Russian border.
4, Other details were scanty-un-
announcement that the plane, was
a U.S. reconnaissance' craft on a
..photo-intelligence ? mission over
1 the Soviet Union. At the control's
was former Air Force pilot Fran-
cis Gary Powers, 32.
~til Soviet Premier Nikita Khrush-! one, of : the most .'embarrAsing
CPYRGHT
pisodes of U. S. diplomatic hiss
ory. It sparked Congressional
nquiries into the ? operation's of
eh Central Intelligence Agency
nd made Powers a figure of con-
inuing controversy.
Khruehchev.nsed the ttJ- incl- The U.S. at' fh'st ''claimed he,
was off
? Today, five years after Powers
sailed out of his crippled U-2 near
he Soviet industrial center of
Sverdlovsk, no one knows . for
ure what caused the high-alti-
ude aircraft to crash. - '
Following his imprisonment in
ussia an dsusequent return to
he U. S., Powers told a Senate
ominittec that he didn't know
that happened. But it Is gen-
rally believed that he was shot
own by a grfound-to-air -missile
s Russia claimed..
(lent t owreck a plane-nd May 16;,
1960, summit conference in Parisj
by demanding that President.
Eisenhower publicly apologize.
s
7.20i is invitation to h isen lower
for a Moscow visit.
Start of the Mission
Powers' reconnaissance mission
began in the early hours of Sun-
day, May 1, 1960, at Incirlik air
base; near Adana, Turkey. Ile
pointed his glider-winged craft
across the Russian-Turkish bor-,
der and headed for Sverdolvsk,
1,300 , miles inside the Soviet,
Union. -
At. an altitude of about, 68,000:
feet, Powers said, he "felt and
sensed an explosion." His plane
fell out of control. He bailed4
out at about 15,000 feet, landed,
and choosing not to use a poison-!
tipped needle he carried, was im-i
on EL rutine r
mission, but admitted the a U 2
was a spy plane after Khrushchcv,
produced not only Powers, but
photographs of the fallen U-2.
Exchanged for Abel
Powers, convicted of spying,'[
was sentenced to 10 years in'
,prison. But in February, 1962, !
he was exchanged for the Rus-11
sian master spy, Col. Rudolf I.
Abel.
The CIA la-ier said it had no r
duct during or. after the flight..,,
He left the agency and now ? is a
the company.. that manufactured.
theIT2...
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Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00001,R0004001.00048-1