DEBRIEFING OF FRANCIS GARY POWERS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01676R002200040003-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 73
• Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 7, 2002
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: January 1, 1962
• Content Type: MIN

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DEBRIEFING OF FRANCIS GARY POWERS
Tape: #9
Date: 15 February 1962
Time: 1515 to 1647
25X1 Present:
25X1
0
Interr.: Frank, it occurred to me that, as you remember,
we used to paint the numbers out, then paint them on,
then paint them out. Did they every bring this up to
you? Did they-
Powers: Powers: Yes, they talked about this quite often and I never did
tell them that I had ever seen an airplane without
numbers and insignia on it. I told them that I had
no way of knowing because with the equipment had
to be taken directly out to the airplane, didntt get a
chance to walk around and look at it and all the
airplanes I had seen had this on it. I don't know
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whether this was right or wrong to say that but that
was the story I stuck with all through. They, I think,
took the paint off looking for numbers and insignias and
so forth.
Interr.: Frank, you mentioned earlier that you never gave them
the names of any of the pilots, that they undoubtedly
got the name of Ibecause his name was on
the chute and the bag or the coat. What kind of coat
was it.
Powers: Well, it wasn't on the coat but it was on the bag that
the coat was in.
Interr. How about other people connected with the project. Did
they ask you who they were?
Powers: They asked and I refused to tell a lot of the names, but
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sure you know about that. Many of these people I thought
their names would appear in the newspapers and so forth,
and I wanted to give the impression that everything I said
was the truth and I tried to anticipate the newspapers and
any other source they might be able to have . You're
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interested in what? Military--
Interr.: Well, I did have a personal interest; I was wondering
if you gave my name.
Powers: No, I don't think they'd recognize
Interr.: What about
Powers: Let me see--let me think--I
know you.
Inte r r.: Out!
-they
Powers: This has bothered me alot because I really don't know
why I did this and later I realized that I could have
gotten by without doing it. At the time it seemed to
be the thing to do and its bothered me tremendous
amount since then, and I know that it's very important
that you people know this. I'm going to try to remember
who they were.
let's see,
-they asked
of course, that they had left and were never
associated with the project in any way--had never heard
of them since. Who was the navigator?
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25X1 Interr, :
25X1 Powers:
No. I
I
--now I don't know for sure whether I said
that or not because I called the weather man the navi-
gator; told them that he was the navigator. What was
his name?
25X1 Interr.
Powers:
25X1 Interr.
Powers:
No, No.
25X1 Interr.
Powers:
No. It was the opposite. Maybe Major.
25X1 Interr.
Well, we had
D
Powers:
He was gone and he was replaced by--
25X1 Interr.
II
Powers:
Well, then I told them the wrong name of somebody else
25X1 Interr.:
We did have
I
navigator there.
Powers:
No, nothing about the
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Interr.:
Did they ever ask you, Frank, about whether there was
anybody else, any other nation involved?
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t
Powers: Yes, they--answered it and I talked around the subject
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by saying that America was made up of many nationalities,
and we had boys that were orignally Italian, German,
French and so forth. I could definitely remember see-
ing someone whcy Itm sure, was a Greek origin and as
far as other countries participating, none. And they
didn't press this too much.
aterr.: They never gave any indication in their questioning
that they might have suspicioned anything of this nature;
'owers: No, and they never gave any indication that they dis-
believed it because usually something that they dis-
believed, they would come back to several times.
iterr.: Did they ever mention anything about the
Missions that we used to run out of
'owers: You mean the--these were the--
iterr.: The telemetry missions we used to run--the
-along the border.
owers: Well, I told them that we flew alot of missions along the
borders. At the time I told them probaby really more
than we did. This may have been wrong--I dontt know--
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but what I was trying to do was---see we did alot of
flying there at
and I assumed that they knew
that there was alot of flying going on there. And I
didn't want to bring in any of these Middle Eastern
things. So I tried to fill up the time. I told them that
the primary thing I was hired for was border flying--
that we flew weather missions and training flights
around the area and over the Black--not the Black Sea
but the Mediterranean Sea . They didnnt ask about
the Middle Eastern missions and that surprised me,
but I had no intentions of telling them anything about
that. That was one of the main things I was trying to
conceal. They asked alot about the equipment we
carried on these border missions and so forth and I
told them that the equipment was loaded and unloaded
without anyone seeing it except the people who handled
it. That all we knew was should (unintelligible) shows
on the map--turn the switch on, we turned the switch
on--turn the switch off, we turned the switch off. So
I guess they can--Oh, they asked me another thing,
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probably important. They asked me if these border
flights were made in conjunction with any other types
of airplanes along the border and I had heard that they
had but I told them that I didn't know anything about it.
