The U.S. on Trial

Aboard a British Comet airliner, the parents of U-2 Pilot Francis Powers landed at a Moscow airport one foggy morning last week, a few days before the start of his trial on charges of espionage. Oliver and Ida Powers were visibly tired, looked around at their new surroundings with wary eyes. "They are only poor country folk," the family doctor, Lewis K. Ingram of Norton, Va., confided to newsmen. "All this has been a terrible strain on them."

Holding a press conference at his Russian hotel, Oliver Powers, tears in his eyes, read from a prepared statement: "I appeal to Mr. Khrushchev as one father to another for the sake of my boy. I understand that he lost a son in the war against Nazi Germany, fighting alongside the U.S. for the same cause." A few hours later Pilot Powers' wife Barbara landed in Moscow, accompanied by her mother, a physician and two family lawyers. Said Barbara: "The first thing I want to do is see my husband, and then Mr. Khrushchev."

Attorneys of the Virginia Bar Association had mapped out a defense, even passed on their thoughts to Powers' court-assigned Russian counsel, without much hope that he would heed them. They argued that Powers was not really a spy: he had not been caught in espionage on Russian soil, but had merely been flying in the open skies at the command of his Government. Echoed Barbara Powers: "He should have been called a scout for our Government." It was a verbal distinction not likely to go far in a Russian court.

Signs were evident that the Russians were planning to put the U.S. on trial rather than Powers, using him as a pretext for a propaganda spectacular. The Kremlin laid down a steady propaganda barrage designed to stir up anger and suspicion toward the U.S. among the Russian people (see FOREIGN NEWS). Said a Soviet radio broadcast: "Not only Powers, the immediate executor of the aggressive actions of the U.S. Government, will be in the dock, but his masters in Washington as well." Once the Russians get full propaganda use of him. Powers himself might get off with a light sentence. "Mr. Khrushchev," said Oliver Powers, "cabled me, promising to help me in this matter, and I am taking him at his word."

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