Point of view of an American.
Im sure you have all heard the tales and theories of the DP incident somehow entangled with cold war spies, espionage and perhaps it even being used as a propaganda tool, I know I have. I am former military and have an extensive military family background. I also have a keen interest in history, wars, weaponry and the like. You may not know this, but I own and operate a rather large and popular firearms forum and own in excess of 60 (mostly historical) firearms from all over the world.
That being said, when I first started to dabble in the DPI incident it was out of basic curiosity of the unknown. Having a mother in-law that is Russian, I asked her opinion on what she thinks happened to the DP group. Her response was interesting in that apparently she had grown up somewhere not far from where it happened (don’t ask me where because I don’t remember). She then continued to explain how there was no doubt in her mind that it was the fault of US spies that killed them after not handing over some state secret. She went on to explain how the US spies were trained to crush chest cavities bla bla bork bork. My first reaction was to chuckle, but as it dawned on me that she wasn’t joking, my laughter turned to sympathy. Let me explain… I had realized that cold war propaganda was a real thing and its effect was standing right in front of me. Hey, I get it.. both sides of the cold war liked to play their adversary as the boogie man to their advantage and still do to this day, however, this was a bit out there. I mean, we have people go missing all the time in the US and even die in the wilderness, but nobody not even the government ever uses it as a propaganda tool to stow fear in Americans about their adversaries. No, this is evidence of a whole different level of conditioning or perhaps grooming of a populous to be so fearful.
What reason on earth would the US have to kill a couple of students and recent grads?
How to build a nuke? Nope… The US figured that out first remember?
What methods and ingredients were used to enrich uranium? Nope… every time Russia set off a nuke the radioisotope signature was sniffed out of the air.
How many bombers the USSR had? Nope… U2 spy plane provided the numbers.
How many ICBMs the USSR had and where they were? Nope, again the U2
To me its just a silly notion that the US would be interested in anything a few kids and a washed up ski instructor had. Does anyone really believe US spies would want to meet in one of the most inhospitable places on the planet, and then kill their assets? I think people vastly underestimate the US capability of obtaining information without murdering some kids that don’t have state secrets to begin with.
It was recently proposed to me that that the Russian officials of the time were keen on the idea that people talking about Ural missile bases and a possible missile explosion because it somehow kept the US on a wild goose chase wasting time and money looking for something with the U2 that didn’t exist. Ok, well let’s explore that a bit more in depth.
The U2 spy plane flew about 30 (that we know of) missions over the USSR in the late 1950s up to the last on May 1st 1960 when one was ‘finally’ shot down over Russia. Thats less then 14 months after the DP incident. So I wonder… when exactly did the rumors begin in Russia involving missiles and Ural missile bases being involved that would prompt the US government to desperately look for a site using up so much time and resources? Were ordinary Russians actually talking about this prior to May 1st 1960?? And if they were, do you really think the US was so far behind the curve that they rushed to waste assets? 30 missions…. most of which occurred prior to 1960. Missions that involved high resolution pictures of nearly every square inch of the USSR from an altitude of 60,000ft. It doesn’t add up.
View from a U2 at cruising altitude of 60,000ft capable of taking high resolution pictures of large sections of a continent during a single pass.
Oh but it doesn’t end there… just a couple years after the U2 there was the Lockeed A-12 that was capable of 3.5 times the speed of sound and sailed at an astonishing 90,000ft! It even carried an unmaned drone on its back….. what do you suppose they did with that in the 1960s!?
delete duplicatesAnd that turned into the SR-71. 🤷🏼♂️. 30,000ft higher then the U2 and it out ran any Russian missile breaking the sound barrier more then 3 times.
Conclusion…
I am of great certainty that some people vastly underestimate the US capabilities to gather information without meeting and killing college students in a freezing blizzard on the top of a mountain in the middle of the night, and by 1960 the US had already plotted every base, every missile, every aircraft with high resolution photography. Thats just the way that it is. No conspiracy required.
Topic: Spies and Propaganda (Read 21971 times)
