Francis Gary Powers

FRANCIS GARY POWERS, JR. lectures internationally and appears regularly on C-SPAN, the History, Discovery, and A&E channels. He is the son of Francis Gary Powers, Sr. the U-2 pilot whose plane was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960, triggering an international incident during the Cold War.

Gary is the author of Letters from a Soviet Prison (2017), Spy Pilot (2019), Enemy Territory (2022), The Berlin Airlift (2024), Cold War Virginia (2024), and Protecting America: Cold War Defensive Sites (2024). He is the Founder and Chairman Emeritus of The Cold War Museum located at Vint Hill, VA and was the Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee for the Cold War Theme Study which assisted the National Park Service to identify historic Cold War sites for preservation. In 2015, he consulted for a Steven Spielberg thriller, Bridge of Spies, about the 1962 spy exchange between KGB spy Rudolph Abel and CIA U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, Sr.

Gary conducts Spy Tours of Washington, DC and Cold War Espionage Tours of Europe (www. SpyTour .com). He is a past Board Member of the Strategic Air Command and Aerospace and an Honorary Board Member of the International Spy Museum. Because of his efforts to honor Cold War veterans the Junior Chamber of Commerce selected him as one of the “Ten Outstanding Young Americans” for 2002. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Philosophy and Master's Degrees in Public Administration and U.S. History.