Operation Overflight (31 page)

The next diary entry was October 20: “First snow. Pretty cold.” With it began my first winter in Russia.

Winter was early this year, the guard said, the earliest in seventy years, meaning it would be long and hard.

Our radiator was the old-fashioned type. When the wind was blowing from the west, or opposite, side of the building, the cell
was nice and warm. When it came from the east, however, our teeth chattered.

When the temperature dropped below freezing, we were allowed to divide our walk time, so as to have one hour in the morning, the other in the afternoon. Even then we rarely wanted to stay out the full hour. We would walk steadily, stopping only to feed the pigeons.

As the days grew shorter, daylight did not come until eight in the morning, and getting up at six became more difficult. I no longer looked forward to the morning trip to the bathroom. Now, with the window open, the temperature inside was the same as out. It was something to be endured.

Winter brought some advantages. The milk didn't spoil. And the dead-air space between the two windows became a freezer where we could store what meat Zigurd's parents sent, permitting us to ration it out for a longer period.

Diary, October 23, I960: “Saw a movie about a poet and artist in prerevolutionary days. Good, though I didn't understand it enough to enjoy it thoroughly.”

October 29: “Saw another movie about construction of a railroad bridge in Siberia. Fair.”

The diary entries were brief, for two reasons. There was very little to write about, and it was so cold in the cell now that we had to wear gloves.

Letter to Barbara, October 31: “Winter has definitely set in here. It has snowed almost every day since the twentieth. The temperature has been freezing or below for about three weeks now. …

“I suppose you have read about the American tourist who was sentenced to seven years for spying and who was released when he appealed to the Presidium. I heard about it on the Moscow News and was very surprised. He was convicted under the same article as I was, but then, his case was much different from mine.

“I am tempted to write an appeal, although I am sure it would do no good. One doesn't know until one tries, though. Many things that have happened here have surprised me. Last May I didn't think I would be alive in October, but here I am. I guess I should be satisfied, but I still hope for some miracle to happen.”

It was an up-and-down cycle. There were all-right days, and bad ones.

Diary, November 1: “Usual day of prison life. Have now been in prison for six months. I am sure I will never stay for ten years. Will do something drastic first.”

November 4: “People from Moscow KGB visited me today.”

The visit, which came as a surprise, was my first real interrogation since the trial. Obviously aeronautical experts had been studying the remains of the U-2, since all questions concerned the aircraft. Handing me photographs, they would ask: Why does the drive shaft in this electrical motor turn this way instead of that? Why do the flaps move up as well as down? There was nothing in this to fall into the realm of security or to give them any sort of technical advantage, yet I had resisted their questioning for so long that it was an ingrained habit. I answered all the obvious ones, replying to the others that when a pilot flips a switch he knows only that certain things are supposed to happen; he doesn't necessarily know the engineering sequence involved.

Early in October, deciding to follow Zigurd's example and keep a journal, I had ordered a bound notebook from Moscow. It finally arrived, and on November 4 I made my first entry.

The purpose of my journal, I decided, would be to put down everything I could remember about the May 1 flight and events following. If I didn't do this, I'd probably forget many details, and there were some in which, I was sure, the CIA would be most interested. Like the diary, however, the journal posed two problems: when I was released, I might not be allowed to take it with me: and, in the interim, my jailers might read or copy it while we were outside the cell. Therefore I would have to continue to maintain all the fictions: this had been my first overflight; I had learned I was to make it only a few hours before takeoff; and so on. When it came to touchy matters, I decided to use a memory code, words or phrases to serve as reminders of things I didn't wish to have read. Even should they keep both the journal and the diary, the two would have served one positive function—giving me something to do. But since I did want to keep them, I took out some insurance. Here and there I'd add a phrase such as “No brainwashing here … ” or “Have never seen a prisoner mistreated …,” the kind of thing they would be anxious to have publicized. I didn't know if it would help, but it wouldn't hurt.

Before leaving Moscow, Barbara had been unable to find some of the winter clothing I needed. One of the KGB officials had told her that they wouldn't hold too strictly to the one-package rule; she could send the remainder upon her return to the United States. On November 5 the package arrived, containing some much-needed winter long Johns, an extra pair of shoes, a puzzle and a bridge game, and various other items. Its value was declared at
sixty-seven dollars, the postage $49.54, and the customs duty twelve hundred rubles. There wasn't anything I needed that much, I decided.

Except possibly a letter. Although I searched the package, there wasn't one. It had been nearly a month since I had received her last.

Representatives of the KGB came about every two weeks. I told them bluntly, “I'm not getting all my mail. The letters from my wife aren't coming through. You must be stopping them.”

“No,” they insisted, “we aren't. But we'll check and see.”

They seemed very disturbed that I would even think they would do such a thing.

During the trial I had stated that I felt no animosity toward the Russian people. This was true. Although I had no fondness for my interrogators at Lubyanka, and I harbored only contempt for the trial team of Rudenko-Grinev, the majority of the people I had met in Russia, from the farmers who captured me in the field to my guards at Vladimir, were friendly and without malice. Ordinary people, they were as curious about me as I about them. Apparently each of us had been led to believe the other monstrous; the discovery that this wasn't true was a pleasant surprise. A few of the guards had been surly, but they were surly to everyone. By contrast, the Little Major seemed jolly whatever the occasion.

I could honestly say that while an uninvited house guest of the Russians, I had never met anyone I really hated.

On November 6 I met the exception.

That day Zigurd and I were taken to the theater to watch a concert put on by some of the work-camp prisoners. There was a comedy skit—the comedian easily recognizable by his long nose; several of the prisoners were quite talented musicians; and one, a large dark man known as “Gypsy,” did fabulous cossack dances.

