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 90 hostages, including 52 Americans. The hostage crisis lasted 444 days.

6 November 1951 - A US Navy P2V Neptune was shot down by Soviet fighters over international waters about 20 miles from Vladivostok.

11 November 1954 – A US Air Force B-29 was shot down by Soviet fighters about 10 miles from the Soviet-controlled Kurile Islands.

9 November 1989 - The Berlin Wall was opened after 28 years.

19 November 1951 - A US Air Force C-47 was shot down by either Hungarian or Romanian antiaircraft fire near the Yugoslav frontier. The aircraft was en route from Munich to Belgrade. The crew survived and were released.

20 November 1990 - The Cold War came to an end during a summit in Paris as leaders of NATO and the Warsaw Pact signed a Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe.

20 November 1962 - The Cuban Missile Crisis concluded. President John F. Kennedy lifted the U.S. Naval blockade of Cuba stating, "the evidence to date indicates that all known offensive missile sites in Cuba have been dismantled."

22 November 1963 - President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas Texas.

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 Israel but had been denounced by other Arab leaders.

October 7, 1949 - The German Democratic Republic came into existence in East Germany. Dominated by Soviet Russia, it lasted until German reunification in 1990.

October 10, 1954 - Ho Chi Minh entered Hanoi, Vietnam, after the withdrawal of French troops, in accordance with armistice terms ending the seven-year struggle between Communist Vietnamese and the French.

October 15, 1964 - Soviet Russia's leader Nikita Khrushchev was deposed as First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev.

October 16, 1964 - China detonated its first nuclear bomb at the Lop Nor test site in Sinkiang.

October 22, 1962 - President John F. Kennedy appeared on television to inform Americans of the existence of Russian missiles in Cuba. The President demanded their removal and announced a naval "quarantine" of Cuba. Six days later, the Russians announced they would remove the weapons. In return, the U.S. later removed missiles from Turkey.

October 23, 1956 - A Hungarian uprising against Communist rule began with students and workers demonstrating in Budapest. Soviet Russians responded by sending in tanks and put down the revolt after several days of bitter fighting.

October 23, 1983 - Terrorists drove a truck loaded with TNT into the U.S. and French headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, exploding it and killing 241 U.S. Marines and 58 French paratroopers.

October 23, 1989 - Hungary declared itself a republic, 33 years after Soviet Russian troops crushed a popular revolt against Communist rule.

October 23, 1990 - Ukrainian Prime Minister Vitaly Masol resigned after mass protests by students, becoming the first Soviet official of that rank to quit under public pressure.

October 25, 1955 - Austria reassumed its sovereignty with the departure of the last Allied forces. The country had been occupied by the Nazis from 1938-45. After World War II, it was divided into four occupation zones by the U.S., Russia, Britain and France.

27 October 1962 - A U-2F, piloted by USAF Major Rudolf Anderson, was shot down by a S-75 Dvina (NATO designation SA-2 Guideline) surface-to-air missile launched from Cuba. Anderson was killed.

28 October 1962 - The Cuban Missile Crisis ended with the announcement by Soviet Russia's leader Nikita Khrushchev that his Soviet government was halting construction of missile bases in Cuba and would remove the offensive missiles. President Kennedy accepted the offer then lifted the U.S. naval blockade of Cuba.

30 October 1956 - A joint British and French force invaded Egypt to regain control of the Suez Canal which had been nationalised by the Egyptian leader Nasser. The British and French were forced to withdraw and a UN peace keeping force was sent to establish order.

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 later in 2018.

I did not go to Tehran, we headed south to Isfahan and Shiraz before crossing the desert to Afghanistan. There was a great contrast between the cities and the countryside in Iran. People in villages live in mud huts, while people in the city were much better off. Iran seemed almost modern compared to Eastern Turkey. Some of the roads were dirt, but they were building new asphalt highways. Premium gasoline cost only 25 cents a gallon. The road signs were in Persian script and only a few signs in English. Even the road numbers were different but not hard to learn. The bread was cooked in a round flat shape like a pizza. A good meal cost about a dollar.

Isfahan was modern, except for the open sewers running between the streets and sidewalks, but at least they are concrete lined. One big treat was milk shakes. A young man had a blender set up on a stool on the sidewalk and you could have a banana shake in a minute. The big movie in town was Duel with Dennis Weaver. The one about the big truck. We camped at the YMCA across the street from a mosque.

