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Original title: Der geheime Luftkrieg der Supermächte
AKA Abschuss über der Sowjetunion
Director: Dirk Pohlmann
Was the US trying to trigger World War III in the 1950s? This is one of the startling hypotheses presented in this documentary on the CIA's spy plane U2 and its ultra-secret missions over the Warsaw Pact nations. Dirk Pohlmann sketches a gripping portrait of the dramatic events that sent the thawing relationship between America and the Soviet Union back into the freezer.
AKA Abschuss über der Sowjetunion
Director: Dirk Pohlmann
Was the US trying to trigger World War III in the 1950s? This is one of the startling hypotheses presented in this documentary on the CIA's spy plane U2 and its ultra-secret missions over the Warsaw Pact nations. Dirk Pohlmann sketches a gripping portrait of the dramatic events that sent the thawing relationship between America and the Soviet Union back into the freezer.
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AprendizadoTranscrição
00:00A CIDADE NO BRASIL
00:30A CIDADE NO BRASIL
01:00A CIDADE NO BRASIL
01:29A DANGEROUS BATTLE FOR WORLD SUPREMACY
01:34THE SUPERPOWER'S AERIAL ESPIONAGE WAR
01:37WAS KEPT A SECRET OF THE COLD WAR
01:39A única pessoa que não sabia o que estávamos fazendo
01:45eram os russos e os americanos.
01:47Os dois governos, não.
01:58A única pessoa que está conhecida é completamente conhecida.
02:02Em octubre de 1952,
02:04um American long-ranged reconnaissance plane
02:06estava espionando no norte de Japão sobre a área soviética da border.
02:11Soviétos avanços flores.
02:13Um avançador em português, Vasilei Saiko,
02:16estava ouvindo as comunicativas de radio.
02:21Quando o avançou, os avanços me disseram,
02:24que nos derrotaram, que nos derrotaram.
02:27Eu repeti duas vezes.
02:29E os avanços da terra,
02:32os avanços nos derrotaram.
02:34Onde tinha uma equipe que tinha que fazer o seu pai, e eles fizeram o seu pai.
02:42Onde os americanos de Abreu 29 moraram.
02:46Um deles foi casado por apenas dois anos e foi recentemente tornado um pai,
02:51John Dunham.
02:52Sua espécie, Mary, estava esperando por ele na U.S.A.
02:57Eu estava meia de roupa um dia.
03:00I noticed that the TV was talking about this B-29 that was shot down
03:06over near the Kuro Islands.
03:11And it was from Yokota Air Force Base.
03:15And I thought, I wonder if my husband knows any of the men on that plane.
03:20The crew on the Soviet ships saw the plane shot down and searched for survivors.
03:25Vasily Saiko found one of the pilots.
03:30The U.S. Air Force sent Mary Dunham a telegram, informing her that her husband was missing.
03:57First, I was numb with shock.
04:01And then I went through a period of denial.
04:05And then the feeling started to return.
04:08And then it felt as though, I felt as though someone had taken a cleaver and just sliced
04:16me in half right down the middle.
04:19It was like all my nerve endings were, you know, my bloody nerve endings were hanging out
04:24and exposed to the elements.
04:27And it was terrible, terrible, exquisite pain.
04:31Vasily Saiko brought his gruesome find, the dead John Dunham, ashore.
04:37Ele deixou seu reino morto de inimigo.
05:07O que eu vi, eu queria contar sobre esses três, como ele morreu e que ele morreu.
05:14Esse é o seu testamento, como ele morreu.
05:37...to make an American feel better, or an American family feel better.
05:42That they were thinking about us during all those years.
05:46It's just incredibly wonderful.
05:49And I can't say enough good about them.
05:53Enemies became friends.
05:55Vasili Saiko visited Mary Dunham in the USA.
05:59She gave the ring to the daughter, who had never met her father.
06:03John Dunham's remains were exhumed in the Kurile Islands and returned to the USA.
06:09He was buried with full military honours at Arlington National Cemetery.
06:14The only one of 155 spy pilots who went missing during the secret Cold War.
06:21V. Spartan, April 8, 1950.
06:24At the headquarters of the US Air Force in Europe, a briefing was given.
06:28Ten electronic specialists were given a secret mission.
06:34That afternoon, a privateer reconnaissance plane took off, officially for Copenhagen.
06:39In fact, Captain John Fett and co-pilot Howard Zeshav had another target.
06:45They were interested in the testing of new Soviet submarine-launched missiles.
06:49They were to eavesdrop on Soviet radio communications, measure radar emissions, and collect data.
06:59The Soviets knew all about the flight.
07:10They had Wiesbaden, an American Secret Service stronghold, under constant surveillance.
07:16They had agents at the airbase at Erbenheim.
07:19Or, working nearby, a network of Soviet spies operated all over Germany.
