The world was Russia’s oyster in the spring of 1961.
Barely a year earlier, on May 1, 1960, Soviet forces had shot down a U.S. Air Force-CIA-sponsored spy-plane, flying at the 70,000-ft level and piloted by former U.S. Air Force Captain Francis Gary Powers. The U.S. intelligence community believed Powers’ Lockheed U-2 spy plane would be out of reach of S…