The Eisenhower Administration Responds to the Soviet U-2 Announcement (1960)

Date: May 6, 1960

Original or Replica: Original

Era: The Presidency, Civil Rights

Collection: Eisenhower Presidential Library

Citations: Christian Herter Papers, Box 20, U-2 (1); NAID #12009394

On May 1, 1960, an American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft piloted by Francis Gary Powers was shot down while conducting a secret intelligence mission over the Soviet Union. Several days later, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev publicly announced that an American aircraft had been shot down after entering Soviet airspace but initially withheld important details about the aircraft and its pilot.

This document, released by the U.S. State Department at the direction of the Eisenhower administration, responded to the Soviet announcement. The statement acknowledged that a NASA U-2 aircraft had been missing since May 1 and identified its pilot as Francis Gary Powers, a civilian. It presented the aircraft as conducting weather research and suggested that it may have accidentally entered Soviet territory.

In reality, Powers was a civilian pilot working for the CIA and was conducting photographic surveillance of Soviet military installations. The Eisenhower administration had previously developed a cover story to conceal the U-2 program if an aircraft was lost. American officials initially believed Powers had likely died and that the aircraft had been sufficiently destroyed to prevent the Soviets from proving its espionage mission.

Khrushchev, however, deliberately withheld the fact that Powers had survived and been captured. By allowing the United States to publicly present its cover story first, Khrushchev could later reveal Powers and evidence from the aircraft, exposing the American explanation as false and creating an international embarrassment for the Eisenhower administration.