Life in an SSBN

The Day Kennedy Was Shot  

USS Ethan Allen (SSBN 608)

            Here on the fiftieth anniversary of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, those of us who were alive at that time can all recall where we were, and how we reacted.               

            On November 22, 1963, I was Weapons officer in USS Ethan Allen (SSBN608), a fleet ballistic missile submarine.  We carried 16 Polaris A2 missiles with nuclear warheads. We were submerged in the Mediterranean Sea.   These submarines had two crews, Blue and Gold.  I was in the Gold crew, and we had relieved the other crew and then undergone a month of work alongside our tender at Holy Loch Scotland.  We had been underway, submerged, for over a month at this time. 

            One of the agreements in resolving the Missile crisis of 1962, in return for the Soviets to remove their missiles from Cuba, was for the United States to remove its Jupiter missiles from Turkey.  This left targets in the Soviet Union uncovered and so Ethan Allen and other fleet ballistic missile submarines were ordered to pick up those targets, which meant that during part of our deterrent patrols we would have to move into the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
            On a submarine only the officer of the deck regularly looks through the periscope, and then only on rare trips up to periscope depth.  The rest of the time we would cruise at perhaps 200 or 300 feet keel depth.  In those days we used a long floating wire that trailed several thousand feet astern to receive radio signals.  Since our mission was to be able to receive a message from the President ordering launch of our nuclear missiles, we depended upon that wire. 

            These were the days before cell phones and nearly everyone being instantly connected to everyone else.  That wire was all we had.  Each man aboard was entitled to receive about two “Familygrams” during a two-month patrol.  Our families could send us these messages, which were carefully censored.  They were not allowed to send us bad news, because there was nothing we could do about it.  We couldn’t answer back, and only in very vital life-and-death situations aboard the submarine would we ever surface to offload a crewmember. 

            On November 22, 1963 it was seven p.m. aboard our submarine when we received a flash message that President Kennedy had been shot.  We were on Zulu time, six hours ahead of Dallas, when the message arrived.

            No one in our government knew what would come next, and certainly aboard that submarine we knew nothing more!  

                A short time after the news of the shooting, before we had even heard that Kennedy had died, we got a Weapon Systems Readiness Test (WSRT).  These were very real alerts sent to submarines on patrol, meant to test the readiness of the Polaris weapon system. 

Polaris Countdown

             We responded to these tests just as we would for a real attack order; only the Captain and the Executive Officer knew when the message arrived if it were a test, because we were required to bring 16 missiles up to readiness for launch and flight. After the first few minutes we would be ordered to arm the warheads, that are the nuclear tips on each missile, and that was when we would all know it was the real thing.    

            When we heard that the President had been shot, we imagined that the assassination might be part of a large plot by the Soviets, culminating in a nuclear attack on the United States.  For a very scary period of time we didn’t know if we would be ordered to launch missiles for the start of World War III!

            In this case it was indeed a test, and we didn’t arm the nuclear warheads. But it was scary!
            We all know now that the Soviets were not launching an attack, but we didn’t know it then, and things were very tense for several hours.

            In the next several days we were fed news reports which helped us to piece together a fragment of the massive television and newspaper coverage that the rest of the world was getting.  When we returned to Holy Loch in early January 1964 we received our mail, and Time and Life Magazines which reported all about the killing of the President, and then the killing of his assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Kennedy’s funeral and the start of Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration.

            As we flew from Scotland back to Rhode Island, and rode the bus back to our base in New London, Connecticut, we eagerly read our personal mail, and scanned the newspapers and magazines which were loaded with this huge national story.

                My “catching up” on the news now that I was back on dry land had to wait, though, because I took my wife Marty to the Navy hospital to have a little girl.   That little girl is now all grown up, and has a family of her own.

--end--             

How we began....

Arriving in Massachusetts, 1623…..

Puritan Women making dinner, ca. 1630

HISTORY OF SANDY BAY, MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY

       Imagine…you’ve been here in Massachusetts now all summer.  The ship and crew who brought you over from England have gone back, promising to return next spring.

            You and the 13 other men have been cutting timber and building log cabins, and now you have finished harvesting the vegetables you grew.  You’ve been cutting firewood like mad lately, because you think it’s going to be cold this winter in that little cabin.  Even with the 13 men and the cow… and the chickens.

            You’re the only Englishmen you have seen since you arrived.  A few Indians have come by, and one even spoke a little English! 

