U-2 incident

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: U-2 Affair

(1960) Confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. On May 1, 1960, the Soviet Union shot down a U.S. U-2 reconnaissance plane and called the flight an "aggressive act." The U.S. denied Soviet claims that the pilot, F. Gary Powers, had stated that his mission was to collect Soviet intelligence data. Nikita Khrushchev declared that the Soviet Union would not take part in a scheduled summit conference with the U.S., Britain, and France unless the U.S. immediately stopped flights over Soviet territory, apologized, and punished those responsible. Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower agreed only to the first stipulation, and the conference was adjourned. Powers was tried in the Soviet Union and sentenced to 10 years in prison; in 1962 he was exchanged for the Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.

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Military History Companion: U-2 incident

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U-2 incident (1960). The U-2 spy-planes, flying at over 70, 000 feet (21, 336 metres), were a marvel of 1950s aeronautical achievement. The USA used them to conduct surveillance of the USSR during the Cold War and was still using them in the 1991 Gulf war. On 1 May 1960 Soviet air defence forces shot one down, reportedly with the last of seventeen specially enhanced SA-2 missiles fired at it, one of which downed a MiG fighter pursuing it. The US representative at the UN denied responsibility for the flight and so the humiliation was complete when on 7 May Premier Khrushchev announced that the pilot, Gary Powers, had parachuted out and been captured. The USA then said the plane had been used to survey weather conditions, but Powers told his interrogators he had taken off from Peshawar in Pakistan with orders to photograph military installations in Sverdlovsk, Kirov, and Archangel. The Soviets sentenced him to ten years but he was exchanged for the Soviet master spy Rudolf Abel on 10 February 1962.

— Christopher Bellamy

US Military History Companion: U‐2 Incident

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(1960)

On 1 May 1960, a U.S. spy plane—a U‐2—departed from Peshawar, Pakistan, on a reconnaissance mission over the Soviet Union. It never arrived at its destination—Bodo, Norway. On 6 May, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev announced that the aircraft had been shot down by a surface‐to‐air missile deep inside Soviet territory. Washington countered by saying that the aircraft was on a weather research mission when it strayed off course after the pilot's oxygen system failed. Khrushchev then revealed that the U‐2's film magazines had been recovered and that the pilot, Francis Gary Powers, was alive and in Soviet custody.

The incident created a sensation and threatened to scuttle the Soviet‐American summit conference scheduled to convene in Paris on 16 May. In a controversial move, President Dwight D. Eisenhower accepted responsibility for the flights rather than let the world believe that lower‐level functionaries had such authority. He also promised an end to the missions, but refused to apologize. The overflights, he asserted, had been necessary to safeguard American security. An angry Khrushchev refused to attend the summit conference.

The summit's cancellation was both a public humiliation and a personal blow to Eisenhower. He had hoped to make what would have been his final summit meeting a fitting capstone to his presidency by reaching agreement on a number of critical issues. The president even spoke of resigning, but soon changed his mind.

Powers was convicted of espionage by a Soviet court and sentenced to ten years' “deprivation of liberty,” the first three to be served in prison. He served less than two years before being exchanged in January 1962 for a Soviet agent in Western custody. He died in a helicopter crash in 1977.

Bibliography

Michael R. Beschloss, Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev, and the U‐2 Affair, 1986

US Military Dictionary: U-2 incident

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The shooting down of a U.S. spy plane (named U-2) in the first week of May, 1960. The plane, flown by Gary Powers, had departed from Peshawar, Pakistan on May 1st, bound for Bodo, Norway, where it never arrived. The Soviet government revealed that it had been shot down. The United States initially denied that it was on an intelligence mission, but later owned up and accepted responsibility, without apologizing. The tensions that the incident created led to Nikita Khrushchev refusing to attend an already scheduled summit between the two countries, and diminished the standing of President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the waning days of his administration.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

