Even while Khrushchev was on his tour of the United States, Americans felt the icy thrust of numerous snarling threats which crept out between his propaganda boasts, his quaint platitudes and his offering to swear on the Bible. The press observed that he was supersensitive and hot tempered about questions on any of the following matters:
• The ruthless and illegal suppression of the Hungarian revolt after all of Khrushchev’s recent preachments about “self determination.”
• Questions about his role as the “Hangman of the Ukraine.”
• Questions about Soviet jamming of Voice of America broadcasts.
• Questions about the continuous flight of thousands of refugees from satellite states.
Aftermath of the Khrushchev Visit
The whole world-wide program of Communist aggression was swiftly accelerated as a result of Khrushchev’s visit. The Communist Party in the United States came boldly out into the open. It began a new recruiting program. It openly attacked the House Committee on Un-American activities and marked the FBI for early dismantling if it succeeded in destroying the Congressional Committees. Convicted Communists from the Hollywood cells moved back into the cinema capital and boldly began writing, producing and propagandizing through multi-million dollar productions. The president of the Communist Party announced the launching of a nationwide Communist youth movement.
The same thrust became apparent all over the world—in Japan, Southeast Asia, India, Africa, Cuba, Central and South America. Everywhere the Red tide ran stronger. The dire prediction of strategists like John Foster Dulles and Eugene Lyons had been literally fulfilled.
Nevertheless, the visit of the Russian Dictator to the United States also carried a certain penalty for Khrushchev. This was the devastating effect which could result from President Eisenhower’s reciprocal visit to Russia. Khrushchev was deeply impressed with the acclaim which Vice President Nixon received when he visited Russia and the satellites. He knew that if President Eisenhower were granted the same freedom of expression on radio, TV, in public meetings and in press interviews that Khrushchev had enjoyed in the United States, the pro-Communist tide could be reversed, Desperately, Khrushchev looked around for some semblance of an excuse to cancel the Eisenhower visit. Almost as though the Communists had planned it, a monumental excuse dropped into Khrushchev’s lap right out of the sky.
The U-2 Incident
On May 1, 1960, Francis G. Powers, piloting an unarmed U-2 jet reconnaissance plane, were captured 1200 miles inside Russia. The Communist leaders triumphantly announced that they had shot down the U-2 spy plane with a marvelous new rocket. This story was discredited when the Russians displayed Power’s undamaged equipment and the U.S. monitors reported hearing the Russian pilots as they followed the plane in a forced landing. Government officials revealed that the U-2 plane came down because of a flameout.
In Washington the incident created consternation. Since Americans were not accustomed to spying, they hardly knew what to do when this plane was caught spying. At first it was simply claimed that the U-2 was a weather plane which must have “drifted.” Finally, it was rather clumsily admitted that the plane was in fact flying on an espionage mission with the highly important assignment of photographing Russian missile bases.
Khrushchev professed outraged indignation, criticized the “morals” of the American leaders for spying, and denounced the U-2 incident as an act of aggression. He also immediately announced that he was canceling President Eisenhower’s visit to Russia. A few days later he used the U-2 incident to scuttle the Paris Summit Conference.
Meanwhile, in America, citizens were peppering Washington with a multitude of questions:
• Was this an isolated mission or one of many espionage flights?
• Was it in violation of international law?
• What did such flights accomplish?
• Why hadn’t the Russians objected to such flights earlier?
• Should the flights be continued or terminated?
Since Russia had now captured one of the U-2 planes and all of its equipment, the U.S. Government felt justified in telling the inside facts on this rather ingenious American defense device which had been operating over Russia and China for more than 4 years. The May 1 flight was one of more than 200 which had been mapping offensive war preparations of the USSR.
It was revealed that the U-2’s had been ordered aloft in 1956 when the U.S. had first learned that the Communist leaders had officially adopted a mammoth “sneak attack” plan as part of their over-all strategy. The planes had flying over Russia at an altitude of between 12 and 14 miles—far out of reach of any jets or rockets which the Russians possessed.
Was this illegal? Since Russia had refused to negotiate any international law on air space, these flights were not illegal. Ernest K. Lindley summarized the views of Secretary of State Christian Herter:
“The altitude above the earth to which a nation’s sovereignty extends has never been determined by international agreement. The traditional rule is said to be that a nation’s sovereignty extends as high as it can exert effective control. By that rule, the U-2 flights were not illegal so long as the planes flew above the reach of Soviet air defenses.”{106}
Then how effective had the U-2’s been? The Defense Secretary told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:
“From these flights, we got information on airfields, aircraft, missile testing and training, special-weapon storage, submarine production, atomic production and aircraft deployment.”{107}
How was this achieved? The Air Force revealed that it was done with high precision photographic equipment which performed miracles. This equipment could photograph a golf ball from 9 miles up. In fact a published photograph of a golf course taken from that altitude showed the greens, cars, club house and players. The picture caption read: “Even golf balls are clearly identifiable to photo-interpreters.”{108}
But Russia and China cover such vast territories. How could precision photography be effective over so wide a terrain? The Air Force answered this question by revealing that this photographic equipment not only had high precision qualities but was also extremely comprehensive. Officials pointed out those 2 jets carrying these special cameras could photograph one third of the United States in 4 hours!
During Khrushchev’s verbal blast against the U-2 flights, he let it slip that he had known about these planes for over three years. Some people wondered why he had not protested long before. Experts pointed out that if Khrushchev had complained, it would have exploded his propaganda boasts about the invincible strength of Soviets defenses. He had been claiming that Soviet radar, jets and rockets could prevent any nation from successfully attacking Russia.
U-2 photographs had revealed that Russian defenses were wide open to massive retaliatory attack. It was for this reason that Khrushchev had waited until he finally got hold of a U-2 plane so that he could claim the Russians had shot it down. The Communists even succeeded in getting Francis Powers to testify at his Moscow trial that he had been shot down at 68,000 feet. But when his father came from America to visit him, the U-2 pilot said he was not shot down. This seemed to confirm Washington military statements that the Russians had neither jets nor rockets that could reach 68,000 feet.