By AP/Tass : Downed U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers in dock for beginning of his 1960 espionage trial In Moscow. Pilot's son says public still misinformed about the incident. Missile, not a MiG, brougI 3-t do1 U-2 in 1960

I would like to set the record straight and my father was sentenced to 10 about some misinformation years in a Soviet prison. However, he in a letter to the editor by Stephen I. was exchanged after 21 months for So- Schwartz, director of the Brookings In- viet spy Rudolf Abel, who was being stitution's U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost held in the United States. Study Project ("Original U-2 plane not When my father returned home, be- hit by Soviet Missile," Nov. 24). cause of the misinformation in the me- My father, Francis Gary Powers, had dia there were many people who didn't a unique opportunity to play a key role see him as a hero, and some Americans in providing the intelligence communi- questioned his conduct and loyalty. ty with reconnaissance imagery during Some criticized my father because he the height of the Cold War. didn't "follow orders" and kill himself. On May 1, 1960, my father flew the There never were any such orders. last Cold War U-2 mission over the for- Francis Gary Powers was extensive- , mer USSR and, through the reality of a ly debriefed by the CIA and the design- Soviet shootdown over Sverdlovsk, er of the U-2, C.L. "Kelly" Johnson, and made it clear that the Soviets had im- both agreed that the 1J-2 would handle proved their surface-to-air missile as my father described if hit by a shock (SAM) capability. wave from a near-miss SAM explosion. Upon my father's capture, he was In March of 1962, he appeared in an held in Lubyanka Prison, where he was open hearing before the Senate Com- interrogated for 10 to 16 hours a day for mittee on Armed Services. The com- 61 days. During his imprisonment, all mittee exonerated him of any wrongdo- kinds of false statements, misinforma- ing and called him "a young man tion and cover-ups appeared in the me- performing well in a dangerous job." dia. And now there is this new story For obvious reasons, there were many from a Soviet pilot who says his MiG19 gaps between what the government flew so close to the U-2 that he caused knew and what it told the public. the U-2 to crash. Recently, in an effort to help main- Not only are these stories false but, tain historical accuracy about the Cold unfortuntely, many also are still War and bridge the gaps, I founded the quoted by the media as fact. Cold War Museum. Sergei Khrushchev, In August 1960, the son of Soviet Premier Nikita Khru- staged a widely publicized public trial shchev, is a member of the board. of Francis Cary Powers that was de- • Francis Gary Powers Jr. signed to embarrass the United States, Fairfax, Va.