07:25We were briefed that there were several thousand Soviet and East German agents of one nationality or another
07:34that were spying on military and civilian sectors.
07:38No one knew then that the Soviets had made a decision.
07:41For the first time, they would use force to bring down a spy flight.
07:45As the privateer approached the Lithuanian coast, radar stations reported the flight and Soviet fighter interceptors took off.
07:55One of the pilots was Anatoly Gerasimov.
07:58Anatoly Gerasimov.
08:28The Soviets were horrified.
08:29They were flying outside the 12-mile zone, and the Soviets had never attacked before.
08:40I have to say, my colleague is still there, and to kill them, but they have a warning.
08:49They also have a warning.
08:51Go and break it.
08:53And they have a warning.
08:56British radar had observed the action.
09:04For the press, the Americans stuck to their cover story that an unarmed training flight had got lost.
09:10A frantic search began.
09:18Oil slicks and pieces of wreckage were soon found.
09:21Then the privateer's nose wheel with a bullet hole in it.
09:26Then a life raft.
09:28The hatches for first aid and survival rations had been opened.
09:32Were there any survivors?
09:34The Soviets claimed they had shot down a U.S. spy plane over their territory, and it had exploded.
09:41The Americans abandoned their search, with no sign of the crew.
09:45Five years later, the American John Noble, released from the Gulag, claimed he'd seen the crew of the privateer at Vorkuta, which the Soviets denied.
09:56The case remained a mystery.
09:58The story behind the story is the last great secret of the Cold War.
10:02The story behind the story is the last great secret of the Cold War.
10:05Even Garasimov thought he'd fired on a very different kind of spy.
10:12At that time, in Lithuania, there was a bandit group in Lithuania, and the Americans, at that time, helped them with weapons and production.
10:26George F. Kennan developed the strategy of using partisans to destroy the Soviet Union from within.
10:40Assisting him was Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler's master spy now working for the Americans.
10:46As he had under Nazism, he recruited Soviet defectors, this time among Europe's displaced persons, forced laborers, exiles from the East, refugees,
10:55They were trained as agents and partisans in secret camps in the USA and Germany.
11:02This is a real training film, with real volunteers, hence the masks.
11:08The agents also learnt the importance of being trained as agents and partisans in secret camps in the USA and Germany.
11:15This is a real training film with real volunteers, hence the masks.
11:22The agents also learnt the importance of details, like adopting local hairstyles, dressing in the appropriate price range and having a perfect cover story.
11:32Hundreds were dropped by speed boat or plane in the Baltic or the other Soviet satellites.
11:37Once more, Wiesbaden played a central role. Here, the pilots were briefed.
11:48They knew just enough to carry out their missions, no more.
11:52For the first time, one of these pilots is prepared to talk on camera about his still top-secret operations.
11:58We would meet the people at the airplane.
12:05Who they were, what they did, I don't know.
12:10The pilot knew only where the men were to be dropped.
12:14You know, it was flying at 500 feet at night time, lights out, and go in and deliver somebody.
12:26Hedge-hopping under the radar, a job for specialists.
12:32We flew through the mountains in that area. Needless to say, we were very busy with the maps.
12:37We had three maps in the cockpit. We had one in the navigator's hand and one in each pilot's hand.
12:42And what we were doing was making sure where we were at.
12:48Their targets lay in the Soviet satellite states, often Latvia, Romania, Albania and the Ukraine.
12:55The agents usually parachuted in, though sometimes the planes landed to pick people up.
13:00This training film shows a perfect operation. The agent is met by a resistance group.
13:06Any broken bones? No, I think I made it all one piece.
13:10Our French farm is up the hill there, just about a mile. I'll show you the way.
13:14The reality was entirely different. The operations were completely infiltrated by the Soviets.
13:21In Britain, the head of the Soviet section of MI6, Kim Philby, betrayed the missions to his real bosses in Moscow.
13:29Soviet guards were usually waiting when the agents were dropped.
13:38The idea of bringing down communist countries from within was an illusion destined to fail,
13:44which is probably why these operations have remained secret until now.
13:48Certainly, Western secret services learned next to nothing about the actual strength of the Soviet military apparatus.
13:55The iron curtain remained impenetrable and tensions rose.
14:111948, the blockade of Berlin.
14:15Stalin was extending his empire in Europe and China had become communist.
14:20The man in charge of dropping atomic bombs on Japan, General Curtis LeMay, organized the Berlin airlift.
14:27His ambitions went beyond taking in supplies.
14:30He frankly stormed out, yelled out, he says, now that's not true. I didn't just start that thing, he says.
14:39We could have, I was sitting there arguing like the devil that all, for the people to take a tank or so,
14:45and a line of trucks and just bulldoze right through those, those blockades.
14:50He says, we could have done it. What would they have done?
14:53We did have the bomb and they didn't.
14:561949, the first Soviet atom bomb exploded, years before the West had expected it.
