 The U-2 spy plane was supposed to disintegrate in a crash. It was supposed to leave no debris that could be traced back to the United States, and the pilot was expected to be killed. Nothing was meant to survive a fall from 70,000 feet with secrets intact. It was, in effect, a security measure U-2 program managers were banking on. But then one did. Francis Gary Powers and his U-2 survived being downed over the Soviet Union on May 1, 1960. The famous May Day incident had effects on the Cold War beyond what anyone could have imagined. Hello everyone, I'm Amy. This is The Vintage Space, my little corner of the Internet, where we talk about all things mid-century tech and science that, quite frankly, interest me. Like Cold War aerial espionage. This is part three in a series covering the U-2, the corona satellites, and the A-12 slash ox cart slash SR-71. In part one, which is here, we looked at the origins of the U-2 program. In part two, right here, we looked at what happened once the plane began flying beyond the Iron Curtain. I've also linked both in the description. I'd recommend checking them out before this installment. This series is a very deep dive, so there's a lot of context in those earlier videos and a few major players to get to know. And also, now is a great time to subscribe so you don't miss the next installment in the story. Alright, let's get to it. When 1960 dawned, Director of Central Intelligence Alan Dulles was desperate for information on Soviet SS-6 missile installations, but President Eich Eisenhower was wary of continued violations of Soviet airspace. The U-2, the plane designed to be out of range of Soviet fighters and missiles, had been spotted on radar on its first mission, and Soviet pilots were getting more aggressive in their attempts to intercept it. In talking over possible flights with Eisenhower, Dulles and head of the U-2 program, Richard Bissell, argued that the time for aggressive Soviet overflights was sooner rather than later. Dulles in particular wanted overflights of known missile sites and adjacent rail lines to get a better sense of the enemy's arsenal and settled the looming missile gap question. Flying before the Soviet planes and weapons got much better meant a higher probability for success. Agency intelligence also said that detection from the U-2 starting point in Peshawar, Pakistan was increasingly likely, adding to the urgency. In mid-February, the CIA presented Eisenhower with four possible Soviet overflights. The president's chosen time frame of April meant only two of those missions were on the table. Operation Grand Slam called for a flight going south to north, flying from Peshawar over to Uratam, Sferdlovsk, Kirov, Kotlast, Severodninsk, Murmansk, then landing at a base in Norway. Operation Timestamp called for a U-2 to fly from a U.S. airbase in Thule, Greenland, on a route over Novaya-Zemla, then covering railways from the Polyarny-Ural mountains to Kotlast, then over Murmansk on its way to land at Bodo or Andoya on Norway. Time step was considered a less desirable plan. Analysts said that there was a 90% chance of detection and accurate tracking on this flight, which at the very least would elicit a detailed diplomatic protest. But no one raised the same concerns for Grand Slam. Eisenhower approved Grand Slam on the condition that it fly by May 1, 1960. He was scheduled to meet with Khrushchev at the Paris summit beginning on May 16, and he didn't want anything to sour relations too close to that meeting. With the mission plan selected, the last piece was the pilot. The CIA picked a veteran for this risky and aggressive flight, Francis Gary Powers. He was the most experienced pilot in the program, with 27 missions under his belt. On April 27, a U-2 was transferred from Incirlik airbase to Peshawar to fly the next morning. But the weather forecast wasn't ideal, and the plane had racked up so many flight hours, it was due for maintenance. Three days later, on April 30, a new plane, Article 360, arrived at Peshawar. This particular U-2 wasn't one pilot's trusted. Plagued by maintenance issues, it spent so much time with maintenance staff, it was considered a hangar queen. Its most recent issue was a crash landing at Atsugi in Japan that had necessitated significant repairs. The silver lining was that in rebuilding the aircraft, maintenance crews had been able to install an upgraded J75 engine. But the plane still wasn't problem-free. Its current idiosyncrasy was that one fuel tank didn't feed all its fuel into the engine. Nevertheless, installing the latest B model camera, a new electronic intelligence unit, and a new System 9B device that gave false-angle information in response to radar pulse from Soviet airborne missiles meant the plane was ready to fly. With both plane and pilot ready, Operation Grand Slam, technically mission 4154 and the 24th deep penetration over the Soviet Union was set for the following morning, May 1. CIA planners thought the date might be ideal. May Day, or International Labor Day, was a national holiday in the Soviet Union. Flying this risky mission while the country was distracted with celebrations might provide an extra layer of cover. On the morning of May 1, things got off to a rocky start. Every U-2 mission began with authorization from Washington sent to Adana, Turkey, which then radioed to crews stationed at the base codenamed HB