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The title here on HN is somewhat better than the original on Newsweek, which replaces "wanted to plan" with "planned". But I object to both. The linked memo [

The title here on HN is somewhat better than the original on Newsweek, which replaces "wanted to plan" with "planned". But I object to both. The linked memo [1] consists of a table estimating the cost for the US to secretly acquire MIGs. Stop and go read it, it's only a cover form, a table estimating the cost to get some MIGs, and a failed attempt at redacting the 3rd page, which describes the effort. The final paragraph reads: > There is a possibility that such aircraft could be used in a deception operation designed to confuse enemy planes in the air, to launch a surprise attack against enemy installations or in a prevocation operation in which a Soviet aircraft would appear to attack U.S. or friendly installations in order to provide an excuse for U.S. intervention. If the planes were to be used in such covert operations, it would seem preferable to manufacture them in the United States. Emphasis added. But note that the documents do not describe the mental status of the authors, they're just listing facts. Any guesses by journalists as to what the actors behind the documents were thinking or what they desired to do are only guesses. The US government is a very, very large organization, that asks a lot of questions and produces a lot of documents. You can also expect that someone, somewhere was also tasked to answer the question "how hard would it be for the Soviet Union to procure US aircraft and launch a false flag attack against themselves, and what can/should we do to mitigate this risk." Within the Soviet government, someone else investigated what it would cost to procure some F-86 and F-4 aircraft, and what it would cost the US to get MIGs, and what they could/should do to mitigate this risk. I would argue that it would be irresponsible of both governments to not ask these questions. I would also agree that false flag operations and indeed war itself are reprehensible, and would hope that the decision-makers, armed with this information, would still make the right choice. But given the lives, dollars, and issues at stake, and the comparably tiny cost of answering the question, it would be irresponsible not to check. [1]: https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32977055.pdf https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-3...