Traffic in Isfahan was congested and wild. Taxi rides were seven cents. Took a taxi ride to a market and the driver didn’t slow down for speed bumps and ignored traffic signals and the police. At one major intersection there was lights, a traffic officer on a pedestal in the center of the street. No one including the cop paid attention to the lights, and the drivers completely ignored his directions. Somehow, everyone made it through alive.

The main bazaar in Isfahan was interesting. It was about a mile long and had just about everything one would need. Lots of stuff from China, including hand painted thermos bottles with pandas and rural scenes. One of these plays a major role in The Caspian Intercept. Isfahan was a beautiful city.

The Yom Kippur War had been over only a few weeks before and I still didn't know what had happened. The English language newspaper, The Tehran Times, was available and provided an abbreviated account of the aftermath. The paper always seemed to have a front-page story about the Shah or his family. I was told it was required.

Every town had a traffic circle with a bust of the Shah in the center. Another strange thing was a picture of the Shah emerging from a cloud, placed over almost every exit in buildings. The military had a strange combination of Soviet and American equipment. My favorite was the Soviet Gaz-69 jeep-like vehicle. It is featured in The Iranian Intercept and The Caspian Intercept.

I also visited Shiraz and the ruins of an old Persian Palace at Persepolis, just north of the city. It was 2,500 years old and parts had been restored. The sound and light show was impressive.

Kerman was something of a disappointment. I had expected to see what had described as the last preindustrial city, but since he had been there it had been seen some progress. Lots of traffic. Later. In Herat, Afghanistan, I was able to visit a real pre-industrial city.

We left Kerman and headed north into the Dasht-e Lut desert, a large salt desert, one of the hottest and driest places on earth during the summer. Since it was late fall, it was cold at night and I purchased a crude cotton stuffed quilt in a village market.

I liked Iran, the people were friendly and there was evidence of economic progress, but beneath the surface, I sensed the days of the Shah's reign were numbered. I figured the military would eventually take over. I was wrong.

Desert Caravan

Shiraz Old Friday Mosque

Persepolis

Kerman

Isfahan

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 Pyongyang as its capital.

September 9, 1976 - Longtime leader of Communist China, Chairman Mao Zedong, died. As a Chinese revolutionary soldier and statesman, he proclaimed the People's Republic of China in 1949 in Beijing.

September 12, 1953 - Nikita Khrushchev was elected First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR.

September 12, 1974 - Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, was deposed by an army coup after 44 years as ruler.

September 12, 1990 - A treaty was signed by East and West Germany and the Allies of World War II allowing for the restoration of sovereignty to a re-unified Germany.

09/02/58 A US Air Force RC-130, with a crew of seventeen was shot down by Soviet fighters twenty-four miles inside Soviet Armenia. At first the Soviets denied any knowledge of the incident and later claimed the aircraft had crashed. The remains of 6 crewmembers were returned to US custody on September 24, 1958. The Soviets denied any knowledge of the 11 other crew members. It is possible that this aircraft was lured into Soviet airspace by false navigational signals.

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 wire to discourage emigration to the West. The barbed wire was replaced by a 12-foot-high concrete wall eventually extending 103 miles (166 km) around the perimeter of West Berlin. 

August 19, 1991 - Soviet hard-line Communists staged a coup, temporarily removing Mikhail Gorbachev from power. The coup failed within 72 hours when Boris Yeltsin rallied the Russian people and became the leading power in the country. The Communist Party was banned and by December the Soviet Union disintegrated.

08/23/56 US Navy P4M Martin Mercator was shot down by Chinese fighters, 160 miles north of Taiwan and 32 miles from the Chinese coast. The crew radioed that they were under attack by an aircraft. The Chinese claimed they fired on it believing it to be a Chinese Nationalist aircraft.

August 29, 1991 - Following the unsuccessful coup of August 19-21, the Soviet Communist Party was suspended, thus ending the institution that ruled Soviet Russia for nearly 75 years.

August 31, 1980 - Solidarity, the Polish trade union, was formed at Gdansk, Poland. Led by Lech Walesa, Solidarity opposed Communist rule and was outlawed in 1981. Seven years later, following partially free parliamentary elections. Solidarity candidates scored victories in the elections and gained power, paving the way for the downfall of Communism in Poland.