Approved for Release: 2013/06/25
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Secret NOFORN
Chapter 4
181
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Eisenhower stated that overflights had been suspended and would not be resumed, but he refused to make a formal apology. At that point the summit ended, as did all hopes for a visit to the Soviet Union by President Eisenhower.
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THE WITHDRAWAL OF THE OVERSEAS DETACHMENTS
The loss of Powers’ U-2 ultimately resulted in the end of Detachment B in Turkey. As soon as the Development Projects Division learned that Powers was alive in Soviet hands, it immediately evacuated the British pilots from Adana to protect the secret of their involvement in the project. Project officials hoped that flights might eventually resume from Adana, but President Eisenhower’s order ending overflights of the Soviet Union made this very unlikely. Less than four weeks later, a coup ousted the government of Turkish Premier Adnan Menderes on the night of 27 May 1960. Because the new government had not been briefed on the U-2, Project Headquarters refused to allow any U-2 flights from Adana, even those necessary for maintaining the aircraft’s airworthiness. As a result, no more U-2s flew out of Adana. Instead of being ferried home, three of the four remaining U-2s were disassembled and loaded aboard C-124 cargo planes for the return trip to the United States.³⁶
The fourth U-2 remained inside a hangar at Incirlik airbase for several years, looked after by a skeleton crew, in case the Adana installation needed to be reactivated. Finally the decision was made to close down the Adana U-2 facility. During Detachment B’s 44 months of active existence, 21 pilots had flown its aircraft, including four RAF pilots and three pilots transferred from the deactivated Detachment A. Fourteen Detachment B pilots were later assigned to other U-2 detachments, but the closing down of Detachment B marked the end of Britain’s direct involvement in U-2 operational overflights. A four-man unit of RAF U-2 pilots was stationed at Detachment G, Edwards AFB, until the end of the CIA U-2 program in 1974, but RAF pilots never again conducted an overflight in an Agency U-2.
The loss of Powers’ U-2, the resultant failure of the Paris Summit, and the end of U-2 operations in Turkey were just the first in a series of setbacks for the U-2 program. On 8 July 1960, the
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³⁶ *OSA History*, chap. 12, pp. 46-47 (TS Codeword).
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Secret
Approved for Release: 2013/06/25