The U-2 incident was a diplomatic crisis that occurred in May 1960, when the Soviet Union shot down an American U-2 spy plane piloted by CIA agent Gary Powers. A few weeks before an international summit, Powers flew the U-2 plane over the Soviet Union in attempts to gather photographic evidence of Soviet military and missile capabilities. The Soviets shot down the plane.

The United States and President Eisenhower claimed that the plane was not a spy plane but a weather forecasting plane that had unintentionally flown off course. Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev announced that Powers was captured as a prisoner. The incident proved a great embarrassment to the United States and Eisenhower, as the administration was caught in a lie.