[FPSPACE] New nutty Soviet space 'history' show: FALLEN IDOL: THE YURI GAGARIN CONSPIRACY

[Keith Gottschalk]

>Dennis Ogden (now deceased; Moscow Correspondent for the London-based
communist newspaper The Daily Worker 
>who first broke the story of a suspect space mission before Gagarin) 

Dear JimO,

   you probably also spotted this line, which is the give-away to the
genesis or gestation of this conspiracy theory.  I think you discussed
this in one of your books.

  The Daily Worker correspondent in Moscow made a deduction in good
faith, which turned out to be wrong. He lived in the same block of flats
as a test pilot called Illyushin. The test pilot was injured after a
high altitude test flight. 

   When the spaceflight rumours & then 4 October 1957 announcement
broke out, the correspondent, a life-long communist, assumed "high
altitude" was a euphamism for say 100 kms altitude instead of 10 kms
altitude! Wrong, but a wrong guess made in good faith. The latest
conspiracy theorist was ignored all subsequent discussion of his mistake
by you and others! 

war mregards, Keith.