“a. If evasion is not feasible and capture appears imminent, pilots should surrender without resistance and adopt a cooperative attitude toward their captors.
“b. At all times while in the custody of their captors, pilots will conduct themselves with dignity and maintain a respectful attitude toward their superiors.
“c. Pilots will be instructed that they are perfectly free to tell the full truth about their mission with the exception of certain specifications of the aircraft. They will be advised to represent themselves as civilians, to admit previous Air Force affiliation, to admit current CIA employment, and to make no attempt to deny the nature of their mission.
“They were instructed, therefore, to be cooperative with their captors within limitations, to use their own judgment of what they should attempt to withhold, and not to subject themselves to strenuous hostile interrogation. It has been established that Mr. Powers had been briefed in accordance with this policy and so understood his guidance.”
My actual instructions, obtained only after I had brought the issue to the fore, were much more concise: “You may as well tell them everything, because they’re going to get it out of you anyway.”
There was no indication in the wording that I had failed to heed this suggestion or gone far beyond what I was required to do.
“In regard to the poison needle,” the statement continued, “it should be emphasized that this was intended for use primarily if the pilot were subjected to torture or other circumstances which in his discretion warranted the taking of his own life. There were no instructions that he should commit suicide and no expectation that he would do so except in those situations just described, and I emphasize that even taking the needle with him in the plane was not mandatory; it was his option.”
I was glad to have that on record. And I was not displeased by what followed.
“Mr. Powers’ performance on prior missions has been reviewed, and it is clear that he was one of the outstanding pilots of the whole U-2 program. He was proficient both as a flyer and as a navigator and showed himself calm in emergency situations. His security background has been exhaustively reviewed, and any circumstances which might conceivably have led to pressure from or defection to the Russians have also been exhaustively reviewed, and no evidence has been found to support any theory that failure of his flight might be laid to Soviet espionage activities.”
Though I was unaware of it at the time, that last statement was open to question. As will be noted, there did exist some rather astonishing circumstantial evidence which indicated that my flight may have been betrayed before I even lifted off the ground.
As for the exhaustive review of my background, I had learned of this during the debriefings, from one of the men conducting the investigation. “I’ll bet we know more about you than you know about yourself,” he remarked, adding, “The amazing thing is how clean you came out. I’ve been doing this sort of thing for a long time, and you’re the closest to Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, I’ve seen.” I think he meant that as a compliment.
The statement then reviewed at some length the details of my May 1, 1960, flight, concluding: “In connection with Powers’ efforts to operate the destruct switches, it should be noted that the basic weight limitations kept the explosive charge to two and a half pounds and the purpose of the destruct mechanism was to render inoperable the precision camera and other equipment, not to destroy them and the film.”
That was a bit vaguer than I would have liked. Since there was so much criticism on this point, I’d hoped that the agency would make it very clear that even had I activated the switches, the plane itself would not have been totally destroyed.
The statement then concluded that the one hypodermic injection I had been given probably wasn’t truth serum but a general immunization shot; that despite repeated requests to contact the American Embassy or my family, I had been held incommunicado and interrogated for about one hundred days. Paraphrasing me, it observed: “He states that the interrogation was not intense in the sense of physical violence or severe hostile methods, and that in some respects he was able to resist answering specific questions. As an example, his interrogators were interested in the names of people participating in the project, and he states that he tried to anticipate what names would become known and gave those, such as the names of his commanding officer and certain other personnel at his home base in Adana, Turkey, who would probably be known in any case to the Russians. However, they asked him for names of other pilots, and he states that he refused to give these on the grounds that they were his friends and comrades and if he gave their names they would lose their jobs and, therefore, he could not do so. He states they accepted this position. It is his stated belief, therefore, that the information he gave was that which in all probability would be known in any case to his captors.”
That bothered me. All the emphasis was on those few questions I had refused to answer. Of far greater importance were the many questions I had answered—incorrectly. The doors I had closed with a simple “I don’t know,” the blind alleys up which I had led them when it looked as if they were getting too close to the truth.
Except for the single example of the names of the pilots, there was no indication that I had withheld information from the Russians.
I could understand why the information I held back couldn’t be specified. If mention was made that I had lied about the altitude of the U-2, for example, the Russians might reexamine the whole subject and possibly—through radar plots of this and other flights—determine what the actual altitude had been, thus, conceivably, someday placing the life of another pilot in jeopardy. It was the same with the number of overflights and their targets, my atomicweapons training, the “special” missions, and so on.
Nothing would have been compromised by making the simple statement: “In the opinion of the experts who debriefed him, Powers withheld information vital to the security of the United States.” Just that and nothing more would have made all the difference.
I was not interested in being proclaimed a hero. I had done only what I felt was right. But then, neither did I like the implication left by this vague, evasive wording. As a “clearance,” it was smudged, equivocal.
I read on, as the report now approached its summary judgment:
“All the facts concerning Mr. Powers’ mission, the descent of his plane, his capture, and his subsequent actions, have been subjected to intensive study. In the first place, Powers was interrogated for many days consecutively by a debriefing team of experienced interrogators, one of whose duties was to evaluate Powers’ credibility. They expressed the unanimous view that Powers was truthful in his account. Secondly, an intensive inquiry was made by government officials into the background, life history, education, conduct, and character of Powers. This team included doctors, specialists in psychiatry and psychology, personnel officers, his former colleagues in the Air Force and on the U-2 project. All these persons were of the view that Powers is inherently and by practice a truthful man. Thirdly, Powers appeared before a board of inquiry and testified at length, both directly and under cross-examination. The board agreed that in his appearance he appeared to be truthful, frank, straightforward, and without any indicated attempt to evade questions or color what he was saying. In the board’s judgment, he reflected an attitude of complete candor. In the fourth place, when during his examination before the board a question was raised as to the accuracy of one of his statements, he volunteered with some vehemence that, although he disliked the process of the polygraph, he would like to undergo a polygraph test.”