The Dragon Lady Essay

The Dragon Lady flew through the air at a maximum altitude of seventy-thousand feet snapping high quality photographs for the Central Intelligence Agency back in the United States. At altitudes limiting the effect of enemy air defense missiles the Dragon Lady flew mission after mission providing images of Soviet missile systems and other military apparatus. On May 1, 1960, advanced Soviet air defense missiles shot down the first Dragon Lady with its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, over Soviet territory. The Dragon Lady, more commonly known as the U-2 Spy plane, did not survive, but Powers did not share the same fate. Markus Wolf, head of the East German foreign intelligence, states that, “Powers was sentenced to only ten years in jail, and my KGB
Powers was swapped for a KGB Colonel serving thirty years in an Atlanta penitentiary. The KGB Colonel went by the name Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, but his real name was William Fischer. Powers was fortunate to be returned to the United States, but Abel was given the title of General by the KGB and placed in charge of the KGB’s Anglo-American operations. General Abel could have possibly gone on to conduct operations with disastrous consequences for the Anglo-Americans during the Cold War and cases such as these give Wolf good reason to plan operations more carefully to prevent having to swap an important and effective spy with abilities like General Abels for one of their own. Another example of how important spy swapping was during the Cold War is the tragic case of Horst and Gerlinde Gauru. The man in charge of security clearance within the West German foreign intelligence, Hansjoachim Tiedge, defected to the East German side. A Stasi mole within the West German foreign intelligence named Kuron had tipped the Stasi off about the treachery of Horst and Gerlinde Gauru, but they did not move against them lest it be known to the West Germans that there was a mole within their