Season 7 Episode 9 - Where The Streets Have No Plane

Hacking the Gibson

One of the main features of the Cold War was the great lengths the United States and Soviet Union went to gather intelligence about each other. Few of those went further than the U-2, a US spy plane so secret that its pilots were issued suicide pills, and so advanced that it could take detailed photographs from an altitude above most anti-aircraft defenses. This week, we’re talking about what happened when the Soviets finally managed to shoot down a U-2, and captured the plane and its pilot, Gary Powers, mostly intact.