            You wonder, why is it that you wind up here in what they call “Gloucester Plantation” with not a white soul around, and these Indians show up and one knows some English?  Where do these guys get exposed to English in this God-forsaken, rock-strewn piece of nowhere?

          The year is 1623.  You’ve heard from the Englishmen living down at Plymouth Plantation that winters here are ------ words that Puritans do not use! 

            Back in Dorset Shire, England, a group called themselves the Dorchester Company decided they would gather up their funds and send a boat to the New World.  They gathered £800, enough to buy a small boat and load it up with a crew, and 14 others who would form a new plantation, wherever they landed.  The plan was to land the 14 and some cattle and chickens, and then they would start to build houses and start a small farm.  The sailors would lay out the drying racks (stages) for drying fish, then get to work harvesting all the cod they could carry.  When winter grew near, the boat and crew returned to England, leaving the settlers to settle. 

            Other boats were heading for many other destinations along the New England shoreline in those years.  Some landed at Monhegan Island and began a plantation.  Others at a town they named Saco, also up in what became the Province of Maine.  And nearby, at the mouth of the Piscataqua River, another settlement began. 

            Another settlement sprang up in Nantasket, and Marblehead, and Weymouth. 

            In 1624 the Dorchester Company sent two ships to re-supply and conduct fishing, but they were anxious to make some money, and this colony business was slow music for them.  Imagine—setting these guys up to grow stuff, others to catch fish, in this place called America.  Is it going to be a moneymaker?

            They stayed with it another year. They sent two ships again in 1625.  With some women, more cows, and more chickens. 

            Women.  Imagine.  We should have thought of that before! 

            All this time, more English ships were landing, bringing settlers to the New World.  Plymouth Company, who bankrolled the starving Plymouth Colony, was anxious to provide a little variety amongst those very religious, strait-laced Puritans.  They decided to send the Reverend Lyford, who had religious views a little more liberal than the Plymouth group.  This Rev. Lyford was a nice guy, but he had been caught in what might today be considered an “indiscretion” with a woman not his wife. 

            When he arrived in Puritan Plymouth, he was like the skunk at the picnic.  This band of very religious, very stern and severe men and women would have no part of him.

            Rev. Lyford and the gentleman who was his traveling companion were bounced, and went to Nantasket. 

            Back in England Dorchester Company sought a man of stature to govern the people in Gloucester Plantation, so they chose a notable named Roger Conant.  They sent him to take over as governor.  When Conant arrived in Massachusetts Bay, he heard that Rev. Lyford was looking for a place to settle, so he asked him to join him in Gloucester.

            In those days, in order for any plantation to become viable, in addition to farmers to farm, women to cook and bear children, you needed a minister.  Religion, and a church, were absolutely vital.  Going to church every Sunday, usually all day Sunday, was not optional. 

            Now the small settlement had cattle, farmers, a minister and a governor. These first Gloucester settlers were not Puritans.  In fact, some had had some problems with drunkenness.

            However, by 1625 the Dorchester Company found that the whole venture was a losing proposition and they abandoned it.  Some of the settlers went back to England, and Conant and some of the group picked up everything, including their small homes, and moved to Naumkeag, which is now Salem. 

            More ships were arriving every few weeks, and landing settlers here, there and everywhere, and New England was growing.  While Conant and most of the early arrivals had moved to Salem and to New London, down in what was called Connecticut, more Englishmen arrived in Gloucester and began to carve out farms and send boats to sea to harvest the rich bounty of fish.

            It is interesting to read about the first families of Gloucester, and the amazing mobility of people, up and down the coast.  Many would arrive and live in Gloucester, then move to New London on the Thames River, or to New Gloucester and Yarmouth, in Maine Province.  And people from other settlements would move to Gloucester.

            Richard Tarr and his family arrived at Sandy Bay in a tiny boat in 1690 after sailing from Saco, Maine, then to Marblehead.  He is said to be the first settler of Sandy Bay, which would become the Fifth Parish of Gloucester, and then in 1840 would become Rockport.

Gravestone of Richard Tarr, Rockport’s first citizen, b. Bristol, England, ca.1646, d. Sandy Bay, 1732.

            He and his family lived alone in the little cabin he built, on what is now Main Street. About ten years later John Pool and his wife Sarah and five children moved from Beverly.  This was 1700.  Rockport had just taken off, because John Pool was a man of many talents.  He dammed up Davison’s Run and built a sawmill where the present Mill Dam is.  He had workers dig out the area that is now the Mill Pond.  He built the first frame house in Rockport, and by 1710 was shipping fine hemlock timber down to Boston to build Long Wharf. 

