United States Government – 1960 U-2 Spy Plane Incident
Image Source: NASA, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
What Was the Accusation?
On May 1, 1960, an American Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft piloted by Francis Gary Powers was shot down while flying deep inside Soviet territory. The flight was part of a secret U.S. intelligence program designed to photograph Soviet military installations during the Cold War. Powers survived, was captured by Soviet authorities, and the wreckage of his aircraft—including reconnaissance equipment—was recovered. The incident occurred only about two weeks before President Dwight D. Eisenhower was scheduled to meet Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and the leaders of Britain and France at a major summit in Paris.
The United States initially responded with a cover story. NASA announced that an unarmed U-2 being used for high-altitude weather research had disappeared after its civilian pilot reported difficulties with his oxygen equipment. The United States did not yet know that Powers was alive or that the Soviets had recovered substantial evidence from the aircraft. Khrushchev initially withheld those facts, allowing the American government to elaborate on the weather-aircraft account before revealing on May 7 that Powers had survived and that the Soviet Union possessed evidence establishing the plane’s reconnaissance mission.
Once the original account became untenable, the American response changed substantially. The State Department acknowledged that a U-2 probably had entered Soviet territory to obtain intelligence and argued that intelligence collection was a normal feature of international affairs. Secretary of State Christian Herter then defended aerial surveillance as a necessary response to Soviet secrecy, Soviet espionage, the danger of surprise nuclear attack, and the Soviet Union’s rejection of President Eisenhower’s earlier “open skies” proposal. Rather than treating the overflight principally as an isolated mistake, U.S. officials attempted to place it within the broader Cold War problem of obtaining reliable information about Soviet military capabilities.
President Eisenhower reinforced that defense during his May 11 press conference. He accepted responsibility for establishing the administration’s intelligence-gathering policy while describing intelligence collection as necessary to prevent another surprise attack comparable to Pearl Harbor. Eisenhower characterized covert intelligence as unpleasant but essential, emphasized Soviet secrecy, revived his argument for reciprocal aerial inspection, and attempted to redirect attention toward larger issues of disarmament, Germany, Berlin, and East-West relations. His response therefore acknowledged the existence and purpose of the reconnaissance program without offering the expression of wrongdoing and remorse that Khrushchev demanded.
The dispute culminated at the Paris summit on May 16. Khrushchev demanded that the United States condemn the overflight, apologize, punish those responsible, and guarantee that such flights would not recur. Eisenhower stated that U-2 flights over the Soviet Union had been suspended and would not resume, but he refused to issue the requested apology. The confrontation contributed to the collapse of the summit and became one of the most consequential international image-repair episodes of the late Eisenhower presidency. Communication scholar Kevin A. Stein later analyzed the exchange as a two-phase American apologia: an initial denial-based account followed, after the survival of Powers became known, by excuses and justifications that generated extensive Soviet antapologia.
Key Apologia Strategies:
Denial, Defeasibility, Provocation, Transcendence, Corrective Action, Attack the Accuser, Bolstering
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Transcript
NASA Press Release — May 5, 1960:
One of NASA’s U-2 research airplanes, in use since 1956 in a continuing program to study gust-meteorological conditions found at high altitude, has been missing since about 9 o’clock Sunday morning, when its pilot reported he was having oxygen difficulties over the Lake Van, Turkey area… No evidence has been sighted of the aircraft having crashed.
U.S. State Department — May 6, 1960:
It’s entirely possible that having a failure in oxygen equipment, which could result in the pilot losing consciousness, the plane continued on automatic pilot for a considerable distance and accidentally violated Soviet air space.
U.S. State Department — May 7, 1960:
Our assumption is that the man blacked out. There was absolutely no deliberate attempt to violate Soviet air space—there never has been.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower — May 11, 1960:
These activities have their own rules and methods of concealment, which seek to mislead and obscure—just as in the Soviet allegations there are many discrepancies. For example, there is some reason to believe that the plane was not shot down at high altitude.
U.S. Department of State — May 7, 1960:
It is certainly no secret that given the state of the world today, intelligence collection activities are practiced by all countries, and postwar 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 is enhanced by the excessive secrecy practiced by the Soviet Union in contrast to the free world.
Secretary of State Christian A. Herter — May 9, 1960:
The Soviet leaders have almost complete access to the open societies of the free world and supplement this with vast espionage networks. However, they keep their own society tightly closed and rigorously controlled. With the development of modern weapons carrying tremendously destructive nuclear warheads, the threat of surprise attack and aggression presents a constant danger. This menace is enhanced by threats of mass destruction frequently voiced by the Soviet leadership.
Secretary of State Christian A. Herter — May 9, 1960:
The government of the United States would be derelict to its responsibility not only to the American people but to free peoples everywhere if it did not, in the absence of Soviet cooperation, take such measures as are possible unilaterally to lessen and to overcome this danger of surprise attack. In fact, the United States has not and does not shirk this responsibility.
U.S. Department of State Spokesman:
The United States has undertaken certain commitments in the multilateral and bilateral arrangements for the common defense existing between this government and those which once again appear to be subjected to a policy of intimidation by the Soviet government. There should be no doubt that the United States will honor those commitments.
State Department Press Officer Lincoln White:
As previously announced, it was known that a U-2 plane was missing. As a result of the inquiry ordered by the President, it has been established that insofar as the authorities in Washington are concerned, there was no authorization for any such flight as described by Mr. Khrushchev.
Vice President Richard Nixon:
Mr. Khrushchev obviously overplayed his hand. He thought he had world opinion on his side. But the people were not fooled. To his surprise, world reaction has turned heavily against him.
State Department Spokesman Lincoln White:
It is typical that the Soviet government singles out as the objective of its threats those smaller countries of the free world who bear no responsibility for the recent incident.
U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.:
We have had a lot of wars, but I don’t think history ever shows a major war that is caused by governments trying to get intelligence about each other.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower:
These flights were suspended after the recent incident and are not to be resumed.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower:
I am planning in the near future to submit to the United Nations a proposal for the creation of a United Nations aerial surveillance to detect preparations for attack. This surveillance system would operate in the territories of all nations prepared to accept such inspection. For its part, the United States is prepared not only to accept the United Nations aerial surveillance, but to do everything in its power to contribute to the rapid organization and successful operation of such international surveillance.
U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.:
The Soviet Union is launching a world-wide propaganda campaign aimed at pinning the label of aggressor on the United States.
Vice President Richard Nixon:
It was a patent camouflage of his intentions. He is the man now known as the one who torpedoed the summit conference.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower:
We must not be distracted from the real issues of the day by what is an incident or symptom of the world situation.
Secretary of State Christian A. Herter:
The United States will participate in the summit meeting prepared to cooperate to the fullest in seeking agreements which would reduce tensions including effective safeguards against surprise attack.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower:
We answered the abuse with dignity and logic. We answered the accusations with facts.
Secretary of State Christian A. Herter:
For many years the United States in company with its allies has sought to lessen or even to eliminate this threat from the life of man so that he can go about his peaceful business without fear…The president’s open-skies proposal of 1955 was followed in 1957 by the offer of an exchange of ground observers between agreed military in the U.S., the U.S.S.R., and other nations that might wish to participate.
