Because he was chicken, the president endured a terrible international humiliation. Power’s survival also embarrassed Dulles and Bissell, who had assured the president, presumably in good faith, that not much would be left of a U-2 or a pilot if shot down by a missile. Powers was also faulted for not pulling a seventy-second delayed explosive charge before bailing out that would have destroyed the film and cameras and kept them out of the hands of the KGB.