Jargon in Peshawar, Pakistan. But communications between Adana and Peshawar were spotty during sunrise and sunset in the spring and fall. During these transitional times of day during transitional seasons, the ionosphere can't as reliably support communication signals. The operator at Adana had to send messages in the clear using backup frequencies, which of course introduced the potential for someone to hear the coded message. At Peshawar, power sat in his U-2 at the end of the runway while operators scanned radio frequencies. They heard a Morse code transmission of the letters J-G-O-H-B. Finally, one heard a break in the code, revealing the order H-B-J-G-O. The mission from base codenamed HB Jargon was go. The operators gave powers the signal. He started his takeoff roll at 1.59 AM, Greenwich Mean Time, on May 1. When he reached 66,000 feet, powers clicked his radio switch to tell operators at Peshawar that everything was fine and the mission would proceed as planned. That signal was the last communication he was scheduled to make. Penetration flights came with strict radio silence to limit the traces Soviet interceptors could detect. CAA officials would be tracking the flight as best they could, but powers was on his own. May Day turned out to be a bad day for an overflight. The country might have been focused on celebrations, but there was less Soviet military air traffic than usual. Radar operators saw powers when he was still 15 miles south of the Soviet Afghan border. By the time the YouTube reached Tashkent, more than a dozen interceptors had scrambled into the sky to follow him. Four and a half hours into the flight, still with the telltale condensation trails of Soviet fighters below him, powers was about 68,000 feet, approaching the Sferdlusk. Then the Soviets launched three missiles. One hit another Soviet interceptor, one did nothing, and one detonated close to and just behind the YouTube. In that instant, powers heard a hollow-sounding explosion behind him, accompanied by an orange-yellow flash. The shockwave of the blast was powerful enough to rip apart the delicate aircraft. Powers was suddenly losing altitude. As the YouTube fell, it entered a spin. Centrifugal forces in the cockpit were so strong, powers was thrown against the canopy. And by the time he hit 30,000 feet, he had to accept he couldn't use his ejection seat from that position. He popped the canopy and released his seatbelt and was instantly sucked out of the cockpit. The only thing keeping him connected was his oxygen hose. Dangling precariously, he tried but couldn't reach the destruction switches, designed to destroy only the camera. Protocol dictated that he at least tried to hide the plane's true intention by destroying the film that would reveal its real mission. The hose eventually broke, sending powers tumbling away from the plane. His parachute opened automatically at 14,000 feet when he separated from the plane and he survived his fall to land in a rural area, as did the plane. The first to greet him were farmers, followed in short order by Soviet officials. He didn't once think about resisting arrest. He went with his captors willingly. In the late morning in Moscow, US Air Attaché Colonel Edwin Curtin sat in the foreign diplomat section of the stands in Red Square, watching the Mayday Parade. The tension was pulled away by the late arrival of the chief of the Soviet air forces, Konstantin Vershinin. What was strange was that instead of taking his seat, Vershinin held visibly urgent and serious conversations with high-ranking officials, including Soviet Air Defense Chief Nikolai Voronov and Minister of Defense Rodion Melanovsky. Around the same time, about 3.30 in the morning in Washington, CIA personnel got the first indications that Grand Slam wasn't proceeding as planned. Those tracking the mission through communications intelligence channels had seen the Soviets pursuing the U-2 as they had with almost every previous mission, so that didn't raise alarm bells. But the Soviet tracking had ceased nearly two hours earlier, when powers should have been southwest of Svedlask, a little less than halfway through his mission. Something was wrong, but with no direct radio communications from the pilot, they could only guess. It was, though, becoming increasingly apparent that the aircraft was lost. Key CIA personnel came together and were joined by Air Force project officer Colonel Leo P. Gehry and NASA Press Relations officer Walter Bonney to analyze what little data they had to start planning the next move. Richard Bissell joined the growing group around 3.30 in the afternoon to find they'd written a cover story to be released from the base at Adana. In essence, it said that it was a NASA high altitude research plane that was missing on a mission over Turkey and that the last radio communication had been a report of problems with the oxygen system. The idea was to use the oxygen problem to argue hypoxia leading to pilot error, explaining how the plane had accidentally entered Soviet airspace. The release also hid the participation of other nations, namely Pakistan as the launch site and Norway as the intended landing site. The problem was, the story didn't fully explain why a weather research plane from Turkey would be so far into Soviet territory, but there was also a possibility this wouldn't even become an issue. The Americans thought