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N0KFQ > TODAY 01.05.12 17:37l 50 Lines 2339 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 21821_KB0WSA
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - May 1
Path: IZ3LSV<IK2XDE<DB0RES<DK0WUE<7M3TJZ<ZL2BAU<N0KFQ<KB0WSA
Sent: 120501/1612Z 21821@KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.49
May 1, 1960:
American U-2 spy plane shot down
An American U-2 spy plane is shot down while conducting espionage
over the Soviet Union. The incident derailed an important summit
meeting between President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet leader
Nikita Khrushchev that was scheduled for later that month.
The U-2 spy plane was the brainchild of the Central Intelligence
Agency, and it was a sophisticated technological marvel.
Traveling at altitudes of up to 70,000 feet, the aircraft was
equipped with state-of-the-art photography equipment that could,
the CIA boasted, take high-resolution pictures of headlines in
Russian newspapers as it flew overhead. Flights over the Soviet
Union began in mid-1956. The CIA assured President Eisenhower
that the Soviets did not possess anti-aircraft weapons
sophisticated enough to shoot down the high-altitude planes.
On May 1, 1960, a U-2 flight piloted by Francis Gary Powers
disappeared while on a flight over Russia. The CIA reassured the
president that, even if the plane had been shot down, it was
equipped with self-destruct mechanisms that would render any
wreckage unrecognizable and the pilot was instructed to kill
himself in such a situation. Based on this information, the U.S.
government issued a cover statement indicating that a weather
plane had veered off course and supposedly crashed somewhere in
the Soviet Union. With no small degree of pleasure, Khrushchev
pulled off one of the most dramatic moments of the Cold War by
producing not only the mostly-intact wreckage of the U-2, but
also the captured pilot-very much alive. A chagrined Eisenhower
had to publicly admit that it was indeed a U.S. spy plane.
On May 16, a major summit between the United States, the Soviet
Union, Great Britain, and France began in Paris. Issues to be
discussed included the status of Berlin and nuclear arms control.
As the meeting opened, Khrushchev launched into a tirade against
the United States and Eisenhower and then stormed out of the
summit. The meeting collapsed immediately and the summit was
called off. Eisenhower considered the "stupid U-2 mess" one of
the worst debacles of his presidency. The pilot, Francis Gary
Powers, was released in 1962 in exchange for a captured Soviet
spy.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: n0kfq@winlink.org
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