State Department Press Release No. 249 Concerning U-2 Incident

DEPARTMENT OF STATE MAY 6, 1960 FOR THE PRESS NO. 249 The following is the text of a note delivered today by the American Embassy at Moscow to the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs: The Embassy of the United States of America by instruction of its Government has the honor to state the following: The United States Government has noted the statement of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, N. S. Khrushchev, in his speech before the Supreme Soviet on May 5 that a foreign aircraft crossed the border of the Soviet Union on May 1 and that on orders of the Soviet Government, this aircraft was shot down. In this same statement it was said that investigation showed that it was a United States plane. As already announced on May 3, a United States National Aeronautical Space Agency unarmed weather research plane based at Adana, Turkey, and piloted by a civilian American has been missing since May 1. The name of the American civilian pilot is Francis Gary Powers, born on August 17, 1929, at Jenkins, Kentucky. In the light of the above the United States Government requests the Soviet Government to provide it with full facts of the Soviet investigation of this incident and to inform it of the fate of the pilot. * State--RD, Wash. D.C.