A thrilling dramatic narrative of the top-secret Cold War-era spy plane operation that transformed the CIA and brought the U.S. and the Soviet Union to the brink of disaster On May 1,1960an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union just weeks before a peace summit between the two nations. The CIA concocted a cover story for President Eisenhower to deliverassuring him that no one could have survived a fall from that altitude. And even if pilot Francis Gary Powers had survivedhe had been supplied with a poison pin with which to commit suicide. But against all oddsPowers emerged from the wreckage and was seized by the KGB. He confessed to espionage chargesrevealing to the world that Eisenhower had just lied to the American people–and to the Soviet Premier. InfuriatedNikita Khrushchev slammed the door on a rare opening in Cold War relations. In A Brotherhood of Spiesaward-winning journalist Monte Reel reveals how the U-2 spy programprincipally devised by four men working in secretupended the Cold War and carved a new mission for the CIA. This secret fraternitymade up of Edwin Landbest known as the inventor of instant photography and the head of Polaroid Corporation; Kelly Johnsona hard-charging taskmaster from Lockheed; Richard Bissellthe secretive and ambitious spymaster; and ace Air Force flyer Powersset out to replace yesterday’s fallible human spies with tomorrow’s undetectable eye in the sky. Their clandestine successes and all-too-public failures make this brilliantly reported account a true-life thriller with the highest stakes and tragic repercussions.