Dam to provide water power for John Pool’s sawmill.

This is the 2013 version. Brass plaque at front right is shown below.

“The Mill Pond—a grist mill privilege granted to John Pool, 2 December 1701.”

            Pool became a rather wealthy man, but his wife Sarah died, and he married another, and she died.  Then another, and she died. Then another, and she lived, and in 1724 John Pool went to his rest and was buried at the foot of King Street, with all his wives. 

            In 1754 there were some 300 people living in Sandy Bay, and they didn’t like walking all the way to Gloucester’s First Parish or to Annisquam’s Third Parish for church every Sunday.  Especially during the snowy months.  They petitioned for a meeting house and a parson, and in 1754 they became the Fifth Parish.

            About this time the disease of throat distemper (now called diphtheria) hit Sandy Bay and other parts of Gloucester. This deadly disease swept through the village, killing children in nearly every family.

Richard Tarr and John Pool walked through this forest, now called the Town Forest, atop Pool’s Hill.  Notice the glacial till—granite boulders left over from the ice age!  Notice also—no hemlock.  Pool cut them all down.

            The Revolutionary War was disastrous for Cape Ann.  British Navy ships conducted numerous raids all along the coast and made any kind of shipping of merchandise dangerous and costly, and fishing also became much more difficult and dangerous.  This all resulted in tremendous economic doom for Cape Ann, and much of the population had a hard time feeding themselves.  However, many of the local seafarers went to sea as privateers, raiding other ships and generally raising hell.  Some made a lot of money, but most did not, and many were lost at sea.

            There was a short time after the war’s end when the situation persisted, but then things started to improve.  Ocean shipping returned, more jobs appeared, fishing became much more productive, farmers were able to sell and ship their goods.  By 1823 in Sandy Bay a company was forming to extract the rich slabs of granite from the land.  Over the next several decades this would mean that Sandy Bay, and by 1840, Rockport, would be the fastest growing part of Cape Ann. 

Continued next month.  Learn about Rockport when it becomes a town on its own, and Hannah Jumper and her raid, and more!

Sources: 

            Marshall, John W., Burnham, Newell, Dennis, Henry, and Cleaves, Levi, compilers;  History of the Town of Rockport, as comprised in the Centennial Address of Lemuel Gott, M.D., Extracts from the Memoranda of Ebenezer Pool, Esq., with interesting items from other sources. 1888 Rockport, MA: Printed at Rockport Review Office.

Babson, John J., History of the Town of Gloucester, Cape Ann, Including the Town of Rockport.  1860. Gloucester, MA: Procter Bros.

Morley, Arthur P., Rockport, A Town of the Sea. 1924. Cambridge, MA: The Murray Printing Co.

This history was part of the October meeting of Rockport’s History Book Club.  If you live in Rockport or nearby, join us for our next meeting, on Wednesday, December 4, 2013. Because of Thanksgiving we must move from the regular last Wednesday in the month to the next Wednesday, which is in December.  The Subject is The American Labor Movement, 1900-2013.

 Read any book that interests you on the Labor Movement during any part of 1900 to now--- Taft Hartley, John L. Lewis, the IWW, CIO, the ILGWU, Strikebreakers, FDR and Labor, Eugene V. Debs, Frances Perkins--- whatever suits you!

These Old Boots Slogged in the Snow....

  

These Old Boots…

Slogged in the Russian snow….

These boots took me to a lot of places.  Since they remind me

of days slogging  in the snow along the Neva in Russia, I

photographed them with this Soviet sailor’s hat.

  

                It was time for them to go.  I haven’t worn them in many years, yet I felt sad about putting them in a charity bin, but now some deserving soul might be able to get more miles out of them.

            I bought them when we moved to New Hampshire in 1980, because they were awfully good walking through deep snow, and there was plenty of that.  

            Then we got sent to the Soviet Union.  I was assigned as Naval Attaché in Moscow, 1981-83.  Most of our work consisted of traveling to other cities where we could observe the USSR --especially its navy.  As a naval officer, I led a group of two naval officers and one Marine officer and some of us were on the road nearly all the time. 