US History Encyclopedia: U-2 Incident

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On 1 May 1960 a U-2 reconnaissance and research aircraft piloted by Francis Gary Powers, on a surveillance mission for the CIA, was shot down over the Soviet Union (over Sverdlovsk, now Yekaterinburg) by a SAM-2 missile. The mission had originated in Peshawar, Pakistan, and aimed at capturing aerial pictures of military installations to monitor the progress of the Soviet missile programs. Upon entering Soviet air space Powers activated his antiradar scrambler, but the plane was spotted by Soviet military authorities. The Soviets shot the plane down; Powers surprisingly enough survived the crash unharmed but unconscious due to lack of oxygen. (Spy plane pilots were not expected to be captured alive if their mission could not be completed.) He was arrested by the KGB and admitted being a spy who had flown across the USSR to reach a military airfield in Norway while collecting intelligence information. On 5 May Premier Nikita Khrushchev denounced this act of U.S. aggression. The U.S. government and the CIA responded by denying that they had authorized the flight, but the Kremlin remained unconvinced. Powers was tried publicly (from 17 to 19 August) and sentenced to three years in prison and seven years in a labor camp. Finally, the United States admitted that the U-2 flights were supposed to prevent surprise attacks against American interests.

This incident disrupted the peace process between Washington and Moscow and ruined the Paris summit: the conference was adjourned on 17 May despite President Eisenhower's promise to stop the flights. On 19 February 1962 Powers was finally exchanged for Colonel Rudolph Ivanovich Abel, a Soviet spy.

Bibliography

Gaddis, John L. We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History. Oxford University Press, 1998.

Powers, Francis G., and Curt Gentry. Operation Over flight: A Memoir of the U-2 Incident. Brasseys, Inc., 2002.

Columbia Encyclopedia: U-2 incident

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U-2 incident, in U.S. and Soviet history, the events following the Soviet downing of an American U-2 high altitude reconnaissance aircraft over Soviet territory on May 1, 1960. The incident led to the collapse of a proposed summit conference between the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France in Paris. President Eisenhower's initial claim that he had no knowledge of such flights was difficult to maintain when the Soviets produced the pilot, Francis Gary Powers, who had survived the crash. Eisenhower met Khrushchev's demand for an apology by suspending U-2 flights, but the Soviet Premier was not satisfied and the summit was canceled. Powers was sentenced to ten years in prison, but was released in 1962 in exchange for convicted Soviet spy Rudolph Abel.

Bibliography

See M. R. Beschloss, Mayday (1986).

US Presidents Q&A: What was the U-2 Incident?

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U-2 spyplanes, which had been flying over the Soviet Union since the mid-1950s, were capable of flying high in the atmosphere, beyond Soviet air defenses. However, the Soviets had developed an improved surface-to-air missile by 1960. Just two weeks before a U.S.-Soviet summit in Paris in 1960, President Eisenhower authorized the flight of a U-2 spyplane to make photographic runs over defense areas in the Soviet Union. Soviets shot down the plane. The United States claimed that it was a weather forecasting plane that had flown off course. Just before the Paris summit meeting, however, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev announced that the pilot, CIA agent Francis Gary Powers, had survived the destruction of his plane and was being held as a prisoner.

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Intelligence Encyclopedia: U-2 Incident

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The U-2 spy plane, a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft built by the U.S. starting in the 1950s, was the subject of many "incidents" or diplomatic confrontations with the Soviet Union during the Cold War; however, the debacle referred to as the U-2 incident began on May 1, 1960, when a U-2 plane flown by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) pilot Gary Powers took off from a U.S. air base at Peshawar, Turkey. The mission scheduled for Powers, codenamed Grand Slam, was to be the most ambitious U-2 flight undertaken up to that time. Its route would take it from Turkey to Soviet nuclear-weapons facilities in the Ural Mountains, various railroads, intercontinental ballistic missile sites in Siberia, then back across northern Russia, there to photograph shipyards before leaving Soviet airspace above the Arctic Circle and landing in Bodo, Norway.

The mission was unsuccessful. Powers took off at 6:26 A.M. on what was to have been the twenty-fourth U-2 overflight of the Soviet Union. He flew first to the east, over Iran to Afghanistan, in order to cross the Soviet border from an unexpected direction. He was, however, detected by Soviet radar while still 15 miles from the Afghan-Soviet border. Although undesirable, detection was not unusual; in fact, all previous U-2 flights over the Soviet Union had been detected at some point. The U-2 relied for success not primarily on stealth but on the fact that the Soviets had no fighter planes or, for the first few years, surface-to-air missiles that could fly high enough (70,000 ft [21 km]) to shoot it down. A recently deployed Soviet surface-to-air missile, the SA-2, could reach the U-2, but only if it happened to be stationed in the plane's flight-path and if its operators were on alert status, ready to fire.

