U-2 PILOT GETS MEDAL FROM CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000400100043-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 8, 1999
• Sequence Number: 43
• Publication Date: May 5, 1965
• Content Type: NSPR

WASHINGTON POST
AND TIMES HERALD
Sanitized - Approv-
1 Foi F Pase : CIA-
MAY
CPYRGHT
U-2 Pilot
Gets Medal
from CIA
In a. -secret ceremony, theI
Central Intelligence Agency
last month awarded a secret
medal to Francis Gary Powers, .
the U-2. pilot whose crash on
May 1, 1960 deep inside the
Soviet Union, shook. the world
and caused a good deal of
anguish to the CIA.
The summit meeting in
Paris, collapsed in the wake of i
the U-2 uproar. The affair
chilled East-West relations and
,ended any meaningful contact
between President Eisenhower
and then Soviet Premier Ni-
kite S. Khrushchev.
Powers, officially a test.
pilot in Burbank, Calif., for.
the Lockheed Aircraft Corp,,
manufacturer of the U-2, re
'ceived the CIA medal- in a'
ceremony about two weeks
a g o at the intelligence.
agency's headquarters in Lang-i
ley, V a.
Like the ceremony, the :
(medal is secret. Powers is note.
supposed Jo tell anybodyi
about it. He is not supposed to
wear it. In fact, it is sort of
hn invisible medal.
Certainly CIA isn't talking
about it. "No comment at
all," a CIA, spokesman said,
However,. it was reliably
learned that the secret medal
was awarded at a ceremony at-
tended by several top officials
of the CIA.
At"least two mysteries re-
main:
. Why CIA wanted to bestow
an. award on its most famous
employee-one who brought
OIL, agency under the ppblic
sOc utiny - and second, why
'CI,',A, waited five years to do so.
STATINTL
Sanitized - Approved For Release CIA-RDP75-00001 R000400100043-6