Ryan Braunstein


The U-2 Incident

On May the 1 of 1960 at 6:26am, Francis Gary Powers departed on an ill
fated flight which would capture the attention of the world and create
extreme political tensions between the two alliances of the Cold War. 
Five days later, Nikita S. Khrushchev, Premier of the Soviet Union,
announced that an airplane belonging to the United States of America
had penetrated into the interior of the Soviet Union and had been shot
down. Since no proof of pilot or plane was presented by Khrushchev,
President Eisenhower denied the charges, saying only that a US weather
plane may have accidentally strayed into Soviet air space. Khrushchevs
response stunned the world, proving that the Soviets not only had the
downed U2, but that they had captured the pilot and the planes
contents, including film taken over military installations inside the
Soviet Union.  Khrushchev would use this incident in three major ways
to try and save his political career with Communist hardliners and
regain the upper hand in the Cold War.  First he would sabotage peace
talks on the situation in Berlin, in which he knew the Soviet Union
would not be allowed its wishes. Second, Khrushchev would use the
crisis as a turning point in his foreign and domestic policies, taking
on a much more aggressive stance against the Western Allies and at home
to appease his foes.  Thirdly, after the U-2 incident, Khrushchev would
find the need for secret operations designed to weaken the Western
Allies and command more respect for the Soviet Union, and had the KGB
carry out several plans accordingly.  This paper will attempt to show
how and why Premier Khrushchev would use the "U2 Incident" to attain
these three goals.

Background to the U-2 Incident: The U2 program was begun in October of
1954. The idea was brought to the Air Force by Clarence L. Johnson, a
Lockheed vice-president and its chief designer. Johnson had begun an
investigation of the possibility of increasing the performance of his
F-104 jet so as to gain maximum altitude and range for reconnaissance
purposes over the Soviet Union. The reasoning was that even if
intelligence results were marginal, the U-2 might provoke Russians into
greater spending on their anti-aircraft defenses, drawing off precious
rubles for their offensive weaponry. The Soviets also had an important
military advantage in their secrecy. The location of defense
installations in the United States was a matter of public record,
easily double-checked by agents who could move more or less at will. In
the Soviet Union, on the other hand, close to 40 percent of the country
had been declared a "denied area". Travel by foreigners was ruthlessly
policed.  At some point the Soviets would certainly be able to detect
the U-2, but for a period they could do nothing about it, and in time
they might become convinced of the futility of their obsessive secrecy.
They might think it preferable to accept an inspected arms control
agreement, or an "open skies" treaty which President Eisenhower was
simultaneously pressing for. The plane itself was somewhat of a marvel
in technological advances. It was developed and flying in eight-eight
days. It could take off and be airborne at 1,000 feet in 10 seconds,
and could fly at an altitude of over 90,000 feet (the previous altitude
record was 54,000 feet held by the British on a "zoom - up" ). All air
defenses of the time, Soviet and American, would be futile against a
plane flying at such altitudes, but there was more. The plane could
glide for over 300 miles without power in case of emergency, and could
cruise for almost 4750 miles or 11 hours without refueling . The
equipment on board consisted of two huge state-of-the-art cameras,
fitted with 12,000 feet of film. The capabilities of these cameras
were such that golf balls could clearly be seen on a green. In addition
there were recording devices which could listen to all Soviet radar and
radio signals. The U-2s purpose was to gather as much information on
Soviet military and industrial installations as possible.  The CIAs
Richard Bissell said that by 1959, the U-2 was bringing back "ninety
percent of our hard intelligence information about the Soviet
Union".  At the time, there were many theories that the Soviet Union
was producing more long range missiles and planes capable of a
first-strike attack against the United States.  The only deterrent the
U.S. could hope to have against a first strike, was the threat of a
retaliatory strike, which would mean monitoring all Soviet threats.
Terms such as "bomber-gap" and "missile-gap" were frequently used among
military circles, as people feared that the Soviet Union had far more
weapons than they admitted to. The U-2 largely disproved these
theories, and provided all the data necessary to evaluate the strength
and purpose of Soviet arms. Francis Powers particular U-2 mission was
to photograph several Soviet military sites. The first was Tyuratam
Cosmodrom, the Soviet Cape Canaveral, and also one of only two
ballistic missile sites that American intelligence had located.  Also
along his flight path were suspect diggings where electronic
eavesdropping had deepened suspicions that the Soviets were building
their first operational ICBM base. His next target was Sverdlovsk, a
mighty industrial city which was also home to several rocket batteries.
This was where his mission would abruptly end.

