THE UNIPOLAR WORLD:

Powers is Freed by Soviet in an Exchange for Abel; U-2 Pilot on Way to U.S. (Tom Wicker, 2/10/62, The New York Times)

Francis Gary Powers has been released by the Soviet Union in exchange for the release of Col. Rudolf Abel, the convicted Soviet spy, the White House announced at 3:20 A. M.

Frederic L. Pryor, an American student held by East German authorities since August, 1961, also has been released. He was turned over to the American authorities in Berlin.

Mr. Powers, the White House said, is in Berlin en route to the United States.

Colonel Abel was deported and has been released in Berlin.

Michael Beschloss wrote an excellent book about the U-2 affair, Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev and the U-2 Affair (1986), in which one of his key arguments was that the continued overflights provided Eisenhower with evidence of how feeble the Soviet Union was militarily, knowledge which Ike, I believe disastrously, kept out of the public domain. Even today and even among conservatives there's little comprehension of how dominant the U.S. capabilities were throughout the Cold War and how poorly the USSR functioned for its entire history. Folks therefore do things like credit Kennedy for "avoiding WWIII" in the Cuban Missile Crisis, when in fact we likely would have won such a war rather easily, with little or no damage to the homeland, well into the 60s. Posted by Orrin Judd at February 10, 2003 12:53 PM