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ericwelch's review
5.0
It's truly astonishing the impact an accident can have on history. On May 1, 1960, Francis Gary Powers was captured in the Soviet Union after his U-2 spy plane was shot down or crashed. (The precise cause has never been established.)
Michael Beschloss in Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev and the U-2 Affair explains that spy flights over Russia had begun in 1956 at the behest of Eisenhower who was worried about the possibility of surprise attack and Russian missile capability. The U-2s were a marvel, developed from design to flying prototype in a matter of months for the CIA by Kelly Johnson in the Skunk Works. The flights over Russia provided reassuring information to the president that enabled him to withstand pressure from hawks to spend huge amounts of money on defense. The U-2 photos made it clear the Russians did not constitute the threat alleged by the defense lobby.
Eisenhower did worry about the morality of the spy flights and the possibility of an embarrassing crash. But the CIA assured him no pilot would be able to survive being shot down; the plane had all sorts of self-destruct mechanisms built in and the pilots were provided with "suicide pins". No evidence of espionage would exist. CIA officials also assured Eisenhower that no Russian missile could ever reach the 70,000 foot altitude the U-2 routinely flew at. The President was also concerned that revelations of espionage might destroy his tentative steps toward detente and the nuclear test ban treaty he wanted.
The Russians knew all about the overflights, but were powerless to stop them. They did not have the capability and they did not want the rest of the world to know of their impotence in the face of this brazen invasion of their air space; so they remained mute.
Khrushchev had difficulties of his own. He wanted to reduce spending for the military so more could be spent on consumer goods. He had gone a long way toward relaxing the paranoid, inquisition mentality of his predecessors. He was prepared to exchange visits with the American president and had visited Eisenhower at Camp David just the spring before the fateful event. In 1957 he had barely survived a coup attempt so the Russian people and political opposition were told nothing of the spy missions.
The U.S. public was equally in the dark. The U-2 was portrayed as a device for determining weather conditions at high altitudes for the new passenger jets just coming into service. The president was careful to use only civilian pilots. Covert action was by this time Eisenhower's preferred method of foreign policy. It permitted more leeway in achieving his foreign policy aims without risk of alienating the huge support he had among Americans.
Eisenhower personally approved each U-2 flight. He permitted the fateful flight only reluctantly, however. Nothing untoward should spoil chances for the upcoming summit meeting planned for May 16th in Paris. The CIA was insistent. They needed certain information only the U-2 could provide and again assured the president that nothing would happen. Eisenhower's luck ran out and the crash changed everything. Speculation over why the plane went down ranges from a lucky antiaircraft missile near-miss, to flameout, to structural problems, to defection, to sabotage. After the crash, the CIA released a lot of disinformation. They wanted everyone to believe the plane had a flameout and was shot down at 30,000 feet. They did not want the American public to think the Russians could shoot down a plane at 70,000 feet which was higher than our manned bombers could fly, thus rendering our most potent threat worthless. The most likely explanation is a near-miss, blowing off the plane's stabilizer.
The original reaction of the U.S. was to lie. We publicly claimed the U-2 was nothing but a weather plane that had strayed off course. Khrushchev held a trump card: he knew what the president did not; that the pilot had been captured alive. Khrushchev was forced into the position of taking the hard line. He could not risk being labeled as soft on capitalism. At the summit conference he insisted on an apology from Eisenhower who refused, insisting on the right to fly over Russia whenever necessary to protect our national security. Khrushchev considered this a personal insult and stormed out of Paris. The situation deteriorated from there.
There's no question that the U-2 had considerable strategic value. The information obtained during the Suez crisis was invaluable as France and Britain refused to provide the U.S. with any information. The spy flights also enabled Eisenhower to hold the line on the military budget. As a result of the U-2 incident, however, he lost much faith in the CIA. Allen Dulles in particular was never trusted by the White House again. (The Bay of Pigs was to hammer the last nail in his coffin.) The people of the United States, who until this time, had naively trusted their government, would never again have such blind faith after Eisenhower was caught in several bald-faced lies. The seeds of unrest during Vietnam were sown on Mayday, 1960.