Sabotaging the Paris Summit: In September of 1959, Premier Khrushchev
made his famous visit to the United States, and met with President
Eisenhower at Camp David to discuss disarmament and the situation in
Berlin. Khrushchev went home telling his people that Eisenhower
"sincerely wanted to liquidate the cold war and to improve relations."
After a short meeting in December of 1959, the announcement was made
that the Big Four would meet in Paris on May 16, 1960 for talks to
resolve the situation in Berlin and the rest of Germany.  As the
pre-summit winter wore on, there was a great deal of traveling by heads
of state. Khrushchev went off on a tour of India and the Far East, and
back to Paris to meet with French President De Gaulle. Immediately the
presume good fellowship began visibly to dissolve. On April 2, before
leaving Paris, Khrushchev warned that when Moscow signed a separate
peace treaty with East Germany, it would void "all rights" of the West
in Berlin. The U.S. response was given at a speech in New York from
State Department official Douglass Dillon stating that Washington would
not allow the people of West Berlin to be "sold into slavery" at the
summit.  The United States was attempting to make clear to Khrushchev
that it would be no easy opponent in Paris. This was not the end
however. At Baku, on the Caspian Sea, Khrushchev struck back with his
toughest speech of all. After a peace treaty was signed, he said, the
West would "obviously lose the right of access to West Berlin by land,
water or air."  Dillons speech, said Khrushchev, "positively reeks of
the spirit of the cold war." Then Francis Powers U-2 came crashing to
earth on the first of May. Khrushchev had used it to deliver a series
of staggering blows to the West. The Soviet Premier now held all the
cards, and thus arrived a day early to the Paris Summit. He met with De
Gaulle and stormed over the U-2, shouting at times. Khrushchev left
behind a memorandum, in which he demanded that the U.S. halt the
flights, condemn them, and punish those responsible. It seemed clear
that the purpose of this early visit was to persuade De Gaulle to
pressure Eisenhower to meet the Soviet conditions. When the Summit
meeting finally began, De Gaulle, as chief state of the host
government, asked whether anyone had a statement. Khrushchev
immediately snapped "Da" (yes). Eisenhower was next to answer
affirmatively. As chief of state, Eisenhower outranked Khrushchev, and
the British representative Macmillan, who were both Prime Ministers.
The following is a transcript of what happened next: "We shall hear,"
De Gaulle began, in his correct, sonorous French, "from the President
of the United States." "Just a minute..." said Khrushchev. "I asked
first, and I have something to say." Without waiting for any further
permission, the Soviet leader put on his glasses and began to read. His
first words made clear what was coming. "A provocative act," he
declared, "is known to have been committed with regard to the Soviet
Union by the American Air Force...a specific espionage mission...the
plane was shot down by units of the Soviet rocket troops...these acts,
their treacherous nature...is incompatible with the elementary
requirements of normal relations between states... and conditions for
the fruitful work of the summit conference. At first, the United States
State Department launched the ridiculous version that the American plane
had violated the borders of the U.S.S.R by accident."  Later, the United
States confirmed that the spy flights were endorsed by "the President
personally." Khrushchev did not shout, but his voice was excited. "How
is it possible productively to negotiate and examine the questions
confronting the conference when the United States government and the
President himself have not only failed to condemn this provocative
act...but on the contrary have declared that such actions will continue
to be the state policy of the U.S.A. with regard to the Soviet
Union...It is clear that the declarations of such a policy, which can
be pursued only when states are in a state of war, dooms the summit
conference to complete failure in advance." Khrushchev then reiterated
his demands from the memorandum, that the U.S. should condemn and
punish those responsible, and refrain from continuing such actions. But
he wasnt through yet. The U.S. must admit regret for its actions. If
one administration in Washington didnt want peaceful coexistence,
perhaps the next would. "Therefore, we would think that there is no
better way out than to postpone the conference of heads of government
for approximately six to eight months."

