Before leaving Moscow, Barbara had been unable to find some of the winter clothing I needed. One of the KGB officials had told her that they wouldn’t hold too strictly to the one-package rule; she could send the remainder upon her return to the United States. On November 5 the package arrived, containing some much-needed winter long Johns, an extra pair of shoes, a puzzle and a bridge game, and various other items. Its value was declared at sixty-seven dollars, the postage $49.54, and the customs duty twelve hundred rubles. There wasn’t anything I needed that much, I decided.
Except possibly a letter. Although I searched the package, there wasn’t one. It had been nearly a month since I had received her last.
Representatives of the KGB came about every two weeks. I told them bluntly, “I’m not getting all my mail. The letters from my wife aren’t coming through. You must be stopping them.”
“No,” they insisted, “we aren’t. But we’ll check and see.”
They seemed very disturbed that I would even think they would do such a thing.
During the trial I had stated that I felt no animosity toward the Russian people. This was true. Although I had no fondness for my interrogators at Lubyanka, and I harbored only contempt for the trial team of Rudenko-Grinev, the majority of the people I had met in Russia, from the farmers who captured me in the field to my guards at Vladimir, were friendly and without malice. Ordinary people, they were as curious about me as I about them. Apparently each of us had been led to believe the other monstrous; the discovery that this wasn’t true was a pleasant surprise. A few of the guards had been surly, but they were surly to everyone. By contrast, the Little Major seemed jolly whatever the occasion.
I could honestly say that while an uninvited house guest of the Russians, I had never met anyone I really hated.
On November 6 I met the exception.
That day Zigurd and I were taken to the theater to watch a concert put on by some of the work-camp prisoners. There was a comedy skit—the comedian easily recognizable by his long nose; several of the prisoners were quite talented musicians; and one, a large dark man known as “Gypsy,” did fabulous cossack dances.
While we were sitting on the bench in the projection room, the prison commander walked in. I glanced at him briefly—I had seen him only once previously, on the day of my arrival—then returned my attention to the show.
Angrily, with Zigurd acting as a reluctant interpreter, he demanded that I stand at attention.
All prisoners were required to stand in the presence of the prison commander, he bellowed. No one had told me this. When someone came into the cell, we stood automatically, out of simple politeness, but I’d never given it any thought.
For a good ten minutes he cursed me, and the United States, with the vilest epithets he could muster, only a portion of which Zigurd repeated.
It was a small incident, certainly nothing compared to what some prisoners undergo at the hands of their captors, but I reacted strongly.
Revenge is sweet, and I desperately needed some of that sweetening. But, considering our relative circumstances, I could see no way to accomplish it. Until, that evening, when the time came to write in my diary.
Zigurd and I were unsure whether our cell was searched when we were out. Several times, before leaving for walks or a movie, we had set traps—a thread stretched between the beds, a drawer open a fraction of an inch. But, on our return, they were undisturbed. I didn’t know whether my diary was being read. But this was one time I fervently hoped it would be.
For my entry that day I wrote: “Went to a concert put on by prisoners in barracks number 3. Liked it. Whole day spoiled by prison commander. First S.O.B. I have seen in Russia.”
S.O.B. was in bold black letters and underlined.
I could visualize the prison commander asking a translator, “What is an S.O.B.?”
And I could picture the translator trying to explain it to him.
A daydream, of course. But most satisfying.
Diary, November 7: “Big holiday here. Sundays and holidays are bad in prison. A person knows other people are celebrating and feels lonely. The radio told of the celebration in Moscow. Twentygun salute, fireworks, etc.”
In Russia it was the forty-third anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Tomorrow it would be election day in the United States and I was eagerly awaiting word of the outcome. Although limited in my news sources, I had followed this election with far greater interest than any previous one.
From my father’s letters I had received the distinct impression that the Eisenhower administration was anxious to sweep the U-2 incident under the rug. This had come across with some bitterness, since my father, an iconoclast in just about everything, was one of those rare creatures, a Virginia Republican. Shortly after my capture, his attorney, Carl McAfee, had tried to see the President. Failing in this, he had talked to Vice-President Nixon, who assured him that everything that could be done would be done. Perhaps needless to say, my father did not believe this was the case.
There was one lingering reminder of the U-2 episode. My presence in a Russian prison. For a time I had hoped that Eisenhower would attempt to remedy this before leaving office. Knowing the stand he had already taken, I was sure he would never apologize to Khrushchev for the overflights, but I had hoped that some understanding could be reached wherein both sides could save face. I was far less confident now. Politics being politics, the time to do this would have been before the election, when the Republicans could have derived some political benefit. Now, it seemed, they didn’t want to be reminded.
According to the highly slanted Russian interpretation of the news, the two candidates differed only in degree, both being committed to continuing the arms race. I knew little as to the issues of the campaign. I did know, however, that Kennedy had said earlier that had he been President when the incident occurred, he would have apologized to Khrushchev; that following my trial he had pronounced the sentence “extremely harsh,” stating that the testimony made clear that Powers “was only carrying out his duty.” And I had heard a little about the Kennedy-Nixon debates. I observed in my journaclass="underline" “Nixon said that the next President should be a man who was not afraid to stand up to Khrushchev. I don’t know what Kennedy replied to this, but I do know my own opinion. I think we need a man as President who would try to get along with people and not go around with a chip on his shoulder saying ‘I’m not afraid of you.’ We need a man who would try to settle and ease the tension in the world. We definitely do not need a man who thinks he has to stand up to another man and prove to the world that he isn’t afraid, even if he kills half the population of his country proving it.”
I hoped Kennedy had won. I added, pointedly, that my opinions were formed solely on the limited, edited news available to me. “If I had heard all of the speeches, etc., my opinions might be different.”
My sentence, I felt sure, could be terminated only by an easing of tensions between the East and the West. I now had a highly personal stake in world peace.
During the trial Grinev had made a big point of my being apolitical, never having voted in an American election. I was not proud of this fact. I had been away from home since turning twenty-one; while stationed at various Air Force bases and while overseas I had always intended to write home for an absentee ballot, but had never gotten around to it.