[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 59 (Friday, May 10, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E766-E767]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 HONORING GARY POWERS, JR. FOR HIS DEDICATION TO BRINGING THE COLD WAR 
                      MUSEUM TO NORTHERN VIRGINIA

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. TOM DAVIS

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 9, 2002

  Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this 
opportunity to pay tribute to Mr. Gary Powers, Jr. for his work and 
dedication to bringing the Cold War Museum to Northern Virginia. In 
honor of his father, Mr. Gary Powers, Sr., Powers spent years to not 
only gain deserved recognition for his father, but for all who defended 
the United States and her allies during the Cold War.
  Powers' father, Mr. Gary Powers, Sr., was a Korean War veteran who, 
in the 1960s, worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. In 1960, he 
was shot down over the USSR while piloting a U-2 spy plane and was 
convicted of spying and confined to a Russian prison until exchanged 
for a captured Russian spy. He subsequently found employment as a 
helicopter pilot for television station KNBC in Los Angeles. He died on 
August 1, 1977 in the crash of his helicopter and was buried in Section 
11 of Arlington National Cemetery.
  In 1962, espionage became big news as the ``U2 Incident'' grabbed 
world headlines. Powers was shot down as he flew the U-2, designed for 
covert surveillance, over Soviet territory, sparking one of the biggest 
international crises of the Cold War. The U.S. demanded his safe 
return. The USSR wanted to know what he was doing up there in the first 
place.
  Shot down on May 1, 1960, Powers was held in prison for 2 years until 
1962, when he was exchanged for Soviet Col. Rudolf Abel in the most 
dramatic East-West spy swap ever to occur in Cold War Berlin. Powers 
stepped on to the eastern end of the Berlin's Glienicke Bridge spanning 
the River Havel on February 10, 1962. At the other end of the bridge 
stood Colonel Rudolf Abel, a heavily muffled Soviet master-spy, seized 
earlier by U.S. security agents after setting up a Red spy network in 
New York in the late 1950s.
  At a precisely arranged signal, the two men strode on to the bridge, 
marching purposefully towards one another, Powers heading west, Abel 
east. In the middle of the bridge they passed each other silently, with 
barely a nod of their heads. That spy-swap operation was to be the 
forerunner of many such East-West prisoner exchanges to take place on 
the Glienicke Bridge over the next 27 years in Berlin.
  Criticized when he returned to the United States for not ensuring the 
revolutionary plane was destroyed or killing himself with poison, 
Powers was cold-shouldered by his former employers at the Central 
Intelligence Agency and eventually died in 1977 at the age of 47 when a 
television news helicopter he was piloting crashed in Los Angeles.
  On May 1, 2000, U.S. officials presented Powers' family with the 
Prisoner-of-War Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross and the National 
Defense Service Medal during a ceremony held at the Beale Air Force 
Base, north of Sacramento, and home to the modern U.S. U-2 force. It 
marked the 40th anniversary of the incident.
  Powers' son, Gary Powers Jr., spent years writing letters and holding 
meetings with officials to ensure this very deserved recognition took 
place. He saw the presentation of the medals as an important step in 
recognizing those who served their country during the Cold War. Powers 
wanted to make sure that his father was honored with the medals he 
deserved for being a prisoner of war, while at the same time ensuring 
those who served along with his father were recognized as well.
  Powers, Jr., has devoted much of his time to seeing his father's 
memory honored, and

[[Page E767]]

has worked endlessly to establish a permanent Cold War Museum to 
educate the public about the period of US-Soviet rivalry. As a direct 
result of all of his hard work and dedication, Northern Virginia will 
be the location for the new Cold War Museum.
  Mr. Speaker, in closing, I wish to congratulate and honor Mr. Powers, 
Jr., for his dedication to his father, to all Cold War veterans, to 
Northern Virginia, and to the nation. He certainly has earned this 
recognition, and I call upon all of my colleagues to join me in 
applauding this remarkable man.

                          ____________________