R.G. Ainslee's Blog, page 2
November 3, 2018
November - This Month in the Cold War
2 November 1962 - President John F. Kennedy announced, "the Soviet bases in Cuba are being dismantled, their missiles and related equipment being crated, and the fixed installations at these sites are being destroyed."
3 November 1957 – The Soviet Union launched the world's first space capsule, Sputnik II, containing a dog named Laika.
4 November 1956 - Soviet troops moved in to crush an uprising in Hungary.
4 November 1979 - Iranian militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Teheran, Iran, and took...
October 12, 2018
October - This Month in the Cold War
October 6, 1973 - The Yom Kippur War started as Egypt and Syria launched attacks on Israeli positions on the East Bank of the Suez and the Golan Heights.
October 6, 1978 - Iranian religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini was granted asylum in France after being expelled from Iran for his opposition to the Shah.
October 6, 1981 - Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was assassinated in Cairo by Muslim fundamentalists while watching a military parade. He had signed an American-sponsored peace accord with Is...
October 7, 2018
Iran 1973
End of October 1973, near Esendere, Turkey. The border was less than a mile away. We stopped by a stream to clean up before entering Iran. Little did I know that less than six years later, this would be the site of a dramatic escape from revolutionary Iran by employees of EDS, Ross Perot's computer services company. That story was chronicled in Ken Follett's book, On Wings of Eagles. Naturally, it had to serve as a location in the Raven-One Team thriller, The Caspian Intercept, to be released...
September 30, 2018
Afghanistan 1973
The 1970's was the golden age of overland travel. The world was far from an ideal place, but one could go in relative safety to exotic off-the beaten track destinations. Many of these places soon became war zones and closed to most overland travelers. The Hippie Trail from Istanbul to Kathmandu was the most traveled. Afghanistan was the most primitive and exotic part of the journey.
November 1973, I arrived in Afghanistan a few weeks after the end of the Yom Kippur War. The country had been at...
September 25, 2018
The Iranian Intercept
Ross Brannan is back in the third novel in the Secret Cold War Series.
December 1978: Rogue scientist J. Andrew Marsden escapes from prison in Mexico. Colonel Wilson, director of the top-secret Special Signals Research Project, sends Ross to Nepal to interview a woman who may have worked with Marsden on his ground-breaking air defense concept. Wilson sold the trip to Ross as a routine mission, in and out. But he knows he's Yoyo, like in you're-on-your-own. What could go wrong?
The woman, a H...
August 31, 2018
September - This Month in the Cold War
09/04/54 A US Navy P2V Neptune, with a crew of ten was shot down by Soviet fighters 40 miles off the Siberian coast. Nine crewmembers were rescued by US forces. The aircraft's navigator was missing and presumed dead. The Soviet Union claimed the plane entered Soviet airspace and fired on Soviet aircraft. The charges were rejected by the United States.
September 9, 1948 - Following the withdrawal of Soviet forces from North Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was proclaimed with Py...
July 30, 2018
August - This Month in the Cold War
August 7, 1964 - Following an attack on two U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin off North Vietnam, the U.S. Congress approved the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, granting President Lyndon B. Johnson authority "to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression."
August 13, 1961 - The Berlin Wall came into existence after the East German government closed the border between east and west sectors of Berlin with barbed w...
July 22, 2018
Alan Furst's Night Soldiers Series
I just finished reading Alan Furst's "The Foreign Correspondent," the ninth book in his Night Soldiers series. Furst is a writer of historical spy novels. The New York Times calls him “America’s preeminent spy novelist.
The Foreign Correspondent is an enjoyable read, tense, mysterious, with sharp, capitative writing. The reader is led through the darkness and intrigue to present a compelling depiction Europe on the eve of WWII.
Furst excels at characterization. His characters are not superheroe...
July 15, 2018
Addis Ababa: An Excerpt from the Ethiopian Intercept
Here is a another sample from The Ethiopian Intercept. Ross Brannan, travelling on a Canadian passport, is on his way to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. He mission: identify the traitor J. Andrew Marsden for a CIA team. Their job: capture and interrogate him and bring him home if necessary.
Saturday, 18 February 1978: In Flight to Ethiopia
The flight from Nairobi was uneventful until, just before we landed, an announcement from the pilot: "We regret all passengers will be required to disembark at Addi...
July 8, 2018
Excerpt from the Ethiopian Intercept: Rescue mission
Here is a sample from The Ethiopian Intercept. Ross Brannan and two defense attaches from the Nairobi embassy are en route to the Sudan on a rescue mission. They are flying in a Pilatus Porter single-engine turboprop and land to refuel. Lake Rudolf has since been renamed Lake Turkana.
Tuesday, 21 February 1978: Northern Kenya
The green jade waters of Lake Rudolf stretched off to our left. A small bush camp: two Land Rovers and about a half dozen safari tents lay to the right, the only sign of...