And actually I had no proof that any other airplanes
were ever in the area.
Interr.: Did they ever ask you if you were connected or your
flights were connected with the RB-471s? Do you
remember they used to come into
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Powers: Well they asked me about RB47's and RB130's and I
told them that I didn't know what an RB47 is--I had
seen B47's and I had seen C130's but as far as what
they were, where they went, how they flew; that I
knew nothing abou
t it.
Interr.: Did they Lever as
k you about RB47's at
specifically?
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Powers: Yes, they wanted
to know--
Interr.: Did they know abo
ut the
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Powers: I don't know how i
wanting to know a
t was brought up but they were
bout the RB47's there--and, also
when I told them-
-well, I didn't know what an RB130 was;
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that I had only seen C130 cargo, they gave me the
impression that they knew that there x0 .j were some
I know there were some 130ts there --
they were in and out quite often, but 47ts-- They asked
about RB47ts and I told them I didn't know what an RB47
was; that I had seen B47ts and that we had had some
communication with--I don't know whether they knew
that they were there or not, I don't know what their
impression was. But they seemed to feel sure that
a
s n
I
.,
w
as
can remember.
Interr.: Frank, did they give you any indication that they were
intercepting any of our message traffic or anythingof
this type?
Powers: No, they didn't. They asked me if I knew any codes--
what do you call it-cryptogram?
Interr. Crypto.
Powers: Crypto. I told them that I knew Morse Code and that
was it--and not very well. They asked quite a few
questions about our Communications and I told them that
that place--that nobody could get into tha place; that it
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was completely off-limits, never saw it, never read
messages that went in or out.
Interr.: Frank, did they try to develop any relationship in any
detail between say the unit and how much the Air Force
participated and what was the degree or nature of their
participation?
Powers: At first they didn't, but later they did--I don't know,
this might be just my immagination, but it seemed to
me that later they were trying to tie it in much closer
than they did at first. I told them that it was sort of
a combination-military and civilian because we were
using a military air base. I unfortunately had a DAFC
card in my pocket. And I assumed that they--well I
donzt know, maybe I assumed they knew much more
than they did--but I assumed that they knew about the
detachment, 10-10 and what it was there for and so forth.
And we did travel on military aircraft to Germany and
back so much. So I told them it was sort of a combi-
nation--we got supplied by the military. I mean they
brought in supplies by air and they knew that Colonel
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was the head.
Interr.: But they were apparently convinced that pilots that were
active were civilian?
Powers: Yes, well I told them this every time. I told them that
we had military pilots in the outfit but they didn't fly the
U-2. That only the civilians flew the U-21s. They all
had been discharged from the Air Force. Most of the
men had received their training in the Air Force; their
flying training in the Air Force but were there as a
pilots
contract/to the CIA and the only name they could possibly
L.UW wua.c znar name means
or who it is.
Interr.: Did they ask you about your training?
Powers: Yes, they--not a whole lot about it--they seemed to be more
interested in intelligen 6training and instructions that
I had received on how the equipment operated and who
made it and so forth, but I denied all v,- of the
equipment.
Interr.: Even so, did you get any impression which part of the
equipment, either the payload or the aircraft itself, they
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were stressing in terms of interest?
Powers: Seems to me that they stressed more the special
equipment but they also asked questions about the
pieces that they found--the altimeters, airspeed
indicators and so forth.
Interr.: Did they ever ask you about thatQ anger repeater?
Powers: Yes, and I told them that it was something that I was
told was a radar jamming device. That's all I said.
