The U-2 Spy Incident (1960)
The U-2 incident was a crisis that took place in the May of 1960 when the USSR shot down an American U-2 spy plane in Soviet air space and captured its pilot, Francis Gary Powers. After the plane was shot down, Dwight D. Eisenhower tried to cover it up and claimed the shot down spy plane was just a weather plane. The Russians disproved this almost instantly and Eisenhower was pushed into admitting that the U.S. had been flying spy missions over the USSR for quite a few years. Then, the soviets captured and convicted the pilot, Francis Gary Powers, for espionage charges and was sentenced for 10 years in jail. After less than 2 years he was set free when the Americans traded a captured Soviet spy in exchange for getting Powers back. As a result of all this, the tensions between the U.S. and soviets were raised. We found out from spying that the Soviet’s nuclear capabilities were much less than their leader, Nikita Khrushchev, had claimed. Although we admitted to the spy missions, the USSR was able to see them on radar for 4 years, but they were powerless to stop them.