Powers flew over an SA-2 battalion soon after entering Soviet airspace, but its crew was not on alert and so could not fire while he was within range. About a dozen Soviet MiG fighter planes also attempted to shoot down Powers's U-2, but could not climb high enough to get within weapons range.

Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971) was notified of Powers's ongoing flight at 8:00 A.M. Moscow time. It being May 1 (May Day or International Labor Day), he was preparing for the massive official festivities that always scheduled for that occasion. Outraged at what he perceived as a deliberate political provocation, he ordered that Powers's U-2 be shot down at any cost.

By this time Powers was approaching the Russian city of Sverdlosk. The pilot of an Su-9 fighter jet was ordered to carry out a suicide attack on Powers, ramming the U-2 with his own plane; however, he was unable to locate Powers. An SA-2 battalion stationed outside the city was on alert, and when Powers entered its zone of engagement it fired a missile. It exploded near Powers's plane. The fragile U-2 was damaged by the concussion and began to break to pieces. Powers managed to bail out, and was captured as soon as he parachuted to the ground.

Because the U-2 overflights violated treaty law, the U.S. always denied publicly that they were occurring. Early on, in fact, the CIA, which ran the U-2 program, had considered using non-U.S.-citizens as pilots. Therefore, after the loss of Powers's plane (but before the Soviet Union had revealed that it had captured Powers alive) the U.S. issued several false cover stories. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), for example, claimed that it had lost a U-2 being used as a weather plane over Turkey; the idea was that if the Soviets recovered the plane itself, the U.S. would claim that it had strayed accidentally into Soviet airspace when its oxygen supply failed and the pilot lost consciousness. A spokesman for the U.S. Department of State assured reporters at a press conference in Washington, D.C., on May 6 that "There was no—N-O—no deliberate attempt to violate Soviet air space, and there has never been," and added that it was "monstrous" of the Soviets to assert that the U.S. would lie to the world.

But the next day, May 7, Khrushchev revealed that he had proof that the U-2 had been a spy plane: Powers himself. The statements by NASA and the State Department were exposed, causing an international political embarrassment for the U.S. On May 11, President Eisenhower made a speech in which he admitted that the U.S. had been overflying the Soviet Union. That same day, the remnants of Powers's U-2 were put on public display in Gorky Park in Moscow and were toured by Soviet leaders. Political protest in Japan caused the U.S. to withdraw its U-2 detachments from that country; soon the U.S. had withdrawn all its other overseas U-2 detachments as well. For the U.S., both the political and operational costs of the U-2 incident were high.

Powers was questioned, but revealed nothing of value to his captors. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison as a spy but was traded back to the U.S. for a captured Soviet spy two years later. Coincidentally, the day Powers was sentenced—August 19, 1960—the U.S. made its first use of a technology that would eliminate altogether the need for U-2 overflights of the Soviet Union, recovering a film package from its first spy satellite, the Corona. The Corona's pictures showed more of the Soviet Union (albeit at lower resolution) than all reconnaissance missions made up to that time by the U-2 and high-altitude balloons. From that day forward satellites, not airplanes, would provide direct intelligence of Soviet activity—and would do so without political risk.

Background

In July 1957, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower requested permission from Pakistani Prime Minister Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy for the U.S. to establish a secret U.S. intelligence facility in Pakistan and for the U-2 spyplane to fly from Pakistan. A facility established in Badaber (Peshawar Airbase), 10 miles (16 km) from Peshawar, was a cover for a major communications intercept operation run by the American National Security Agency (NSA). Badaber was an excellent choice because of its proximity to Soviet central Asia. This enabled monitoring of missile test sites and infrastructure and other communications. The U-2 "spy-in-the-sky" was allowed to use the Pakistan Air Force portion of the Peshawar airport to gain vital photo intelligence in an era before satellite observation.^[2]

On April 9, 1960, the U-2 spyplane of the special Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) unit "10-10" crossed the southern national boundary of the Soviet Union in the area of Pamir Mountains and flew over four Soviet top secret military objects: the Semipalatinsk Test Site, the Tu-95 air base, the Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) test site of the Soviet Air Defence Forces near Saryshagan, and the Tyuratam missile range (Baikonur Cosmodrome). The plane was detected by the Soviet Air Defense Forces at 4:47 when it had flown more than 250 km over the Soviet national boundary and avoided several attempts at interception by MiG-19 and Su-9 during the flight. After the U-2 left Soviet air space at 11:32, it was clear that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had successfully performed an extraordinary intelligence operation. In spite of the negative Soviet diplomatic reaction^{[public or private? Explain]}, the next flight of the U-2 spyplane from the Badaber airbase was planned on May 1.^[3]^[4]

