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Francis Gary Powers - A Man Who Liked to Fly
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by Mark Jacobson
TheSyndicatedNews columnist
Mark Jacobson is the Special Projects Editor for Las Vegas Business Press, contributing writer for Las Vegas Times newspaper, entertainment columnist for City Connection magazine.
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Flying at the edge of space was a daunting task. At 68,000 feet, the air was thin and the only thing that kept Francis Gary Powers' blood from boiling like a teakettle on a stove was a thin, pressurized flight suit. Being a C.I.A. trained U-2 spy plane pilot during the Cold War was a demanding and dangerous profession, but it was also a chance to serve his country and the pay was good.
As he approached Sverdlovsk in the Soviet Union, he felt confident that he could collect his photographs, complete his mission and return safely to base. After all, at this altitude and with the ability to approach a speed of mach .08, slightly less than that of the speed of sound, he was out of range of other aircraft and was virtually unreachable by a ground to air missile. Then the impossible happened. The explosion caused the plane's delicate controls to go haywire and as the spy plane exceeded the speed of sound, it went into an inverted spin and began to disintegrate on its descent to earth.
Powers continued to pilot the disabled craft as he went over a mental checklist of standard procedures designed for just such an occurrence. After several ill-fated attempts at engaging the self-destruct mechanism, he readied himself for ejection as soon as the spy plane reached a safe altitude.
On May 1, 1960, Francis Gary Powers catapulted the world's two great superpowers into a confrontation that threatened to heat up the Cold War. When the Russians informed then President Eisenhower that they had shot down a U-2 spy plane, the White House denied any knowledge of the plane or the pilot because, they believed, that the plane had been destroyed and that the pilot had perished either with the plane or by his own hand utilizing a standard issue poisoned needle. However, television, even in its infancy, was a powerful medium. When the Russians showed pictures of the spy plane wreckage and the American pilot on national television, the White House could no longer deny what the world could see in black and white. As a result, a summit between the two world powers, scheduled for later in the month, was canceled.
The U.S. government considered Powers an embarrassment because he had failed to commit suicide before capture, an option not a requirement, and the Central Intelligence Agency worried about what he might tell his captors. The trial of an American pilot in a Russian courtroom resulted in Powers spending almost two years inside a Russian prison.
Upon his release, in a dramatic exchange for Russian spy Rudolf Abel, Powers was condemned for giving information to the Russians even though he never gave more than what was considered appropriate by the agency. Although there was never any accusation of wrongdoing in the manner in which he handled himself during his trial and incarceration in the Soviet Union, Powers never outgrew the stigma of allowing himself to be captured and his plane taken. Later, when the incident was but a memory in the American consciousness, he was left to piece together a life torn apart.
"I first met Frank in the late '60's when I had occasion to interview him for the NBC radio program, Monitor," says former KNBC television news anchor, Jess Marlow. "I was attracted to the man's candor and his humility. He was not at all the 'dashing spy' that I had been led to believe. He was a self-evasive and somewhat humble guy. Frank and I had a good deal in common. I grew up on a farm with a big family and so did he. We were also born in the same year and we kidded about that, born at the height of the depression which made us 'wanted' children, we were sure," he says with a note of sarcasm in his voice. "We played tennis together and talked about our families. I guess we got closer than I realized over the years."
That closeness led to a deeper understanding of the "down home" pilot. Powers was a man who had a right to be bitter but was not and who, through it all, had kept enough of his dignity to be able to laugh at himself.
"Once, we were playing tennis. Neither of us was very good, but Frank had stopped somewhere and bought a new racquet and was having some problems with it. We were playing doubles, and suddenly he and his partner began, laughing uproariously. Frank had played half of the entire set with the cellophane still on the tennis racquet handle. Anybody else would have been embarrassed to tears, but Frank thought that it was uproariously funny."
Powers gave the outward appearance of a man who had successfully conquered the memories of an ill-fated past, but there are some memories that the mind can never really forget.
