Fairfax City and Prince William County have emerged as contenders for a site for a Cold War museum after plans to build a museum in Lorton were scuttled in April.
Francis Gary Powers Jr., who founded the Cold War Museum in 1996, said he has been in talks with Fairfax and Prince William officials to find a permanent home for the museum.
“We are a functional museum in all aspects, except for brick and mortar,” he said. He cited the area near the Marine Corps Museum in Triangle as one selling point for locating in Prince William.
Powers added that he would like to open a permanent museum “yesterday,” but was exploring several opportunities, and would be open to temporarily locating somewhere in the state before relocating if necessary.
He said he was no longer “married” to having the museum in Fairfax County. Fairfax County park officials had been negotiating with Powers on locating the museum on the Nike Missile site at Lorton. The land would have been ideally suited for a Cold War museum — it once housed 24 surface-to-air missiles positioned to ward off a Soviet nuclear attack.
The plan was nixed in April due to a lack of funding. Powers said he planned to tour the Vine Hill site in Fauquier County on Aug. 31 and also was looking at sites on the Isle of Wight and in Hampton.
Powers’ father, Francis Gary Powers Sr., was shot down over the Soviet Union in a U-2 spy plane nearly 50 years ago. Powers is already planning events for the 50th anniversary of the event in May. He said he was working on organizing a trip to Moscow to visit the crash site.
The U-2 incident was a seminal moment of the Cold War, as Powers was eventually convicted of spying by the Soviet Union and sentenced to prison. He was later exchanged for Rudolf Abel, a Soviet spy, but the event deepened the chill in U.S.-Soviet relations that would last for decades.
