Virginia Historical Society Podcast

n May 1, 2018, Francis Gary Powers, Jr., presented a Banner Lecture about his book, “Letters from a Soviet Prison: A Son’s Search for the Truth.” For the past twenty-five years, Francis Gary Powers, Jr., has lectured on, taught, and researched the Cold War; in particular the U-2 Incident of May 1, 1960, in which his father was shot down while flying a CIA U-2 spy plane over the former Soviet Union. In 2017, Powers, Jr., published his first book, which includes his dad’s letters to and from family while incarcerated, family photos sent to him in prison, and other correspondence that provides a unique firsthand account of the U-2 Incident, shoot down, imprisonment, and events that led up to his father’s exchange for Soviet Spy Rudolph Abel in 1962.