July 8, 1960 – U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is charged for espionage by the Soviet Union
On May 1, 1960, a United States U-2 spy plane piloted by FrancisGary Powers was shot over Soviet airspace by a Russian missile. Power’s mission, directed by the U.S. CentralIntelligence Agency (CIA), was to take surveillance photographs on anoverflight over central Russia.
Powers survived by parachuting to the ground where he wasarrested by Soviet authorities. The U.S. government of President DwightD. Eisenhower initially stated that the plane was a NASA research plane butlater admitted that the U-2 was conducting surveillance of Soviet territoryafter the Soviet government produced the captured pilot and evidence of theplane’s wreckage, and more important, surveillance equipment and photographs ofSoviet military installations taken during the flight.
Subsequently, Powers was convicted of espionage and sentencedto ten years in prison. He did not servethe full sentence but was released in February 1962 on a prisoner exchange “spyswap” agreement between the American and Soviet governments.
Following the 1960 incident, the United States made changes to policy,procedures, and protocols regarding surveillance and reconnaissance missions.Subsequently, the U-2 was used in overflight missions in Cuba when in August 1962, the firstevidence of the presence of Soviet nuclear-capable surface-to-air missile (SAM)sites were detected on the island, which sparked the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Background of theCuban Missile Crisis After the unsuccessful Bayof Pigs Invasion in April 1961(previous article), the United Statesgovernment under President John F. Kennedy focused on clandestine methods tooust or kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro and/or overthrow Cuba’s communist government. In November 1961, a U.S. covert operationcode-named Mongoose was prepared, which aimed at destabilizing Cuba’s politicaland economic infrastructures through various means, including espionage,sabotage, embargos, and psychological warfare. Starting in March 1962, anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Florida,supported by American operatives, penetrated Cuba undetected and carried outattacks against farmlands and agricultural facilities, oil depots andrefineries, and public infrastructures, as well as Cuban ships and foreignvessels operating inside Cuban maritime waters. These actions, together with the United States Armed Forces’ carryingout military exercises in U.S.-friendly Caribbean countries, made Castrobelieve that the United Stateswas preparing another invasion of Cuba.
(Taken from Cuban Missile Crisis – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 2)
From the time he seized power in Cubain 1959, Castro had increased the size and strength of his armed forces withweapons provided by the Soviet Union. In Moscow,Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev also believed that an American invasion wasimminent, and increased Russian advisers, troops, and weapons to Cuba. Castro’s revolution had provided communismwith a toehold in the Western Hemisphere andPremier Khrushchev was determined not to lose this invaluable asset. At the same time, the Soviet leader began toface a security crisis of his own when the United States under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization(NATO) installed 300 Jupiter nuclear missiles in Italyin 1961 and 150 missiles in Turkey(Map 33) in April 1962.
In the nuclear arms race between the two superpowers, the United States held a decisive edge over the Soviet Union, both in terms of the number of nuclearmissiles (27,000 to 3,600) and in the reliability of the systems required todeliver these weapons. The Americanadvantage was even more pronounced in long-range missiles, called ICBMs(Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles), where the Soviets possessed perhaps nomore than a dozen missiles with a poor delivery system in contrast to the United States that had about 170, which whenlaunched from the U.S.mainland could accurately hit specific targets in the Soviet Union.
The Soviet nuclear weapons technology had been focused onthe more likely war in Europe and therefore consisted of shorter rangemissiles, the MRBMs (medium-range ballistic missiles) and IRBMs(intermediate-range ballistic missiles), both of which if installed in Cuba,which was located only 100 miles from southeastern United States, could targetportions of the contiguous 48 U.S. States. In one stroke, such a deployment would serve Castro as a powerfuldeterrent against an American invasion; for the Soviets, they would haveinvoked their prerogative to install nuclear weapons in a friendly country,just as the Americans had done in Europe. More important, the presence of Sovietnuclear weapons in the Western Hemisphere would radically alter the globalnuclear weapons paradigm by posing as a direct threat to the United States.
In April 1962, Premier Khrushchev conceived of such a plan,and felt that the United States would respond to it with no more thana diplomatic protest, and certainly would not take military action. Furthermore, Premier Khrushchev believed thatPresident Kennedy was weak and indecisive, primarily because of the Americanpresident’s half-hearted decisions during the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in April1961, and President Kennedy’s weak response to the East German-Soviet buildingof the Berlin Wall in August 1961.
A Soviet delegation sent to Cuba met with Fidel Castro, whogave his consent to Khrushchev’s proposal. Subsequently in July 1962, Cubaand the Soviet Union signed an agreementpertinent to the nuclear arms deployment. The planning and implementation of the project was done in utmostsecrecy, with only a few of the top Soviet and Cuban officials being informed. In Cuba, Soviet technical and militaryteams secretly identified the locations for the nuclear missile sites.
In August 1962, U.S.reconnaissance flights over Cubadetected the presence of powerful Soviet aircraft: 39 MiG-21 fighter aircraftand 22 nuclear weapons-capable Ilyushin Il-28 light bombers. More disturbing was the discovery of the S-75Dvina surface-to-air missile batteries, which were known to be contingent tothe deployment of nuclear missiles. Bylate August, the U.S.government and Congress had raised the possibility that the Soviets wereintroducing nuclear missiles in Cuba.
By mid-September, the nuclear missiles had reached Cubaby Soviet vessels that also carried regular cargoes of conventionalweapons. About 40,000 Soviet soldiersposing as tourists also arrived to form part of Cuba’sdefense for the missiles and against a U.S. invasion. By October 1962, the Soviet Armed Forces in Cubapossessed 1,300 artillery pieces, 700 regular anti-aircraft guns, 350 tanks,and 150 planes.
The process of transporting the missiles overland from Cubanports to their designated launching sites required using very large trucks,which consequently were spotted by the local residents because the oversizedtransports, with their loads of canvas-draped long cylindrical objects, hadgreat difficulty maneuvering through Cuban roads. Reports of these sightings soon reached theCuban exiles in Miami, and through them, the U.S.government.
