BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN Back at my desk and my mountains of data from “White Stork”, a plan was slowly taking shape in my mind. SovBloc scientists would be at the next COSPAR (Committee on Space Exploration) meeting at Warsaw taking place in the spring of 1963. Although I was clearly and officially assigned an intelligence slot in military foreign technology I was also a legitimate scientist. I had completed a manuscript on some of my research done previously at the Aeromedical Lab at Dayton using my immersion facility. I had compared the urinary outputs of neuro-hormones from bed rest and immersion subjects and had a neat little study with major implications for the post-flight fainting tendency I knew was coming as durations of manned space missions lengthened. This would be perfect to present at this COSPAR meeting in the space biology section. Gazenko and his team were scheduled to be there. Oleg Gazenko MD was chief of their space medicine program. Perhaps I could trade my paper for some useful post-flight information on Titov, Nickolayev or Popovich. I never expected to get it accepted but it was. Carl Sagan was participating in the working group 5, space biology session. He might have recognized my name from our joint participation in a space biology quarantine meeting, earlier at NASA. When I received their acceptance letter I took it to my boss, “Col” Smith. “Duane,” he exclaimed, “how in hell did you manage this? And you know, you just might have checked with me at the beginning.” That was about as angry as he ever got with me. “Just sort of slipped my mind, sir,” I replied. “Seemed like the right thing to do for an Aeromedical Lab research scientist. I’m published in scientific journals.” “You want to trade data with the Soviets?” he came back, incredulously. “Hell, it might set them back years. (We had previously joked about that in private) We both smiled. “Don’t do anything until I check this out with the division commander.” General Bedwell already thought of me as a spirited Vermont colt, constantly out of the traces. Later, Dan came back with a smile. “We are going to let you go on this junket but you are going civilian all the way. General Bedwell doesn’t want to know anything about this. I’m going to make some ID changes for you to carry while there and any reference in your manuscript about location of the study will be edited out. We’ll have local printer make up a few clean copies and make them easy to carry. We can’t hide your past completely but we can at least play it down. And so I went through the whole Humint process of being briefed on the background of all the scientists expected to be in attendance and their known KGB watchers. I was only interested in Oleg Gazenko MD. Only he had the data I was interested in. He was expected to attend. Dr. Gazenko ran their entire space biology program. The most impressive thing about going to Warsaw for a space science meeting was being able to attend a truly wonderful ballet for the equivalent of forty cents. The next most impressive thing was seeing our beautiful American flag while walking the streets of Warsaw - the US Embassy. The white building with huge fence looked brand new. A marine opened the door. I presented my ID to the clerk. Immediately I was passed on to the Air force liaison officer. He had been expecting me. He rose and shook my hand. Colonel “Bud” Curry was my idea of the ideal military officer - handsome, trim and sharp as a tack. He had been a pilot, then got too much rank to fly and somehow managed to get this assignment. He was dressed in civilian clothes. I liked him immediately and with my flight surgeon designation we were a natural pair despite the age and rank difference. He guided me to a chair and returned to his own. “Your talk has been shot down. Actually the entire space physiology section has been eliminated. Gazenko and his staff cancelled out at the last minute. Some flap at home, I presume.” Curry smiled at my discomfiture. “Don’t think of it as a failure, think of it as an opportunity – an opportunity to see Warsaw and see how we play this game. I’ve got some free time. We can do the town. It will be a good education for you.” Naturally I accepted his offer but I had at least one special need and that was to get my research report to Gazenko, now that he would not be there. I knew the SovBloc biology contingent would be attending with talks on the effects of space flight on bacteria, fungi and plants. I also suspected I could pass my paper on to one of them for delivery to Gazenko as a special “introductory gift”. “Can you get me to the meeting place so I can pass something on for delivery to Gazenko?” I asked. I told Bud about my plans for my research report. He nodded and smiled. “Nothing wrong with that,” he said. We departed for the Palace of Culture and Science, a major landmark. I noticed a black car parked across the street was the same one I had noted near the embassy. In it were two men. I could have sworn one of them had just taken our picture. Bud noticed my interest in the car. “Just ignore them,” he advised. “In the past year and a half I have shaken them only once, for about three hours. Even by American standards the Palace of Culture was impressive. Not only did it have a 5,000-seat meeting room, it also boasted conference rooms for up to 600 people and simultaneous translation of up to eight languages. Our shadows followed us faithfully, even parking their auto close to ours. As we climbed the stairs and passed through the majestic entrance, never were they more than 30 feet away. Finally at the entrance to the space biology room, Bud nodded to a man who gave us badges to pin on and he and Bud exchanged a few words. “The lead SovBloc biologist is in that brown suit over there,” Bud advised. “This fellow will go over with you as translator.” Go ahead and I’ll just mingle.” “Just tell him I am a space medicine scientist at Dayton, Ohio,” I told the translator, “and I want to get this paper to Dr. Oleg Gazenko.” I gave him my business card. The biologist jumped at the mention of Oleg Gazenko. Clearly he knew him, He looked at me and smiled and shook his head affirmatively and said a few words to my translator. We shook hands and he took my paper with its blue folder. With the help of my staff, my explanation to Dr. Gazenko, written in Russian, already were inscribed directly on my report. Mission accomplished - I was satisfied. The name of my report was, “Cardiovascular deconditioning: role of blood volume and sympathetic neurohormones, by Duane Graveline MD. A year later I was to meet Dr. Gazenko in Florence at a space physiology meeting. He showered me with gifts and we began a friendship that lasted until his death.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Jun 2013 12:25:55 +0000
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