While we were sitting on the bench in the projection room, the prison commander walked in. I glanced at him briefly—I had seen him only once previously, on the day of my arrival—then returned my attention to the show.

Angrily, with Zigurd acting as a reluctant interpreter, he demanded that I stand at attention.

All prisoners were required to stand in the presence of the prison commander, he bellowed. No one had told me this. When someone came into the cell, we stood automatically, out of simple politeness, but I'd never given it any thought.

For a good ten minutes he cursed me, and the United States, with the vilest epithets he could muster, only a portion of which Zigurd repeated.

It was a small incident, certainly nothing compared to what some prisoners undergo at the hands of their captors, but I reacted strongly.

Revenge is sweet, and I desperately needed some of that sweetening. But, considering our relative circumstances, I could see no way to accomplish it. Until, that evening, when the time came to write in my diary.

Zigurd and I were unsure whether our cell was searched when we were out. Several times, before leaving for walks or a movie, we had set traps—a thread stretched between the beds, a drawer open a fraction of an inch. But, on our return, they were undisturbed. I didn't know whether my diary was being read. But this was one time I fervently hoped it would be.

For my entry that day I wrote: “Went to a concert put on by prisoners in barracks number 3. Liked it. Whole day spoiled by prison commander. First
S.O.B.
I have seen in Russia.”

S.O.B. was in bold black letters and underlined.

I could visualize the prison commander asking a translator, “What is an S.O.B.?”

And I could picture the translator trying to explain it to him.

A daydream, of course. But most satisfying.

Diary, November 7: “Big holiday here. Sundays and holidays are bad in prison. A person knows other people are celebrating and feels lonely. The radio told of the celebration in Moscow. Twentygun salute, fireworks, etc.”

In Russia it was the forty-third anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Tomorrow it would be election day in the United States and I was eagerly awaiting word of the outcome. Although limited in my news sources, I had followed this election with far greater interest than any previous one.

From my father's letters I had received the distinct impression that the Eisenhower administration was anxious to sweep the U-2 incident under the rug. This had come across with some bitterness, since my father, an iconoclast in just about everything, was one of those rare creatures, a Virginia Republican. Shortly after my capture, his attorney, Carl McAfee, had tried to see the President. Failing in this, he had talked to Vice-President Nixon, who assured him that
everything that could be done would be done. Perhaps needless to say, my father did not believe this was the case.

There was one lingering reminder of the U-2 episode. My presence in a Russian prison. For a time I had hoped that Eisenhower would attempt to remedy this before leaving office. Knowing the stand he had already taken, I was sure he would never apologize to Khrushchev for the overflights, but I had hoped that some understanding could be reached wherein both sides could save face. I was far less confident now. Politics being politics, the time to do this would have been before the election, when the Republicans could have derived some political benefit. Now, it seemed, they didn't want to be reminded.

According to the highly slanted Russian interpretation of the news, the two candidates differed only in degree, both being committed to continuing the arms race. I knew little as to the issues of the campaign. I did know, however, that Kennedy had said earlier that had he been President when the incident occurred, he would have apologized to Khrushchev; that following my trial he had pronounced the sentence “extremely harsh,” stating that the testimony made clear that Powers “was only carrying out his duty.” And I had heard a little about the Kennedy-Nixon debates. I observed in my journal: “Nixon said that the next President should be a man who was not afraid to stand up to Khrushchev. I don't know what Kennedy replied to this, but I do know my own opinion. I think we need a man as President who would try to get along with people and not go around with a chip on his shoulder saying ‘I'm not afraid of you.' We need a man who would try to settle and ease the tension in the world. We definitely do not need a man who thinks he has to stand up to another man and prove to the world that he isn't afraid, even if he kills half the population of his country proving it.”

I hoped Kennedy had won. I added, pointedly, that my opinions were formed solely on the limited, edited news available to me. “If I had heard all of the speeches, etc., my opinions might be different.”

My sentence, I felt sure, could be terminated only by an easing of tensions between the East and the West. I now had a highly personal stake in world peace.

During the trial Grinev had made a big point of my being apolitical, never having voted in an American election. I was not proud of this fact. I had been away from home since turning twenty-one; while stationed at various Air Force bases and while overseas I had
always intended to write home for an absentee ballot, but had never gotten around to it.

Now, one way of the other, my future could very well depend on the outcome of the balloting.

I vowed that if —
when
—I returned to the United States, never again would I miss an opportunity to cast my vote.

Something had been on my mind since long before the trial. Now, awaiting the election results and knowing that whichever way the balloting went that the Eisenhower years were coming to an end, I gave it more thought.

I asked myself why, with the Summit so close, had Eisenhower approved my flight?

I tried to assemble the pieces of the puzzle, those few I possessed. I knew there had been no overflights for months and then suddenly two in close succession. The pilots believed the resumption of the flights was due at least in part to the agency's fear that Russia was now close to solving her missile-guidance problem. I knew that my particular flight had been authorized on the highest level because my take-off had been delayed until White House approval had been received.

I also knew the intelligence objectives of both flights were important—but important enough to take this risk at this time?

One possible explanation occurred to me. At first it seemed farfetched; yet, the more I thought about it, the more sense it made.

Could Eisenhower have
wanted
Khrushchev to know of the flights?

We knew that the Russians had radar-tracked most if not all of the overflights, so the chances were that these last two U-2 flights would not have gone undetected. Might Eisenhower or his advisers have felt it to be to our advantage, psychologically, to have Khrushchev know, to have this very much on his mind when he arrived in Paris for the talks?

Had the flight gone off as planned, it would not have been mentioned. The two men sitting across the table from each other: Eisenhower smug in the knowledge that we could overfly Russia at will, and Khrushchev not able to do a thing about it; Khrushchev inwardly raging but unable to protest, because to do so would be to admit that his country did not have missiles capable of reaching the planes.