Francis Gary Powers Jr.

Francis Gary Powers Jr. lectures internationally and appears regularly on news networks, C-SPAN, the History, Discovery, and A&E channels. He is the son of Gary Powers, Sr. the U-2 pilot whose plane was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960, triggering an international incident during the Cold War. He is the author of "Enemy Territory" (2022), "Letters from a Soviet Prison" (2017), and "Spy Pilot" (2019) which all help to dispel the misinformation surrounding the U-2 Incident.

Powers is the Founder and Chairman Emeritus of The Cold War Museum, a 501(c) (3) charity located at Vint Hill, VA 45 minutes west of Washington, DC. He founded the museum in 1996 to honor Cold War veterans, preserve Cold War history, and educate future generations about this time period. He is also the past President of the Vienna Tysons Corner Chamber of Commerce. As Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee for the Cold War Theme Study he works with the National Park Service and leading Cold War experts to identify historic Cold War sites for preservation. In 2015, he consulted for a Steven Spielberg Cold War thriller, Bridge of Spies, about James Donovan who brokered the 1962 spy exchange between KGB spy Rudolph Abel and CIA U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, Sr.

Powers is a past Board Member of the Strategic Air Command and Aerospace and an Honorary Board Member of the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC. Because of his efforts to honor Cold War veterans the Junior Chamber of Commerce selected him as one of the “Ten Outstanding Young Americans” for 2002. He holds a BA in Philosophy, and Master’s Degrees in Public Administration and US History. He is married and has one son.