15:051950, the Korean War began.
15:0855% of Americans believed it was the beginning of the Third World War.
15:13Was this war also stage managed by the Soviets?
15:16Did Stalin want world supremacy at any price?
15:21Truman sanctioned the use of the atomic bomb.
15:24The world was poised on the brink of nuclear war.
15:28High-ranking US soldiers such as LeMay thought that war was inevitable
15:31and should begin sooner rather than later while the Soviets were still weak.
15:38At the Air War College, war games were run to test whether and how the Soviet Union could be forced to her knees.
15:46It was concluded that the effects of the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not as massive as anticipated.
15:56It was the first use of nuclear weapons on civilians and the consequences of the radiation were horrendous,
16:02but industrial production had resumed within a month.
16:05A nuclear war on the Soviet Union would last a year, and if the US were the aggressors, would cost less than three million American lives.
16:21But the enemy would not be annihilated, and how could the giant empire be occupied?
16:26The two superpowers therefore worked hard to improve their nuclear weapons, with success.
16:42From 1955, a nuclear war meant worldwide destruction.
16:46To deliver their atomic bombs, the Soviet Union built a copy of the Hiroshima bomber, the B-29.
16:57They also did some saber-rattling, despite their obvious military inferiority.
17:02The question of the preventive attack, he was in charge.
17:09And there were such demonstrations of military officers who were forced to do this.
17:16But our administration did not go on.
17:19By now, the Americans had a new bomber, the Convair Peacemaker, the B-36.
17:26In contrast to the B-29, it could reach its target and fly back to base.
17:32A giant machine with ten engines, capable of 30 hours' flight.
17:37The B-36 makes a noise that you would never forget if you ever heard it.
17:42I happened to live at Fairchild, I lived in a trailer park, where the B-36s on final approach went over.
17:51And our trailer would jump, jump, jump, jump.
17:55This thing would go...
17:58There was also an ultralight version, a high-altitude reconnaissance plane full of aerial cameras,
18:05one with a focal length of six metres.
18:07In 1953, Doug Morell took part in special photographic missions that are still classified and officially never happened.
18:17They took him over the satellite states, perhaps also over the Soviet Union.
18:25Soviet MiGs tried to catch the B-36, but they couldn't.
18:29It flew too high for them.
18:30One of the navigators says, hey, there's some fighters down there coming up.
18:38We weren't thinking anything about it, you know.
18:41And they were heading our way like this, he says, and they couldn't quite make it.
18:47They mushed around there for a while.
18:51These flights produced aerial photographs for new maps of the Soviet Union,
18:56locating the major targets for a possible nuclear war.
19:00Until then, the US Air Force had worked with outdated German maps
19:05based on Nazi reconnaissance photographs taken before their attack on the Soviet Union in 1941.
19:15So, for the Soviets, they were particularly sensitive to any flights over their nation.
19:20Some of them, I'm sure, were thinking that's possibly the prelude to war.
19:25On the other hand, the United States suffered Pearl Harbor.
19:30And Pearl Harbor was caused by a lack of knowledge.
19:33Again, the Americans knew next to nothing.
19:37But they believed the gross exaggerations of Soviet propaganda.
19:411954, Aviation Day flight pass at Tushinov.
19:44The Soviets showed off their new bomber, the Myasichev Bison.
19:49Was it combat-ready? How many were there?
19:52That could only be found out by daylight photo reconnaissance.
19:56This dangerous job was given to a US squadron based in England
20:01and recently equipped with modern jets.
20:04As we came out of the briefing room, Colonel Joe Preston grabbed me by the arm and said,
20:08bring your crew with me.
20:11So, we followed our wing commander to another place in the same building
20:15where we had target study rooms.
20:18Hal Austin was told the operational details with typical military brevity.
20:23He says, I do not want you to keep a separate log, as Navigator always did.
20:28He says, you write that down on this map.
20:31I don't want you writing any place else.
20:32And if anything happens to you on this mission, you are to eat that map.
20:39Austin was told to overfly and photograph nine Soviet bomber bases.
20:44What did he think when he was given this mission?
20:47World War III.
20:49That was the uppermost of our training through that whole timeframe.
20:54So, when we get to 1954 and we get our new airplanes,
20:57we're all anxious to get combat ready in that new airplane.
21:01We're in England and then we're given this mission to fly.
21:05And, you know, after the fact, we're kind of wondering,
21:10well, maybe the purpose of that mission was to start World War III.
21:13I don't know.
21:17We're professionals.
21:18That's what General May trained us to do.
21:22When somebody told us what the mission was,
21:23we're going to listen to that mission,
21:26and never any thought of doing anything except flying the mission
21:30as we're brief to fly.
21:32Three jets headed for Norway, like a normal training flight.
21:36When two planes turned back,
21:38their crews were horrified to see Austin flying on
21:41in the direction of the Soviet Union.
