While working at Langley I had met a very attractive and intelligent agency employee named Claudia Edwards Downey. Sue, as she was known to her friends, had been one of the agency people with initial doubts about Francis Gary Powers. She managed to overcome them. One of my earliest impressions of her wasn’t exactly favorable: she had spilled a cup of hot coffee on me. Our romance blossomed over the wires of the Bell System. My monthly telephone bill had grown so large, in fact, that we decided there was only one way to reduce it. On October 21, 1963, Sue resigned from the agency and we were married October 26, in Catlett, Virginia. It was the beginning, without qualification, of the happiest part of my life.
After spending about six months in an apartment, we purchased a home in the Verdugo Mountains, its panoramic view including Burbank airport’s north-south runway. This meant that I was only five minutes from work and Sue could watch my takeoffs and landings. The same day we made the down payment, I was informed that Lockheed was moving its testing facilities to Van Nuys airport.
But we liked the house—and have been especially fortunate in having neighbors who have become good friends.
On August 17, 1960, the Russians had given me a trial for my thirty-first birthday present. On my thirty-fifth birthday, in 1964, the California courts granted me permission to adopt Claudia Dee, Sue’s seven-year-old daughter by a previous marriage. I’ve never had a nicer birthday present.
And on June 5, 1965, we celebrated the birth of a son, Francis Gary Powers, II.
Fame—fortunately, as far as I’m concerned—is a fleeting thing. People forget the face first, then the name. There were still occasional requests for interviews; but thanks to the public-relations department at Lockheed, I was able to fend them off. While it was never possible to forget completely all that had happened, Sue and I were able to build a new life independent of the past.
But there were occasional reminders.
Two worth noting occurred in 1964, one very disappointing, the other not.
I had a great deal of respect for James B. Donovan, the New York attorney who had arranged my exchange for Abel. Not only was I indebted to him for my release, I was tremendously impressed when shortly afterward he successfully negotiated the release of 9,700—yes, 9, 700—Cubans and Americans from Castro’s Cuba. Since my return we had had little contact. I had sent him a sugarcured Virginia ham; over cocktails on the plane taking me home after my release, we had, in jest, agreed that a Virginia ham would be the “fee” for his services. We had also exchanged Christmas cards. Beyond that, however, I’d heard nothing until publication of his book on the Abel case in 1964.
In describing our conversation on that plane ride, Donovan observed: “Powers was a special type, I thought. People at home had been critical of his performance when downed and later when tried in Moscow. Yet, in charity, suppose you wished to recruit an American to sail a shaky espionage glider over the heart of hostile Russia at 75,000 feet [incorrect] from Turkey to Norway. Powers was a man who, for adequate pay, would do it, and as he passed over Minsk would calmly reach for a salami sandwich. We are all different, and it is a little unfair to expect every virtue in any one of us.”
I might not like that—and of course didn’t—but if that happened to be Donovan’s impression of me, I couldn’t fault him for saying it. I could, however, for the sizable number of errors in his story. Two of these bothered me very much, both concerning that same return flight.
“I went up to the cockpit,” Donovan writes, met the colonel piloting the plane, and heard American news broadcasts about the exchange on Glienicker Bridge.… The colonel and his crew shook my hand and were more than friendly. I noticed they avoided Powers.”
Inviting me up to the cockpit and asking whether I wanted to fly the plane wasn’t exactly avoiding me. In fairness to Donovan, he had gone to bed before this happened, and possibly wasn’t aware of what occurred, but he must have been aware that we exchanged friendly remarks at various other times during the flight.
I didn’t appreciate the picture he was painting. And there was more.
In relating portions of our conversation, he quoted me as saying: “I thought more about politics and international things than I ever did before. For example, it just doesn’t make sense to me that we don’t recognize Red China and let her into the United Nations.” To which Donovan adds the comment, “It did not seem a proper occasion on which to discuss the point.”
The implication was obvious. Powers came back spouting Communist propaganda.
My recollections of the conversation differ somewhat, and I think that Murphy and others present will bear me out on this.
Donovan had been entertaining us with details of his negotiations with a KGB official. At one point the official had told Donovan, “You should study Russian.” Donovan replied, “In my country only the optimists study Russian. The pessimists study Chinese.” The KGB official, he said, didn’t perceive the humor.
We did, however, and laughed appreciatively. Donovan then asked me whether the Russians had ever discussed the Red Chinese with me. I replied that they had never brought up the subject in conversation; in reading the Daily Worker, however, and on listening to radio news as translated by my cellmate, I had heard them occasionally bemoan the unfairness of excluding China from the UN. However, I added, both my cellmate and I agreed that that was probably the last thing in the world the Russians wanted.
In the same spirit of charity extended to me by Donovan, I will only say that his recollections of our conversation are hazy.
Later there was a letter. Negotiating to sell his book to Hollywood, he was willing to offer me twenty-five hundred dollars for use of my name and story. Permission wasn’t necessary, he said, but he had personally arranged this for me. As an extra added incentive, he might also be able to arrange for me to play myself in the movie, should I so desire.
I was tempted to reply that since the mercenary Powers had passed up sixty times that amount by deciding not to write his book, he was placing a rather high price on my vanity.
But I didn’t.
I was, and remain, grateful to him for the part he played in my release. But I also want to keep the record straight.
My first meeting with former CIA Director Allen Dulles seemed preordained, one of those meetings decreed by fate. The second meeting, while not a surprise, did catch me off guard.
In March, 1964, the Lockheed Management Club hosted a dinner at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Chief speaker was Dulles. Sue and I were there, to hear our former boss. We entered the room just behind Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, who were escorting Mr. and Mrs. Dulles. Spotting me, Mrs. Johnson said, “Oh, Mr. Dulles, I believe you know Francis Gary Powers.”
It was not a name he was likely to forget.
His greeting was most cordial, as was mine. I had never considered Dulles responsible for the role into which I had been placed; that decision, I believe, had occurred during the reign of his successor.
After acknowledging his introduction, Dulles departed from his prepared speech: “I want to say, too, as I start, that I am gratified that I can be here for another reason, because I would like to say to all of you, as I have said from time to time when the opportunity presented, that I think one of your number—Francis Gary Powers— who has been criticized from time to time, I believe unjustly, deserves well of his country. He performed his duty in a very dangerous mission and he performed it well, and I think I know more about that than some of his detractors and critics know, and I am glad to say that to him tonight.”
Dulles’ talk was taped. Later “Kelly” Johnson had his remarks transcribed and a copy sent to me.