            Most of our trips consisted of catching the midnight train from Leningrad Station in Moscow, en route Leningrad (now St. Petersburg).  We would arrive in that far northern city about 8 a.m.  and a driver would pick us up and take us to the American Consulate.  We kept a small four-wheel drive vehicle, a Soviet Niva, at the Consulate for our business.  As soon as we dropped our bags at the Consulate, we would get in the Niva and start our travel around the city. 

            Our job was to observe as much as possible of the construction of new warships at the many shipyards in and around Leningrad.  We would also observe what ships were in the harbor, and in the Neva River, including barges and ships, which traveled back and forth in the Soviet canal system.

            Some of the time, we would park our Niva and get out and walk, often in heavy snow, to get the best look at a particular intelligence target. 

            The KGB knew when we had filed to travel to Leningrad, and they generally followed us wherever we went.  Sometimes they followed us closely; sometimes they kept their distance. 

            Usually our routine included a walk along Lieutenant Schmidt’s Embankment of the Neva, where we could see a lot of ships tied up all along the embankment.               

            Slogging in that snow along Schmidt’s Bank was a cold exercise. 

            

Ships tied up along Schmidt’s Embankment, Vasilyevsky Island, St. Petersburg

Women’s Day in Leningrad—Fats took the day off.

                

            At Schmidt’s Bank hundreds of boats and often warships and submarines tied up.  Many of the smaller, lighter draft boats were awaiting a schedule to move up the canals that cut across Russia. Here we could see these boats and ships, and Red Fleet ships, and also ships under construction in the many shipyards of Leningrad. 

            Whenever we would take these walks, we tried to take along our cameras and collect photos of interesting things.  Photography in this area was forbidden, however.

            The KGB assigned an elderly “goon” that attachés named “Fats.”  He and some of his associates generally were around to follow us wherever we walked, or drove, and to make our job harder, or impossible.  They wore the red armbands of “Druzhniki,” or “concerned citizens.”  Sort of like elderly volunteers who operate as school crossing guards, except these were assigned to look after the foreign “spies.”  The Soviets considered all foreign diplomats spies—they hadn’t changed their attitude toward foreigners in centuries.

 Peter and Paul Fortress, from across the Neva

            One day, March the 8^th, 1983 to be exact, it was International Women’s Day. Now, in fact, the Soviets didn’t care much about women’s rights, except the right of old women to stand in the street all day long in the winter, smashing ice with a heavy iron rod.

            But this day, as we arrived to do our job of collecting intelligence in Leningrad, there was NO KGB.  They had the day off!

            I was traveling with my assistant, Pierce Crabtree, a big, burly former Navy football player. With no KGB to bother us, we went wild photographing shipyards and ships and everything we could see.  We were driving a Soviet “Niva.”  4 x 4 vehicle.We thought this would be a great day to check out some radar installations near the Czars’ summer palace at Petrodvorets.  However, somewhere between Kipen’ and Ropsha, we got stuck in the snow. 

            If the KGB had been around, we would not have been able to get that far.  Now, free to travel, we had gone and gotten ourselves in trouble.  The snow was pretty deep.

Fortunately, along came a bus full of Russians.  The driver and some of the passengers got out and helped push us out of the snowbank. 

The KGB would NOT have helped us out of the snowbank, but these Russians were like good neighbors you meet anywhere in the world.

Those boots took me through all that snow.  Not only in Leningrad, but also in Riga, Latvia; Tallinn, Estonia; Volgograd (Stalingrad); Kiev, Ukraine; Irkutsk, Khabarovsk and Nakhodka, Siberia and many other places.

I’ll miss those boots, and I kind of miss all that snow.

Here are some items the Personal Navigator offers:

Memories of the Russian Court, First Edition, Reprinted, November 1923  by Viroubova, Anna 1923 New York, NY: The MacMillan Co. "It is with a prayerful heart and memories deep and reverent that I begin to write the story of my long and intimate friendship with Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of Nicholas II….and of the tragedy of the Revolution which brought on her and hers such undeserved misery, and on our unhappy country such a black night of oblivion."  The author tells of life at court in St. Petersburg, and Peterhof, Tsarskoe Selo, Livadia and elsewhere; how the Emperor whistled for the Empress, the children, and for Viroubova. Book contains many excellent photos of the Imperial family, including several aboard the Imperial Yacht Standert.  Photos of letters from Nicholas II and his children to the author are particularly poignant. One of the last letters from the Empress was written in Old Slavonic.  400 pp. 14 x 20.6 cm. Brick red decorated cloth on board, very clean and fresh. Plate showing letters in Old Slavonic is loose. Owner bookplate (William C. Bowlen, Dec. 1923) on front endpaper. No dustjacket. Very good. (5706) $130.00. History/Russia

