The Ise & Fall OF Francis Gary Powers

(The Rise & Fall Of Francis Gary Powers)

Francis Gary Powers had been a news and traffic reporter for a couple of radio and TV stations in Los Angeles during the 1970's. A more notable claim to fame was that Powers had been the pilot of a U-2 spy-plane that had been shot down, his rise and fall, over Soviet territory on May 1st, 1960. The U-2 is usually a high-altitude platform, making it ideal for photo reconnaissance over hostile territory, like Soviet airspace. Powers' aircraft could not maintain its cruise level and descended into the operational envelop of Soviet air defenses, where the U-2 was engaged and shot down. Powers ejected and was captured, tried, was convicted in a Soviet court and spent three years in prison and another seven at hard labor. As mentioned, Powers ended up in L.A. as an airborne traffic reporter and then a news station.

Power's U-2, or what was left of it, had been quickly secured by Soviet security services and was thoroughly examined. Now in a related story, there was what appeared to be a Chinese reconnaissance platform in the form of a hot-air balloon that was being managed at 60,000 feet. However, unlike the prompt Soviet response that brought down Powers' plane, this balloon from China, was allowed to remain airborne, with its own surveillance equipment, for days, permitted to scan some of the most sensitive sites in Alaska, where it first detected and then over the Continental United States, taking the five-cent tour before President Biden ordered the craft brought down off the Carolinas.

Why so long ? The balloon should have been engaged as soon as it had been identified, over the Pacific if not Alaska. Surely the balloon could have engaged before over Montana, where it was first spotted by civilians. That made the balloon a news story and when "expert" opinion correctly identified the balloon as a Chinese surveillance platform with its own suite of electronic and photo-graphic equipment.

Such assets will now be examined when the balloon is recovered. For its part, Beijing has protested but it just seen one of its observation craft drift without impediment over missile fields. bomber bases and so on. The facilities in question are never silent; each site operates with specific operational frequencies that were probably monitored by the fly-over. If known, such frequencies can be jammed. If the ICBM fields at Malmstrom AFB in Montana can be disrupted for instance, their own launch could be interrupted.

Or, as a more scary scenario, perhaps the next Chinese balloon will be equipped with a high yield nuclear weapon and float at an altitude significantly higher over the Homeland. A detonation that high up would generate a massive electro-magnetic pulse, frying everything electronic for thousands of square miles. Cell phones, computers, televisions, everything that plugs in. Devastating for those who watch Oprah.