7-Jul-17 – It was an embarrassment for the United States but the stuff of spy novels and for Francis Gary Powers, a military career served at the front in the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

The U-2 spy plane Powers (left) was flying was shot down in Soviet airspace on May 1, 1960. Powers was captured, convicted of espionage, and imprisoned for two years. The incident happened two weeks before a scheduled summit in Paris and marked a decline in relations between the U.S. and U.S.S.R.

Today, his son, 52-year-old Francis Gary Powers Jr., lectures internationally on the Cold War. In 1996, he founded The Cold War Museum, now located in Virginia, to preserve history, educate students, and honor veterans of the Cold War.

Powers (right) will speak at a luncheon on August 6 at SafeHouse Chicago, a restaurant/bar in River North with an espionage theme. He will use a journal and letters written by his father to provide a first-hand account of life as a high-profile inmate in a Soviet prison. Photo by Church Hill Photography

Also speaking will be Werner Juretzko, a former intelligence operative for the U.S. Army who was captured during a mission in East Germany in 1955. After five months of brutal interrogation by the KGB, he was sent to a maximum-security prison for six years – the same prison at which scenes were filmed for the 2015 movie Bridge of Spies.