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Article: U-2 Incident
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- Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, andSecurity
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U-2 Incident
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LARRY GILMAN
The U-2 spy plane, a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft built by the U.S. starting in the 1950s, was the subject of many "incidents" or diplomatic confrontations with the Soviet Union during the Cold War; however, the debacle referred to as
the
U-2 incident began on May 1, 1960, when a U-2 plane flown by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) pilot Gary Powers took off from a U.S. air base at Peshawar, Turkey. The mission scheduled for Powers, codenamed Grand Slam, was to be the most ambitious U-2 flight undertaken up to that time. Its route would take it from Turkey to Soviet nuclear-weapons facilities in the Ural Mountains, various railroads, ...