Diplomacy: Interlude in Iturup

Scanning a moving blip on the screen that indicated an airliner, Japanese defense command radar operators on the northernmost tip of Hokkaido Island radioed a warning. "You are off course," chided the Japanese. "Turn south." But the message was lost amid crackling static, and Seaboard World Airlines Flight 25 3 A was already 80 nautical miles north of its course. Moments lat er, Pilot Joseph Tosolini was radioing that intercepting MIG fighters were forcing him to land on Iturup, one of the Soviet Kurile Islands. For...

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