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Subject: ForeignCorrespondent REVENGE OF HER MAJESTY'S SPOOKS
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Foreign Correspondent
Inside Track On World News
By International Syndicated Columnist & Broadcaster
Eric Margolis <[email protected]>
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REVENGE OF HER MAJESTY'S SPOOKS
by
Eric Margolis 5 Dec 1996
Comrade-in-Chief Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev banged his fist onto
a solid oak table, knocking over bottles of Armenian
mineral water and vodka, and bellowed at the ashen-faced
chiefs of the Soviet aircraft industry: `The Motherland's
honor is a stake. Beat the Concorde! Or you will all be
designing coal mines cars in Siberia!'
Such is the story I'm told by someone who was there. I'm
recalling these events now because a group of US aircraft
companies and NASA have partnered with Russia's Tupelov
aircraft firm to take the old TU-144 supersonic transports
out of mothballs and fly 32 test flights. My advice to the
eager US aviation people is: watch the tests from the
ground. Here's why:
In the late 1950's and early 1960's, the Soviets were
boasting they would shortly overtake America's capitalist
technology. Soviet propaganda dismissed France as a nation
of foppish boulevardiers, and Britain as a degenerate,
toothless old lion.
The `degenerate' British and French stunned and mortified
Moscow by announcing development of a supersonic jet
transport, made with European technology. The outcome of
this project was the exquisite, technologically superb
Concorde, which continues today to fly passengers at twice
the speed of sound.
The Kremlin ordered a crash program to develop a Soviet
supersonic transport, or SST, no matter the cost. The famous
Tupelov design bureau was selected to develop the plane, by
`storming,' if necessary, 24-hours a day, until completion.
Unfortunatly, Tupelov designers couldn't develop a workable
design in the short time given them by the Kremlin.
So KGB was ordered to steal the blueprints of the Concorde.
A score of KGB agents were dispatched to England and France
in a highly complex and expensive mission designed to
infiltrate plants where the Concorde was being built. Such
military-industrial spying is often used by nations trying
to save time, money, or both. Agents of Israel's Mossad,
for example, managed to steal the complete blueprints of the
French Mirage III fighter after Paris refused to supply them
to Israel.
Now comes the fun part- as told to me by the late,
distinguished RAF commander, Air Marshall Menaul. British
counter-intelligence, MI5, according to Menaul, learned of
the Soviet penetration and identified many of the agents
whose haste, and deviation from KGB standard operating
procedures, made them sloppy.
The wicked British got their top aviation engineers to
doctor a set of Concorde plans - so that the aircraft's
center of gravity was too far aft, making it dangerously
unstable, particularly at low speeds. The bogus drawings
were left where they could be purloined by the KGB. A few
days later, the tainted plans were in Moscow.
On Dec 31, 1968, the TU-144 - instantly dubbed `Conkordski'-
made its maiden flight - a few days before the Concorde's
inaugural flight. Chairman Brezhnev was ecstatic.
In 1973, the Soviets triumphantly sent their TU-144 to the
Paris Air Show. There,. before the world's eyes, the
`Conkordski' went out of control and crashed. The horrified
Soviets became the butt of international ridicule. Another
TU-144 crashed outside Moscow in 1978. From 'pride of Soviet
aviation,' the poor TU-144 soon was called, `the supersonic
coffin.'
A few were put into Moscow-Tashkent service, first flying
terrified passengers, then just mail. The `Conkordski' were
taken out of service in 1978 after the second spectacular
accident. I'm sure many toasts were drunken that night in
London at MI5 headquarters.
The new TU-144 flights are being conducted with the
Americans to develop a future, 300-passenger SST. Tupelov
has refurbished some of the aircraft, but I'm uncertain if
the basic design flaw introduced by Her Majesty's spooks has
been corrected. Probably not, leaving the Conkordski
lethally wobbly.
Such is the revenge of British intelligence, served up cold
and lethal - as the best revenge always is.
copyright eric margolis 1996
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