The year 1960 had begun with great hope for relations between the major powers. it was agreed that a summit meeting of the ‘Big Four’ (Eisenhower of the USA, Khrushchev of the Soviet Union, De Gaulle of France and Macmillan of Britain) would be held in May. Perhaps this meeting might lead to an end of the Cold War. Could this be the beginning of better times in international relations?
On 1 May 1960 these hopes were dashed when an American spy plane was shot 
down over the Soviet Union.During the 1950’s the Americans had developed a place which could fly at 75,000 feet. It had surveillance equipment and the sophisticated cameras could take clear pictures of Soviet military sites on the ground. Soviet radar could track the planes, but Soviet planes could not fly high enough to shoot them down.
However, on 1 May 1960 a Soviet missile shot down one of the U-2 planes over the town of sverdlosk. The pilot, Gary powers, parachuted to the ground, where he was captured by Soviet forces.
The Americans did not want to admit that they had been spying as this would definitely lead to the summit meeting being cancelled-and show the Americans to be an aggressive nation. They therefore announced that a research place studying weather conditions had been shot down over Turkey.What they did not know was that the Soviet Union had captured powers alive admitted to spying and the Soviet forces also found a film showing that he had been taking photographs of military sites.
Khrushchev demanded an apology from the USA, but Eisenhower said it was his job to make sure the USA defended itself effectively and refused to apologies. Not surprisingly the summit meeting broke up and relations deteriorated between the two countries. Powers wad tired and found guilty of spying. He was sentenced the 10 years imprisonment but after seventeen months he was sent back to the USA in return for the release of a Soviet spy serving a prison sentence in the United States.
Historywebsite.com 