21:43A short while later, he reached the coast.
21:46At first, all went well.
21:48They took the first photos.
21:49About the time we crossed the third target,
21:56it was when we saw the first fighters.
21:58And they were apparently MiG-15s.
22:02They were nowhere near our altitude.
22:05The MiGs can even be seen in Austin's reconnaissance photographs.
22:09But his bomber could fly higher than the MiG-15s.
22:12What neither Austin nor the intelligence officers who planned his flight knew,
22:19was that the Soviets had stationed a new fighter plane in the area,
22:23the MiG-17.
22:25It could fly just as high as the Boeing.
22:27These MiGs came within firing range.
22:29I saw some funny-looking things going both above and below the airplane that were tracers.
22:37And, of course, I knew what tracers looked like from film.
22:41But that's the first time I'd actually seen one.
22:43And Holton was saying, well, they're making passes at us.
22:46I made a couple of snide remarks about that intelligence officer
22:50that told us not to worry about MiG-17s.
22:51Heaven is yelling at me in the nose to make my corrections headings to get that next target.
23:02Shrapnel then knocked out our intercom.
23:05It was riddled, if you will, with holes.
23:08In a damaged plane that was losing fuel, Austin continued his mission.
23:13Shook off the MiGs, photographed the remaining targets, and got as far as Finland.
23:17He was in urgent need of fuel and called for a tanker over his shot-up radio.
23:22The tanker pilot at the British base could barely hear him.
23:29So he heard our call sign, recognized my voice.
23:32He called the tower at Milton Hall, said he was going to launch,
23:36make an emergency launch to refuel a B-47.
23:39The tower said negative that he could not launch
23:43because we have an emergency in progress.
23:44A fighter plane in difficulties wanted to land.
23:48The tanker pilot objected.
23:51I'm declaring an emergency to launch this airplane.
23:54So how long?
23:56And the fighter come back, said about five minutes.
23:59He said, give me time to get off.
24:01He said, total tower, he says, I am taking off.
24:04Despite the air traffic controller's threats,
24:07the tanker pilot took off and found Austin over the North Sea in the nick of time.
24:10Holt swears to this day that all the fuel gauges had quit wiggling
24:17by the time we leveled off behind the tanker.
24:22The photos were safe.
24:24They would prove that the Bison bomber did not yet pose a threat.
24:27Frankfurt and Wiesbaden were home to the 7499 support group.
24:38Its harmless name belied its role as one of the most important units of American spy planes.
24:43Crammed with recording devices, the aircraft monitored radio communications, radar positions and Soviet infrastructure.
24:55A kind of electronic vacuum cleaner that picked up everything.
24:59One of the specialists on board was Robert Keefe, aged 20.
25:04People in my outfit who were 22, we thought of as rather old.
25:10And people at that age don't have the sense of imminent danger.
25:19I'd like to say that they don't have brains enough, but it's not...
25:23Life is too new.
25:25I mean, you know, life is not going to end when you're 19.
25:29It's impossible.
25:30It was exciting to know that we were flying in areas where we weren't particularly safe.
25:40And in aircraft that were old.
25:44And the aircraft themselves weren't particularly safe at that time.
25:48Oh, look, the engine's on fire.
25:51That's interesting.
25:56I know it sounds a little stupid, but it was fun.
26:00And until, until, until 20% of my outfit got killed, I enjoyed myself.
26:09The unit was given new planes, the Hercules, for a special mission.
26:15My best friend was part of that crew.
26:20And in a very real sense, took over what had been my job.
26:24Electronic reconnaissance along the Turkish-Soviet border.
26:29The Hercules had orders to fly between the Trabzon and Van radio beacons,
26:34and to keep the Soviets under surveillance.
26:36But the crew were not familiar with the new plane and mistakenly headed for the radio beacon at Yerevan,
26:47which transmitted on the same frequency.
26:49Our people in Darmstadt watched this plane missed Trabzon by maybe as much as 50 miles.
27:01And they watched it for nearly half an hour, I think, head toward what they knew was going to be destruction.
27:10They had no radio contact and couldn't warn the Hercules that Soviet air defense was scrambling.
27:18Fighter planes took off and waited just over the border.
27:25The unarmed plane was easy prey.
27:29Original footage taken by Soviet MiG cameras.
27:36The Hercules went down within sight of the border.
27:39About 2 o'clock in the morning, I was woken up in my barracks and told that that plane had gone down.
27:53There was no indication given to us that the plane had been shot down.
27:58That it had gone down probably in the Atlas Mountains in eastern Turkey.
28:04And that a crew of us were going to be sent down to look for it.
28:09We were in shock.
28:14Bob Keefe was with the search party, sent to look for survivors.
28:20One of my strongest memories is of the flight down.