Eisenhowers reply consisted of a guarantee that flights would be
discontinued for the duration of his term (Khrushchev was not
satisfied) and he would propose yet another "Open Skies" plan to the
United Nations. A debate ensued and arguments broke out over
Khrushchevs insistence that he would publish his speech condemning
Eisenhower. The conference ended with De Gaulle declaring that
Khrushchev could have brought all of this to bear at least a week
before the conference and had deliberately inconvenienced all the
leaders by making the summit an impasse. The reasoning behind
Khrushchevs sabotage of the conference was simple. He knew that
Eisenhower wasn't going to back out of Berlin, as the Russians were
demanding. Khrushchev broke up the summit because he knew that he
wasn't going to be able to force the West out of Berlin, and that
therefore there was no point to having the meeting.  He used the U-2
incident as a very dramatic way to bring the meeting to a crushing
stop, and lay the onus on the Americans for it.

Khrushchevs hardships and attempt at a turnaround: With the U-2 crisis
as fuel to his enemies fire, Khrushchev was pushed to enact harsher and
more aggressive policies to appease his counterparts.  Up until the
incident, Premier Khrushchev was not representative of his party and
colleagues with regards to relations with the west. He was the first
Soviet leader to establish diplomatic relations with the United States
and referred to President Eisenhower as his "friend", all during the
rise of the Cold War. Needless to say, most Moscow beaurocrats at the
time did not agree with the capitalist system and regarded its
practices as the antithesis to Communism (Marxism?), and any
association with the capitalist system was taken with distaste.  Thus
the U-2 affair provided Khrushchevs enemies in the Soviet Union with
an excellent opportunity to tame him.  Some demanded to know why he had
embraced the American President as a "lover of peace" when all
clear-minded Soviet leaders knew that he was merely a captive of the
Pentagon and monopolistic aggressive capitalism. In public, Khrushchev
distanced himself from Eisenhower, but not with such vigor as to
confess that he had been duped.  In early June of 1960, Khrushchev
declared that Eisenhower was "completely lacking in will power" to stop
the Pentagon and other such Cold War instigators. "I think that when the
President is no longer in office, we could give him a job as a
kindergarten director. I am sure he would not hurt the children. But it
is dangerous for a man like that to run a nation... I say this because I
know him."  Furthermore, he would later say  "Eisenhowers Presidency is
a time of troubles for the United States and all the world." However,
Khrushchevs problems with internal rivals were becoming more
apparent.  In mid-June, the Kremlin held a large conference on farming.
Western analysts noted that Khrushchev was not invited to speak on his
favorite topic, and that his agriculture minister used the occasion to
challenge Khrushchevs policies.  On June 18, he went to Bucharest for
a meeting of world socialist leaders. Since May Day, Mao Tse-tung had
exploited the U-2 episode to undermine Khrushchevs dominance of the
Kremlin and socialist camp. Behind closed doors at Bucharest, the
Chinese proposed a resolution condemning Khrushchevs opening to the
West. Khrushchev withdrew twelve thousand technical advisors from China
and tore up contracts for further aid. In mid-July, Western analysts
were intrigued when Kozlov, who was not present in Bucharest, gave the
report to the Central Committee on the Bucharest meeting instead of
Khrushchev. As members went on to discuss the Soviet economy,
Khrushchev was still not a part of the proceedings. His contributions
consisted of hectoring some of the speakers from his seat. More
domestic problems arose for the Premier. Soviet industrial growth was
sagging, as was agriculture: Khrushchevs Virgin Lands idea from 1955
was now a proven failure.  By now it was incumbent upon Khrushchev to
show the Kremlin and the world that he was a tough and able leader,
that he knew how to stand up to the West and seize opportunities in
Cuba, the Congo and other Third World nations. Starting with his famous
shoe- hammering speech to the United Nations, Khrushchevs foreign
politics became more aggressive and daring. The most apparent of these
was the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. According to Nikita Khrushchev's
memoirs, in May 1962 he conceived the idea of placing
intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Cuba as a means of countering an
emerging lead of the United States in developing and deploying strategic
missiles. He also presented the scheme as a means of protecting Cuba
from another United States-sponsored invasion, such as the failed
attempt at the Bay of Pigs in 1961.  Although the Western presses
heralded the eventual withdrawal as a victory for the United States,
Khrushchev still retained one of his primary goals by obtaining a
guarantee that the U.S. would not invade Cuba again. Meanwhile,
Khrushchevs social policies were turning even more hostile. After
Stalin's death, under Khrushchev,  opportunists and enemies of Leninism,
 sent, justifiably, to Siberia under Stalin, were rehabilitated and
placed in key positions. One example was a man named Snegov,  condemned
in 1938, as an enemy of the people, to twenty-five years of prison. In
1956, Khrushchev  brought him out of prison so that he could testify
against the `Stalinist crimes'. But, Snegov  `proved' that `the issue
was not Stalin's mistakes or delusions, but that everything was the
fruit of his criminal policy. The monstrous results had not appeared
all of a sudden in the thirties. Their roots, Snegov  said, went back
to the October Revolution and the Civil War.' This individual, an open
opponent of the October Revolution, was chosen by Khrushchev  as
Commissar of the Ministry of the Interior, where he was responsible for
the rehabilitation of the `victims of Stalinism'! However, after the
time period of the U-2 incident, reforms such as these would be hard to
find in Khrushchevs new social policies. In June of 1962, the Premier
ordered his army to start shooting at protesting factory workers in
Novocherkaassk.. Hundreds died, more were executed and jailed, and the
victims' families were exiled. In November of 1962, Khrushchev
condemned abstractionists and avantgardists at the Manezh Art Show.
Although this last incident was provoked somewhat by Neo-Stalinists,
Khrushchev continued to suppress and censure artists and writers in
1963 and up until his removal from power.  Khrushchevs domestic Soviet
policies were no longer the anti-Stalinist reforms, but had become
dictatorial and menacing. He no longer had the leverage necessary to
keep his opponents at bay unless he conceded to their desires. Years
later in his memoirs, Khrushchev would date his decline in power to the
day the U-2 was shot down. From that day on, he would  have to share
power with those who felt that "only military force" would enable
Moscow to deal with Washington and keep the Soviet masses at bay.