"He talked about the isolation and apparently he was able to handle that fairly well. He also talked about his cellmate...their communication and the affection that developed between them. Frank was a very shy man and not very quick to reveal his emotions. When he realized he was going to be leaving (the cell), he and his cellmate embraced." Marlow remembers. "He told me, 'I think that's the first time I ever hugged a man.' It indicated to me the bond that had developed between them because Frank was not outwardly physically affectionate. He was very affectionate with his family but beyond that...."
His lack of outward, emotion and the fact that he seldom allowed the irritations of day-to-day living to affect him caused those who hardly knew him to regard Powers as slow-witted.
"He could be very folksy and that was probably one of the reasons he was regarded as slow witted. Nobody ever called him sophisticated. I don't think that I ever heard him say a hostile word about anybody, but sometimes if you approached a subject or spoke of someone he was not particularly fond of, the only response you ever got out of him was a grin," Marlow reflects. "Even when his wife tested his patience, Frank's response was always a little smile that she began to read very well. Sue knew what that smile meant. He was capable of anger, I'm not suggesting that he wasn't...but it was not very long-lasting." Despite over two decades of service to the Air Force, the Central Intelligence Agency, and Lockheed, Powers found he had no pension or retirement benefits of any kind.
"I remember being taken aback by that because I had always assumed that the C.I.A certainly took care of its own, if not the Air Force or maybe even Lockheed," says Marlow. "The truth was that nobody took care of Frank Powers."
In 1971, Powers took a job flying a fixed-wing single engine plane and giving freeway traffic updates for KGIL radio.
"Once, I asked him about what a comedown it must be...after having flown the U-2 and he said 'I like it. I like flying.' He never complained about the job so I gathered he enjoyed doing it."
In 1976, at the urging of Marlow and another KNBC television reporter, Dr. Art Ulene, Powers agreed to apply for the job of KNBC helicopter pilot. The job required that he become an airborne reporter. Learning to be a reporter was more worrisome to Powers than learning to fly a helicopter but he accepted both challenges with his usual patience.
"He obviously liked the idea when he was approached about the job. He told me 'one of the things I like about it is what it pays.' He grinned when he said that. I never knew what it paid, but it was obviously more than he was accustomed to making. He went to the Bell helicopter people and learned to fly so quickly that there was some reluctance to put him in the air right away."
Nevertheless, with the problems of flying a helicopter successfully overcome. Powers next turned his attentions to becoming a reporter.
"It was difficult for him to immediately take off as the guy who was going to become the great commentator in the sky because that is a skill that you develop."
Powers spent the next six months developing that skill to the point where he finally felt confident enough to use it. "The last week before he died...he was really narrating very well what the camera was showing. He was reacting and responding and was really coming through as a very natural sort of guy. We were all thrilled that he was getting some critical acclaim."
On August 1, 1977 at 12:38pm, Francis Gary Powers died when the KNBC-TV helicopter he was piloting crashed with an empty gas tank into an open field in Encino California. As with the crash seventeen years earlier, some questions remained. Had a system malfunction caused the gas gauge to read empty or had Powers simply tried to push the helicopter beyond its limits in an attempt to return to base not too far away? What is known is that prior to the crash, as the last drop of fuel was being used up, Powers made a quick maneuver in order to avoid some children who had suddenly appeared beneath him. There is a belief that this maneuver prevented him from making a safe landing.
During his forty-seven years, Powers had managed to become a part of our history and, if only for an instant, a part of our lives. To some, he will always be a hero for his actions while in captivity. To others, he will always be a traitor for not taking his own life before that captivity.
History may not know how best to describe Francis Gary Powers. Perhaps the best description was told by the ring of silent blue landing lights surrounding the helicopter landing pad in the KNBC parking lot on the night he died. He was a man who liked to fly.
Published: Jul 13,2008 00:46
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