Cold War Exchange: Powers Swapped for Abel
American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers was exchanged for Soviet master spy Rudolf Abel on the Glienicke Bridge between West Berlin and Potsdam on February 10, 1962. Powers had been shot down over the Soviet Union on May 1, 1960, during a high-altitude reconnaissance mission the US initially denied existed. Eisenhower was forced to admit the truth when the Soviets produced both the pilot and the mostly intact aircraft. The incident torpedoed a planned Paris summit between Eisenhower and Khrushchev. Abel, born William Fisher, had run a Soviet spy network in New York for nine years before being caught through a defecting assistant. The bridge exchange established the Cold War's unwritten protocol for resolving espionage crises: captured agents were assets to be traded, not political prisoners to be punished. The Glienicke Bridge became known as the 'Bridge of Spies,' hosting several subsequent Cold War exchanges.
February 10, 1962
64 years ago
Key Figures & Places
United States
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Soviet Union
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Soviet
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Gary Powers
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Rudolf Abel
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Lockheed U-2
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Cold War
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Lockheed U-2
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Francis Gary Powers
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Soviet Union
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Rudolf Abel
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Territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union
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División Azul
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Estonia
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Latvia
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Lithuania
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World War II
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Red Army
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Operación Estrella Polar
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Siege of Leningrad
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Grupo de Ejércitos Norte
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Battle of Krasny Bor
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Siberia
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Glienicker Brücke
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Pariser Friedenskonferenz 1946
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Axis powers
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Geschichte Italiens
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Territoire libre de Trieste
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East Pomeranian offensive
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Imperial Japanese Army
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Banjarmasin
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Borneo
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Dutch East Indies
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