there was a chance the Soviets would lie about how far the U-2 had penetrated its air space for the sake of not admitting their defenses were so weak. The cover story was a hard one to maintain, but until the CIA had any real information on what happened, it was the best story for a myriad of possible next steps. Interestingly, at no point in planning and writing this cover story did anybody seriously consider the possibility that Powers was alive. The cover story, backed up with a falsified mission flight plan, was sent to Detachment B in Adana where personnel started damage control. With the base commanders still in Pakistan, other personnel had to break the news to Barbara Powers, who'd been living in Turkey with her husband. For her own safety, her return to the United States was arranged by the government on May 3. The same day the U-2 cover story hit the press under an Istanbul dateline. Once the cover story was released, Americans briefed the Pakistani officials on what was really going on in Washington. By and large, they were grateful for continued American protection. With the Soviets routinely violating Pakistan's airspace, the country leaned heavily on American support for protection. He personnel continued hashing out details of the cover story the following day in Washington, giving NASA talking points for a question and answer press conference that was sure to come. Meanwhile, in Moscow, Khrushchev realized that having a downed US plane and its pilot was a very powerful bargaining chip. He deliberately waited on an announcement, and it finally came on May 5 during a convention of the Supreme Soviet. The United States apparently encouraged by previous incursions crossed the Soviet frontier on May 1. The Minister of Defense informed the government. We said that the aircraft should be shot down. This was done. It has been established that the plane flew in either from Turkey or Iran or Pakistan. Nice neighbors. In the past, we protested against these violations, but the United States rejected them. We decided to send a severe warning that we would take the steps necessary to ensure the security of our country. Just think what would be the reaction of the United States if a Soviet plane flew over New York or Detroit. This would mean the beginning of another war. Why then do you not think we may reply with the same measures should a foreign plane appear over our country? The governments of those countries providing facilities for the United States should realize that they may suffer the consequences. If this was done by the US military on their own bat, this must alarm world public opinion. The reaction to Khrushchev's speech in Washington was a mix of panic and uncertainty. In one follow-up meeting with Secretary of Defense Gordon Gray, Douglas Dillon, Allen Dulles, Andrew Goodpastor, and Eisenhower, the decision was made that the president should stay personally uninvolved. The Department of State would take the lead on all subsequent public-facing elements of the May Day incident. Another meeting involving Richard Bissell saw CIA and government officials attempting to read between the lines of Khrushchev's statement. Veiled within the Soviet Premier's words was a fairly brilliant propaganda play. He didn't say anything about the nature of the plane or the fate of the pilot, forcing the Americans into a tough spot. Should they change the cover story in anticipation of what the Soviets might announced? But how could they even predict what the Soviets might say next? Press conferences that followed reflected the chaos the American people didn't know were causing their government to struggle. A NASA press conference repeated the prepared cover story. The agency was apparently unaware that the State Department was now handling all publicity. The State Department then held its own briefing maintaining the same cover story that the plane hadn't intentionally violated Soviet airspace. It was only after these two press conferences that the United States learned via cable from the US Ambassador to Moscow that powers was alive. At first, the State Department didn't believe it and thought it was maybe an attempt to force an American reaction. But Khrushchev confirmed power survival in a statement on May 7th. The US State Department claimed in an official press statement that this plane had allegedly strayed off its course because the pilot had oxygen trouble. Comrades, I must tell you a secret. When I was making my report, I deliberately did not say that the pilot was alive and in good health and that we have parts of the plane. We did so deliberately because had we told everything at once, the Americans would have invented another version. And now just look how many silly things they have said. Lake Van, scientific research, and so on and so forth. The name of the pilot is Francis Gary Powers. He is 30 years old. The inquiry continues, but already the picture is fairly clear. This was indeed a high altitude, low speed Lockheed U2. They counted on its high altitude and believed that this plane could not be brought down by any fighter or anti-aircraft artillery. This is why they thought they could fly over Soviet territory with impunity. The plane was in no way equipped for upper atmospheric research or for taking air samples. This was a real military reconnaissance aircraft fitted with various instruments for collecting