Francis Gary Powers: The Virginia Boy Who Spied On Russia And Came Home To Tell About It

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Editor's Note: This reader-favorite story was originally published in the May/June 2001 issue of Blue Ridge Country magazine. We hope you enjoy it!

Summer, 1943 Princeton, W.Va. "I left my heart up there, Pap, and I'm goin' back to get it," 14-year-old Francis Gary Powers told his father, Oliver, after his first plane ride - in a Piper Cub. At a fair outside of Princeton, Francis had spotted a sign advertising short rides for $2.50. Enjoying the boy's enthusiasm, the young female pilot kept him in the sky double time.

Little did young Francis know that he would indeed take his heart back to the skies, and - some 17 years later - become renowned the world over as the flying spy in the "U2 Incident" involving U.S. reconnaissance over Soviet Russia at the height of the Cold War.

May 4, 1960 Pound, Va. Ida Powers wiped her hands on her cotton apron and looked out, past the barn and Mill Branch, looked up to the hillsides, lush with new leaves in shades of olive and lime and emerald. Severe asthma was keeping her from working in the garden these days. Ida thought about her five daughters, about her grandchildren, about her husband, Oliver, no longer working the coal mines but at work in his shoe shop in nearby Norton. She thought about her only son, Francis, now living overseas with his new wife.

Ida Powers' hometown was close to the Kentucky line. "The Pound" - as those who live there call it - tucks itself into a natural corral, or pound, where the North Fork of the Pound River forms a nearly closed horseshoe bend. Ringed by the closely buckled, tree-laden Appalachians, The Pound was a small, close community, isolated and quiet. Nearly every able man worked in the mines or mine-related businesses. Jack Goff, married to Ida and  Oliver's daughter Jean, ran a shoe shop downtown, near the Pound Hardware. Folks from Kentucky came to the little community to buy their liquor, to do a little shopping, to socialize. Teenagers drove up to nearby Flag Rock to gaze at the moon and into each other's eyes, or parked and looked out over Powell Valley toward Big Stone Gap, dreaming of the world beyond Wise County. Many of them would move away to find work outside the mines.

Everybody knew everybody. And everybody, even the schoolchildren, shared the same uneasiness as the rest of the free world over the threats of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. It seemed unimaginable that Communism could threaten these people or these blue mountains with their tumbling streams and rivers. Still, there were those duck-and-cover drills in the schools, the talk of fall-out shelters, the fear of invasion or global destruction. Ida glanced at the sky and said another little prayer for Francis. Why, he might be up there flying right now in that new weather plane, so many thousands of miles from the mountains he loved.

She smiled as she thought of her quiet, handsome boy, now 30 years old. He was as determined to fly as his father was determined that Francis would never work in the mines, that he would become a doctor. But after Francis graduated from Milligan College in Tennessee, he joined the Air Force, and had been unable to come home often since. Ida turned back from the door. She would just have to trust God to take care of her son.

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., final preparations were under way for the upcoming Paris Peace Summit, at which the fiery, unpredictable Khrushchev would sit down with President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Khrushchev had rejected Ike's "Open Skies" policy, creating a dangerous lack of knowledge about the perceived "bomber gap" and the "missile gap."

No one knew if the Soviets might dare attack the United States. After all, hadn't Khrushchev pounded his shoe on the United Nations table in defiance, hadn't he threatened America: "We will bury you!"?

On clear, starry nights, Wise County residents watched the Russian-launched satellite, Sputnik, as it circled the globe. Was it taking pictures?

In downtown Norton, 15 miles south of The Pound, Bill Hendrick left his office at the weekly Coalfield Progress. He heard a coal train rumble by on the tracks below town, and he waved to Oliver Powers through the window of the Norton City Shoe Shop. Bill stopped for a chat and a cup of coffee at Passmore's Drugstore with department-store owner Sol Curry and Norton attorney Carl McAfee.

He told the men that an announcement would run in Thursday's paper that the Norton Clean-Up, Paint-Up, Fix-Up Campaign in preparation for the big industrial tour would continue through May 14. They talked about how Eisenhower would soon approve funds for a new dam and reservoir on the river, and that it would bring dependable drinking water and a recreation lake to the area. Tourism would increase. The mines dictated the economy, and Wise County needed to diversify.

Into this ordinary May morning, two men in suits got out of an unfamiliar automobile and entered Norton City Shoe Shop.

"Mr. Oliver Powers?" one of them asked.

