PILOT OF U-2 RELEASED

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29745, 12 February 1962, Page 11

PILOT OF U-2 RELEASED

Powers Exchanged For Abel (N-Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) NEW YORK, February 11. A man believed to be the U-2 “spy plane” pilot, Francis Gary Powers, arrived at an air base near Washington early today in a United States Air Force plane which flew in from overseas, the Associated Press reported. Air Force officers who met the plane refused to say whether Powers was a passenger. Powers was expected to land somewhere in the United States today, .after his release yesterday in Berlin by the Soviet Union in return for the release by the United States of the Soviet master spy, Colonel Rudolph Abel.

Meeting In Moscow

(N.ZP. A.-Reuter—Copyright) EAST BERLIN, Feb. 10.

Helen Abel, wife of the exchanged Soviet spy. Colonel Rudolph Abel, came secretly to the Berlin area today to meet her husband, informed sources said tonight. The sources said Mrs Abel who has lived in Leipzig, East Germany, for several years, was “out of contact” and sworn to secrecy. A curtain ot silence has been dropped round Colonel Abel’s movements and will be maintained for a long time—-perhaps amounting to years—the sources said.

No Soviet or East German official tonight would admit knowledge of the existence of Colonel Abel, let alone the fact that he had been exchanged for Powers The East German news agency, A.D.N., made .no mention of Colonel Abel in a report from Moscow of Powers’ release. Observers in East Berlin were inclined to believe that Colonel Abel had been taken straight to the Soviet military headquarters in East Germany at Potsdam, just outside East Berlin, after his handover and would be flown direct to Moscow. His wife probably would go with him. they thought.

Devaluation.— lsrael had devalued its currency from 18 Israeli pounds to the dollar to three Israeli pounds to the dollar, the Finance Minister (Mr Levi Eshkol) announced yesterday. It is Israel's third devaluation since 1949— Tel Aviv, February 10.

Two men, one of whom looked like Powers, sprinted down the stairs from the plane, ran to a helicopter standing a few feet away and were flown away into the night, said A.P.

The other American released in the exchange, a student. Mr Frederick Pryor, flew into New York early today and told reporters ne had never engaged in espionage. Security On Flight The tightest possible security was placed on Powers' flight to America and even his family did not know where the reunion would be. His mother and father were driven from Norton, Virginia, to an undisclosed destination near Washington. His 27-year-old wife, Barbara, was on her way to Washington today from her mother’s home in Georgia. All three will be taken to a secret rendezvous this afternoon and not be told where they are going until they are on their way. It will be 10 days at least before the authorities allow the press to interview the 32year old U-2 pilot who was captured, with his plane, on May Day, 1960. He was tried and sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment for espionage. (Colonel Abel, for whom Powers was exchanged, was sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment in 1957 for conspiring to send nuclear secrets to Russia.) In the meantime, intelligence agents will interrogate Powers, seeking the answer to the mystery of why he came down on Russian territory. Experts do not believe the high-flying U-2 was shot down, as the Russians claim: Powers walked to freedom yesterday in Berlin, wearing a fur cap and dark overcoat, across a white line where East Germany stops and West Berlin begins. The 32-year-old pilot had spent 21 months in a Soviet prison. Freed far sooner than he apparently .had dared hope, Powers quickly was whisked away from the Berlin bridge in a convoy of cars. He was rushed to a plane and soon was on the way home by air. Abel disappeared behind the iron curtain of communism. Moscow Statement In Moscow, a brief announcement said today that one of the reasons Powers was released was a desire to improve relations with the United States. A brief announcement on Moscow Radio also said Powers had been released in response to pleas from his relatives. It said the decision to release Powers, who was sen-

tenced to a 10-year term on August 19, 1960. was made by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. The Presidium is the body which acts for the Soviet (Parliament) when it is in recess. Its actions always are ratified by the Soviet.

“It was so unexpected and wonderful that I’ve just been crying for joy—I really have,” Mrs Powers said during a brief press conference on the porch of the onestorey house in Milledgeville where she has been staying with her mother, Mrs Onteen Allen. She said the news came as a complete surprise. A representative of the President telephoned her with it at 3 a.m. today. ’ She said this morning she excitedly called in her hairdresser, dressed in her best blue suit and made hurried travel plans to meet her husband when he arrived home. Washington officials said that Powers was not in military custody and that no charge would be made against him. At his trial Powers said he realised he had committed “a grave crime.”

It seems unlikely ths. there will be any embarrassing consequences for Powers, say observers in Washington. The State Department said on August 19, 1960, that Powers would not be prosecuted by the United States for revealing secrets at his show trial in Moscow. Wages Piling Up One pleasant aspect of Powers’ enforced absence is the back pav which has been piling up. Some calculations put it at more than 40.000 dollars. Mr Pierre Salinger. President Kennedy’s press secretary, tpld reporters that back pay would be given to Powers, but declined to say whether it would come from the Central Intelligence Agency. After his arrest in -May. 1960, Powers was identified as a Lockheed Aircraft Corporation test pilot assigned to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. At his trial he said his contract was for 30.000 dollars a year. At that rate, he would have 52.500 dollars due. However, the State Department announced in August, 1960, that arrangements had been made to "provide for his wife.” Pryor’s Return Pryor, a graduate student at the Free University in West Berlin, vanished on August 25. His parents learned three weeks later that he had been arrested by East Berlin police on a charge of espionage.

Pryor, who had been studying foreign trade in the East European Communist countries, said when he arrived back in New York today that he entered East Berlin on August 25 to hear a speech bv the East German leader, Mr Walter Ulbricht

He said he was carrying with him a copy of his doctoral dissertation containing figures and reports on East German Communist trade It was confiscated after he had been arrested.

Racehorses Killed

(N.Z. Press Assn.— Copyright) LONDON. Feb. 11

Two valuable yearling racehorses were killed at Newmarket yesterday in a freak accident. They collided head-on. When they were released for morning exercise in the paddock at the White Lodge stud, the excited yearlings circled in opposite directions and collided at full speed. One was killed instantly. The other received shoulder and chest injuries and was destroyed, the “Sunday Express” reported.