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Spying on your enemies was a major feature of the Cold War. Sometimes, however, spies get caught and then a tense situation suddenly gets a little more awkward. This is exactly what happened in 1960, just as the USA and the USSR were preparing to sit down for an important summit meeting in Paris.

What was on the agenda for the Paris Summit?

• Nuclear weapons and the need for a Test Ban Treaty: both sides now knew what nuclear weapons could do when they exploded. It was now time to consider a test ban to avoid creating more radioactive no-go areas.
• Berlin: the Soviets were angry that their people kept escaping to the West.
• Cuba: the Americans were concerned that the recent revolution in Cuba had created a communist government on their doorstep.

Just thirteen days before the summit on 1 May 1960, an American U2 spy plane, piloted by Gary Powers, was shot down over the USSR. The USA claimed that the U2 was a weather monitoring plane that had lost its way. However, the film that the Soviets retrieved from the plane clearly indicated that Powers had been on a spying mission. Gary Powers was also captured, interrogated and admitted on Soviet television that he was on a spying mission.

When US President Eisenhower arrived in Paris for the meeting the Soviet leader, Khrushchev, demanded he apologise for the mission, and when Eisenhower refused, Khrushchev walked out.

Consequences

The Paris Summit ended in failure:

• There was no agreement on a Test Ban Treaty.
• America was embarrassed because it was revealed to have lied, leading President Kennedy to campaign as a tough anti-communist warrior in the 1960 election campaign.
• No deal was reached over the future of Berlin or Cuba and both would remain major sources of tension for the remainder of the Cold War.
• The relationship between the USA and the USSR deteriorated even further, heightening Cold War tensions.