Books in Brief

Operation Overflight, by Francis Gary Powers with Curt Gentry (Holt, 375 pp., $6.95). Powers writes about the combination of American industrial technical expertise and governmental political incompetence. Lockheed’s Kelly Johnson conceived the idea of joining a sailplane and a jet engine to carry a pilot and surveillance equipment at altitudes far above those attained before in sustained flights. Perhaps a review of government archives in another decade or two will reveal why the CIA used the U-2 only sporadically to overfly Communist countries. The Agency never asked its pilots to commit suicide, nor did it brief them on any other procedures to follow if captured. Powers, I think, is to be commended for his over-all performance. The CIA, instead of anticipating advancing Soviet surface-to-air missile capability and increasing the U-2’s performance by decreasing its load, constantly added equipment, forcing Johnson to keep modifying the plane to return it to its original capabilities. Although it is obvious that Curt Gentry did nearly all the writing, Powers’ descriptions of his motives and thoughts, of the CIA’s operations, and of Soviet prison life are intensely interesting. Beyond a few tidbits offered by Powers, the reader is left to speculate about whatever the National Archives still holds as “classified and withheld from research” in Warren Commission Document No. 931, “Oswald’s Access to Information about the U-2.” How long will we wait now for more Oswalds and better Soviet technology to start knocking down our surveillance satellites?

D. B. Duval

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Operation Overflight, by Francis Gary Powers with Curt Gentry (Holt, 375 pp., $6.95). Powers writes about the combination of American industrial technical expertise and governmental political incompetence. Lockheed’s Kelly Johnson conceived the idea of joining a sailplane and a jet engine to carry a pilot and surveillance equipment at altitudes far above those attained before in sustained flights. Perhaps a review of government archives in another decade or two will reveal why the CIA used the U-2 only sporadically to overfly Communist countries. The Agency never asked its pilots to commit suicide, nor did it brief them on any other procedures to follow if captured. Powers, I think, is to be commended for his over-all performance. The CIA, instead of anticipating advancing Soviet surface-to-air missile capability and increasing the U-2’s performance by decreasing its load, constantly added equipment, forcing Johnson to keep modifying the plane to return it to its original capabilities. Although it is obvious that Curt Gentry did nearly all the writing, Powers’ descriptions of his motives and thoughts, of the CIA’s operations, and of Soviet prison life are intensely interesting. Beyond a few tidbits offered by Powers, the reader is left to speculate about whatever the National Archives still holds as “classified and withheld from research” in Warren Commission Document No. 931, “Oswald’s Access to Information about the U-2.” How long will we wait now for more Oswalds and better Soviet technology to start knocking down our surveillance satellites?

D. B. Duval