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Introduction
I am currently working on three books: One, co-authored with a Russian journalist, is about the shootdown of an American bomber by Soviet Yak fighters over Hungnam, North Korea during the final days of WWII. A second, co-authored with a particle physicist, is the biography of an Austrian chemist, the father of worldwide heavy water production. And a third on the Pueblo Incident based largely on newspaper accounts, recently declassified CIA and NSA documents, and multiple Russian sources.
Publications
Publications (15)
Two Russian Jews played a role in the creation of North Korea in 1945.
Some say Kim Il-sung was a captain in the Soviet Army when he stepped foot in "North" Korea in September 1945; others say he was a captain. This brief paper lays out the controversy and requests help from scholars and others.
Following the January 1968 Pueblo Incident, the USS Pueblo was “hidden” at some undisclosed location for decades to prevent its recapture.
This article reveals all attempts to locate the hidden US Navy spy ship, where it was eventually located, and how the discovery was made.
Before atomic scientists could work at the Manhattan Project, the FBI --
led by J, Edgar Hoover -- conducted an investigation. Two of the Manhattan Project's leading scientists, however, Leo Szilard and Enrico Fermi, nearly failed the FBI's background check. How would the Manhattan Project have fared if these scientists hadn't passed?
My first article for Vostok (East), published by the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, has been submitted for publication. I'm now awaiting editorial comments. I was informed that publication would be sometime during the first half of 2018.
In 1968, the USS Pueblo was seized while conducting electronic surveillance in international waters along the coast of North Korea, and its crew was held captive until it confessed to conducting intelligence within North Korean waters. This study examines the incident in light of concurrent historical events, recently declassified CIA documents, a...
On August 29, 1945, Soviet fighters shot down an American B-29 bomber while it was on a POW supply mission to an Allied POW camp in Konan, Korea (now Hungnam, North Korea), This is the story of that incident by Bill Streifer (a freelance journalist) and Irek Sabitov (a Russian journalist and former Newspaper editor from Ufa, Russia) on the Russian...
The Soviet Union conducted their first atomic test on August 29, 1949, five years before the best CIA estimate. Was the CIA's failure to accurately predict when the Soviet Union would conduct their first atomic test, a failure of U.S. Intelligence?
Originally published in the April 1945 issue of the Korea Economic Digest (a publication of the Korea Economic Society in New York City), Dr. Fritz J. Hansgirg, a brilliant physical chemist and metallurgist who had worked for the Japanese in northern Korea in the 1930's, explained the struggle that Koreans would face once Japan was defeated in WWII
In 2000, a female nuclear researcher from North Korea defected. This is the only known English translation of her entire interview.
Questions
Questions (12)
I am currently writing an article for an intelligence journal on the history of separation of hydrogen isotopes by water-hydrogen chemical exchange. I know things no one else does. Can I assist you?
Bill Streifer
An article by Irek Sabitov, a Russian journalist, and myself will appear in the Winter 2020 edition of the U.S. Navy War College Review. Our article concerns the April 1969 North Korean downing of a U.S. Navy EC-121 spy plane in the Sea of Japan.
It’s a well-known Cold War story, but seen from both the U.S. and Soviet sides... with a twist.
On April 15, 1969, the U.S. and Soviet Union took part in a rare, 4-day, joint search-and-rescue (SAR) operation to locate and retrieve the bodies off a U.S. Navy EC-121 spy plane that was shot out of the sky by North Korean fighters.
And yet, despite the fact that three Soviet destroyers took part in this SAR operation, and a Soviet sailor (who we interviewed) said he personally placed human remains into plastic bags and then transferred those body parts to a U.S. ship (USS Turner), the Russians were never given credit for recovering of the dead airmen’s remains and their transfer to U.S. custody.
The draft of a speech to be given by President Nixon five days after the shootdown failed to mention the Russians.
Following the incident, the U.S. Navy handed out photos of the recovered wreckage and coffins of the two EC-121 crewmen’s bodies pulled from the sea. But again, none of the photos’ captions mentioned the Russians.
The photo of a Soviet destroyer (taken by a U.S. Air Force Reserve aircraft) appeared on the front page of the New York Times on April 17, 1969. There was mention of how the destroyer’s whaleboat was to pick up “debris,” but nothing about human remains.
After the recovery effort had ended, a newly-declassified top-secret DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) memorandum described the SAR operation. But, once again, there was no mention of the Russians.
Had the President of the United States and the U.S. Navy deliberately kept the Soviet role in this episode of Cold War history from the American public?
Bill Streifer
bill.streifer@gmail.com
Editorial Board, Journal of Oriental Studies (Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow)
Editorial Board, Journal "Vostok”
Suppose a chemical invention was stolen from a "Nazi" during WWII? It was then patented by a pair of Manhattan Project scientists. However, due to its classified nature, those two patents weren't published until after that original German inventor died.
Now imagine the numerous patents derived from those two original patents (where those two patents appear as a citation at the bottom of each). Then imagine how much money was made when all of the above was used by industry (for the life of the original and subsequent patents).
Can that original inventor (or his representative now that he's dead) lay claim to all of the funds obtained from the sale or licence of those patent rights?
I know for a fact there is a Japanese, German, Canadian, and Austrian equivalent, all from 1933.
I'd also like the title of that paper. etc.