28:23And of us just sitting, about five of us, saying, you know,
28:27OK, we'll find them, we'll get them.
28:29We're going to see something shining in one of these valleys.
28:34And we're going to go down and we're going to get them, and they're going to be very grateful.
28:38But the search party was purposely sent to the wrong area.
28:42High-ranking officers prepared a cover story, while the men desperately searched for their missing comrades,
28:48far from where they'd been shot down.
28:54I remember walking up.
28:56I remember walking off and crying.
28:58You don't, at that age, let anybody see you crying.
29:03You can't be a man and cry.
29:05When the crew got back to Frankfurt, their rooms had been cleared out.
29:10Papers had been destroyed and all traces of them removed.
29:14As if the unit had never existed.
29:16My feeling is they used me as a puppet.
29:21And used people like me as a puppet.
29:25To buy time for themselves.
29:28To make up some damned lie about what happened.
29:32The IG Farben building in Frankfurt.
29:36CIA European Headquarters.
29:39Here the cover story was cooked up.
29:41The spy mission became a navigational training flight that strayed off course.
29:44My second best friend among the group who was on that plane was married, had a two-year-old child maybe.
29:56And his wife was five months pregnant.
29:59And I raised my hand and I asked how we could see them.
30:05Because I wanted to express my sympathy.
30:08I mean, I didn't know anything, I couldn't tell her anything.
30:11I could just say, I'm horrified.
30:15And my feelings are with you.
30:20And we were forbidden.
30:22Military intelligence threatened the men with ten years in jail and a $10,000 fine if they spoke out.
30:32After about two or three weeks, I wrote a petition.
30:36Saying that the refusal to let us talk to the wives and the refusal to tell anybody, including us, anything like the truth about what happened, was absolutely the wrong way to go.
30:54I said, I think, I said, that you're destroying people's lives by doing what you're doing.
31:02Keefe's commanding officers threatened to court-martial him and forced him to tear up his petition in their presence.
31:12I didn't know that my government would do that.
31:15My government at that point was a captain and a few people above him.
31:20I didn't know that Americans did that sort of thing.
31:23I thought that only Russians did that sort of thing.
31:28Shortly afterwards, Keefe volunteered for further missions in Turkey.
31:32I don't have a heroic bone in my body, but I can't explain why I had to. I had to.
31:42Yeah, I can explain.
31:46I felt I should have been on the plane that got shot down.
31:50And so I figured, OK, we'll give them another shot at us.
31:53Keefe was not shot down, but he was marked forever by the events.
32:041956. In Wiesbaden, the game of aerial chess continued.
32:09An Air Force General inspects reconnaissance planes of the 4799 support group for Operation Heartthrob.
32:16A high-altitude plane loaded with cameras violated the airspace of Soviet satellite states several times.
32:32An original photograph from a mission over Yugoslavia.
32:39From Bitburg, the same unit flew similar missions,
32:42now flying the Americans' first supersonic jets.
32:49The Soviet Air Force had no equivalent fighter-interceptor.
32:53And the aircraft would launch out of Bitburg and climb to altitude,
32:59you know, quite high,
33:01and then penetrate as fast as he could,
33:03and then get the hang back out as fast as he could.
33:07In Wiesbaden, the CIA had its own planes.
33:10Their operations are secret to this day.
33:14They were flown by pilots from the Eastern Bloc country.
33:18A photo taken in Wiesbaden is the only proof that the mysterious RB-69 ever flew out of Germany.
33:26Just seven planes were built, especially for the CIA.
33:30It's not only for the uselessness,
33:36but rather for the stupidness
33:42against its own,
33:45maybe,
33:48well,
33:49...não...
33:51...não...
33:53...não desenvolvimento no campo de proteção de arqueológica.
33:58Em Alemanha, os Estados Unidos, ao mesmo tempo,
34:01...embarquei no novo operação, Moby Dick.
34:04Automatic cameras, como um refrigeração,
34:07... foram lançados, suspensos de centenas de balões.
34:11Eles derrotaram lentamente por a União Soviética
34:13... de 16 quilômetros.
34:19Quando eles chegaram na costura do pacífico, alguns dias depois,
34:23os camadas detetaram-se de um balão de um rádio comandante.
34:27Sabele-equipedos-planes então recuperaram os camadas
34:30as eles descançaram-se por um parâchuteio.
34:41Os fotos eram principalmente de terrenos,
34:44de forestas e de wastes.
34:46Os balões derrotaram sem guidance.
34:49The Soviets also shot many of them down when they lost altitude at night.
34:59They demonstrated their booty at an international press conference.
35:04This media interest was probably part of Washington's plans.
35:09Several things don't add up.
35:12For example, the balloons could easily have flown at an altitude of 25 km,
35:16far higher than any aircraft.
35:18So why didn't they?
35:22Eisenhower ordered that the balloons be ballasted not to fly above 50,000, 55,000 feet,
35:28which was the altitude of the military aircraft.