The event

On May 1, 1960, thirteen days before the scheduled opening of an East–West summit conference in Paris, a U.S. Lockheed U-2A spy plane, 56-6693, Item 360, left the US base in Badaber on a mission to overfly the Soviet Union, photographing ICBM sites in and around Sverdlovsk and Plesetsk, then land at Bodø in Norway. All units of the Soviet Air Defence Forces in the Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Siberia, Ural and later in the U.S.S.R. European Region and Extreme North were on red alert, and the U-2 flight was expected. Soon after the plane was detected, Lieutenant General of the Air Force Yevgeniy Savitskiy ordered the air-unit commanders "to attack the violator by all alert flights located in the area of foreign plane's course, and to ram if necessary".^[3]

Due to the U-2's extreme operating altitude, Soviet attempts to intercept the plane using fighter aircraft failed. Moreover, the U-2's course was out of range of several of the nearest SAM sites, and one SAM site even failed to engage the violator since it was not on duty that day. According to the official version of the event (see below for alternative, plausible versions), the U-2 was eventually hit and brought down near Degtyarsk, Ural Region, by a salvo of fourteen SA-2 Guideline (S-75 Dvina) surface-to-air missiles. The plane's pilot, Gary Powers, successfully bailed out and parachuted to safety, although in doing so he violated his orders to destroy the aircraft were he to be shot down^{[citation needed]}. Powers carried with him a modified silver dollar which contained a lethal, shellfish-derived saxitoxin-tipped needle, although in the event he did not use it.^[5] In bailing out, he neglected to disconnect his oxygen hose and struggled with it until it broke, enabling him to separate from the aircraft. A subsequent missile salvo also hit the aircraft, further damaging it and would likely have killed Powers outright. He was captured soon after parachuting to earth in Russia.^[3]

The SAM command center was unaware that the plane was destroyed for more than 30 minutes.^[3] One of the Soviet MiG-19 fighters pursuing Powers was also destroyed in the missile salvo.^[6] The MiGs' IFF transponders were not yet switched to the new May codes due to the May 1st holiday.^[7]

A close study of Powers' account of the flight shows that one of the last targets he had overflown was the Chelyabinsk-65 plutonium production facility. By photographing the facility, the heat rejection capacity of the reactors' cooling systems could have been estimated, thus allowing a calculation of the power output of the reactors. This then would have allowed the amount of plutonium being produced to be determined, thus allowing analysts to determine how many nuclear weapons the USSR was producing.

American cover-up and exposure

U-2 with fictitious NASA markings and serial number at the NASA Flight Research Center, Edwards Air Force Base, on May 6, 1960 (NASA photo)

U-2 incident exhibit at the US's National Cryptologic Museum

Four days after Powers disappeared, NASA issued a very detailed press release noting that an aircraft had "gone missing" north of Turkey.^[8] The press release speculated that the pilot might have fallen unconscious while the autopilot was still engaged, even falsely claiming that "the pilot reported over the emergency frequency that he was experiencing oxygen difficulties." To bolster this, a U-2 plane was quickly painted in NASA colors and shown to the media.

After learning of this, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev announced to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, and thus the world, that a "spyplane" had been shot down but intentionally made no reference to the pilot. As a result, the Eisenhower Administration, thinking the pilot had died in the crash, authorized the release of a cover story claiming that the plane was a "weather research aircraft" which had strayed into Soviet airspace after the pilot had radioed "difficulties with his oxygen equipment" while flying over Turkey. The Eisenhower White House acknowledged that this might be the same plane, but still proclaimed that "there was absolutely no deliberate attempt to violate Soviet airspace and never has been", and attempted to continue the facade by grounding all U-2 aircraft to check for "oxygen problems."

On May 7, Khrushchev sprang his trap and announced:^[9]

I must tell you a secret. When I made my first report I deliberately did not say that the pilot was alive and well… and now just look how many silly things [the Americans] have said.