intelligence and among other things, aerial photography. The US cover story was well and truly demolished, but Washington stuck to it. The State Department released a statement that evening. Insofar as the authorities in Washington are concerned, there was no authorization for any such flights as described by Mr. Khrushchev. It is certainly no secret that given the state of the world today, intelligence collection activities are practiced by all countries and post-war history certainly reveals that the Soviet Union has not been lagging behind in this field. The necessity for such activities as measures for legitimate national defense are enhanced by the excessive secrecy practiced by the Soviet Union in contrast to the free world. To reduce mutual suspicion and to give a measure of protection against surprise attack, the US in 1955 offered its open skies proposal. It was in retaliation to the danger of surprise attack that the planes of the type of the unarmed civilian U-2 aircraft have been patrolling the front lines of the free world for the past four years. Also on May 7th, NASA displayed a NASA marked U-2 at Edwards Air Force Base for the press. The atmospheric sampling instruments had nothing to do with the now obviously false cover story. The days that followed saw an increased flurry of activity. In Washington, U-2 managers briefed select congressional leaders about the program's true nature. Further reports from Moscow unveiled more of the program to the world. And on May 10th, pieces of the plane were put on display in Gorky Park in Moscow for the press to see, prompting American authorities to scramble into damage and damage assessment mode. Lingering bits and pieces, including things like pilot records from the Lovelace Clinic were transferred to CIA headquarters. The CIA subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee met to go over the history of the U-2 program and the recent incident, which ended with a vote of confidence in Alan Dulles's decision to have pressed forward with the mission in the first place. These behind the scene meetings prompted congressional leaders to make public statements. Democrat Lyndon Johnson from Texas addressed the Senate. This is a time in which Americans and people everywhere must keep their heads. We cannot afford hysteria, panic, or hasty and ill-advised actions. The incident, of course, will be assessed with great care and all of its implications will be explored carefully. It is whether this incident will become an excuse and an alibi for sabotaging the summit conference. If blunders have been made, the American people can be certain that Congress will go into them thoroughly. But there is something that should be done objectively and not merely as a panicky reaction to Soviet charges. And I think that one point should be crystal clear. Nikita Khrushchev cannot use this incident in such a way as to divide the American people and weaken our national strength. Through it all, Eisenhower worried world impression was that he had lost control of the situation, so he decided to speak. On Wednesday, May 11th, the president addressed the world. No one wants another Pearl Harbor. This means that we must have knowledge of military forces and preparations around the world, especially those capable of massive surprise attack. Secrecy in the Soviet Union makes this essential. As to the nature of the flights he explained, they are secret because they must circumvent measures designed by other countries to protect the secrecy of military preparations. We do not use our army, navy, or air force for this purpose. First, to avoid any possibility of the use of force in connection with these activities. And second, because our military forces must be kept under strict control in every detail. It is a distasteful but vital necessity. We prefer and work for a different kind of world and a different way of obtaining the information essential to confidence and effective deterrence. Open societies in the day of present weapons are the only answer. This incident has been given great propaganda exploitation. The emphasis given to a flight of an unarmed non-military plane can only reflect a fetish of secrecy. The real issues are the ones we will be working on at the summit, disarmament, and search for solutions. The summit was the Paris Summit, a long planned meeting between President Eisenhower, Prime Minister Harold McMillan, President Charles de Gaulle, and Soviet Chairman Nikita Khrushchev to discuss the major problems between their countries. This was the meeting that had forced Eisenhower on a tight timeframe for Operation Grand Slam, the meeting he wanted to go into without any new conflicts. Now the Paris Summit was cast under the shadow of the May Day incident. The American delegation arrived in Paris on May 12th amid a flurry of diplomatic protests. There was no immediate indication Khrushchev wasn't willing to negotiate or at least talk as planned. If he wasn't, the Americans reasoned why would he have arrived in Paris two days earlier to prepare. It transpired, he was there to torpedo negotiations. In a surprise move, Khrushchev initiated a meeting with de Gaulle on Sunday morning, May 15th, the day before the planned summit. Khrushchev filled de Gaulle in on the Soviets' real attitude towards the U-2 incident and left the French leader with a dozen supplemental pages. That