35:31He did not want the Soviets preparing or initiating research projects
35:37to shoot things down at high altitude.
35:40Because the U-2 was nearly ready,
35:43a high-altitude reconnaissance plane developed and operated by the CIA,
35:48Air Force General LeMay opposed the U-2 in favour of continuing to send converted bombers
35:54over the Soviet Union.
35:56But the CIA got their way.
35:57It was their contention that this enterprise of flying over the denied territory, as it was called,
36:09really wasn't a business that you could entrust to converted bombers,
36:14and nor, indeed, entirely to the military.
36:20General LeMay, shortly before the U-2 began flying,
36:23ordered the Cold War's most provocative operation, Home Run.
36:28From Thule in Greenland, 156 missions were flown over the Soviet Union
36:33in planes that might have carried atomic bombs.
36:37Sometimes, they even flew in formation.
36:41Some historians believe LeMay wanted to start World War III.
36:45Not long afterwards, President Eisenhower forbade all American Air Force flights over the Soviet Union.
36:51The meetings in the White House to discuss how do we answer the Soviet protests for Home Run
36:57was to say that because of the far north magnetic pole and the navigational problems,
37:04that if it were true that some planes had strayed into Soviet territory during training exercises,
37:11it was most regretted and it occurred because of navigational errors and so forth.
37:16The Soviet Air Force was powerless, compelled to recognize it could not defend its own country,
37:24a humiliating realization.
37:26They entered into our territory, sometimes entered into our territory, sometimes didn't,
37:31but they received a picture of our radio-location network.
37:35And they realized in the middle, that in the north, there was a very weak defense.
37:40In July 1956, the CIA put the U-2 into service.
37:54It was stationed at Wiesbaden.
37:57Only the CIA was now allowed to fly over the Soviet Union
38:00and then only on the personal order of the President.
38:04Detachment A of the CIA was relocated to Germany under top secrecy.
38:09One of the biggest concerns that the CIA had was having to base the U-2 at Wiesbaden,
38:19which was a base where they had other covert operations going on.
38:25They didn't like that one bit because the U-2 was being run as a very tightly held
38:33and tightly compartmented operation, even within the CIA.
38:39The U-2 could fly higher than any other plane of its time.
38:44It carried the best camera in the world and specially designed film.
38:514th of July 1956.
38:53On orders from President Eisenhower, CIA pilot Herbie Stockman was to find out
38:59whether the Soviets had more bombers than the USA.
39:01Both the Soviets and the American military, in rare consensus, claimed this was true.
39:07Stockman knew only which route he was to take.
39:10We were essentially drivers.
39:13We were good pilots.
39:16We were trustworthy.
39:19And that's the way they wanted us to be.
39:24Don't get in our way.
39:25Don't ask too many questions.
39:27And I accepted that.
39:29The Soviets detected the U-2, but they were powerless
39:32and had to watch it photograph their secret bases
39:35from high above Soviet fighters.
39:39One of the questions I asked myself,
39:42but not in any sort of a penetrating fashion,
39:45was, where is this threat, you know?
39:48The U-2's photos were sensational.
39:51The photos showed how weak the Soviet Air Force was.
40:07All the menacing talk about the bomber gap
40:09and Soviet superiority was just propaganda.
40:16When Gary Powers took off in 1960,
40:19the U-2's had already been flying
40:21two years longer than originally planned.
40:25According to the CIA,
40:26the Soviets had been able to shoot them down since 1958.
40:30On May 1st, 1960, it happened.
40:45Khrushchev tried to exploit the shooting down
40:48for propaganda purposes and arranged a show trial.
40:52Powers had not used his poisoned needle to commit suicide.
40:56The American military still take this badly.
41:01An irony of fate.
41:04On the day Powers was sentenced,
41:05the USA launched its first spy satellite.
41:09The era of over-flights was over.
41:16But electronic reconnaissance continued.
41:19This special R version of the B-47
41:22was so secret that there is no film of it in flight.
41:27Crammed with electronic spying devices,
41:30it flew parallel to Soviet territory
41:32and sometimes over it.
41:39With electronic intelligence,
41:40what you're trying to do
41:41is to come up with a method
41:43of getting you to that target
41:44and hopefully getting you back out of it.
41:47You have to build an effective defense
41:49to overcome their defenses.
41:52The RB-47 was a high-tech machine
41:55and an improvisation.
41:59You're sitting up front in the aisle three of you
42:01in a space normally occupied by one man
42:04and you're wearing a five-inch thick back parachute
42:07and water wings and a helmet
42:09and then more clothing,
42:11which makes it even harder.
42:13You have to go down a very small chute
42:14on this ladder that had a faulty latch on it
42:17and find your way into the crawlway.
42:20Now, getting up from your position
42:22was a real chore,
42:24but getting into the crawlway was an art.
