Which year was the Soviet spy William Fisher, a.k.a Rudolf Abel, exchanged for the American jet pilot Francis Gary Powers?

The Soviet spy is William Fisher, a.k.a. Rudolf Abel. He was convicted of three counts of conspiracy (espionage) in the U.S. in 1957 and sentenced to 30 years imprisonment. After serving just four years, he was exchanged for imprisoned American and U-2 jet pilot Francis Gary Powers in 1962.

Fisher was born in England in 1903. Both Fisher's parents were Bolshevik supporters and young Fisher helped his father by distributing "Hands Off Russia" literature in England during WWI. When his family returned to Russia in 1921, he worked as a translator for the Communist Party Youth organization. He was fluent in several languages.

In 1948, Fisher slipped into the U.S. illegally by way of Canada. He served as a case officer tasked with relaying atomic secrets. During this period he posed as a photographer and painter named Emil R. Goldfus and immersed himself in the Brooklyn, New York artistic community. He was tracked down when another Soviet spy also residing in New York, performed poorly, was called back to the Soviet Union, but instead fled to the U.S. Embassy in Paris. There he revealed secrets including giving up information about Fisher.

When tracked down and arrested, a search of Fisher's Brooklyn studio uncovered a hollow pencil used for concealing messages, a code book, radio transmitting equipment and phony identification. The longtime intelligence operative died in Moscow in 1971 of lung cancer at the age of 68.