"Yes, I'm Oliver Powers."

"I'm afraid we have some news about your son. He left his base in Turkey on Sunday and his plane is missing."

They could tell him nothing more.

Missing? Stunned, Oliver drove to The Pound and turned onto the old dirt road toward the family homeplace. How could he ever tell Ida, and would her fragile heart and lungs withstand the very thing that a mother's heart most fears? Was Francis alive? Why didn't those men know more, and what was the United States government going to do about his son?

Ida cried, of course, and asked questions that had no answers. She sat for hours by the radio, listening for news of her son.

May 5, 1960. The weekly Coalfield Progress scooped every newspaper, television and radio network and wire service in the world with the headline "Wise County Boy Believed Shot Down Over Russia." The Soviets denounced America for spying. The American government denied any attempt to scuttle the upcoming peace summit and announced that a weather reconnaissance mission must have gone astray.

Neighbors and friends and family gathered with the Powerses, frightened for Ida and Oliver and their girls. The telephone began to ring, and it kept on ringing.

Media representatives from Paris, New York, Boston, Germany, Canada, Washington, NBC and CBS, from Life and Time magazines called and descended on Norton, staked out the shoe shop, and drove out to The Pound, eager for details about Gary Powers, the boy who had played football for Grundy High. The boy whose rugged good looks charmed the girls at the pool where he worked as a lifeguard in nearby Jenkins, Ky.

A Progress headline hailed the unexpected fame: "Where Is Pound, and Wise County? They All Know Now!"

The friendly, unassuming people of Wise County were offended by rude and aggressive television teams, by reporters jostling for flash photos, by the general invasion of their tranquil lives.

"Chaos," says Oliver Powers' brother-in-law, Walton Meade. "It was just chaos."

The subject of all the concern was known as Francis to the family and as Gary outside the family. His hometown remembered him as a boy who loved to read, to swim and fish and hunt a little, but most of all enjoyed going off alone to explore the mountains. Climbing to high ridges and looking out over the beautiful valleys, he longed for adventure. While at Milligan, the strong, athletic young man ran track and took up spelunking in the area's caves. On summer breaks he worked construction jobs - helped to build a bridge, lay railroad tracks, dig a tunnel, and erect a coal tipple. He felt compelled to do something worthwhile for his country, to really make a difference, and in 1950 - at age 21 - he left the mountains to join the Air Force.

In 1954, Francis Gary Powers married Barbara Gay Moore, an 18-year-old Georgia girl, whose mother introduced the two in the PX cafeteria on Turner Air Force Base. He had become a first lieutenant in the Air Force, with Top Secret clearance, training in photography and excellent navigational skills. Stable of character and disposition, he had all the right credentials for a very special assignment: He was recruited in 1955 by the Central Intelligence Agency to fly secret reconnaissance missions in the U2 - a jet with a glider's body -over Communist Russia. He would work as a civilian until his duties for "The Agency" were complete.

Powers was selected for the first "overflight" to fly all the way across Soviet territory. Pinched and chafed in a highly restrictive flight suit and face mask, the pilot threw switches to activate camera and electronic surveillance devices at designated places on his maps. At 70,000 feet above the earth, Powers glided for long stretches, conserving fuel for the nine-hour flight. The plane was equipped with a "destruct" device, designed to disable surveillance equipment without destroying the entire plane.

In addition to his maps, Powers was given a pistol, a flag with the words "I am an American" in 14 languages, foreign currency, gold coins and rings, to use if forced down and reduced to barter while escaping on foot. And, one other item - a curare-laced needle in a crude sheath, concealed in an American silver dollar.

Taking the needle with him was optional; using it was also optional. It was available if the pilot suffered severe injury resulting from a failure of the U2, or as an option to torture. It could also be a very effective weapon. What the CIA did not give to Powers was a cover story.

Early on the morning of May 1, 1960, Powers took off from Peshawar in Pakistan; his final destination: Bodo, Norway. He was rather uneasy, but confident that neither Soviet aircraft nor surface-to-air missiles could reach his 13-mile altitude. Once across the border, all radio contact with his base ceased. Throwing the surveillance equipment switches at the designated places on his maps, Powers neared the Ural Mountains. Thirteen hundred miles and four hours into the flight, Powers approached Sverdlovsk.

"Suddenly, there was a dull 'thump,' the aircraft jerked forward, and a tremendous orange flash lit the cockpit and sky," Powers wrote in his 1970 book, "Operation Overflight."

