Yeltsin Says U.S. Pilots Were Held in Soviet Prisons, Clinics in 1950s
The Soviet Union shot down nine U.S. planes in the early 1950s and held 12 American survivors in prisons or psychiatric clinics, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin said in a letter hand-delivered to U.S. senators Friday.
The fate of the fliers is being investigated, he said.
Other than the shooting down of Francis Gary Powers’ spy plane in 1960, neither U.S. nor Soviet officials had formally acknowledged that U.S. planes had been downed over the Soviet Union in the Cold War.
Yeltsin also said that Soviet records show:
- Several U.S. servicemen in World War II were detained “in isolation for a year or more” by the Stalin government.
- Some American prisoners in the Korean War were taken to China and held there, and 59 captured U.S. servicemen were interrogated by Soviet officials.
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