V.O.K.S. Published by the Soviet Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, Vol. II No. 4, 1931    Yoffe, Yakovlev, Semyakin, Mikhailov, Tsypkin, et al 1931 Moscow, USSR: VOKS,  Trubnikovsky Pereulok, 17. V.O.K.S. (Vsyesoyuznii Obschestvo Kulturniyi Svyazii Zagranitsiy), All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries was founded in 1925 and widely recognized as Stalin's heavy-handed effort at foreign propaganda.  "The Planning of Science"-- how it is done with the new Five-Year Plan, by the new socialist people. The language of the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" referring to the "shock-brigade troops and the storming detachment of Communist Youth" is so obviously immature, in its attempt to speak to a sophisticated foreign audience, yet satisfy all the propaganda needs of an ignorant bureaucracy at home. "Tecnics of the Future" by Academician A.F. Yoffe. talks of new ideas for harnessing solar energy, and efforts to harness water power (Volkhovstroi, Svirstroi, Dneprostroi). Poem "Industrial 1931" by Vassili Semyakin, a worker in a Moscow Co-operative Candy Factory. "The Fight for the Metal" story by N. Mikhailov, worker at the "Sickle and Hammer" Sheet-rolling Factory produces a fanciful story of the massive effort in the factory to fulfill the Five-Year Plan. Photos and text tell story of return of Maxim Gorki to Moscow in May, 1931. "What is Polytechnical Education?" by I. Pistrak includes photos of men and women learning on heavy machines. "Sverdlovia" Communist University by E. Ukhalov. Photo essay shows foreign workers in the USSR; Italian woman instructs Uzbek women workers in silk mill. 100 pp. 17 x 26 cm. Periodical, heavy cardboard cover loose from text block, spine worn, edges frayed. Fair. (8126) $85.00. History/Propaganda/Soviet Union

Detskoye Selo --Parks and Palaces  Tourist Guide for Intourists [in English] N. Arkhangelsky, Editor 1934 Leningrad, USSR: Park and Palace Dept., Leningrad Soviet. Early in the life of the Soviet Union, this little Stalin-era guide was produced for English-speaking Intourist visitors to St. Peterburg, and especially for the 26 kilometer trip  to Tsarskoye Selo, renamed by the Soviets "Detskoye Selo" or "Children's Village" in 1918, reflecting the Soviets' uneasiness with the history of the Tsars.  In re-naming it, the Soviets designated this village one for caring for children, and this text states that"formerly the domain of a privileged few, have become a source of education and enlightenment" for the masses. In 1937 it was re-named "Pushkin". Text in this little book tells about life in the time of the Tsars, but is generous with the Soviet approach. Photos show Catherine Palace, Gala Hall, Amber Hall, Large Throne Hall, White Hall, Drawing Room, Private Chambers of Catherine II, Alexander Palace, Chinese Theatre, more. 64 pp.10.7 x 14.4 cm. Paper booklet with dustjacket with view of Catherine Palace, minor wear and chips on dustjacket, booklet very good. (8122) $65.00. Travel

Leningrad --Putyevodityel' dlya Inturistov Guide for Intourists [in English]           N. Arkhangelsky, Editor 1934 Leningrad, USSR: Park and Palace Dept., Leningrad Soviet. Early in the life of the Soviet Union, this little guide was produced for English-speaking Intourist visitors to St. Petersburg. Text in this little book is heavy with early Soviet jargon, touting the Land of Glorious Socialism. Pictures of Statue of Lenin, Ploschad Vostaniya, Winter Palace, the Neva, The Europe Hotel, Statue of Peter I, Exchange and Rostral Columns, Tractor Street,  more.  Cover features drawing of Rostral column.  64 pp. 10.7 x 14.4 cm. Paper booklet with dustjacket containing picture of scene along the Neva. Minor wear and chips on dustjacket, booklet very good. (8120) $35.00. Travel

