The shooting down of Gary Powers in the U2 incident of 1960 disastrously escalated tensions between the US and USSR. And two years later, another U2 was shot down over Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, bringing the world closer than ever before on all out nuclear war.

The U2 entered service in 1956. The aircraft had a flight ceiling of 70,000 feet, initially believed to be beyond the reach of Soviet fighters, missiles and radar. The U2 overflights across the Soviet Union were incredibly dangerous missions. Every flight was at risk of being perceived as an unauthorised invasion of another country’s airspace. President Eisenhower and the US government were desperate to know what was going on behind the Iron Curtain.

What went wrong in these incidences, and why did the US government continue to risk so much on these U2 missions?

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CREDITS:
Thumbnail image: A selfie taken by Christopher Michel in a Lockheed U2 at 70,000 feet
The Evolution of the U2 video file © Smithsonian Institution
Kennedy in the white House © Kennedy Library, STA26162
Arizona Daily Star Newspaper via Tuscan.com