Khrushchevs Soviet intelligence/counterintelligence efforts: On 14
February 1961, Nikita S. Khrushchev received an annual report of the
KGB marked "Top SecretHighly Sensitive." Only Khrushchev could decide
who among the top Soviet leadership might see the report, in which the
Collegium of the KGB informed him as the First Secretary of the CC CPSU
and as a Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR about the
achievements of Soviet foreign intelligence during 1960. In this
period, Khrushchev was told, 375 foreign agents were recruited, and 32
officers of the State Security were transferred abroad and legalized.
The stations abroad obtained, among others, position and background
papers prepared by Western governments for the summit conference in
Paris in May 1960, including materials on the German and Berlin
questions, disarmament, and other issues. They also provided the Soviet
leadership with "documentary evidence about military-political planning
of some Western powers and the NATO alliance as a whole; [...] on the
plan of deployment of armed forces of these countries through 1960-63;
evidence on preparation by the USA of an economic blockade of and
military intervention against Cuba", the last a possible allusion to
preparations for the forthcoming April 1961 CIA-supported invasion by
anti-Castro Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs. The sheer numbers conveyed
the vast extent of information with which the KGB flooded the tiny group
of Soviet leaders. During one year alone it prepared and presented 4,144
reports and 68 weekly and monthly informational bulletins to the Party's
Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers; 4,370 documentary
materials were sent to Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko; 3,470 materials
to Defense Minister Rodion Malinovsky and the Head of the General Staff
Alexander Vassilevsky; and 790 materials to other ministries and
agencies. A special division of the KGB was busy fabricating
disinformation on the production in the United States of chemical and
bacteriological weapons and the development of new means of mass
destruction. Faked documents, innuendo, and gossip were used to
undercut U.S. positions and influence among delegations of Afro-Asian
and Latin American countries in the United Nations and "to promote
disorganization of the American voting machine in the structures of the
UN."  One name on the hit list was that of Allen W. Dulles, experienced
in the espionage trade since the late 1930s and since 1953 presiding
over the Central Intelligence Agency.22  In 1960-1961, at the
insistence of Khrushchev, Dulles became the chief target of the KGB's
vendetta against the CIA. Khrushchev, in his typical manner, once
engaged personally in a semi-public feud with Allen Dulles boasting
that he read his briefing papers prepared for President Eisenhower and
found them "boring." In his opinion the U.S. president, though he
accepted responsibility for the intelligence flights of the U-2, merely
shielded the real culprit: Allen Dulles.  So Khrushchev, his
considerable venom concentrated on the debonair socialite spy-master,
evidently asked Alexander Shelepin, the KGBs chairman,  to prepare a
plan to discredit the CIA chief. Three weeks after Khrushchev's return
from Paris, Shelepin's plan was formally approved by the Secretariat of
the Central Committee. The plan included hundreds of minute
disinformation campaigns ranging from the forgery of letters from
deceased diplomats regarding the authoritarian leadership of Dulles to
a fake secret agent within Russia being captured and put on trial. It
also plotted "to arrange through a 'double' channel, known to the
adversary, a transmittal from Washington of a real classified
instruction signed by Dulles and obtained by the KGB." However, after
the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, of which the Soviets had
warned and supplied Cuba to defend against, Dulles retired on his own.
One of the more imaginative strands in the web of Soviet strategic
deception concerned the number and even existence of new types of arms
and missiles. Along with the General Staff, the KGB long practiced a
dubious combination of super-secrecy and bluffing, thereby producing a
series of panicky assessments in the West about a "bomber gap" and then
a "missile gap."  In 1961, Khrushchev assigned the KGB and the military
the task of making the West believe that the Soviets were absolutely
prepared to launch an attack in retaliation for Western armed
provocations over West Berlin. This disinformation package included
the following tasks: 1)To convince the West that Soviet land forces
were now armed with new types of tanks "equipped with tactical nuclear
weapons." 2)To create a conviction among the enemy "about a
considerable increase of readiness of Rocket Forces and of the
increased number of launching pads-produced by the supply of solid
liquid ballistic missiles of medium range and by the transfer from
stationary positions to mobile launching positions on highways and
railroads which secure high maneuverability and survivability" 3)To
spread a false story about the considerable increase in the number of
nuclear submarines with solid-fuel "Polaris" missiles 4)To bring to
Western attention "information about the strengthening of anti-aircraft
defense" 5)To disorient the enemy regarding the availability in the
Soviet Air Forces of "new types of combat-tactical aircraft with
'air-to-air' and 'air-to-ground' missiles with a large operational
range." However, with the construction of the Berlin Wall shortly
following, the intentions of this plan were somewhat relieved.
Khrushchev used the U-2 incident as an excuse to step up his personal
KGB directives. He wanted to prove to his Soviet comrades that his KGB
efforts were in fact more substantial than those of the CIA which had
obviously been very successful for the United States. He utilized the
KGB to carry out several of his own plans, including vengeance against
Allen Dulles, who he considered the main instigator of Cold War
tensions.

