In 1960 a United States U-2 reconnaissance aircraft piloted by Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union. The incident wrecked a summit meeting and exposed high-altitude aerial spying. It showed that fixed-wing aircraft had become crucial instruments of Cold War intelligence.

The U-2 incident deepened the literary atmosphere of secrecy, surveillance, and ideological mistrust. The unseen aircraft above became a Cold War image of watching and being watched, central to later political poetry and fiction.