Francis Gary Powers
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Francis Gary Powers was an American pilot who served as a United States Air Force officer and a CIA employee. Powers is best known for his involvement in the 1960 U-2 incident, when he was shot down w
Powers in 1964
Powers next to a U-2
Powers in 1960, wearing his special pressure suit for stratospheric flying
Wooden U-2 model used by Powers when he testified to the Senate Committee. The wings and tail are detached to demonstrate the aircraft's breakup.
Rudolf Abel
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William August Fisher, better known by the alias Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, was a Soviet intelligence officer. He adopted his alias to alert his Soviet KGB handlers when he was arrested in the USA on char
Francis Gary Powers
…museum near Moscow. The CIA, in particular chief of CIA Counterintelligence James Jesus Angleton, opposed exchanging Powers for Soviet KGB Colonel William Fisher, known as "Rudolf Abel", who had been caught by the FBI in the Hollow Nickel Case and tried and jailed for espionage. First, Angleton believed that…
Abel on a 1990 USSR commemorative stamp
Vladimir Semichastny, chairman of the KGB, talking to Soviet intelligence officers Rudolf Abel (second from left) and Konon Molody (second from right) in September 1964