Not only was Powers still alive, but his plane was also essentially intact. The Soviets managed to recover the surveillance camera and even developed some of the photographs. The incident resulted in great humiliation for Eisenhower's administration, caught in a lie.^[10]

Powers’ survival pack, including 7500 rubles and jewelry for women, was also recovered. Today a large part of the wreck as well as many items from the survival pack are on display at the Central Museum of Armed Forces in Moscow. A small piece of the plane was returned to the United States and is on display at the National Cryptologic Museum.^[11]

Aftermath

Powers' trial.

Russian Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Francis Gary Powers

The Four Power Paris Summit between president Dwight Eisenhower, Nikita Khrushchev, Harold Macmillan and Charles de Gaulle collapsed, in large part because Eisenhower refused to accede to Khrushchev's demands that he apologize for the incident. Khrushchev left the talks on May 16.

The Soviet Union convened a meeting of the United Nations Security Council on May 23 to tell their side of the story.^[12] The meetings continued for four days with other allegations of spying being exchanged, as well as recriminations over the Paris Summit, and a US offer of an "open skies" proposal to allow reciprocal flights over one another's territory,^[13]^[14]^[15] at the end of which the Soviet Union overwhelmingly lost a vote^[16] on a concise resolution which would have condemned the incursions and requested the US to prevent their recurrence.^[17]

Powers pleaded guilty and was convicted of espionage on August 19 and sentenced to 3 years’ imprisonment and 7 years of hard labor. He served one and three-quarter years of the sentence before being exchanged for Rudolf Abel on February 10, 1962. The exchange occurred on the Glienicke Bridge connecting Potsdam, East Germany, to West Berlin.

Another result of the crisis was that the U.S. Corona spy satellite project was accelerated, while the CIA accelerated the development of the A–12 OXCART supersonic spyplane that first flew in 1962 and began developing the Lockheed D-21/M-21 unmanned drone.

The incident severely compromised Pakistan security and worsened relations between the Soviet Union and Pakistan. As an attempt to put up a bold front, Pakistani General Khalid Mahmud Arif while commenting on the incident stated that, "Pakistan felt deceived because the US had kept her in the dark about such clandestine spy operations launched from Pakistan’s territory."^[18] The communications wing at Badaber was formally closed down on January 7, 1970.^[19]

Later versions

For 36 years, the official story of the U-2 incident was that the spy plane had been shot down by one of a salvo of fourteen Soviet SA-2 rockets. This story originated with Oleg Penkovsky, a GRU agent who spied for MI6. In recent years, however, new information emerged which differed substantially from the official version.

Igor Mentyukov

In 1996, Soviet pilot Captain Igor Mentyukov claimed that, at 65,000 feet (19,812 meters) altitude, under orders to ram the intruder, he had managed to catch the U-2 in the slipstream of his unarmed Sukhoi Su-9, causing the U-2 to flip over and break its wings. The salvo of rockets had indeed scored a hit, downing a pursuing MiG-19, not the U-2. Mentyukov said that if a rocket had hit the U-2, its pilot would not have lived.^[20]^[21]

Though the normal Su-9 service ceiling was 55,000 feet (16,760 meters), Mentyukov's aircraft had been modified to achieve higher altitudes, having its weapons removed. With no weapons, the only attack option open to him was ramming. Mentyukov asserted that Soviet generals concealed these facts to avoid challenging Nikita Khrushchev's faith in the efficacy of Soviet air defenses.

Sergei Khrushchev

In 2000, Sergei Khrushchev wrote about the experience of his father, Nikita Khrushchev, in the incident. He described how Mentyukov attempted but missed intercepting the U-2, failing even to gain visual contact. Major Mikhail Voronov, in control of a battery of anti-aircraft missiles, fired three SA-2s at the radar contact but only one ignited. It quickly rose toward the target and exploded in the air behind the U-2 but near enough to violently shake the aircraft, tearing off its long wings. At a lower altitude, Powers climbed out of the falling fuselage and parachuted to the ground. Uncertainty about the initial shootdown success resulted in thirteen further anti-aircraft missiles being fired by neighboring batteries, but the later rockets only hit a pursuing MiG-19 piloted by Sr. Lt. Sergei Safronov, mortally wounding him.^[7] Sergei Safronov was posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Banner.^[3]

