Did you know?

THE IJ2 INCIDENT

The year 1960 had begun with great hope for relations between the major powers. It was agreed
that a summit meeting of the 'Big Four' (Eisenhower of the USA, Khrushchev of the Soviet Union,
De Gaulle of France and Macmillan of Britain) would be held in May. Perhaps this meeting might
lead to an end of the Cold War. Could this be the beginning of better times in international
relations?
On 1 May 1960, these hopes were dashed when an American spy plane was shot down over
the Soviet Union. During the 1950s, the Americans had developed a plane which could fly at
75,000 feet. It had surveillance equipment and the sophisticated cameras could take clear
pictures of Soviet military sites on the ground. Soviet radar could track the planes, but
Soviet planes could not fly high enough to shoot them down.
However, on 1 May 1960, a Soviet missile shot down one of the U2 planes over the town of
Sverdlosk. The pilot, Gary Powers, parachuted to the ground, where he was captured by
Soviet forces.
The Americans did not want to admit that they had been spying as this would definitely lead to
the summit meeting being cancelled - and show the Americans to be an aggressive nation. They
therefore announced that a research plane studying weather conditions had been shot down over
Turkey. What they did not know was that the Soviet Union had captured Powers alive. He
admitted to spying and the Soviet forces also found a film showing that he had been taking
photographs of military sites.
Khrushchev demanded an apology from the USA, but Eisenhower said it was his job to
make sure the USA defended itself effectively and refused to apologise. Not surprisingly,
the summit meeting broke up and relations deteriorated between the two countries.
Powers was tried and found guilty of spying. He was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment,
but after seventeen months he was sent back to the USA, in return for the release of a
Soviet spy serving a prison sentence in the United States.