42:26You really had to work at it
42:28and then make your way down the crawlway
42:29without snagging anything
42:31and popping your parachute
42:32or initiating your water wings.
42:34When you got to the end of the crawlway,
42:36you laid flat on your belly
42:37and went through the small hatch
42:39into the compartment.
42:41And that was relished
42:42because it was the only time
42:43in the place in that airplane
42:44that you could stretch out
42:45because once you got in the compartment,
42:47it was four feet high
42:48and you couldn't stand
42:49or even squat good anymore,
42:51so you were pretty crowded
42:52and confined from then on.
42:56The Soviets intercepted
42:58the reconnaissance planes
42:59and escorted them,
43:01at times dangerously close.
43:04Sometimes they attacked.
43:07If they thought we were
43:08getting in the wrong area
43:09or getting information
43:11they didn't want to lose,
43:13then they would have the fighters
43:15either chase us off
43:15or try to destroy us.
43:17Then there was only one thing for it.
43:20We used the tactic
43:21of getting around on the deck
43:23at maximum speed
43:24and running from them.
43:25Close to sea level,
43:26the missile's guidance system
43:28didn't work
43:29and the fighters
43:30didn't have enough fuel
43:31for a flat-out chase
43:32over the sound barrier.
43:34The airplane went beyond Buffett
43:37where you got no ailerons
43:39and then aileron reversal
43:40and we were doing
43:42everything we could
43:43to stay alive.
43:47We landed the airplane
43:49that was crusted with salt
43:50on all the leading edges
43:51and the wings had warped so badly
43:56that they couldn't remove
43:57the outboard engines.
43:59It was one of many
44:01highly dangerous missions
44:02which have remained secret
44:03until now.
44:07The American pilots
44:09did not always manage to escape.
44:11July 1960.
44:12An electronic reconnaissance plane
44:18flew from England
44:19to Murmansk.
44:22As we came up
44:24to the turning point
44:25the copala suddenly said
44:27check, check, check,
44:29right wing.
44:31I determined the type of planes
44:33and the stability of the government
44:36and the American pilots
44:39to leave.
44:49Pollyakov instructed
44:49the bomber
44:50to follow him.
44:55Without any warning
45:00started firing his cannon
45:02at our aircraft
45:03and the cannon shells
45:05at the number two
45:05and three engines.
45:06A segunda parte, quando foi lançado, o avião já se abençou com água, e ele começou a virar em sua ilusão, com a diminuição.
45:36Alarm bells rang
45:38Then I saw a fire coming down
45:40From the aisle behind me
45:42Then I heard an explosion behind me
45:44Which sounded like the canopy of the airplane
45:46Leaving
45:47And then I heard another explosion
45:49And I figured
45:51Time to get out of this mother
45:52At 14,000 feet
45:59Where my chute opened automatically
46:01And then I saw this beautiful blue sea
46:04And I was born and raised in Kansas
46:07I was never around the ocean
46:08And I had no idea what an ocean was like
46:11And it was 65 degrees Fahrenheit or so
46:15So it was fairly warm
46:17But we were also told
46:19By our intelligence officer
46:20That the water was 33 degrees up there
46:24Besides McCone
46:26Only Olmsted, the co-pilot, survived
46:29The pilot
46:30And three electronic specialists died
46:33They said 18 minutes
46:35As long as you'd last
46:37In calm water
46:39And I was out there
46:42Not for 18 minutes
46:43But six hours
46:44McCone fought for his life
46:47And started to pray
46:48All of a sudden
46:50Right off the end of my dinghy
46:52I could almost reach out and touch it
46:54It was so close
46:55It was this terribly bright light
46:57And it was so bright
47:00That I had to shield my eyes from it
47:02And put my hands up like this
47:04And I knew
47:07That that was the Holy Spirit
47:09I know that God was with me
47:12And all of a sudden
47:14Nobody spoke to me
47:15But I knew
47:17At that particular time
47:18That John McCone
47:20Would be saved
47:22That I'd be rescued
47:24And that everything was going to be all right
47:27Then a Soviet trawler
47:30Zigzagged through the crash area
47:32McCone yelled and waved
47:34And was spotted
47:35The co-pilot was rescued too
47:38I was putting the Lubyanka
47:58And put it in a solitary cell
48:00The door was a solid wooden door
48:03With a little Judas hole
48:04As we call it on it
48:05So when they shut that door
48:07You were almost in a soundproof cell
48:09And that was kind of eerie
48:11They had women in solitary there
48:14They had children in solitary
48:16And sometimes they'd go in
48:19And beat these people
48:20And they'd scream and holler
48:22And I remember that there was a fellow
48:24Next to me in the adjoining shell
48:27And he started losing his mind
48:31And he'd run up against the cell door