afternoon, Khrushchev held the same private meeting with Prime Minister McMillan. Khrushchev denied deliberately not speaking with Eisenhower, claiming he had no idea the American president wished to speak with him. Of course, neither de Gaulle nor McMillan had asked for these meetings either. The result of these meetings was an indirect demand for Eisenhower. Khrushchev made two points abundantly clear. That, quote, the Soviet government was outraged at the U-2 intrusion, and that, according to intelligence analyst Sherman Kent, who was in attendance, quote, Khrushchev would not discuss substantive issues of the summit's agenda until the president of the United States undertook three actions. Condemned the provocative act, which Khrushchev's aid memoir ascribed to the U.S. Air Force, guarantee that the U.S. would refrain from such acts in the future and punish the individuals responsible for the U-2 operation. The American contingent was left wondering whether Khrushchev intended to move forward with any talks if his three points weren't met, or whether it was, in fact, an ultimatum. When the formal summit kicked off, Khrushchev read a statement that included these three points, then ended with an uncivil paragraph with drawing his invitation to host Eisenhower in the Soviet Union. Eisenhower followed with a statement reiterating his already public stance on the U-2 flights. In point of fact, these flights were suspended after the recent incident and are not being resumed, he said, but he didn't apologize or agree to punish those responsible. Khrushchev's points remained unmet. The meeting ended with no resolution or real progress. The American reaction, Soviet protest notes to the U.S. and other nations and the failed Paris summit all sent ripples through CIA field stations around the world that marked the beginning of the end for the U-2 espionage missions. At least as they had been originally conceived. It wasn't long before Detachment B at Adana, Turkey, was shut down. On May 7th, the British pilots left for London to hide their involvement and protect another country from being targeted by Soviet retaliation. Remaining flights were canceled and three of the four planes were disassembled and loaded onto C-124 cargo planes bound for Edwards. The force stayed in a hangar at Incirlik Air Base with a skeleton crew, just in case the Adana base needed to be reactivated. It closed for good after 44 months. On July 8th, 1960, the Japanese government, faced with growing complaints about the spy planes in the country, asked the U.S. to leave. Detachment C was dismantled and loaded back onto C-124s. The YouTube program effectively came to a complete halt at all overseas bases. Detachments B and C were now consolidated into Detachment G in California and everything was in a holding pattern. As the YouTube program stalled around the world, there was no news on Francis Gary Powers' fate. It turned out that Powers was indeed alive and well in a Soviet facility. His time split between solitary confinement and sometimes 12-hour days spent under intense interrogation. On July 2nd, 1960, the Soviet news agency published an indictment of Powers with a start date of a public trial set for August 17th. The CIA assumed it would follow a classic show trial procedure, namely that Powers would be well rehearsed in his statements following intensive sessions of Soviet brainwashing. The U.S. government started trying to figure out how to offer Powers legal help. The president of the Virginia State Bar even got involved, agreeing to furnish legal counsel without cost and with full awareness of the secretive nature of working with the CIA. Of course, this was all pending what the Soviets would allow. Leading up to the trial, CIA analysts studied letters between Powers and Barbara. They looked for a secret code taught to all U-2 pilots in the event of their imprisonment. When no letters seemed to contain the code, analysts looked for evidence of changes in his mental state or demeanor based on handwriting samples, the science that was experimental at the time but still considered worth exploring. Handwriting comparison, according to experts, revealed that there was more than likely some type of organic psychiatric change such that could result from brain injury, electroshock, or some kind of cerebral infection. The question of Powers' mental state deepened. The Soviet practice of rigging trials and extorting confessions was well known but the CIA decided to keep his apparent change in mental state close to the vest. On August 10th, the State Department released a public statement about U.S. policy regarding public utterances about the Powers trial. To avoid prejudicing the situation and in the interest of national security, the U.S. government for the present will withhold comment on any aspect of the trial itself. There was serious concern Powers' testimony would reveal information about the YouTube program over the Middle East, Indonesia, and China, all regions where no one knew they were targets for overflights. If anyone mentioned the British pilots, the United States proverbial tongue was tied. The British government was the authority on that and the only one able to comment. Norway was becoming another big problem. Colonel Karl E. Vang, the American's point of contact at the landing base in Bodo, was worried about possible jail time for