The fragile U2 was disabled by a near miss from a surface-to-air missile, and Powers lost control. He was thrown forward in the cockpit as the U2 spiraled, nose up. Unable to eject from the cockpit without severing his legs, Powers chose to climb out of the aircraft. Knowing that he had approximately 70 seconds to deploy the destruct device, he released the canopy and seat belt. Centrifugal force partially ejected him from the cockpit, his face mask frosted over, and blindly, he unsuccessfully tried to reach the destruct switches.

Suddenly, he was free, drifting down toward Soviet territory, when his parachute opened automatically. As he descended, Powers tossed away the silver dollar but tucked the needle in a pocket, tore a map into tiny pieces, and surveyed the countryside below him. Thinking how like parts of Virginia the rolling hills appeared, he was hopeful that he might escape, but when he touched down he was immediately spotted by collective farm workers and summarily handed over to Soviet officials.

In solitary confinement at Lubyanka Prison in Moscow, home of the KGB, Powers wondered what cover story to use, and wondered if his family knew of his disappearance.

May 7, 1960. Much to the embarrassment of the U.S., an indignant Khrushchev triumphantly announced that not only did he have the downed "weather" plane - he also had the maps, he had incriminating film from the camera, and, most importantly, he had the pilot. Now a "credibility gap" was added to the political mix.

The news reached Pound early in the morning of the 7th, after nearly a week of agonizing wait: Gary Powers was alive! Still hounded by the media, the Powerses held a family conference. It was decided that the less said about "Francis," the better his chances of being released. They stopped answering questions.

In Norton and around the country, unpleasant questions arose - shouldn't the young pilot have committed suicide? Why did he allow himself to be captured? Was he a hero, or had he failed in his mission?

Feelings were mixed. A Progress article entitled "Confusion Piling Up! Prayers For Powers Families!" stated: "We cannot believe that he has 'gone off base.' ... We don't know Francis Powers personally, but from reports of his many friends back here, many of them friends of ours, we cannot believe that he has 'gone overboard.' "

Speculation arose that Powers would be tortured, or brainwashed, and then executed. In fact, although his mattress was thin and the food unappetizing, Powers was treated well at Lubyanka Prison, where he underwent intense questioning.

"None of us ever gave up hope," says Powers' brother-in-law, Jack Goff.

Ida read her Bible and prayed.

Oliver took action. He learned that Khrushchev had come from a peasant family, that he had worked the mines at Yuzouka, and that he had a 21-year-old son, Sergei. Oliver sent Khrushchev a telegram and personal notes - "...from one old miner to another, please, be fair to my boy, and send him home!"

Attorney Carl McAfee assisted Oliver in writing a lengthy, typed plea to the Soviet leader - "From one father and mother to another - please, release our son!"

Oliver received a cable from Khrushchev: "If you wish to come to the Soviet Union to see your son I am ready to help you in this matter."

May 16, 1960 Paris. The peace summit was a miserable failure, dashing hopes for a thaw in the Cold War. Although President Elsenhower announced that there would be no more overflights, an outraged and defiant Khrushchev demanded an apology, then refused to participate in further talks.

August 17, 1960. In Norton and The Pound people awaited Powers' trial with great trepidation and anxiously listened for the verdict.

In Moscow the Powerses witnessed their son's trial amidst crowds of angry, unfriendly Russians, in the Great Hall of Columns. With them were generous friend and Norton businessman Sol Curry, attorney Carl McAfee, and Ida's physician, Dr. Lewis Ingram. Gary's wife, Barbara, was there with her mother.

To gain the sympathy of the court, McAfee had prepared photographs depicting the prisoner's humble beginnings. The photos, showing the poverty of The Pound and the Powers home, were introduced in Gary's defense: The Powerses were not capitalists - they were simple, hardworking people.

To avoid the death penalty, Francis Gary Powers confessed to espionage, said that he regretted making the mission, and that he was "profoundly sorry." And sorry he was, but not for the reasons the court implied.

Sentenced to 10 years in prison, Powers was allowed one hour with his family before he was transferred to Vladimir Prison.

In this prison, he had a cell-mate. Powers came to trust the generous Zig-urd Kruminsh, a Latvian political prisoner. The two men shared their stories, their treats from home, their languages, their work, their books. They played chess. Zigurd taught Powers to weave rugs. By the time they parted company, Zigurd's English had greatly improved and was graced with a distinct Southwest Virginia accent. Again, Powers was treated well by the Soviets, but mail from home was often delayed for weeks, and Barbara's letters were infrequent at best.

