U2 Spy Incident

The Movie - The U2 Spy Incident

Francis Gary Powers:
The True Story of the U2 Spy Incident

Francis Gary Powers On Trial

Read About The Movie At The Bottom Of This Page

Production:

Produced 1976 by
Charles Fries Productions for Television
 
Directed by
Delbert Mann
 
Written by
Robert E. Thompson and Curt Gentry
 
Based on the book
Operation Overflight
 
Book Written by
Curt Gentry and Francis Gary Powers
 
Produced by
John B. Bennett
 
Original music by
Gerald Fried
 
Cinematography by
Vilis Lapenieks
 
Film Editing by
Sam E. Waxman
 
Technical Advisor
Francis Gary Powers

Cast of the Movie

Lee Majors	Francis Gary Powers
Katharine Bard	wife Ida Powers
Noah Beery Jr.	father Oliver Powers
Brooke Bundy	mother Mrs. Powers
Lew Ayres	Allen Dulles
William Daniels	Richard Bissell
Thayer David	Nikita Khrushchev
James Flavin	Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower
James Gregory	James Donovan
Marcel Hillaire	Charles DeGaulle
Alf Kjellin	Ivan Vasilev
Biff McGuire	John McCone
Jim McMullan	Robert F. Kennedy
David Opatoshu	Grinev
Nehemiah Persoff	Rudenko
Charles Knox Robinson	Wheatley

About The Movie:

The U2 airplane was developed by Clarence "Kelly" Johnson at the Lockheed "Skunk Works" in Burbank starting December 1, 1954. Project Staff was budgeted at $35 million to develop 30 planes and sophisticated cameras developed by Edwin Land.
 
"Kelly" Johnson's old boss Jimmy Doolittle at the Shell Oil Co. provided a special fuel that would not boil off at high altitudes, called "Kelly's Lighter Fluid No. 1." Johnson built the first U2 plane in 88 days and the first U2 test flight took place August 6, 1955. In May 1956 the U2 air wing of 4 planes and 6 civilian pilots was established by the CIA with Turkey providing an air base at Adana.
 
The first U2 flight over Russia from Adana to Bodo, Norway, a distance of 3788 miles at 80,000 feet, took place in June 1956 and was detected by Russian radar. The Russian spy Selmer Nielsen at the Bodo air base gave the Russians the time and routes of the U2 flights.
 
In the "Spirit of Camp David" Eisenhower had halted the U2 flights in September 1959 but they were resumed April 9, 1960, to prepare for the Paris Summit Conference planned for May 1960. The U2 flight of Gary Powers was shot down May 1 by a SAM-2 missile.
 
Eisenhower learned that Powers was alive May 7, and Khrushchev displayed the recovered parts of his U2 plane Moscow on May 11. Eisenhower departed for Paris May 14 for the summit conference.
 
On May 15 Khrushchev made a threat against U2 bases and the U. S. went on DefCon 3 alert. On May 16, Khrushchev canceled Eisenhower's Moscow visit and walked out of the Paris summit. On August 19, Powers made his confession during his trial that he was "deeply repentant and profoundly sorry" for his actions. He was jailed in Russia until exchanged for Rudolf Abel in Feb. 1962.
 
The U2 production at Skunk Works was shut down in 1969 but was revived in 1978 to produce the updated TR-1 model.