aiding the Soviet spy flights. E. Vang had granted the U.S. government use of the base at Bodo without clearing the participation with the Norwegian government. And now that there was a problem, E. Vang was taking a self-interested stance and sticking with his personal cover story that the U.S. had misled him to the true nature of the May Day flight. This prompted the Norwegian government via the Norwegian ambassador to Moscow to conclude that the Americans were, quote, so inept and unwise in their handling of the incident that it would be best for Norway to be absolutely straightforward in their dealings with the Russians, no matter how much this might offend the State Department. The foreign minister in Oslo, it transpired, was keeping the Russian ambassador to Oslo a prize of everything with the intent to convince the Russians that the powers flight took place without their knowledge, that no one cared to cover the Americans' landing at Bodo on May Day, and that the Norwegian government assumed powers had freely told the Russians all about its participation in the flight. The trial started on August 17th. Powers had no idea his family was even in the country until he saw them in the courtroom. Over three days, the May Day incident was examined from every angle. The prosecution's main argument focused on powers invading Soviet airspace. The defense countered by building up the image of powers as a victim of the capitalist system, emphasizing his proletarian family background, lack of political motivations, and his not resisting arrest. The defense also highlighted powers last-minute assignment and the fact that this was his first mission over the Soviet Union. In discussing the plane, the Soviet prosecution had to admit that in their inquiries, powers clearly knew nothing about the specialized equipment. He really was just a pilot following a flight plan. But the existence of a destruction switch found in the cockpit told the Soviets that he wasn't completely blameless. He at the very least knew he was carrying secret equipment. In attempting to place blame, it came out that Powers had left the Air Force to fly for the CIA, confirming that the flight wasn't military, somewhat lessening the aggressive element. Powers' final statement after three days of hearings was honest about his role. I realize I have committed a grave crime and that I must be punished for it. I asked the court to weigh all the evidence and to take into consideration not only the fact that I committed the crime, but also the circumstances that led me to do so. I also asked the court to take into consideration that no secret information reached its destination, that it all fell into the hands of the Soviet authorities. I plead with the court not to judge me as an enemy, but as a human being who is deeply repentant and sincerely sorry for what he has done. The final ruling was a 10-year sentence of deprivation of liberty. He was permitted in that time to no less than one letter, eight kilos of goods and 100 rubles of pocket money per month. Once the trial was done, that the Powers family was allowed to meet briefly. It was a tear-filled meeting. Powers told his family that he hadn't been treated poorly and what was more, he'd been mentally prepared for death sentence that day. The end of the trial brought a reassessment of security protocols for the YouTube program. Since so much had come out in the trial, the CIA released more information to the public. It admitted that the plane had been flying since 1956 and involved Turkey, Pakistan and Norway, but details of other nations' emissions were kept secret. Going forward, other nations' involvement as well as technical details were to remain classified. It was still an ongoing program with ample elements worth protecting. The 18 months after the trial saw confidential negotiations for Powers' return, a final arrangement that traded convicted Soviet spy Rudolf Abel for Powers on February 10th, 1962. Powers' story didn't end with his return to the U.S. The CIA needed to know what he'd told the Soviet governments the American government could move forward accordingly. This meant Powers arrived home to intense debriefings. The original damage assessment team that had worked together for months after the initial incident reformed just for this purpose. It turned out the damage was less than most people had thought. By and large, the CIA was pleased with how Powers had handled himself and felt confident that he hadn't been applied with drugs or other hallucinogens to elicit a confession during his imprisonment. But changes within the CIA meant Powers wasn't able to return to his old job, at least not yet. Allen Dulles had resigned in November of 1961 and the new DCI, John A. MacCone, was the one who'd ordered the closer look at Powers' actions. The debrief also looked closely at Powers' mental state. His testimony was compared with expert analysis from doctors, psychiatrists, Air Force colleagues, and his commander, Edadana. Wreckage photographs analyzed by Kelly Johnson were found to be consistent with Powers' account. It was finally determined on February 27th that Powers hadn't been coerced or given up any secret information, but instead had acted in accordance with his obligations as an American citizen during this period. The CIA team recommended he receive back pay and be reinstated to the Air Force. The