Once back home, Oliver Powers was frustrated with the inability - or perhaps the unwillingness - of the United States to intervene on his son's behalf. As early as June 2, 1960, Oliver wrote to Rudolf Abel, a convicted Soviet spy serving a 30-year federal sentence in Atlanta Penitentiary, offering to approach the president and the State Department about a prisoner swap.

February 10, 1962 The Pound. Nearly two years after the initial idea of an exchange, there were at last secret negotiations: Powers and one other American prisoner, Frederic L. Pryor, would be traded for Rudolf Abel.

In a dramatic exchange on Gleinicker Bridge between West Berlin and East Germany, Powers walked to freedom, passing Abel as the Soviet walked toward the Iron Curtain. It had been 21 months since Powers' capture.

Back in the Southwest Virginia mountains, Ida Powers was lying in bed awake, thinking of her son. At 3:18 a.m. the telephone rang with news of his release. Minutes later the media were alerted, and once again, reporters and photographers descended en masse on Norton and The Pound.

There would be three weeks of debriefing by the CIA and an appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee before Powers received full clearance and could be welcomed home.

Eight hundred people filled the National Guard Armory - the largest facility available - in Big Stone Gap, just down the road from Norton. The VFW awarded Powers its Citizenship medal, high school bands played, flags waved with pride, and it was a fine day for Wise County and for Oliver and Ida Powers. The Pound honored its returning hero with a parade, and when reporters' cars became mired in the muddy road to the house later that night, Gary helped to push them out.

The return home would not be easy for Gary Powers. Due to a combination of a two-year separation and personal problems of Barbara's, their marriage ended despite Powers' attempts to salvage it. Powers wrote that he "...laid down the law. She had to have medical help [for a problem with alcohol], had to leave Millegeville [Georgia - where she had gone], and had to stop seeing certain people, including her male companion." ("Operation Overflight," p. 336).

These things she refused to do, and their divorce became final in January of 1963.

In addition, the Air Force reneged on its promise to re-instate Powers without loss of time served in the CIA. Further, Powers wanted to clear up questions about the U2 incident and tell his own story, but the government denied him permission. Some two years after it was awarded in 1963, Powers finally received the Intelligence Star. It was worded to commend him for "courageous action" and "valor" prior to 1960 - before the U2 incident.

"Apparently," Powers wrote, "it was felt the Virginia hillbilly wouldn't catch such a subtlety..." ("Operation Overflight," p. 349).

He went to work for the CIA, updating training including Soviet interrogation techniques for captured Americans. Still, he longed to fly.

Powers left the CIA and went to work for Kelly Johnson, developer of the U2 airplane, at Lockheed near Burbank, Calif, as an engineering test pilot - flying U2s. While at the CIA he had met the intelligent and attractive fellow employee Claudia Sue Downy, and they were married in October of 1963. Powers adopted Sue's 7-year-old daughter, Claudia Dee, and in 1965, Sue presented Gary with a son, Francis Gary Powers, II. (Powers' autobiography, "Operation Overflight," ends with this acknowledgement: "To Sue, Who Provided the Happy Ending.")

The little Powers family often traveled to the old farm at The Pound in Wise County. Powers enjoyed sharing the area with his wife and children, often pointing out where he had fished and hiked and spent time in the mountains.

Powers often spoke freely with his son about the U2 incident. By the time Gary Jr. was 10 or 12 years old, his father would tell him that "...if he had it to do all over again he would do exactly the same thing."

"He did what he was told to do," Gary Jr. told The Birmingham News on August 24, 2000. "He did what he thought was the right thing under the circumstances he found himself in; and it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks, he knows he served his country well."

By the late '60s, enough information about the U2 affair had been declassified that Powers was able to write "Operation Overflight." Published in 1970, the book details Powers treatment by the CIA and the U.S. government. "The Agency," in the midst of the 1960 administration change, had protected its own best interests and politics over those of pilot Powers. The prisoner of war, the hero shadowed by doubts, told his story for the first time. For seven years, the CIA had been paying Powers' salary as a test pilot. Suddenly, when the book came out, there was no more work for him at Lockheed.