Peterhof --Parks and Palaces  Tourist Guide to Tsar's Summer Residence near Leningrad [in English] N. Arkhangelsky, Editor 1934 Leningrad, USSR: Park and Palace Dept., Leningrad Soviet. Early in the life of the Soviet Union, this little guide was produced for English-speaking Intourist visitors to St. Petersburg, and especially for the 30 kilometer trip by water to Peterhof. Text in this little book tells about life in the time of the Tsars, but is generous with the Soviet approach, noting that at Peterhof is now a town of rest for the workers of the Soviet Union. Photos show Mon Plaisir, Study and Chair of Peter I, Large Fountain Cascade and Palace,  front staircase, Chesma Hall, Peter's Hall, Picture Hall, Gothic Chapel, Railroad Carriages of Nicholas II, more. Dust jacket  features drawing of Fountains.  64 pp. 10.7 x 14.4 cm. Paper booklet with dustjacket, minor wear and chips on dustjacket, booklet very good. (8121) $35.00. Travel

Posev Ezhenedelnik Obschestvennoy I Politichestkoi Mysli (Weekly Social and Political Thought), with Zarubezhnoe Prllozhenoye (The Sowing, and anti-Bolshevik Journal,  with foreign supplement), Sunday, 27 December 1953. [In Russian]  1953 Munich, Germany: Posev Izdatyels'stvo Posev (The sowing) was the journal of an anti-Bolshevik organization. "Military Attaché in Moscow-- Richard Hilton" tells story of his work in USSR. Lead article in this issue: "Process of G. Mueller (N. Khorunzhego) is Completed"--On Friday 18 December the Frankfurt American Court completed the process of George Muller (N. Khorunzhego) and his wife Elizabeth Mueller, accused of Soviet Espionage. This report takes up nearly three pages of this issue. Bureau of KTsAV has asked to publish this letter to the Editor of the Washington Post that underlines the fact that American social opinion wholly approves of the Committee for Freeing from Bolshevism, etc. Letter, from Munich, is signed by S.P. Mel'gunov, President of Bureau. Ads for forthcoming issue of "Mysl'" (Thought) from the Posev Press; Bust of A.S. Pushkin, price 16.50 Marks (20 kron.); ad for gift books for Christmas from Posev Press includes several by N. Gogol, one by N. Nekrasov, one by Tretyakov, one by Chekhov, and one by L. Tolstoi. "Sovietskie Prosoyuzi" (Soviet Tradeunions) by S. Kursanov.  "Za Slovesnoi Shirmoi" (Behind the Masked Words) --- "Besklassove Obschestvo" (Classless Society); "Diktatura Proteliariata"  (Dictatorship of the Proletariat); "Religia--Opium dlya Naroda" (Religion--opium for the people); "Akuli s Uoll-Streeta" (Sharks of Wall Street). 16 pp. 30 x 42 cm. Newspaper, small tear in fold, main section unopened, very good.(8079) $33.00. Cold War

Soviet Theatre ca. 1950 Moscow, USSR. Collection of photos of Soviet theatre performances of 1950s, including actors Y. Tolubeyev, Z. Kirienko, A. Shatov, G. Stepanova, G. Menglet, V. Lepko, A. Kruglov, V. Orlova, T. Samoilova, R. Nifontova, V. Pashennaya and A. Katsynsky; Ballerina Galina Ulanova as Juliet, Yuri Zhdanov as Romeo. 26 pp. 27 x 18 cm. (5695) $15.00. Travel/Educational

 Hitler Marches in the Soviet Zone of Germany by Otto. Bertram 1961 Bonn, Germany: Berto-Verlag G.M.B.H. Book of excellent photos of Nazi era and Soviet era show how Hitler's regime is re-created by Soviets in their zone of Germany under Ulbricht. Same no-choice elections, Same dullness. Same marching troops. Same police state. Very skilful, sometimes funny anti-Soviet propaganda.  94 pp. 24 x 22 cm. Paper booklet, cover shows photos of Nazi troops marching for Hitler and Soviet troops marching with same goose-step. Cover shows moderate wear, very good. (6546)  $22.00. Cold War/Communism

Contact me at scoulbourn1@verizon.net

My Life in the Soviet Union....

THE DRY MOUTHED “SPY”

   

Canal in downtown St. Petersburg, near the Hermitage

            The Day we took the head photographer to Leningrad.   There were many Africans in Moscow, nearly all from Soviet client states in Africa.  In the days we were there, many were at Lumumba University, learning ways to stir up the populace back home in the Congo, or Zaïre, or Angola. Or Uganda, Kenya or Nigeria. Or Sudan or Burkina Faso.