American media was less forgiving of Powers. Many thought he must be hiding something. That some elements of the YouTube program and his time in the Soviet Union remained classified was viewed as very suspicious. Powers also received no public recognition of what he'd been through. President Kennedy snubbed him and MacCone treated him with some hostility. In April of 1963, MacCone awarded the intelligence star to all YouTube pilots except Powers. Powers only got that recognition on April 25th, 1965, after D.D.C.I. Marshall S. Carter was in office. But absent accolades were less of a concern for Powers than his future employment. The CIA and U.S. government had gone to great lengths to prove the YouTube program was non-military, so there was some concern that allowing Powers to return to the Air Force would call that into question. On April 4th, 1962, the Air Force, CIA, State Department, and White House eventually agreed to reinstate Powers to the service. But the decision was almost immediately reversed when it came out that Powers had initiated divorce proceedings against Barbara. This adverse publicity on the heels of the whole May Day incident, divorce was very unsavory for public figures in the early 1960s, led the Air Force to postpone his reinstatement until such a time that his divorce was finalized. In the meantime, Powers started working for Lockheed as a YouTube pilot and ultimately decided to stay. He was there until testing ended in September of 1969, at which point he began working as a traffic reporter in Los Angeles. He died in a helicopter crash on August 1st, 1977. He and a cameraman were on their way to an assignment. There were no Soviet overflights after the May Day incident. The plane's original intention of gaining information on the Soviet Union was well and truly done. With missions over the Soviet Union finished, Cuba became the next major target for the U-2. It was the closest point to the United States where the Soviet Union was known to be erecting an arsenal of missiles, posing a real threat to the American people. U-2 overflights played a big part in the lead-up to the Bay of Pigs invasion, the U.S.-backed offensive by Cuban exiles who opposed Fidel Castro's rule. U-2 overflights of Cuba fell under Operation Kickoff to get a bird's-eye view of the land and provide information on local geography. The U-2 was necessary. By virtue of their orbits, spy satellites couldn't cover the area about which the U.S. needed information. Detachment G, the fleet based at Edwards Air Force Base in California, flew Cuban missions from Laughlin Air Base near Del Rio, Texas. The round-trip distance meant that even if the engine flamed out, the plane could still glide back to Florida for a safe landing. Adapting the U-2 for aerial refueling around this time increased its range and allowed for longer missions. This iteration was the U-2F, but it wasn't without problems. Aerial refueling is a delicate dance at best and it was more complicated with the U-2. A fully loaded KC-135 tanker had a hard time slowing down to 200 knots, which was the safe refueling speed for the U-2. The U-2 pilot, meanwhile, had to be very careful not to fly too close to the tanker. If he got stuck in the turbulent air behind it, it could hit the airframe with deadly stresses. Aerial refueling did work, but it didn't really add much. Pilot fatigue remained the true limiting factor of a mission and experience showed that 10 hours was the longest anyone could fly a U-2 without becoming a danger to himself. Coincident with the first Cuban U-2 flights were structural changes in the program that were poised to take a significant toll. On January 1st of 1959, Richard Bissell had been named deputy director for plans, a new role that left all CIA air assets under the development projects division and Bissell as its head controlled all agency air operations. This meant Bissell had the use of U-2s for covert activities under his control and this disturbed some of his backers, foremost among them James Killian and Edwin Land. They worried his newfound power would affect his clear thinking about priorities. When U-2 photographs failed to help predict the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Bissell fell way out of favor with Killian and Land and his credibility was lost in Kennedy's eyes as well. Bissell lost even more support in November of 1961 when Alan Dellis resigned. The tensions between Bissell and Kennedy's close advisors led to a power struggle. Killian and Land fought to remove agency reconnaissance programs from the development projects divisions and put them into a new science-oriented directorate and Bissell fought back. In the end, Bissell was effectively forced to resign on February 17th, 1962 when his position had become untenable. The new science-oriented directorate came into existence two days later ending the U-2's involvement with covert operations. It was also a very confusing time for the development projects division. The group in charge of the U-2 had just lost the man who had built and run the program. Even after the failed invasion at the Bay of Pigs, Cuba remained a high priority target as Soviet activity in the area increased. In August of 1962, reconnaissance confirmed an increase in Soviet arms delivered to Cuba and at least eight SA-2 sites on the island. An overflight on September 3rd found more missiles