February 10
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American spy plane pilot Captain Francis "Gary" Powers has been freed from prison in the Soviet Union in exchange for a Russian spy jailed in the US. Gary Powers was sentenced to 10 years in a Soviet prison after his U-2 plane was shot down over Russia in May 1960. But on Saturday Captain Powers, 32, walked into West Berlin across a bridge separating the city's east and western sectors. At the same time Russian spy Colonel Rudolph Abel crossed in the opposite direction. Colonel Abel had served five years of a 30-year term for running a spy ring in the US. His sentence was commuted by US Attorney-General Robert Kennedy two weeks ago. However, the Russians have always denied any knowledge of Colonel Abel and even now maintain Mr Khrushchev freed the US pilot simply as a "goodwill gesture". Another American, student Frederic Pryor, was also freed from the eastern bloc at the same time as Gary Powers. Mr Pryor had been held in East Germany without charge since last August. Gary Powers' capture in 1960 caused an international crisis. Initially the American authorities believed there was no evidence left of either plane or pilot and tried to convince the Russians the U-2 had been a weather plane. However, the Russians then produced Mr Powers alive and well claiming he had admitted spying for the CIA. Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev demanded an apology from US President Eisenhower and when none was forthcoming plans for a superpower summit in Paris collapsed. US authorities have said it will be at least a week before the freed airman is allowed to meet the press. In the meantime they will no doubt want to establish how Mr Powers came to be shot down when U-2s were believed to beimpregnableto anti-aircraft fire. They will also be keen to find out exactly how much Mr Powers told his captors about the spy planes. There was speculation during his trial that he had said more than his oath of secrecy permitted. The release of Captain Powers comes a year after that of the two US airmen whose reconnaissance aircraft was shot down over the Barents Sea in January 1960. Four of the crew died. Authorities in the USSR claimed the plane had been in Soviet airspace. The two survivors, John McKone and Freeman Olmstead, were held in prison in Moscow for a year before being freed. India has been running her own affairs since the actual transfer of power from British to Indian hands on 15 August 1947. But today's ceremonies mark the cutting of her last ties to Britain. India's first president has been sworn in, replacing the Queen as the country's head of state, and the new constitution ratified. In the capital, Delhi, the day began with the 34th and last Governor-General of India, Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, reading out a proclamation announcing the birth of the Republic of India. The new President, Dr Rajendra Prasad, then took the oath of office. Dr Prasad was a key campaigner in the nationalist movement of Mahatma Gandhi, along with India's interim Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. The president then addressed the crowd first in Hindi, and then in English. "Today, for the first time in our long and chequered history," he said, "we find the whole of this vast land... brought together under thejurisdictionof one constitution and one union which takes over responsibility for the welfare of more than 320 million men and women who inhabit it." Dr Prasad then drove through the streets in his state coach, greeted by thousands of people along the way. The crowds werejubilant, but restrained - a marked change from the highly-charged atmosphere of August 15 1947, when the British finally left India. Then, there were scenes of total chaos as the police struggled to control the crowd, and riots broke out across the city. Over the next two years, hundreds of thousands died in the terrible violence that followed partition - the division of the British colony into two nations, the secular but Hindu-dominated India and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Then in 1948 the man who steered India to independence, Mahatma Gandhi, was assassinated. Today, the place where he was cremated on the banks of the River Jumna became a site of pilgrimage for thousands of people. Dr Prasad visited the spot soon after daybreak and joined in paying homage to the memory of the man now known as "the father of the nation". |
