After considerable thought, I decided that unless Prettyman worded his questions in such a way as to indicate prior knowledge of the subject, I would mention neither this nor other sensitive matters.
This was part of the problem. The other part was psychological. The debriefings had been informal, held in the “safe” houses with people I knew had been cleared by the agency. During these, I had been completely honest in my replies, withholding nothing; yet, even then, I had often found myself hesitating before giving answers. For twenty-one months my interrogators had been the Enemy. Almost automatically, a question put me on the defensive. Although the board of inquiry was held in a conference room in CIA headquarters with several friends, including Colonel Shelton and another pilot, among the dozen or so persons in attendance, the semiofficial nature of the proceedings put me once more in this frame of mind. It was a hard habit to break.
After the first several questions I found myself disliking Prettyman; since he was a not unkindly-looking, white-haired old gentleman, this was probably due in large part to my preconditioning. I wasn’t evasive. When asked why I had told the Russians my altitude, I answered that sixty-eight-thousand feet wasn’t my correct altitude, told him what my actual altitude was, and explained what I had hoped to accomplish with the lie. But then neither did I go out of my way to educate him in all aspects of the U-2 program.
I’ve often wondered, in the years since, whether I made the right choice.
Prettyman, on the other hand, did nothing to put me at ease. Some of his questions bordered on the accusative. Several times he indicated, less in actual words than manner, that he had doubts about my responses. On one of these occasions, after some question so minor I’ve now forgotten it, I finally reacted angrily, bellowing, “If you don’t believe me, I’ll be glad to take a lie-detector test!”
Even before the words were out of my mouth, I regretted saying them, I had sworn, after the first polygraph examination, that I would never take another.
“Would you be willing to take a lie-detector test on everything you have testified here?”
I knew that I’d been trapped. From the way he quickly snapped up my offer, I felt sure that he had purposely goaded me into making it.
What could I reply? I wanted very much to say no, as emphatically as possible. But to do so would be the same as admitting I had been lying. Which was not true.
“Yes,” I replied, most reluctantly.
Shortly after that the hearing was concluded. It had lasted only part of a day, but had accomplished what I was now sure was its principal objective. The agency could tell the press that Powers had volunteered to take a lie-detector test.
That evening the agency brought Colonel Shelton and the other pilot out to the “safe” house for dinner. It was a jolly time, with lots of reminiscences.
I apologized to Shelton for using his name so freely, explaining that I had wanted to minimize the number of people compromised. He said he had realized what I was up to when he learned he was running the detachment all by himself. Still I could not help feeling sorry for having placed the burden on him, especially when he described the desolate base to which he had been ostracized.
It was an easy, relaxed evening, in a sense the first such since my return to the United States.
The polygraph test was no easier the second time around. If anything, it was worse, because you anticipated. Still, some of the questions caught me off guard:
“Do you have any funds deposited in a numbered Swiss bank account?”
“Did anything happen in Russia for which you could be blackmailed?”
“Are you a double agent?”
Fortunately, the polygraph operator—the same man who had given me my initial test in the hotel room in 1956—was an expert. He could tell the difference between a reaction activated by anger and one caused by a lie. Because I did react, strongly, to the implications behind such questions.
Excepting only breaks for coffee and lunch, I was “on the box” the full day. When the last electrode came off, I made no vows. I’d done that once. Superstitiously, I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
As before, I wasn’t told whether or not I had “passed.”
Since my return there had been mounting pressure for a public hearing before Congress. I had hoped the Prettyman report, when released, would clear up all doubts, but realistically I knew it wouldn’t. Having been subjected to a series of official cover stories, which, one after another, had been exposed as fiction, the American people would not be inclined to accept the CIA’s assurances that I was “clean.” Therefore I wasn’t too surprised when I was told that arrangements had been made for me to appear in an open hearing before the Committee on Armed Services of the United States Senate on March 6. The Prettyman report would be made public shortly before this. In addition, the DCI, John McCone, would appear before the committee, in closed-door session prior to my appearance, to brief the senators on those aspects of the incident which were still classified. The President had already stated that I would reveal only that information “in the national interest to give.”
Nervous as I was before crowds, I was not looking forward to the hearing, except that it would mean the end of my ordeal and, hopefully, the slanders, which I knew deeply hurt my family. They had been forced to live through the stigma of having people brand me a traitor. Barbara, however, had no intention of staying for my “vindication” or whatever might result. She wanted to go home to Georgia. Over the past several weeks she had grown increasingly restless. The reason was obvious—my insistence that she cut down her drinking, and the security measures in effect at the “safe” house, made it impossible for her to get all the liquor she wanted. Against my better judgment, I agreed to the trip, promising to meet her in Milledgeville after the Senate hearing and a brief homecoming visit to The Pound.
The latter was to include a community-wide celebration, during which I was to be awarded the American Citizenship Medal by the Veterans of Foreign Wars. That this had been planned long before the people of Virginia knew whether I had or hadn’t been cleared was a welcome vote of confidence.
“STATEMENT CONCERNING FRANCIS GARY POWERS.”
Released to the press just prior to the Senate hearing, my “clearance” consisted of eleven typewritten pages. It began: “Since his return from imprisonment in Soviet Russia, Francis Gary Powers has undergone a most intensive debriefing by CIA and other intelligence specialists, aeronautical technicians, and other experts concerned with various aspects of his mission and subsequent capture by the Soviets. This was followed by a complete review by a board of inquiry presided over by Judge E. Barrett Prettyman to determine if Powers complied with the terms of his employment and his obligation as an American. The board has submitted its report to the director of Central Intelligence.
“Certain basic points should be kept in mind in connection with this case. The pilots involved in the U-2 program were selected on the basis of aviation proficiency, physical stamina, emotional stability, and, of course, personal security. They were not selected or trained as espionage agents, and the whole nature of the mission was far removed from the traditional espionage scene. Their job was to fly the plane, and it was so demanding an assignment that on completion of a mission, physical fatigue was a hazard on landing.”
It took the CIA just two paragraphs to get itself off the hook, to gloss over the fact that we were almost totally unprepared for the possibility that one of the U-2s might go down in Russia.
What followed interested me greatly.
“The pilots’ contracts provided that they perform such services as might be required and follow such instructions and briefings in connection therewith as were given to them by their superiors. The guidance was as follows: