THE U-2 AFFAIR: --RIPPLES IN NEWS LED TO DIPLOMATIC TIDAL WAVE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP74-00297R001600010045-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 28, 2014
• Sequence Number: 45
• Publication Date: June 7, 1962
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2014/04/28: CIA-RDP74-00297R001600010045-TAT
� 1
4 e
K-
R
Declassified in Part -
fheil.2 Affair�Ripples in Nev
Led to Diplomatic Tidal Wave
Missing Pilot's Wife Quietly Seril
Home�His Family Alerted�Early
Moves by Khrushchev.
By DAVID WISE artt.:I THOMAS B, ROSS
o
This is the fifth installment of a condensation of
the book "The U-2 Affair" which tells the story behind
American espionage flights over the Soviet Union.
Chapter V.
"WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU'RE CAUGHT?"
BARBARA POWERS awoke in her trailer on the base at
Incirlik at 5 a.m. Monday, May 2, to the sound of pounding on
her front door. It was still dark and the mountains to the north
were only dim shapes on the horizon.
Sleepily, she went to the door. Sunday," Ayhan wrote. Ylbe
Several of her husband's friends U-2 plae had sent its last asi-
were there. , sage on Sunday, when the pilot
"Barbara, we have some bad reported a breakdown of his
news," one of the men said. oxygen equipment. No further
"Gary is missing. We have news was received from, the
search planes out but they plane after that."!
haven't 4.ound him � yet." Not much, perhaps, but Adana
For tha next few days she
was a slow news town, and
.
rtmaina under heavy sedation, Ayhan was confident that his
awaitiug word of Gary's fate. tile to the Istanbul paper would
be printed, which also meant
� * that he, Yusuf Ayhan, would be
At the Municipal Palace In paid.
1.tseibul, the NATO foreign
raftitsters were meeting. (Secre-
of State) Herter was at I At 3:30 p.m., Harry Press's
tvy
A* conference table in the pal- telephone rang.
,
'40.e when Livingston Merchant, Press, a bespectacled, eau-
Under Secretary of State for
nous bureaucrat with a cherubic
'
face, was
Political Affairs, handed him a in his office at 1512 H
street one block from the White
slip of paper. It referred simply
to a missing plane; but hecaus,
the slip of paper bore CIA mark�
Ings, the Secretary of State im-
mediately realized that a U-2
was down. NASA who knew that the U-2
was photographing military tar-
gets in the Soviet Union under
NASA cover.
House.
He was chief, loads and struc-
tures division, NASA. He was
also one of the four men at
At Adana, Yusuf Ayhan, t
local newsman, thought he was
onto an interesting story. Ayhaa
tegularly checked with the pub.
lie information office at the
Incirlik base for news. He had
on this day picked up an inter-
esting tip, and he was able to
confirm it at the base.
'This day, the caller was Maj.
.fames Smith, at the Air Force
Air weather service headquar-
ters, Belleville, Ill. Maj. Smith
was Press's regular contatt with
the Air Force. He told Press
essentially the same cover story
Ayhan earned extra money as that Yusuf Ayhan had piclitid up
a stringer, or part-time corre- its Adana several hours earlier.
spondent for Yeni Istanbul (New
story he had stumbled on v s
Istanbul), and he thotg.ht ill Puss known
CIA rreeting�svhich did
of the4ton.
good enough to file to 11,I.1 rri.ght have deduced that
for the next day's pl.. p,r 'the .ecsape he receivet had
�t from Washing* lo
"An American pittftz d !.. & ya to Moots.
U-2 meteorological retonzi, . Ivri on H street. It
a:owe type, which v " 'IP 10..1 "tied the
For its excelle.e.
Ira, I
and was based at ' . ieS
� Adana. was repo; ..+ ift
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2014/04/28: CIA-RDP74-00297R001600010045-8
b.1 to travel'
�
0.1