Moscow court gives U-2 pilot Powers ten years; three in prison, the rest in a labor camp

Three and a half months after his U-2 went down over Sverdlovsk, Francis Gary Powers stood trial in Moscow for espionage. On August 19, 1960, a Soviet court sentenced him to ten years: three to be served in Vladimir Central Prison, the remainder in a labor camp. The verdict came after the wreckage of his plane, including its high-altitude camera, had already forced Washington to abandon its cover story about a stray weather aircraft. Powers served less than two years of the sentence before an exchange sent him home…