Feb. 11, 1962, front page: Spy swap with Soviet Union

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Russ Free U2 Pilot Powers In 'Swap' For Top Spy Abel

Dramatic Trade Takes Place On Bridge In Berlin

Flier En Route To Reunion With Family And Secrecy-Shrouded Official Reception

By Douglas B. Cornell

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 (AP) ─ American U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers walked to freedom in the center of a Berlin bridge Saturday in a drama-packed trade for Soviet master spy Rudolf Abel.

Russia contended it was a gesture of friendship. The United States is still looking for demonstrations of friendship of greater proportions or significance.

Powers walked to freedom in a fur cap and dark overcoat, across a white line where Communist East Germany stops and West Berlin begins.

The 32-year-old flier had spent 21 months in a Soviet prison after pleading guilty to spying from his high-flying photo plane that was downed in Russian territory on May 1, 1960.

Freed far sooner than he apparently had dared hope, Powers quickly was whisked away from the Berlin bridge in a convoy of cars. He was rushed to a plane and soon was on the way home by air, to a reception to be shrouded in secrecy and uncertain official warmth.

Abel disappeared behind the Iron Curtain of Communism. He had been serving a 30-year sentence as a spy convicted of stealing military and nuclear secrets from this country and slipping them to the Kremlin.

One other person was involved in what was a two-for-one swap. The United States got back 28-year-old Frederic L. Pryor, who was studying in West Berlin, entered East Berlin last August and vanished. Word seeped into the West weeks later that he, too, was in prison, accused of espionage.

Pryor was released at a different spot on the Berlin border, Checkpoint Charlie. Not until he was free, and reunited with his waiting parents, did the Powers-Abel exchange go through, 12 miles away.

It was 8:52 a.m. Berlin time when it happened. That was 2:52 a.m. in Washington.

Within five minutes, word of the swap reached President Kennedy.

The Chief Executive had slipped up to the living quarters in the White House an hour before to await the flash from Berlin. Until then, he had been attending a gay, black tie, White House dinner dance.

Newsmen routed out of bed by Press Secretary Pierre Salinger got the word of the exchange that had taken place on Berlin's Glienicker bridge.

Salinger announced that Powers and Pryor had been turned over to U.S. authorities and that Kennedy had commuted Abel's sentence. That action was effective at the moment of Powers' release.

A formal statement said Powers soon would be on his way to the United States and that:

"He will have an opportunity to meet privately with his family and will be interviewed by appropriate United States government officials."

The government notified Powers' wife, at Milledgeville, Ga., and his parents at Norton, Va.