            We had an African-American Air Force Sergeant in our embassy. He was a senior non-commissioned officer who handled our photo lab. He had processed thousands of rolls of film for us back at our Embassy, and we thought he would enjoy visiting Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), this very interesting city in the north, particularly since we had brought back so many rolls of film from here.  He never routinely would travel with us attachés, but our General thought it would be good for him to see what it was that we were shooting.

            But when the KGB saw us with a black man in our car, they went nuts.  They acted as if we had brought a secret weapon to Leningrad.

            They normally would follow our car with a car full of stolid, sullen, very husky young men.  We called them goons.  But this day, they had four cars, switching off amongst one another. Loaded with goons.  These cars were all Soviet Zhigulis, the Russian version of the Fiat, made in a huge factory built with the help of the Italian Fiat company in a city named Tolyatti (after Italian Communist Togliatti) several hundred miles southeast of Moscow.

            Often I would make notes about what I wanted to observe on our drive that day, and I would write these on water-soluble rice paper, which I could easily pop in my mouth if we should be apprehended. This special paper would dissolve at once.

            When, with the four cars of goons following us I thought we would get hauled out, I decided it was time to swallow my notes.  However, when you are scared, which I was, your mouth dries up so much that you can’t even dissolve the paper.

            We were driving next to one of the many canals that run through Leningrad, and since our surveillance was not in sight at the moment, I thought it would be a good time to stop and throw the mouthful of rice paper in the canal.  I think it was the Griboyedova Canal.

            Wrong!  As I should have suspected in icy, frozen Leningrad, there was just ice in the canal.  Foiled! My mouthful of paper just rested on the ice.

            I was lucky that the KGB didn’t find the rice paper. At any rate, we never got apprehended.   The Sergeant had a good ride around town.

            I would make a lousy spy.

 Peter and Paul Fortress, from across the Neva

Women’s Day in Leningrad—Fats took the day off!

                We took the Midnight Red Arrow from Moscow to Leningrad, arriving on schedule at 8:25 a.m. A driver met us at the train station and drove us to the American Consulate, where we stowed our bags and jumped into our car, all set for a day of work.

            One of the things we did a lot was "Order-of-Battle".  We had to report ships in port, including boats and ships that just moved around the canals and rivers of the USSR. The information we provided was correlated with information from agents, from satellite imagery, and electronic intelligence intercept to maintain a picture of the Naval Order of Battle of the USSR.  This meant taking a lot of long, long walks in some pretty crappy, snowy places.          

One of our favorite walks was along the Neva River at Schmidt’s Bank, in Leningrad.  Here hundreds of boats and often warships and submarines tied up.  Many of the smaller, lighter draft boats were awaiting a schedule to move up the canals that cut across Russia. Here we could see these boats and ships, and Red Fleet ships, and also ships under construction in the many shipyards of Leningrad. 

            Whenever we would take these walks, we tried to take along our cameras and collect photos of interesting things.  Photography in this area was forbidden, however.

            The KGB assigned an elderly “goon” that attachés over the years had named “Fats.”  He and some of his associates generally were around to follow us wherever we walked, or drove, and to make our job harder, or impossible.  They wore the red armbands of “Druzhniki,” or “concerned citizens.”  Sort of like elderly volunteers who operate as school crossing guards, except these were assigned to look after the foreign “spies.”  The Soviets considered all foreign diplomats spies—they hadn’t changed their attitude toward foreigners in centuries.

            One day, March the 8^th, 1983 to be exact, it was International Women’s Day. Now, in fact, the Soviets didn’t give much of a hoot about women’s rights, except the right of old women to stand in the street all day long in the winter, smashing ice with a heavy iron rod.

            But this day, as we arrived to do our job of collecting intelligence in Leningrad, there was NO KGB.  They had the day off!

            I was traveling with my assistant, Pierce Crabtree, a big, burly former Navy football player. With no KGB to bother us, we went wild photographing shipyards and ships and everything we could see.  We were driving a Soviet version of a Land Rover, called a “Niva.”  We thought this would be a great day to check out some radar installations near the Czars’ summer palace at Petrodvorets.  However, somewhere between Kipen’ and Ropsha, we got stuck in the snow. 

            If the KGB had been around, we would not have been able to get that far.  Now, free to travel, we had gone and gotten ourselves in trouble.  The snow was pretty deep.

Fortunately, along came a bus full of Russians.  The driver and some of the passengers got out and helped push us out of the snowbank. 

It was just another example of how friendly the Russians were, except for those whose job was to keep an eye on us.

 [An earlier version of this was published August 16, 2011.]

