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In 1960 the Russians shot down an American U-2 spy plane that was overflying and photographing their military bases.  The U-2 Incident was big news when I was in High School and I remember it quite clearly. 

The Incident forms the background to Bridge of Spies a 2015 movie, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance from a screenplay written by Matt Charman together with Ethan and Joel Coen that centres on these true events. 

Spielberg and the Cohen Brothers.  Who could miss it?

Bridge of Spies 

 

 

An International Incident

Although just one flight became an international sensation, secret papers (now in the public domain - link) reveal that this was one of many such flights and this was the eleventh US spy plane that the USSR had shot down. 

So why this time?

This was the first time the Russians got 'bankable evidence' of the US incursions, because pilots had instructions to trigger a 'destruct device' to blow up secret parts of their plane and if by chance they survived they carried shellfish toxin, hidden in a coin, to ensure that they weren't captured alive.

Thus the Americans routinely denied that these were spy planes engaged in identifying Soviet nuclear weapon sites for targeting by the US missiles but rather highflying weather research aircraft blown off course. 

So they released a note with the usual excuse:

As already announced on May 3, a United States National Aeronautical Space Agency unarmed weather research plane based at Adana, Turkey, and piloted by a civilian American has been missing since May 1.
The name of the American civilian pilot is Francis Gary Powers, born on August 17, 1929, at Jenkins, Kentucky.
In the light of the above the United States Government requests the Soviet Government to provide it with full facts of the Soviet investigation of this incident and to inform it of the fate of the pilot.

 United States Note to the U.S.S.R, May 5, 1960.

 

This deceit was repeated by President Eisenhower directly to Soviet Chairman Nikita Khrushchev immediately before important diplomatic talks at the Paris 'Four Powers Summit'. The four powers were the previous allies against Germany: the US, Britain, France and the USSR. 

Khrushchev deliberately let the Americans think that like the earlier flights Powers had obeyed orders.  So incriminating evidence on his plane must be securely destroyed and Powers must be dead.  The American cover-up continued while the Russians disingenuously demanded to know more with headline catching suspicion.

The problem was that the Russians had all the facts right from the start. Not only had the explosive evidence-destroying charges in his plane not been detonated but Powers was very much alive and telling all about the spy program. 

In addition to Powers the Russians had the high resolution cameras that were supposed to have been blown to smithereens, complete with incriminating photos of Russian military facilities deep inside the USSR.

...This and other information revealed in speeches of the head of the Soviet Government completely refuted the U.S. State Department's concocted and hurriedly fabricated version, released May 5 in the official announcement for the press, to the effect that the aircraft was allegedly carrying out meteorological observations in the upper strata of the atmosphere along the Turkish-Soviet border.
After the complete absurdity of the aforementioned version had been shown and it had been incontrovertibly proven that the American aircraft intruded across the borders of the Soviet Union for aggressive reconnaissance purposes, a new announcement was made by the U.S. State Department on May 7 which contained the forced admission that the aircraft was sent into the Soviet Union for military reconnaissance and, by the very fact, it was admitted that the flight was pursuing aggressive purposes.
In this way, after two days, the State Department already had to deny the version which obviously had been intended to mislead world public opinion as well as American public opinion itself...

 Part of the U.S.S.R Note to the United States, May 10, 1960

 

Powers was paraded before the international press, along with the plane and it's damning evidence, before being convicted of spying and sentenced to 10 years in jail. 

The US press condemned Powers as a traitor for not destroying his plane and for allowing himself to be interrogated.  I recall schoolboy discussions debating this in Australia.

It has been speculated that Khrushchev had been looking for an excuse to sabotage the Four Powers Summit.  Certainly all good will was lost and the Paris meeting collapsed. 

 

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Travel

Berlin

 

 

 

I'm a bit daunted writing about Berlin.  

Somehow I'm happy to put down a couple of paragraphs about many other cities and towns I've visited but there are some that seem too complicated for a quick 'off the cuff' summary.  Sydney of course, my present home town, and past home towns like New York and London.  I know just too much about them for a glib first impression.

Although I've never lived there I've visited Berlin on several occasions for periods of up to a couple of weeks.  I also have family there and have been introduced to their circle of friends.

So I decided that I can't really sum Berlin up, any more that I can sum up London or New York, so instead I should pick some aspects of uniqueness to highlight. 

Read more: Berlin

Fiction, Recollections & News

Cars, Radios, TV and other Pastimes

 

 

I grew up in semi-rural Thornleigh on the outskirts of Sydney.  I went to the local Primary School and later the Boys' High School at Normanhurst; followed by the University of New South Wales.  

As kids we, like many of my friends, were encouraged to make things and try things out.  My brother Peter liked to build forts and tree houses; dig giant holes; and play with old compressors and other dangerous motorised devices like model aircraft engines and lawnmowers; until his car came along.

 

Read more: Cars, Radios, TV and other Pastimes

Opinions and Philosophy

Luther - Father of the Modern World?

 

 

 

 

To celebrate or perhaps just to mark 500 years since Martin Luther nailed his '95 theses' to a church door in Wittenberg and set in motion the Protestant Revolution, the Australian Broadcasting Commission has been running a number of programs discussing the legacy of this complex man featuring leading thinkers and historians in the field. 

Much of the ABC debate has centred on Luther's impact on the modern world.  Was he responsible for today? Without him, might the world still be stuck in the 'Middle Ages' with each generation doing more or less what the previous one did, largely within the same medieval social structures?  In that case could those inhabitants of an alternative 21st century, obviously not us, as we would never have been born, still live in a world of less than a billion people, most of them working the land as their great grandparents had done, protected and governed by an hereditary aristocracy, their mundane lives punctuated only by variations in the weather; holy days; and occasional wars between those princes?

Read more: Luther - Father of the Modern World?

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