References

^ Walsh, Kenneth T. (2008-06-06). "Presidential Lies and Deceptions". US News and World Report. http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/politics/2008/06/06/presidential-lies-and-deceptions.html.
^ Amjad Ali, the Pakistani ambassador to the US at the time, narrated in his book "Glimpses" (Lahore: Jang Publisher`s, 1992) that the personal assistant of Suhrawardy advised embassy staff of the Prime Minister's agreement to the US facility on Pakistan soil.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e How Powers plane was shot down. (Russian)
^ The Power's Sentence Issued by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. (Russian)
^ http://www.vectorsite.net/twgas_4.html
^ Burrows, William E. (1986). Deep Black: Space Espionage and National Security. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-394-54124-3.
^ ^a ^b American Heritage magazine. THE DAY WE SHOT DOWN THE U-2: Nikita Khrushchev’s son remembers a great turning point of the Cold War, as seen from behind the Iron Curtain. By Sergei Khrushchev. September 2000, Volume 51, Issue 5.
^ Orlov, Alexander. "The U-2 Program: A Russian Officer Remembers". https://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/winter98_99/art02.html. Retrieved 2007-01-08. ^{[dead link]}
^ Powers, Francis Gary (1970). Operation Overflight (Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1971 (hard cover) ISBN 978-0340148235 ed.).
^ Frum, David (2000). How We Got Here: The '70s. New York, New York: Basic Books. p. 27. ISBN 0465041957.
^ "U-2 Incident". http://www.nsa.gov/museum/museu00034.cfm. Retrieved 2007-02-10. ^{[dead link]}
^ United Nations Security Council Verbatim Report meeting 857 on May 23, 1960 (retrieved 2008-08-29)
^ United Nations Security Council Verbatim Report meeting 858 on May 24, 1960 (retrieved 2008-08-29)
^ United Nations Security Council Verbatim Report meeting 859 on May 25, 1960 (retrieved 2008-08-29)
^ United Nations Security Council Verbatim Report meeting 860 on May 26, 1960 (retrieved 2008-08-29)
^ United Nations Security Council Verbatim Report meeting 860 page 17 on May 26, 1960 (retrieved 2008-08-29)
^ United Nations Security Council Document 4321 Union of Societ Socialist Republics: draft resolution on May 23, 1960
^ "Tale of a love affair that never was: United States-Pakistan Defence Relations". Hamid Hussain. The Defence Journal, June, 2002.
^ "Pentagon's new demands". Ali Abbas Rizvi. The News International, March 14, 2008.
^ Schwartz, Stephen I. (1998). Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940. Brookings Institution Press. p. 679. ISBN 0815777744.
^ TIME magazine. Letter to the editor: STEPHEN I. SCHWARTZ, Director U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project, Brookings Institution, Washington. Dec. 22, 1997

Cultural references

The Cold War Museum (www.coldwar.org), founded by Francis Gary Powers, Jr. in 1996.
In the show Quantum Leap, episode "Honeymoon Express", the government funding agency tries to shut down PQL because due to no significant changes being made in history, they do not believe that Sam Beckett is really trapped in the past (since in the show, they only change one person's life at a time). In an attempt to prove that Sam had leaped, Al tried to get Sam to prevent the downing of the U-2. Sam was unable to prevent the U-2 mission, but by saving the life of a young woman and subsequently helping her pass her legal exams, he saved the Project when history changed and the same woman now led the oversight committee and approved the Project's budget.

External links

United States Air Force portal

The U-2 airplane incident, according to the U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian
1962 Russia frees US spy plane pilot
Chelyabinsk-65/Ozersk
Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library & Museum - contains a number of artifacts and documents relating to the U-2 incident
"The CIA and the U-2 Program" (1998) - Central Intelligence Agency
Central Museum of the Armed Forces in Moscow

← 1959

Aviation accidents and incidents in 1960

1961→

National Airlines Flight 2511 (January 6) - Capital Airlines Flight 20 (January 18) - Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 710 (March 17) - U-2 incident (May 1) - Trans Australia Airlines Flight 538 (June 10) - Eastern Air Lines Flight 375 (October 4) - Cal Poly football team plane crash (October 29) - New York air disaster (December 16) - Munich Convair 340 crash (December 17)
Bold indicates incidents resulting at least 50 deaths (current article is always in bold)

Orange color indicates the deadliest incident in 1960

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U-2 incident

Contents

Background

The event

American cover-up and exposure

Aftermath

Later versions

Igor Mentyukov

Sergei Khrushchev

See also

References

Cultural references

Further reading

External links

	U-2 Spy Plane
	Cold War
	Cold War (1945 – 91): External Course

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