Thanks to Wikipedia, here's a shot of the bridge and surrounding area. Been on the bridge myself, not as an exchange of course, but didn't manage to capture a picture of it. Reporters dubbed the structure Spy Exchange Bridge because during the Cold War it was used as such three times.Now let's talk about the principal characters here. You might be familiar with Gary Power and the story of his plane being shot down on May 1, 1960. He was captured live, confessed to spying, all quite controversial, of course. Not surprisingly, Mr Kruzhchev enjoyed surprising President Eisenhower with that news and he positively relished announcing the capture on May 1st to the dignitaries gathered in Moscow. You might be interested in my earlier post, May Day Memories: The U-2 Spy Plane Incident. There is posted video about that incident, thanks to YouTube.
By the way, last summer I met a woman at our Christian Singing School in Donetsk, who happened as a child to witness Gary Power's plane being shot down. She was on her way to the neighborhood grocery store when she saw an explosion in the sky in their village near Ekaterineburg. Later on the news she learned that it was an American plane.
The Russian spy was known as Rudolph Abel. A hollowed-out nickel was part of the puzzle that eventually led to his capture. He had worked as a master spy in the US for nine years.
Here's a bit of video footage about his capture.
The Russian spin on this story is quite interesting. It's available at this site, all in Russian, of course, but translating it is quite easy: To do so, go to this Google site (That's http://translate.google.com), which you might want to open it in another window.) Once there, plug in the address of the Russian language site, select languages - Russian to English - and it's done in an instant. Isn't technology marvelous?
Here's the New York Times article about the spy exchange in 1962. Registration might be required to read that story, but if you're as fascinated as I am with Cold War drama and intrigue, it's certainly worth it.
How about you, dear blog reader. Have any interesting spy stories to share? Please do so. It's just us here, you know. . . ;)
2 comments:
Zondervan has recently published an interesting (but fictional) spy story which I enjoyed: The Black Sea Affair by Don Brown.
It sets up the potential of nuclear war between Russia and the USA in the current post cold war environment, starting with terrorists who seize Russian plutonium, and an American sub entering the Black Sea to stop them. The fate of a dozen Ukrainian orphans, their teacher (and the entire world) hangs in the balance. The story showcases the Christian values of a couple key characters. But it's a race against the clock, with Russian missiles activated and programmed for American cities and a terrorist threat hanging over St. Petersberg.
David, this sounds so interesting - published by Zondervan, no less! I'm going to need to check on this book, The Black Sea Affair. Thanks for suggesting it!
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