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U-2 Incident Facts
for kids
The following fact
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facts on U-2 Incident for kids.
U-2 Incident
Facts for kids
U-2 Incident
Facts - 1: Background History
of U-2 Incident: The goal of the top-secret
Cold War program known as Oxcart
was to develop a
spy plane that would be undetectable in the air and
could be used for information gathering missions in the
Soviet Union and the countries behind the Iron Curtain.
U-2 Incident
Facts - 2: Background History
of U-2 Incident: The CIA and the Army Air Force and the
CIA needed to know capabilities of the Soviets and
furthered their partnership with Lockheed to develop
high altitude aircraft to use in surveillance missions.
U-2 Incident
Facts - 3: Background
History of U-2 Incident: The U-2 spy plane was designed
by Kelly Johnson (February 27, 1910 – December 21,
1990), an innovative Lockheed American aeronautical
engineer in 1954 who worked with the "Skunk Works" team
of engineers for the Lockheed Advanced Development
Projects on "black" aircraft.
U-2 Incident
Facts - 4: Background
History of U-2 Incident: The test flights for the U-2's
began in 1955 and were conducted by .in a section of
government land in the Nevada desert known as
Area 51.
U-2 Incident
Facts -
5: The U-2 spy plane was high altitude
reconnaissance aircraft, essentially a glider with a jet
engine. The spy plane was so light it could fly at an
altitude of 70,000 feet and was able to travel distances
over 4,000 miles.
U-2 Incident
Facts - 6: The U-2 flew at altitudes that could not be
reached by Soviet fighter jets of the period and it was also
believed to be beyond the reach of Soviet missiles. The airplane
therefore highly suitable for secret aerial reconnaissance,
effectively a "spy-in-the-sky"
U-2 Incident
Facts -
7: The first U-2 flights over the Soviet
Union began, but President Eisenhower was deeply
concerned about the ramifications of such a brazen
breach of Russian air space if they were discovered.
U-2 Incident
Facts -
8: The Soviets became aware of
encroaching U-2 flights in 1956 from intelligence
received from the KGB and their tracking devices and
sent a strongly-worded protest to Eisenhower who
subsequently suspended the US flights in December 1956.
U-2 Incident
Facts -
9: The CIA, aware of the valuable
information they could lose, came up with a solution
which was to use British pilots for the sensitive spying
missions. This was authorized in the summer of 1958 by
the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.
U-2 Incident
Facts -
10: Four British pilots were trained to
fly the U-2's and conducted important, top-secret,
spying missions over the Soviet Union and the Middle
East from a secret air base in Turkey. In 1959 the
British missions acquired extremely important
information. Photographs revealed that new type of
Soviet bomber called the Tupolev Tu-22 and vital
evidence showing that the Soviets did not have as many
bombers as they were claiming.
U-2 Incident
Facts -
11: Following the success of the British,
and the need to acquire more accurate number of Soviet
intercontinental ballistic missiles, the United States
resumed their own U-2 spying missions. President
Eisenhower authorized the flying of two missions to take
place before the Four Power Paris Summit that was
scheduled for May 16, 1960.
U-2 Incident
Facts -
12: Eisenhower had been assured it would
be virtually impossible to capture the pilot of such as
mission as the plane would virtually disintegrate before
it hit the ground.
U-2 Incident
Facts -
13: The Four Powers Summit was to be the
first meeting between Western and Soviet leaders in five
years. The four powers were to meet in Paris and be
represented by the President of the United States Dwight
D. Eisenhower, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, Prime
Minister of the United Kingdom, Harold Macmillan and
French President Charles DeGaulle.
U-2 Incident
Facts -
14: The first of the US spy missions was
on 9 April 1960 and piloted by Bob Ericson who flew over
four Soviet top secret military establishments.
U-2 Incident
Facts - 15: Although aware of the American spy planes the
Soviets had lacked effective countermeasures until 1960 when they
developed a high-altitude air defense system (S-75 Dvina), built
around a surface-to-air missile operating with with command
guidance.
U-2 Incident
Facts - 16: Unknown to the US, spy plane plane, piloted by
Bob Ericson, was detected by the Soviet Air Defense Forces.
U-2 Incident
Facts - 17: The second planned U-2 spy mission was to be
flown by Captain Francis Gary Powers and scheduled for 1 May 1960,
just two weeks before the Four Power Paris Summit meeting.
Continued...
U-2 Incident
Facts for kids
Facts
about the U-2 Incident for kids
The following fact
sheet continues with facts about U-2 Incident for kids.
U-2 Incident
Facts for kids
U-2 Incident
Facts - 18: Captain Francis Gary Powers was an
exceptional pilot who was recruited by the CIA for his
outstanding record in single engine jet aircraft. By
1960, Gary Powers was already a veteran of many covert
aerial reconnaissance missions.
U-2 Incident
Facts -
19: On May 1, 1960 Captain Gary Powers
flew a U-2 spy plane to photograph targets in the Soviet
Union. The spy plane was detected but Soviet attempts to
intercept the plane using fighter aircraft failed
because of the U-2's extreme operating altitude.
U-2 Incident
Facts - 20: The plane was eventually brought down
by surface-to-air missiles fired by a battery commanded
by Mikhail Voronovnear and crashed in Kusulino in the
Urals. Powers had been unable to activate the plane’s
self-destruct mechanism before bailing out.
U-2 Incident
Facts - 21: Gary Powers bailed out and was captured soon
after parachuting safely down on to Russian soil. Gary Powers was
aware of the possible "tortures and unknown horrors" awaiting him in
a Soviet prison considered whether to use his suicide device,
a poison-laced saxitoxin-tipped injection pin that was hidden in a
silver dollar suspended around his neck.
