It was six o’clock the next morning when the plane landed at Wiesbaden. There was a technicians’ meeting because of a fault in the aircraft’s radio system that required servicing. The curtains around the passenger seats were drawn so that the repairman could not see Abel and his guards.
The repairman reported that the radio wasn’t serviceable, it would have to be replaced. Just over two hours later the plane was edging into the control pattern of the Berlin Air Corridor. For the last half-hour of the two-and-a-half-hour flight to Berlin the plane was under surveillance by three squadrons of MiG fighters. It was 3 p.m. when the plane landed at Tempelhof. The US Provost Marshal was there and one of the military police cars drove Abel and his escort to the US Army Base.
Abel spent the night in a small, grim cell clad only in pyjamas, watched over continuously by a double guard who were changed every two hours. His escorts slept as badly as Abel did but in the comparative comfort of a private house.
At 7.30 the next morning, Saturday February 10, Abel was driven to the Glienicke bridge. The car and its escorting vehicles pulled up at the entrance to Schloss Glienicke and there were officials already there, including two men busy with walkie-talkies. Then, on a signal from one of the men with radios, the two CIA men walked with Abel to the bridge itself. At the bridge they stopped and Abel was handed a document signed by Robert Kennedy as US Attorney-General and John F. Kennedy as President. The document commuted Colonel Abel’s sentence and granted him an official pardon on condition that he never re-entered the United States.
The Glienicke Bridge, with its sandstone piers and approaches, spans two small lakes, and is used solely as a crossing-point for the occupation forces. At the other side of the bridge Gary Powers stood with his KGB guard. Abel was asked to take off his glasses so that the other side could confirm his identity. When both sides had signalled their satisfaction that the man displayed by the other side was their man, Abel was told that he was free to cross the bridge.
Picking up his two cases he walked forward, passed Gary Powers just before the demarcation line. Neither acknowledged the other and the transaction was over.
In Washington the lawns of the White House were sprinkled with snow. In the Blue Room Lester Lanin and his orchestra were playing for the guests at a going-away party for the President’s brother-in-law and sister. At two o’clock several top government officials discreetly left the room and an hour later Pierre Salinger, the President’s press secretary, announced the repatriation of Abel to the Soviet Union and Gary Powers’ release to the US authorities. Neither at the party nor in the press room was any great interest aroused by the event.
Joe Shapiro climbed awkwardly into the front passenger seat of the ambulance and told the driver to start. The streets of Brunswick were already crowded with people going to work and traffic, and it was almost an hour before they were approaching the border-crossing at Helmstedt. Trails of mist swirled across from the woods on each side of the road.
Already there was a long queue of cars. Not at the usual crossing-point barriers but nearly a quarter of a mile from the frontier post. At the temporary pole barrier Shapiro showed his ID card and the operational order to the Field Security sergeant. The sergeant checked them carefully and then waved to the military policeman who raised the counter-weighted pole.
At the normal control point the ambulance stopped again and Shapiro climbed down. He could see the grey Soviet Army field ambulance at the pole on the far side. From the back of the British ambulance two men got down. One was an SIS doctor and the other was Hugh Morton.
The three men walked to the white painted control post and Shapiro lifted the phone, speaking slowly and distinctly in Russian. He listened for a moment and then hung up. He nodded to the other two and the barriers of both sides of the crossing control lifted slowly.
The two ambulances rolled forward and stopped. The rear doors of both vehicles were opened and latched and two Soviets in civilian clothes eased a stretcher down the sloping metal runners. A KGB man in major’s uniform waved Shapiro over. Shapiro looked at the face of the man on the stretcher then back at the KGB man. They exchanged a few words, the officer nodded and Shapiro signalled to the doctor to come over. They rolled the stretcher to the British ambulance and waited for the ramp to lift it into the back of the ambulance. When it had been latched in place, Shapiro spoke to the driver then got in the back of the ambulance, followed by the doctor and Morton. As the rear doors were closed Shapiro looked at the doctor.
“Well?”
“He looks in a pretty bad way but I’d need to examine him before I pass any comment.” He paused. “Will you pass me that clamp?”
The doctor adjusted the drip and then Shapiro banged on the back of the driver’s cab and the ambulance turned slowly and headed back up the road to Brunswick.
Shapiro looked across at the doctor. “Is what you’ve got at the house enough? Or should he go to hospital?”
The doctor shrugged. “Joe. If what I’ve got at the house isn’t enough there’s nothing else at the hospital that can do better. Not at this stage, anyway.”
The big house was in five acres of its own grounds and a room on the ground floor was equipped with all the paraphernalia of a mobile operating theatre and pharmacy.
The doctor and his assistant, masked and sterile, cut the sweat-sodden clothing from
