On this day, 65 years ago, on May 1, 1960 (April 6, 1960), the Soviet Union shot down an American U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance plane. Pilot Francis Gary Powers On May 1, 1960, an American U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance plane was shot down by Soviet missiles over Russia, and pilot Gary Powers was captured. Powers was unharmed, and he had to admit that he had been on a photo reconnaissance mission all the way from Pakistan to Norway. US President Eisenhower's government immediately publicly stated that such flights were necessary for national security. But the incident seriously damaged the developing detente between the United States and the Soviet Union. Khrushchev demanded a public apology from US President Eisenhower. After being rejected, Khrushchev refused to attend the summit of the four major powers of the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, and France, which was scheduled to be held in Paris in May. The Paris meeting was aborted. Russian leader Khrushchev angrily condemned the United States for sending U-2 aircraft to Russia for espionage as "aggression". Eisenhower promised that this would not happen again. But this did not appease Khrushchev. The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee accused the incident of being "very wrong". Gary Powers had to stand trial in public in a Moscow court and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Russia withdrew from disarmament talks in Geneva. The U-2 incident attracted worldwide attention, but it had little impact on the intensification of the world's inevitably risky "intelligence" activities.