But I feel that from the condition of the tail when I
saw it that they might have got that in fairly good
condition. I didn't--they wouldn't let me get too
close to any of this but it seems like this place was
open and it looked from where I was in fairly good
condition. Now it might have had a fairly hard bang
and shook up but--
Interr.: When they were pushing on this type of thing, that is
basically the tactical side of it, did they bring in
people who you felt were quite knowledgable in this
type of thing or was it just a regular run of interro-
gators that were doing this?
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Powers: Let me see now, they brought in people several times
who were supposed to be experts. One was the airplane
in general, but I don't think of the equipment. Let's see
the equipment itself--I really can't remember for sure
but I don't think they had any experts question me on
the equipment. But I can't be positive--I know the air-
craft, they did.
Interr.: Now I don'tlnwwhat you carried in the nose of this
mission; I presume you had Systems I and 3--something
like this.
Powers: I don't remember, myself.
Interr.: Did they ask you questions about that stuff?
Powers: They had some tapes--I don't know where they came
from--rigged up to use from the equipment--they wanted
to know what it was and they had some plots on photo-
graplic paper of--well I don't know what you call these
things--but radar signals, I suppose, which show up on
scopes. They had some of that; I don't know how much
of the tape was usable or what information they could
get out of it, but I denied all knowledge of what the
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the equipment was for, how it worked, and--there was
very little of it actually that I knew how it worked, but
I read about some of it in books, studied some of it.
But I told them that we never saw how it was loaded;
all we knew was to turn switches on and off. And the
information they got from the equipment, they got from
the wreckage.
Interr.: Based on their interrogation did they indicate that they
were impressed by any particular thing, say quality
of photography or nature of tapes?
Powers: This is one thing they mentioned along that line--their
experts turned in a report that the film was the same
as the film that came on the balloons that can-rover.
That was mentioned in one of the expert reports.
Interr.: The same type of film or the same film?
Powers: Just how it was, I don't know, I was thinking we were
talking about the same thickness, the same quality.
Interr.: Resolution qualities?
Powers: Maybe so.
Interr.: They better / r-Eelieve that.
Interr.: Was that their only reference to balloon activities?
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Powers: Yes, that was the only time they mentioned it, but
I read that, I heard of these balloons before, but when
I read this expert thing talking about it, I asked him,
"Balloons, what kind of balloons, what are you talking
about?" They said, "Oh, the Americans sent balloons
over with cameras on them and itts causing us alot of
trouble -?-airplanes running into them and causing alot
of danger to commercial civil aviation" and so forth.
But that's all they said about it.
Interr.: Frank, you did say they showed you some prints I believe.
Did they ever show you prints?
Powers: Yes they brought just a few in there.
Interr. : Was this early or later,2
Powers: It was after a few weeks, I don't know, it wasn't
immediately, it was, I would say, maybe in April,
maybe over a month, but I can't be positive.
Interr.: Did they shcwyou this one by any chant e, Frank?
Powers: No, I didn't see one of the airfields or airplanes.
rocket
They showed me one or two that had these X $C
launching sites. I don't know if it was intentional
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or not that they showed it to me. I asked them what it
was and they said it was one of our anti-aircraft launching
sites. But this I never saw.
Interr.: This is the print that appeared in the newspapers that
Krushchev displayed in his F t speech.
Powers: In fact, I do not even remember flying over an airfield.
Unintelligible
Interr. : He also claimed they were fighters.
Interr.: I believe this is Airfield which is just over the
border of Pakistan, a short distance into the Soviet Union.
Powers: Well it was completely cloudy there so they didn't get
that from me--it was completely clouded--if that is the
place. And there was one that they had to show a river
and I could see a factory on the side--smoke stack--
looked like smoke coming out and then they had a blowup
showing what this thing would do, how much distance it
would cover and they had hundreds of kilometers--they
said from here to here the obliques--. But it was not
the normal size but, well when you don't enlarge a
picture but make it smaller- -reduced.
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Interr, : When these technical experts, is that what you would call
these people?
Powers: Well they called them experts.
Interr. Did you ever get the impression that they were particu-
larly impressed with the airliane, or the engine, or the
equipment they got out--did they ooh and ah over it or
anything like that.
Powers: I got the impression that they tried to play that down--
"It's just equipment, wezve got better" and stuff like
that. It seemed the attitude they had. But you couldn't
tell too much about what these people were thinking.