U-2 Incident
Facts - 22: It was incorrectly assumed by the United States
that Gary Powers had died and that the spy plane would have
disintegrated before it hit the ground.
U-2 Incident
Facts - 23: Four days after the United States government had
learned of Powers’ disappearance over the Soviet Union it tried to
cover up the plane's purpose and mission and issued a cover
statement to the press claiming that a “weather research plane” had
been lost while flying over Turkey after its pilot had "reported
difficulties with his oxygen equipment".
U-2 Incident
Facts - 24: Nikita Khrushchev received reports
about America's cover story and developed a political
trap to embarrass President Eisenhower and his
administration. Khrushchev released a report announcing
that a spy plane had been shot down in Soviet territory.
U-2 Incident
Facts - 25: The Americans, assuming the pilot had
been lost, and continued with the 'weather mission'
cover-up, explaining that the auto-pilot continued on
its path causing the plane to crash in the Soviet Union.
.
U-2 Incident
Facts - 26: On May 7, 1960 Khrushchev sprang his
trap and announced "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."
U-2 Incident
Facts - 27: As information and photographs were
released it became clear that Gary Powers had been
captured and that the Soviets and much of the U-2 spy
plane wreckage had survived the crash.
U-2 Incident
Facts - 28: The Soviets had openly embarrassed
the Eisenhower administration by revealing the lies and
deception of their attempted cover up. Nikita
Khrushchev, allowing President Eisenhower to save face
and to salvage the up-coming Four Powers Summit, put the
blame on Allen Dulles, the Director of the Central
Intelligence Agency.
U-2 Incident
Facts -
29: On May 9, 1960 the Khrushchev told US
Ambassador "Tommy" Thompson that he "could not help but
suspect that someone had launched this operation with
the deliberate intent of spoiling the summit meeting".
Allen Dulles duly played down the president’s direct
role in approving the U-2 mission.
U-2 Incident
Facts -
30: On May 10, 1960 House Appropriations
Chair Clarence Cannon (D-Missouri) revealed the
true nature of the U-2 mission to the House of
Representatives confirming that the U-2 was a CIA plane
engaged in aerial espionage over the Soviet Union.
Clarence Cannon made the following statement:
U-2 Incident
Facts -
31: President Eisenhower faced mounting
criticism in the press for not controlling his own
administration and made the decision to come clean and
reveal the aerial espionage program and his direct role
in it.
U-2 Incident
Facts -
32: A News Conference Statement was made
by the President on May 11, 1960 in which he emphasized
the need for intelligence-gathering activities, the
secret nature and vital necessity of
intelligence-gathering activities, that the incident had
been given 'great propaganda exploitation' and the Four
Powers Summit in which the real issues of the day such
as nuclear arms reduction and the whole range of
East-West relations
U-2 Incident
Facts -
33: The U-2 incident was a great
embarrassment to the United States and prompted a marked
deterioration in its relations with the Soviet Union.
U-2 Incident
Facts -
34: The Four Powers Summit only lasted
for two days, it began on 15 May and ended on 16 May.
The Summit meeting had failed before it even started.
Khrushchev demanded an apology before discussions could
begin and the promise that the USA would never to
violate Soviet airspace again. President Eisenhower
refused the demands and the meeting ended in bitter
acrimony.
U-2 Incident
Facts - 35: Gary Powers was extensively
interrogated by the Soviets for three months before he
made a “voluntary confession” and public apology for his
part in U.S. espionage. On 19 August, 1960 Gary
Powers pleaded guilty and was convicted of espionage and
sentenced to a total of 10 years in prison, three years
of imprisonment followed by seven years of hard labor.
U-2 Incident
Facts -
36: Gary Powers was imprisoned in the "Vladimirsky
Central" prison in the city of Vladimir, east of Moscow.
U-2 Incident
Facts -
37: Twenty-one months after his capture,
Gary Powers was exchanged in a spy swap on Saturday,
February 10, 1962. Powers was exchanged for the Soviet
spy Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, an English-born KGB man who
had been caught spying in New York in 1957. The spy
exchange was made across Berlin's Glienicke Brucke
bridge and is featured in the 2015 movie the Bridge of
Spies.
U-2 Incident
Facts -
38: Gary Powers returned home to the
United States where he was harshly criticized for not
activating his suicide pin rather than be captured. He
was exonerated in a Congressional hearing in March 1962.
In 2012, the US Air Force posthumously awarded
Gary Powers the Silver Star Medal for his demonstration
of “exceptional loyalty” to his country during his
captivity.
U-2 Incident
Facts - 39: In 1962 spy satellite systems were
introduced and the U-2 spy planes never flew over the
Soviet Union again. But they did fly spy missions
elsewhere. On October 14, 1962, a U-2 flying over Cuba
took photographs that proved that the Soviet Union had
established sites for launching medium-range ballistic
missiles in Cuba - the incident gave rise to the
Cuban Missile Crisis.
U-2 Incident
Facts -
40: The U-2 Incident was a major event
during the Cold War (1945 - 1991) between the United
States and the Soviet Union.
U-2 Incident
Facts for kids
U-2 Incident - President Dwight Eisenhower Video
The article on the U-2 Incident provides detailed facts and a summary of one of the important events,
the U-2 Incident, during his presidential term in office. The following
Dwight Eisenhower video will
give you additional important facts and dates about the political events experienced by the 34th American President whose presidency spanned from January 20, 1953 to January 20, 1961.
U-2 Incident
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Facts about the U-2 Incident for kids and schools
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Summary of the U-2 Incident in US history
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The U-2 Incident, a major
event in US history
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U-2 Incident and
Dwight Eisenhower
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Fast, fun facts about the U-2 Incident
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Foreign & Domestic
policies of President Eisenhower - U-2 Incident
● Dwight Eisenhower Presidency and
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