[Opinion] U-2

On May 1 1960, U-2, a high-tech spy plane built by Americans, was shot down by a Russian missile near Sverdlrovsk inside the territory of the former Soviet Union. The plane, which earlier took off Peshawar in Pakistan, was supposed to fly over the Russian territory and land somewhere in Norway. Pilot of the spy plane Francis Garry Powers was captured by Soviet forces. Four months after the incident, leader of the Soviet communist party Nikita Khrushchyov was vehemently denouncing the U.S. at the U.N., tapping the table with shoes he just took off – a scene that became one of the most memorable images representing the cold-war standoff. (The only son of Khrushchyov, who taught college students in the U.S. argued last year that there is no hard evidence about the `shoe` incident, however.)

▷Weapons are made for the purpose of a war with enemies, and U-2 was no exception. It was a byproduct from the cold-war era characterized by confrontation between the East and the West. In the late 1950s, Khrushchyov bluffed, “We are going to hold a funeral for foes in the west.” And its western counterparts indeed took the threat seriously. Shocked by the launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union in 1957, Americans were paranoid about Russians` ability to develop long-range missile launching systems. Then U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower was eager to look inside `the iron wall` by any costs and told Allen Dallas, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, to develop the U-2 spy plane.

▷The most tricky part during the development was how to let the plane fly high enough not to be caught by the enemy`s radar. The development team at Lockheed came up with all the inventive ideas including extraordinarily long wings and a very light fuselage. Their hard work paid off. In July 1956, a U-2 plane successfully escaped the hunt by Soviet fighters, flying 20km above the ground. Since then, U-2 spy plane has been at the very center of American spy operations, finding the location of a Soviet missile hidden in Cuba in 1962, for instance.

▷The spy plane stole the spotlight once again as one of U-2 planes crashed down to a farming village in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi-do two days ago. The news reminded us of the fact that there is a spying battle going on over the sky despite peaceful scenes down on the ground. The crash drew keen attention especially since the Korean peninsula is still in the midst of the nuclear confrontation between North Korea and the U.S. When will be the day that the peninsula shakes off its image of ongoing cold-war confrontation and stop seeing U-2 planes flying in its sky?

Song Moon-hong, Editorial Writer, songmh@donga.com