Interr.: Could you get a feeling whether these people were
basically laboratory people or basically technical
intelligence people. 3KKKrX :MX*af Was there any way
of getting a discernment there.
Powers: I think they were--I know some of them supposedly
came from the Academy of Sciences--I think that's
what they called it.
Interr.: Do you recall the names of any of them?
Powers: They didn't introduce them by name but sometimes
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their names were on these forms that they came in with.
I couldn't remember x any of them. In fact I have trouble
with names anyway.
Interr.: Speaking of names, did they ever use names on you?
Ask you if you knew people--say do you know so and so.
Powers: No, the only time they did anytihing like that as I recall
AT
was a*Mw my trial. I found out during my trial about the
B47and they called me in one time , I think about 7 o'clock
at night. A~PX Asked me a few questions about B47's
and showed me four photographs which I didn't recognize
any of the people.
Intern : Then you were aware of the B47 that got shot down.
Powers: Not until the day of the trial when they mentioned it.
Interr.: Did they ever ask you if you knew Mc Cone or Olmsted,
or. if you had any connection with their program or
anything like that, or do you recall?
Powers: No, they didn't ask about a connection and I had asked
them when they called me in who the two boys--I think
it was mentioned at the trial that they had two--asked
them who the two boys were. They told me the names
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at that time and they showed me, if I'm not mistaken,
it was four photographs, if I recognized any of these
people. They told me that these people had been in
II
had seen me at the Officer's Club there and I
told them I didn't know any of these people, and I didn't.
The only thing that they seemed to be trying to tie in
with B47's and so forth was the question they asked about
whether my flight was taken in conjunction with flights
of other aircraft along the border. As well as I can
remember, that's the only way they tried to tie it in.
Interr. Did they ever ask you, Frank, whether there were any
other detachments other than the one at
0
Powers: Yes, they asked me to name the detachments and I
named several. In fact, I named detachment 50--
which was that detachment--but I just told them I
didn't know what these people did; they were just
detachments. There was detachment 47, detachment 10.
Interr. : This was the people then
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Interr. :
Powers:
Interr. :
Powers:
being mentioned. I told them that I knew nothing about
that stuff, that-- the only U-21s that I had seen were the
ones that we had and some that were tested in the States--
that were flying tests and so forth. Because I had told
them previous to that that I had taken one back for
repair or something.
Interr.: In the same connection, Frank, do you recall if they
organization with the USAFE
in Wiesbaden, you know, the headquarters up there in
Ramstein, did they try to connect you with the--you
mentioned earlier with the B-57-D's was it, up in
Germany- -did they ask you about it?
Powers: They said in 1956, B-57-D's and I told them I'd seen
B-57's--I dxR3dx didn't know what number it was, and
they asked me how it looked. I described a B-57 with
short wings and they said the B-57 had much longer
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wings and I told them I'd never seen one.
Interr.: Did they indicate to you who was flying the B-57-D's?
Powers: No, they didn't seem to ask todmuch about this, they
just made this statement; that the United States was very
agressive and had made these B-57-D flights in 1956 from
Germany and the only other flight that they mentioned
was April 9th.
Interr.: Did they ever indicate an awareness that SAC also had
U-2's.
Powers: Not that I know of--I don't remember them saying
anything about--but I'm sure they know.
Interr.: Did they ever mention B-52's or B-58's, B-70's, any
other SAC--present or future?
Powers: No, they didn't mention or ask questions about that.
Interr.: Did they ask you if you ever used to be in SAC?
Powers: Let's see, now they asked me about my Air Force
career which I gave them, but I don't know whether
I told them that I was in SAC or not.
Interr.: Did they ask if you knew anything about nuclear
weapons?
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Powers: No they didn't ask me a thing about that.
Interr.: Theirs or ours?
Powers: Pardon.
Interr.: Theirs, in other words, did they ask you if you had
any knowledge of their atomic energy program, tests
sites or anything else of that nature.
Powers: No, and they didn't even ask me if I 'had any knowledge
of ours.
Interr.: Frank, in this area of nuclear weapons, did they ever
imply that, either then or in the future, they could use
a nuclear weapon with their Svve fn