and fleets of mages. The appearance of these planes on Cuba made the US government wary of a second diplomatic crisis akin to the May Day incident. Apart from Cuba, the bulk of the U-2 flights after the May Day incident were in the Far East and Latin America. In Asia, where Soviet radars were thought to be less sophisticated, Detachment C flew over mainland China to get a picture of troops mobilizing in conflicts between the People's Republic of China and Nationalist China or Taiwan to see if they were planning to invade the island. In this instance, the U-2 became more involved in clandestine efforts to contain communism and found evidence of roads, railroads, and airfields in the process. Detachment G pilots, meanwhile, flew over Laos and Vietnam as that conflict escalated later in the decade. Around the same time, the U-2 also began flying missions that lined up with its original cover story. Pilots from Detachment C did fly high altitude air sampling missions. When Lyndon Johnson assumed the presidency after Kennedy's assassination in 1963, he didn't resume any Soviet overflights, but the plane continued to evolve. There was also an effort to adapt the U-2 to an aircraft carrier so they could deploy from more places without needing a full base setup in a foreign country. One flew from the USS Kitty Hawk in August of 1963, getting airborne in just 321 feet with a full load of fuel. But landing, on the other hand, was quite hard. Literally, the plane landed and bounced, hitting one wingtip, then barely getting airborne again before being able to get enough altitude for a safe go-around. The U-2 clearly needed a hook, which meant the airframe had to be beefed up to hold the extra weight, and it would also need spoilers. This version was the U-2G that made its first successful landing on March 2, 1964. It flew one mission over a front atomic test area. A mission over an ally was ideal for a test, but the whole plan proved pretty fruitless. The cost of launching from an aircraft carrier was more complicated and expensive than just sending a detachment to a foreign base. In the mid-1960s, the Air Force pursued a new version of the U-2 that Kelly Johnson had designed with a longer fuselage and wider wingspan that translated to enough space for two payload bays. This larger version also had a bigger envelope. Rather than the six-knot difference between stall speed and overspeed, it was now 20 knots. This version also had an upgraded Pratt & Whitney P-13B engine with better restart capability that could get the plane to 74,000 feet and hit speeds of Mach 0.72. A new camera could resolve objects as small as four inches across. This was the U-2R, but the U-2R cost 7.1 million per aircraft, making it almost 10 times of what the original cost. U-2Rs began coming off the production line in autumn of 1968, but by then, overflights were almost a thing of the past. There were, however, some civilian applications for the U-2. The Department of Defense used it to test cameras and processing techniques for use in other reconnaissance systems. The U-2's flew weather photography missions coincident with the Apollo 8 and Apollo 9 flights to give scientists image data to match against the crew's observations. The Department of the Interior used U-2s to check for damage caused by offshore oil wells in California in the Santa Barbara Channel. U-2s also flew missions to gather data on snowfall to help hydrologists. The Office of Emergency Preparedness used U-2s to survey for hurricane baseline study. U-2s flew over Los Angeles to survey damage after an earthquake on February 9th, 1971. Some U-2s flew surveillance missions to ensure the continued ceasefire in the Suez Canal, as well as after the Arab-Israeli War in 1973. But none of that had anything to do with aerial espionage, and the CIA's program was put under review in 1969. Incoming President Richard Nixon opted to keep it alive until 1971. The CIA's program ended up lasting two years longer than Nixon had given it. On August 30th, 1973, the CIA approved a plan to phase out the U-2. The Air Force would take over the financial and physical planes. With the end of the CIA's U-2 program, foreign detachments also closed down. The 20-year CIA program ended in 1974, but U-2s are still flying today. In 2020, the Air Force awarded Lockheed a new contract for advanced capabilities in its U-2s. Up next in this series on aerial espionage, we are looking at the technology that started to make the U-2 obsolete, the Corona spy satellite, that took the Cold War into space for the first time. It's in the works and it's super fascinating, so I hope you guys are excited for it too, because I know I am. A quick reminder that my new book, Fighting for Space, is available, however you like to consume books, as is my first Breaking the Chains of Gravity. I have links to both of those in the description below as well. A special shout out to all my Patreon backers and YouTube members. You guys truly, truly make these videos possible, so thank you so much for your ongoing support. If you would like to help keep the vintage space up and running and also get access to my space-centered Discord, I have links you need in the description. And of course, I've got links to all the ways to connect with me on social media down there as well. Thank you guys so much for hanging out with me today, and I will see you next time.