In the tons of coverage and commentary out of Paris last week, the most overworked cliché was: "Khrushchev overplayed his hand.'' This implied a general agreement that the U.S. had dealt him a strong hand to play—at least for propaganda's sake. Some of the U.S.-dealt high cards:
The Question of Timing. The value of U-2 surveillance over Russia had been established by results (see Defense), but the question of whether to overfly Soviet territory just before the summit should have been weighed and debated at highest levels. It was not. Pilot Francis Gary Powers was brought down, and Khrushchev had a case. Air Force Chief of Staff General Thomas D. White believes the gamble was unnecessary. Had he been responsible for the U-2 flights, said White last week, the flights would have been called off well before the summit.
The Decision to Lie. The standard spy "cover story"—of a weather flight that developed oxygen failure—was put forth in haste when Khrushchev first announced that a U-2 had been shot down, and was poorly planned. Its creators had clearly never considered the very real possibility of a U-2 or its pilot being captured, and were trapped in a lie when Khrushchev had the goods. Yet such are the unchanging habits of bureaucracy that U.S. cloak-and-dagger types, only 48 hours before the scheduled start of the summit, actually prepared an announcement that U-2 oxygen gear had passed re-examination and flights would continue. Happily, this announcement was killed.
Telling the Truth. Once its cover story was exposed, the U.S. fumbled. All day, after Khrushchev announced that Pilot Powers was in custody, "alive and kicking," Secretary of State Herter conferred on the situation, finally called President Eisenhower at Gettysburg, and got his approval for a State Department statement. Eisenhower and Herter announced that the surveillance flight had taken place (and thus admitted the first U.S. lie), and justified the U-2 program on the basis of the fear of surprise attack. Then, because Khrushchev himself had publicly seemed to exonerate President Eisenhower of blame, they went along with the diplomatic game by stating that the flight had been made without the knowledge of authorities in Washington.
Taking Responsibility. It took just one day for Ike to realize his mistake. An editorial flap blew up because the President had apparently been unaware of one of his Administration's most delicate and dangerous activities. Presidential ignorance of a specific plane flight would not have been beyond belief. But no charge by the political opposition piques Press Secretary Jim Hagerty more than the charge that Ike is not on top of his job. Furthermore, Communist propaganda likes to say that Eisenhower is the innocent dupe of Pentagon "war planners." Ike reversed himself, aggressively shouldered all the blame for the U-2 May Day flight. By this time critics were saying that the U.S. should stick to one side or the other, moralists were saying that the U.S. should not lie, and sophisticates in the espionage trade were saying that the U.S. did wrong to tell the truth.