48:34And you'd hear him
48:35P-p-p-p-pow
48:36You know, I hit that door
48:38And then
48:38P-p-p-pow
48:39A 300 watt light bulb
48:43Prevented deep sleep
48:45A subtle method of torture
48:46I figured that it might be a long stay
48:50And that I'd be prepared for that
48:53So I would do all kinds of physical exercises myself
48:56I'd do maybe up to 50 push-ups
48:59You'd count all the hairs from your elbow
49:02And up to your wrist
49:04Just to have something to do
49:07You'd daydream too, of course
49:09About your childhood days
49:12And when you went fishing
49:14And all this business
49:15And you had to watch that
49:17Because that's why you kind of feel yourself
49:20Going over the edge of reality
49:22Sleep deprivation
49:26Solitary confinement
49:27Starvation
49:28The KGB's gentler methods
49:31Of getting prisoners to talk
49:33The USA publicly demanded
49:35The prisoners release
49:36But McCone didn't know
49:37His world was endless interrogation
49:40And I was interrogated
49:41Four and five hours
49:42As a stretch
49:43With an hour break
49:4424 hours a day
49:45Seven days a week
49:46This went on for a number of weeks
49:49Before I said
49:51Name, rank, service number
49:52And date of birth
49:53Isn't going to do it
49:54Endless interrogations
49:58After months of solitary confinement
50:00He met his co-pilot again
50:02For the first time
50:03He lost about 70 pounds
50:06I lost about 70 pounds
50:07He looked at me
50:08And I looked at him
50:09And we didn't even recognize each other
50:11And finally
50:14I saw something familiar
50:16About his eyes
50:16And I said
50:17Are you Bruce Homestead?
50:20And he looked at me
50:21And burst out in tears
50:22And ran over
50:23And gave me a big bear hug
50:25And kissed
50:26And he said
50:26Yes, thank God
50:28It's John McCone
50:29Finally, after seven months
50:32McCone was released
50:33As an inaugural gift
50:35For the new president
50:36John F. Kennedy
50:37McCone was lucky
50:39Many remained missing
50:40Were there other survivors?
50:44We looked at another case
50:46The downing of the privateer
50:47In 1950
50:48One document
50:50Has been overlooked
50:51For more than 50 years
50:53A German prisoner of war's report
50:56To the CIA
50:56In the Vorkuta Gulag
51:00The German met a pilot
51:01Who called himself
51:02Waterwolf
51:03Was this a play on
51:05Sea Sheep?
51:06Seeshaft in German
51:07The missing American Howard
51:09Seeshaft
51:10The report's description
51:12Of Waterwolf
51:13Matches Seeshaft
51:15And there were other similarities
51:17Waterwolf said he had flown
51:21From Berlin to Moscow
51:22Both true and false
51:23Seeshaft flew from Germany
51:25To the Soviet Union
51:26Waterwolf said he had been born
51:31In Japan
51:31True and false
51:33Seeshaft fought in the Second World War
51:35Against the Japanese
51:37Was Japan
51:39Where Seeshaft
51:40Stopped being a civilian
51:41To become
51:41Waterwolf
51:42The soldier
51:43Could Seeshaft have survived
51:48Being shot down?
51:50The Soviet pilot's report
51:51At the time
51:52Was unambiguous
51:53He said the privateer
51:55Had exploded
51:56In the air
51:57Now he tells the truth
51:59On camera
51:59For the first time
52:00And the commandment
52:02And the commandment
52:02They brought him
52:03On the paper
52:04And the letter
52:05And the letter
52:06And the letter
52:07An officer dictated the official report
52:11No survivors
52:12A deliberate lie
52:14Os carasos aparearam. Os carasos aparearam para o terra.
52:20Eles nos mandaram para o carro, não se preocupe, fazer o trabalho.
52:27Eu percebi que o número de carasos era de dezesseis.
52:34Tudo estava pronto para os americanos, até os barcos de rescate.
52:38Mas por que Garasimov deu uma teoria falsa para uma commissione-americana
52:42American Commission in 1993 a mistake it's still unclear whether there were
53:09American spy pilots in the Vukhuta camp we took our findings to the Russian American Commission
53:15investigating the fate of missing servicemen but they refused to give us an interview
53:23why have the men in the gulag been secretly abandoned one former soldier tells of his own
53:29bitter experiences I believe that bureaucracies can be incredibly destructive and I believe that
53:37military that national military systems are the ultimate bureaucracy and and a bureaucracy which
53:47is which has guns and another bureaucracy which has the absolute ability to remain secret and not tell
54:00anything it doesn't want to tell those are two very dangerous bureaucracies the struggle for air
54:07supremacy was top secret we know it claimed men's lives but among the missing were some sacrifice to
54:14to a more important cause the military would like that to stay a secret forever
54:21so
54:24so
54:28so
54:30so
54:31so
54:33so
54:34so
54:35so
54:36you
54:51you
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