He spent several years on the lecture circuit and book promotion. After the necessary flight training, he began flying a news helicopter for KNBC Television in Los Angeles, Calif. And on August 1, 1977, Francis Gary Powers - the man who had flown so high for so many hours over hostile territory, the man who had risked his life for his country and then had been turned aside by that same country - perished instantly when his Bell 206 Jetranger crashed in Balboa Park.

There had been a problem with the fuel gauge on this particular helicopter - about a 20-minute discrepancy - and with no sign of a hostile missile for thousands of miles and no threat of war, his craft simply ran short of fuel. The cameraman on board, who was also killed, had never taken photos of Soviet missile sights or railroads or air bases. He died while photographing a brush fire.

Powers was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Powers' sister Jean Goff, remembers her brother: "He really was just a wonderful person."

In 1976, actor Lee Majors portrayed Powers in the television movie "Francis Gary Powers: The True Story of the U2 Incident," with Noah Beery Jr. as Oliver and Katharine Bard as Ida. Although the film is hard to find in rental stores, it is occasionally broadcast on television and can be found at times on eBay.

Gary Powers Jr., president of the Vienna, Va. Chamber of Commerce, has long felt that many young people had never heard about the U2 incident.

In 1996, he created and founded the mobile Cold War Museum to honor his father and other events and figures of the Cold War. The museum takes its artifacts on tour - to educate those too young to remember, and to remind us folks of that era.

The mobile tour has appeared in Wise County, where everyone remembers Francis Gary Powers. Paradoxically, Sergei Khrushchev, Nikita's son, is an honorary board member of the museum.

In this era of issuing stamps to promote the likes of Elvis and other cultural icons, Gary Powers Jr. has not been rewarded in his efforts to have a stamp issued in honor of his father.

May 1, 2000 Beale Air Force Base, Calif. Gary Powers Jr., realizing that his father had not been given the recognition he was due by the United States Government, began writing letters and making inquiries, but to no avail. He says that although his father held no bitterness for the Russian people or the American people, he did feel some bitterness that more was not done by the government to clear his name. Finally, when new information about the 1960 incident was declassified, Gary Jr.'s tedious and persistent efforts to prove that his father was entitled to the honors paid off. Forty years to the day after his father's capture, the young Powers was treated to an emotional and thrilling ride in a U2 at altitudes greater than 70,000 feet. A ceremony followed at which Francis Gary Powers Sr. was awarded the long-overdue Air Force Distinguished Flying Cross, the Department of Defense Prisoner of War Medal, and the National Defense Service Medal.

Once labeled by Khrushchev as "The Black Lady of Espionage," the U2 is still flying. Modernized and outfitted with the latest high-tech radar and electro-optical devices, the U2 is still collecting vital intelligence around the world.

Wise County, Va. early 2001. On a recent morning, brothers-in-law Walton Meade and Jack Goff, each of whom married one of Francis Gary Powers' sisters, were holding forth Oliver's tradition at the Norton City Shoe Shop, in a new location around the corner and down the street. Jack and his wife Jean live on Gary Powers Drive in Pound. Carl McAfee, whose office was once above the old shoe shop, still practices law in Norton.

Bill Hendrick is no longer at The Coalfield Progress, but he still keeps up with the news. Barbara, Powers' first wife, has remarried and lives in Georgia. Sue Powers, Gary Jr.'s mother, lives in Las Vegas, Nevada and is very supportive of her son's efforts to build a permanent Cold War Museum. (Editor's Note: Nearly 10 years after this story was originally published in our magazine, a Cold War Museum was finally opened in Warrenton, VA on November 11, 2011. For more information, visit coldwar.org.) 

In "Operation Overflight," Powers reflected upon the effects of the mining industry: "Green, hilly, with abundant trees, it was beautiful country, the Virginia-Kentucky border territory - or would have been, except for the mines," he wrote. "Their presence poisoned everything, the water in the streams, the hope in the miners' lives. They scarred the landscape, made people like my mother and father old before their time." (p. 14)

Time, together with environmental regulations, has erased many of the mining scars. Although the coal industry is still important, the economy has diversified. Rich in history and tradition, the area now offers education, fine music, festivals and drama, technology. Teenagers, for whom the Cold War is but a few pages in a history book, still gaze at the moon and fall in love; many of them will stay in Wise County.

Ida and Oliver Powers are both gone now. Until her death Ida continued to suffer with asthma, but it didn't stop her from fishing. "Any minute now!" was her mantra as she fished the rivers of her homeland, as if practicing the long-ago learned lessons of patience, of praying, of waiting, for news of her captured son so many perilous miles away.