Now for some books and papers from The Personal Navigator:

  

The Locks – Charles River Dam, from Boston, Its Byways & Highways

Boston, Its Byways & Highways, Being Twenty-five Drawings Reproduced in Photogravure by John Albert Seaford ca. 1916 Boston, MA           Le Roy Phillips, Publisher. 24 plates. 13 x 20 cm. Elegant drawings of Boston sights on 7.8 x 10.4 cm. plates tipped in with descriptions. Includes Cover, with drawing of State House, Bulfinch Front; Pemberton Square; Trinity Church; From Adams Square to Faneuil Hall; Towers of Cambridge Bridge; Temple Street and the Bulfinch Dome; Roll Lift Bridge at Fort Point Channel; Market District; The Locks--Charles River Dam; more. Heavy cardboard with paper wraps, cover moderately worn. Individual plates and text block very good. Fair. (4784) $14.00. Travel

Boston Almanac 1853 

Boston Almanac For The Year 1853 with fold-out map of Boston 1853 Boston, MA: Damrell & Moore, and George Coolidge. 188 pp. 8 x 13 cm. Lists businesses, national, state and local leaders. Excellent engravings of local sights. Fifteen page article "Ancient and Modern Boston" by D. J.V.C. Smith compares Boston of 1722 (shown in map) with today (1853). Plans are in works to fill in the whole of Back Baybetween Roxbury Mill Dam and the Neck. He predicts that South Boston is "predestined to be the magnificent section of the city, in respect to costly residences, fashionable society and the influence of wealth. Monody to Daniel Webster, who died Oct. 24, 1852. Very interesting ads for ink, removers, carpeting, plumbers, tea, curriers. shell combs, cutlery and more.  Fold-out map of Boston includes Map of Town of Boston in New England by Capt. John Bonner, 1722, engraved for Boston Almanac 1853, and detailed New Map of Boston Comprising the Whole city with the new boundaries of the Wards, 1853.  Map shows Receiving Basin adjacent to Public Garden, South Bay between Albany St. and South Boston. Inset map of East Boston.   Cloth on board with gold printing and blind-stamped design. Back cover spine broken,  Map worn, small tears in folds, fair. Overall fair condition.    (8173) $68.00. Reference       

  

Roosevelt: State of New York in Memoriam Theodore Roosevelt Born: October 27, 1858  Died: January 6, 1919 1919 Albany, NY: Legislature of the State of New York. 131 pp.          18 x 25.5 cm.            Marvelous tribute to a towering figure of America in the last years of the 19th and the first years of the 20th century. Includes much biographical detail, excerpts from TR's speeches, including last public words about promoting Americanism, and speech in which he publicly accused the Legislature, of which he was member, of corruption in Manhattan Elevated Railroad affair. Includes Address by Sen.Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, his lifelong friend, before Congress on Sunday, February 9, 1919. Black cloth on board with gilt printing on cover and spine. Small biopredation holes in cover. On ffep stamped "Compliments of William Duggan, Senator 19th District" Very good.  (2350) $34.00. Biography/History                                                            

Soviet Theatre ca. 1950 Moscow, USSR. Collection of photos of Soviet theatre performances of 1950s, including actors Y. Tolubeyev, Z. Kirienko, A. Shatov, G. Stepanova, G. Menglet, V. Lepko, A. Kruglov, V. Orlova, T. Samoilova, R. Nifontova, V. Pashennaya and A. Katsynsky; Ballerina Galina Ulanova as Juliet, Yuri Zhdanov as Romeo. 26 pp. 27 x 18 cm. (5695) $15.00. Travel/Educational

Rockport, MA: Ye Headlands of Cape Ann-- Real Estate Advertisement by Giles, Jason 1902 Rockport, MA: The Rockport Review. 32 pp. 23 x 15 cm. Booklet tells history of Rockport as it offers a parcel at the Headlands of theNorwood property.  Property is served by water and electric lights, with an easy walk of eight minutes to stores, markets and post office, and in ten minutes, to the B. & M. R.R. railway station.  Booklet shows the beginnings of granite breakwater in harbor, intended to provide 'Harbor of Refuge' for the North Atlantic Squadron of U.S. Navy war vessels during the summer months.  Photos of local sights, including two page spread showing photo of town and harbor, taken from belfry of the Congregational Church. Paper booklet, very good. (7282) $59.00. Travel/History

                                                                                                                                                                                                Contact me at scoulbourn1@verizon.net