On the Glienicke Bridge in East Germany on Feb. 10, 1962, a prisoner exchange took place. The Americans handed over Soviet spy Rudolf Abel while receiving in return Cpt. Francis Gary Powers, who had spent nearly two years as a captive after his U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union.
Glienicke Bridge, connecting Allied-controlled West Berlin to Potsdam in East Germany, was known as the Bridge of Spies. After the Berlin Wall was erected in August 1961, the restricted crossing became the place where NATO and Warsaw Pact members frequently swapped prisoners. The exchange in February 1962 was the first of its kind on the bridge, and it marked an important point in the escalation of the Cold War that nearly became a nuclear showdown.
Cpt. Francis Gary Powers was flying a U-2 plane over Soviet territory on May 1, 1960 on a mission to detect missile installations. Equipped with state-of-the-art high-resolution photo technology and capable of flying at 70,000 feet, the U-2 had eluded the Russians because their fighter planes simply could not reach such altitude. But on that day, one of the eight Soviet surface-to-air missiles connected with Powers' plane near the Ural Mountains. Powers had to bail, parachuting to safety, but was quickly detained by Soviet personnel on the ground.
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