The United States, making the best of a bad job, admitted on Saturday that one of its U-2 weather planes had been on a spying mission over the Soviet Union, as Mr Krushchev had alleged earlier in the day.
Faced with a pilot ╥alive and kicking╙ in Moscow, the State Department after eleven hours╒ thought acknowledged that he had been trying to obtain information ╥concealed behind the Iron Curtain.╙
It justified this activity ╤ and similar missions had been carried out ╥along the frontiers of the free world╙ for the past four years ╤ on the grounds of Western security; it was compelled to take precautions against the possibility of surprise attack.
The statement emphasised, however, that this flight had not been authorised by President Eisenhower or other officials in Washington and this, together with Mr Krushchev's evident desire not to blame Mr Eisenhower personally, is taken as meaning that Summit prospects may not suffer too much as a result of the incident.
Mr Krushchev had told the Supreme Soviet that the plane was shot down 1,200 miles inside Soviet territory on a flight from Pakistan to Norway. The pilot, instead of using his ejector seat (which would have killed him) had parachuted down. He had taken photographs of Soviet military installations and airfields.