Conclusion: Khrushchev used the U-2 incident as a turning point
politics, taking a more aggressive stand against the Western Allies in
order to regain waning support from his fellow beaurocrats.  To
accomplish this, Khrushchev sabotaged the peace talks in Berlin, but
placed the blame on Americans, changed foreign and domestic policy,
making them more aggressive and intolerant of abuse, and he directed
the KGB to carry out several campaigns which were designed to weaken
the Western Alliance and make them more fearful of the Soviet Union.

Notes:

 Undercurrents in American Foreign Relations  The U-2 Affair p151-152
 Sergei Khrushchev,  Khrushchev  on Khrushchev:  An Inside Account of
the Man and His Era (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1990), p. 8. 
KGB to Nikita Khrushchev, "Report for 1960," 14 February 1961, in CC
CPSU Secretariat's "special dossier" [osobaya papka], protocol no.
179/42c, 21 March 1961, TsKhSD, fond 4, opis 13, delo 74, ll. p 144-58.
 KGB to CC CPSU, 10 March 1961, fond 4, opis 13, delo 85, ll. p133-142


Bibliography

1)Wise, David and Ross, Thomas B. The U-2 Affair, Random House, New
York, 1962

2)Venkatarami, M.S. UnderCurrents in American Foreign Relations, Asia
Publishing House, New York, 1965

3)Beschloss, Michael R. Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev and the U-2
Affair, Harper & Row Pub., Cambridge, 1986

4)Crankshaw, Edward and Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev Remembers, Little
Brown & Co., Boston, 1970

Zubok, Vladislav, Spy vs. Spy: The KGB vs. the CIA, 1960-1962, CWIHP
Document

Zubok, Vladislav, Working Paper #6: Khrushchev and the Berlin Crisis
(1958-62), CWIHP Document

http://artnet.net/~upstart/khru.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/amex/presidents/nf/featured/eisen/
eisenfp.html