“All of these incidents simply pointed to the completely amoral state that Mrs. Barbara Powers had descended,” Baugh wrote.42 “Surely no sane person would endanger her husband with such irresponsibility and disgraceful conduct.”
Especially while Frank was in prison, the Powers clan in Pound saw how whiskey ruled Barbara’s life. It was an eye-opening experience for a bunch of teetotalers.
“She’d come in here, swear she’d never drink another drop, and by ten o’clock the next morning, she wouldn’t know where she was,” Jack Goff recalled.
When she ran out of liquor while staying at Goff’s house, his brother-in-law Walton reluctantly replenished her supply.
“She would get it one way or another,” Goff said. “It was sad.”
When she left, they found empty bottles hidden throughout the back bedroom.
“It was very awkward for the family to deal with,” Jan said. “She was clearly a very troubled girl, and none of us really knew how to handle it. She didn’t seem to like the family, which made it even worse.”
Barbara often directed her anger at her mother, who also drank heavily.
On Christmas night in 1960, Baugh’s home telephone rang. On the line was Mrs. Brown’s maid, who breathlessly said, “Something terrible [is] about to happen.”
When Baugh arrived at the Brown home, he discovered both the mother and the daughter in a state of inebriation and the house strewn with furniture and belongings. Barbara, bruised and with her clothes torn, came out of the bathroom, where she had taken refuge, and told the doctor that she had been beaten with a broomstick by her mother. Monteen, who was employed at the Milledgeville State Hospital, Georgia’s primary facility for mentally disturbed patients, insisted that she would not take any more of her daughter’s insults and curses. Barbara began relating how her mother had fallen asleep drunk while smoking and set her mattress afire—awakened just in time by the Powers’s dog, Eck.43
“Tragedy with a sensational overtone could be clearly seen in this most difficult family conflict,” Baugh wrote.44 “Publicity of the antics of this household could prove as a reflection on us nationally and provide the Soviets with excellent propaganda.”
In the spring and summer of 1961, the issue reached a boiling point, as Baugh confronted Barbara about her behavior; one of her boyfriends threatened the doctor for meddling into their private affairs; and the wife experienced two run-ins with the law. On June 10, she was in the passenger seat when a male companion was charged with drunken driving near Dublin, Georgia. On June 22, Milledgeville police arrested her for drunk driving.
In September, with the backing of Monteen as well as Barbara’s sister, Mrs. Neil Findley, and brother, Baugh successfully petitioned the court to involuntarily commit Mrs. Powers at the University Hospital Psychiatric Center in Augusta, Georgia.
“Her brother and her sister really worked with Jimmy to try to get some help for Barbara,” Betty Baugh said.
While being treated by Dr. Corbett H. Thigpen—the acclaimed psychiatrist known for the multiple-personalities case that spawned the motion picture Three Faces of Eve—she told of hearing voices, including the dulcet tones of the singer Tennessee Ernie Ford.
In a letter to Powers, Baugh tried to put the best spin on the situation:
November 25, 1961
Francis G. Powers
Box 5 110/1 OD-1
Moscow, U.S.S.R.
Dear Francis:
I have at long last had an opportunity to sit down and write an answer to your letter dated October 27.
I am happy that you knew it was possible for me to make the trip to Moscow at the time of your trial. I feel that I was able in some small way to contribute to the comfort and assistance to your wife and her mother, Mrs. Brown. I too regret that it was not possible for me to have seen you for I have heard many kind and complimentary remarks by all who knew you. We of course are looking forward to the day that you may be released so you can again be with your family.
It is quite natural for you to be concerned about your wife when you learn that she was sent to a clinic for treatment. You may rest assured that her physical and mental condition have not been so serious as you have been led to believe. Well-meaning people sometimes tend to exaggerate the facts, especially where illnesses are concerned. Barbara did become highly emotional from the stress and strain of the past few months but at no time did I feel she was in serious condition which could result in insanity. I feel that she deserved the best care medical science could offer so when I was presented with the case by her mother I immediately got in touch with the Augusta Clinic where she remained for only a few weeks. She has returned home and, as far as I know, been doing well. I have advised the family to have her seen by the group at Augusta. I don’t know which of the group connected with the University Hospital has the case at the moment. I hope to go to Augusta within a few days and find if those physicians need information from you. I feel, however, since she has responded to treatment and has now been returned home, the case needs no further study.
I appreciated your letter and interest. Your wife has received and will continue to receive the best medical science has to offer in whatever problem may arise.
Please feel free to write to me about any problems you may have. I want to take this opportunity to wish you as merry and happy a Christmas as conditions and circumstances will warrant.
After returning from captivity, Frank wanted to believe he could save his marriage.
When he was assigned to CIA headquarters, Jan took Barbara shopping for groceries for their new apartment in Alexandria. “She was drinking quite heavily,” Jan recalled.
As proof that she was able to control her drinking, Barbara left a full vodka bottle in the kitchen. Eventually Frank discovered it had been emptied and filled up with water.
In August, Powers took a trip to Pound alone to see the family and contemplate his future, feeling only pity for the women he had once loved. “In continuing the marriage I was only holding onto the shell of what was and what might have been,” he said.46
Frank filed for divorce, which was granted in January 1963 and made national news. The court ordered him to pay Barbara a settlement of $5,000 and $500 in attorney’s fees.
“I found [Francis] to be a very nice man who deserved better,” Betty Baugh said. “It was a shame he had to deal with all this mess when he got back from such a traumatic experience.”
Even as the marriage was breaking up, it was affecting CIA policy. With new pilots being recruited for the A-12 Oxcart program—eventually to evolve into the Air Force’s SR-71 Blackbird—the CIA began placing much greater emphasis on a pilot’s family situation. The agency overruled any candidate whose wife appeared unstable or otherwise potentially problematic. “We didn’t want to inherit another Barbara,” Bradt said.
The next chapter of Powers’s life began with a spilled cup of coffee.
The pretty young woman who bumped into him at CIA headquarters, causing him to splatter her with the hot liquid, worked for Ken Bradt as a secretary/office manager. Her duties as a psychometrist included administering psychological tests to those agents who came back from abroad so that the CIA doctors could check the answers against their profiles.