Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev, and the U-2 Affair

Michael Beschloss, a historian, draws on the private papers of the individuals involved to give us a unique peak into the U-2 Crisis. When Powers was shot down over Russia on Mayday, Russia's most important National Holiday. It shows how the CIA considered it important to have an aircraft in Russian airspace for reconnaissance. We are given a look into the web of deceit that has been the U-2 incident. He starts with Gary Powers and how he became a U-2 pilot. The details of the fatal flight itself are shared with the reader. The reactions of the two leaders involved, Eisenhower committed to this reconnaissance and Khruschev who was fighting to stay in power. And how this incident was to affect the opportunity for detente between the USA and Russia. We even read about Charles de Gaulle's efforts in trying to save the Paris Summit Meeting.

Michael Beschloss, long known as a fantastic presidential historian, captured a great deal of detail about the U-2 program and the subsequent crisis that erupted when Francis Gary Powers was shot down in this book.The author begins with the development of the U-2 program and its necessity, and then the covert efforts by the CIA to evaluate what capabilities really did exist in the USSR for nuclear war. The level of involvement on the part of President Eisenhower did suprise me a little, especially the way in which the flights before the shootdown were somewhat routine, with Soviet complaints being easily dismissed. It is the shootdown, and the results both immediate and long-term, that dominate the majority of the book.The timing could nothave been worse- it was the last scheduled flight before a summit between the two superpowers, and Khruschev was at the Moscow U.S. Embassy for an Independence Day celebration as the shootdown unfolded. The repercussions were potentially enormous, as the U.S. lost prestige, leverage, and the ability to continue to operate the program once it came to light.Beschloss writes very well, and this early effort of his is certainly worth the time it will take to find it and read it.

Michael Beschloss is one of the best historians writing today. Known best for his work profiling American presidents, this book focuses on Ike's last years framed by the ongoing, growing military rivalry between the Cold War superpowers. Packed with detail, it is loaded with more information and behind-the-scenes nuggets than I ever kne existed regarding the famous U-2 incident. Knowing some of the people in the program, I certainly learned more about the times discussed and some of the issues involved from the book than from them. The extreme secrecy involved still persists among them today; the book is the best source I have to learn what was happening in those tense days. Mayday is a very well-written book, and has a lot of useful infomration. It would be best enjoyed by Cold War enthusiasts and fans of the period, but its writing and style make it easy to read and comprehend for all.

Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev and the U-2 Affair (1986)(Michael R. Beschloss 1955-) The major conclusion I came to was that it is probable both Eisenhower and Khrushchev wanted a period of at least limited détente. Because of their own miscalculations about each other's behavior, that moment was lost. -Michael Beschloss In the Spring of 1960, as President Eisenhower neared the end of his successful but uneventful presidency, he devoutly wished to cap off his career with a successful summit with the Soviet Union. Having met with Khrushchev the previous year and established the "Spirit of Camp David", he envisioned forging a sort of détente and entering into some kind of arms treaty, perhaps a test ban, at a May meeting with the Soviet Premier in Paris. But on May 1, 1960--celebrated as May Day in Europe and a holiday of great import in the Soviet Union--American pilot Francis Gary Powers and his U-2 spy plane were shot down over Russian territory. The plane, on it's way from Peshawar, Pakistan to Bodo, Norway, would have been flying at an altitude of about 70,000 feet. Russian SAMs had been steadily improving their range, and the danger of a shootdown was well understood at the highest levels of American government, in fact the President had ordered that he be given the right of final approval for each flight, but in that pre satellite era the spy planes were providing nearly all U.S. intelligence on the state of Russia's military, so Ike concluded that were worth the very high risk. Moreover, the flights were done under CIA command, not the military, pilots had orders to commit suicide if shot down and neither they nor identifiable portions of the planes were expected to survive anyway, so the U.S. expected to maintain deniability. The Eisenhower Administration did in fact initially deny that the U-2 was a spy plane, claiming it was a weather flight that blew off course. In the event, Powers survived and Khrushchev, struggling to hold off "hard-liners" at home, chose to inflate the incident into a major provocation and, although the two sides went ahead with the Paris summit, it quickly degenerated into a diplomatic mess and the opportunity for a reduction in Cold War tensions was lost for a generation. Michael Beschloss, who is a national treasure as regards study of the presidency, has done a masterful job of reconstructing the events surrounding the U-2 Affair. He really brings the period and it's tensions to life, particularly the internal functioning of the Eisenhower administration. To me, the most significant aspect of the book is Beschloss's argument that it was thanks to the spying of the U-2 that Eisenhower understood how weak the Soviets actually were and that Ike and Khrushchev basically had an implicit understanding that if the Soviet did not make a real effort to upgrade their sorry military capacity, the U.S. would act as if the Soviets posed a threat. This allowed Ike to reign in the Militar

Well written and detailed information about what could have sent us into war.