Michael Beschloss in Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev and the U-2 Affair explains that spy flights over Russia had begun in 1956 at the behest of Eisenhower who was worried about the possibility of surprise attack and Russian missile capability. The U-2s were a marvel, developed from design to flying prototype in a matter of months for the CIA by Kelly Johnson in the Skunk Works. The flights over Russia provided reassuring information to the president that enabled him to withstand pressure from hawks to spend huge amounts of money on defense. The U-2 photos made it clear the Russians did not constitute the threat alleged by the defense lobby.
Eisenhower did worry about the morality of the spy flights and the possibility of an embarrassing crash. But the CIA assured him no pilot would be able to survive being shot down; the plane had all sorts of self-destruct mechanisms built in and the pilots were provided with "suicide pins". No evidence of espionage would exist. CIA officials also assured Eisenhower that no Russian missile could ever reach the 70,000 foot altitude the U-2 routinely flew at. The President was also concerned that revelations of espionage might destroy his tentative steps toward detente and the nuclear test ban treaty he wanted.
The Russians knew all about the overflights, but were powerless to stop them. They did not have the capability and they did not want the rest of the world to know of their impotence in the face of this brazen invasion of their air space; so they remained mute.
Khrushchev had difficulties of his own. He wanted to reduce spending for the military so more could be spent on consumer goods. He had gone a long way toward relaxing the paranoid, inquisition mentality of his predecessors. He was prepared to exchange visits with the American president and had visited Eisenhower at Camp David just the spring before the fateful event. In 1957 he had barely survived a coup attempt so the Russian people and political opposition were told nothing of the spy missions.
The U.S. public was equally in the dark. The U-2 was portrayed as a device for determining weather conditions at high altitudes for the new passenger jets just coming into service. The president was careful to use only civilian pilots. Covert action was by this time Eisenhower's preferred method of foreign policy. It permitted more leeway in achieving his foreign policy aims without risk of alienating the huge support he had among Americans.
Eisenhower personally approved each U-2 flight. He permitted the fateful flight only reluctantly, however. Nothing untoward should spoil chances for the upcoming summit meeting planned for May 16th in Paris. The CIA was insistent. They needed certain information only the U-2 could provide and again assured the president that nothing would happen. Eisenhower's luck ran out and the crash changed everything. Speculation over why the plane went down ranges from a lucky antiaircraft missile near-miss, to flameout, to structural problems, to defection, to sabotage. After the crash, the CIA released a lot of disinformation. They wanted everyone to believe the plane had a flameout and was shot down at 30,000 feet. They did not want the American public to think the Russians could shoot down a plane at 70,000 feet which was higher than our manned bombers could fly, thus rendering our most potent threat worthless. The most likely explanation is a near-miss, blowing off the plane's stabilizer.
The original reaction of the U.S. was to lie. We publicly claimed the U-2 was nothing but a weather plane that had strayed off course. Khrushchev held a trump card: he knew what the president did not; that the pilot had been captured alive. Khrushchev was forced into the position of taking the hard line. He could not risk being labeled as soft on capitalism. At the summit conference he insisted on an apology from Eisenhower who refused, insisting on the right to fly over Russia whenever necessary to protect our national security. Khrushchev considered this a personal insult and stormed out of Paris. The situation deteriorated from there.
There's no question that the U-2 had considerable strategic value. The information obtained during the Suez crisis was invaluable as France and Britain refused to provide the U.S. with any information. The spy flights also enabled Eisenhower to hold the line on the military budget. As a result of the U-2 incident, however, he lost much faith in the CIA. Allen Dulles in particular was never trusted by the White House again. (The Bay of Pigs was to hammer the last nail in his coffin.) The people of the United States, who until this time, had naively trusted their government, would never again have such blind faith after Eisenhower was caught in several bald-faced lies. The seeds of unrest during Vietnam were sown on Mayday, 1960.
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