RUSSIA: Enigma Variations

Three months ago, as Nikita Khrushchev sailed toward U.S. shores, he was accompanied by Russian vessels specifically equipped to track space hardware. Sharpening the mystery of the ships' mission were persistent rumors, encouraged by the Russians, that a man would be fired into space soon and brought 'back. It would make a grand accompaniment to Khrushchev's arrival in Manhattan.

But the expectations were never fulfilled. Then on Oct. 25 came a curiously noncommittal announcement that Khrushchev's hand-picked chief of Soviet Missile Forces. Marshal Mitrofan I. Nedelin, had died in an "airplane accident."...

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