mnw21cam 9y ago
Perhaps the Soviets wanted to know how hard it would be for the US to replicate one of their birds, and got an embedded spy to commission an investigation to find out for them. Only half joking.
- TylerE 9y ago
  Wouldn't need to replicate them. We had plenty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4477th_Test_and_Evaluation_Squadron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4477th_Test_and_Evaluation_Squ...
mattmaroon 9y ago
That was my first thought too. The Newsweek article does say "wanted to" in the beginning also. Irresponsible click bait.
indubitable 9y ago
A major problem with what you're writing here is that there is a very rich history of false flag attacks from nearly all governments, certainly including the US -- both planned and executed. For instance Operation Northwoods [1] was another false flag plan which would have the CIA carry out terrorist attacks against American civilian and military targets and then blame it on the Cuban government, to justify a war against Cuba. This plan made it all the way to JFK. Literally the one and only thing that stopped this plan from happening was JFK not cooperating with the CIA. The 1953 Iranian coup [2] was organized by the US and CIA in particular. One of the many actions we were responsible for includes forming fake communist forces allegedly in support of the government. The government was not pro communist, but also did not actively crack down on them, so creating these fake groups who were both supposed to be communist and pro government worked doubly well. In any case these groups would then threaten and intimidate Islamic groups in the name of the government. This behavior culminated with these fake groups bombing the home of an influential Islamic cleric [3]. The whole idea being to turn the Islamic community against the government - and it worked. To this day the name of the individual who signed off on the operation is redacted, but it's rather evident that it was Eisenhower. Ultimately governments tend to be consistently Machiavellian -- or at least populated by those willing to adopt such methods. And false flags are one of the most effective operations for shifting public opinion, creating justifications for war, and so on. The thing I find disappointing is how much people refuse to accept reality. Most people will not believe the two paragraphs I wrote above even though there is declassified material literally acknowledging exactly what happened. But it doesn't fit the way we naturally like to view our government, so most people resort to cognitive dissonance instead of acknowledging that their preconceived notions might not actually be correct. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat#Government_Records https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta... [3] - http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-...
- ethbro 9y ago
  I would have gone with the Gulf of Tonkin incident [1], in which it was later revealed that MACV-SOG had inserted a covert operations team (which was captured) and paid for an airstrike the night before North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked. Congress was naturally not told of any of this before they passed the resolution that arguably led to the escalation of the war under Johnson. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident#Background https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident#Back...
rando444 9y ago
I agree with the general direction of your argument, but wholeheartedly disagree that this doesn't constitute "planning", and find your de-emphasis of 'using the aircraft in a covert operation to attack the US', disconcerting.
- 1001101 9y ago
  My application of Occam's razor agrees with you.
- megaman22 9y ago
  The Defense Department has war plans for a thousand and one eventualities. That is their job.
  - fapjacks 9y ago
    Indeed. Even SOPs for a zombie apocalypse. Now, before you downvote, I'm being totally serious, even if the SOPs aren't.
    - thephyber 9y ago
      A potential Zombie Apocalypse is not a bad thing to plan for. Sure, a disease outbreak might not turn people into the exact kind of zombie planned (there are as many zombie "rulesets" in movies as there are time travel "rulesets"), but it's an exercise which probably doesn't veer far from an actual worst-case scenario of disease outbreak. Remember that the Spanish Flu outbreak killed 3%-5% of the world population in 3 years[1]. It's not even a bad thing for the CDC to plan for[2]. I have a conservative cousin who is in the Marine reserves and is an FBI special agent. He complained to no end that the CDC was "wasting" our taxpayer dollars on the zombie outbreak preparedness marketing campaign. But he also failed to see that as a marketing campaign, it went viral because of unassuming hosts like him (very meta) and, ironically, it was an extremely efficient use of taxpayer dollars. A false flag attack which attacks US or allied property is just a justification to lie to the American voter and to co-opt American tax dollars. If anything, the author who suggested it for such a purpose is part of the Pentagon "swamp" (in Trump terminology) and is part of the reason the US is currently waning in power (soft, hard, economic, etc). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/why-did-the-cdc-develop-a-plan-for-a-zombie-apocalypse/239246/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/why-did...
Tech-Noir 9y ago
I don't think this is a particularly big deal, and certainly less serious than other publicly known events in the 1960s (and 1980s) that almost started WWIII, however... > But note that the documents do not describe the mental status of the authors, they're just listing facts. Do government documents normally describe the mental status of the authors, rather than sticking to facts (whether true or not)? > The US government is a very, very large organization, that asks a lot of questions and produces a lot of documents. What percentage are serious enough to get discussed by the National Security Council and/or Attorney General? > Within the Soviet government, someone else investigated what it would cost to procure some F-86 and F-4 aircraft I haven't seen any documents on that, but did the Politburo discuss how US planes could be used in a false flag attack? If they did, how would it justify or excuse the US doing so? > it would be irresponsible not to check It's irresponsible of the US government to not look into the possibility of murdering Americans in order to start WWIII?
Feniks 9y ago
Considering how Vietnam and more recently Iraq happened I'm not too convinced of the US government making the right choice.
- linkregister 9y ago
  You mean us. Our elected officials made those decisions. Congress funded both. OIF/OEF did not go forward without the blessing of Congress. Sure, the Executive Branch lied about the key detail, but part of decisionmaking is deciding the risk of deception.
  - mywittyname 9y ago
    To many, being a war hawk is being a patriot. Even if members of Congress knew the truth, they are still beholden to the public, who did not.
    - linkregister 9y ago
      Only perhaps the Senate Intelligence Committee probably knew, almost everyone else in Congress gets their news from the papers like us schmucks, unfortunately. It’s a shame that the only major customers of our expensive intelligence community are various Executive Branch officials and the Senate & House Intelligence Committees. Even moderate Democrats were sucked into the Iraq War. From my vantage as a random service member at the time, I thought it was unjustified, but I was light on the cable news and AM radio.
  - Feniks 9y ago
    I'm not USian but yes. My country was part of the "coalition of the willing". It was not a proud moment in history. Geopolitical and economical reality means supporting the US straight into hell.
    - linkregister 9y ago
      Even domestically, moderate politicians were dragged into it. The narrative had been set up by the hawks and regime changers that if you don’t support invading Iraq, you’re for the terrorists and against America. Even though the lie of Al Qaeda training on Iraqi soil was paper-thin, anti-war politicians and celebrities were shouted down and shunned. It didn’t matter that it made no sense, that Al Qaeda was expressly against the Saddam regime, the momentum was overwhelming. Everyone wanted to trust in the Bush administration’s war effort. The nation was temporarily unified after 9/11.

mnw21cam 9y ago

Perhaps the Soviets wanted to know how hard it would be for the US to replicate one of their birds, and got an embedded spy to commission an investigation to find out for them. Only half joking.

TylerE 9y ago
Wouldn't need to replicate them. We had plenty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4477th_Test_and_Evaluation_Squadron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4477th_Test_and_Evaluation_Squ...

mattmaroon 9y ago

That was my first thought too. The Newsweek article does say "wanted to" in the beginning also. Irresponsible click bait.

indubitable 9y ago

A major problem with what you're writing here is that there is a very rich history of false flag attacks from nearly all governments, certainly including the US -- both planned and executed. For instance Operation Northwoods [1] was another false flag plan which would have the CIA carry out terrorist attacks against American civilian and military targets and then blame it on the Cuban government, to justify a war against Cuba. This plan made it all the way to JFK. Literally the one and only thing that stopped this plan from happening was JFK not cooperating with the CIA. The 1953 Iranian coup [2] was organized by the US and CIA in particular. One of the many actions we were responsible for includes forming fake communist forces allegedly in support of the government. The government was not pro communist, but also did not actively crack down on them, so creating these fake groups who were both supposed to be communist and pro government worked doubly well. In any case these groups would then threaten and intimidate Islamic groups in the name of the government. This behavior culminated with these fake groups bombing the home of an influential Islamic cleric [3]. The whole idea being to turn the Islamic community against the government - and it worked. To this day the name of the individual who signed off on the operation is redacted, but it's rather evident that it was Eisenhower. Ultimately governments tend to be consistently Machiavellian -- or at least populated by those willing to adopt such methods. And false flags are one of the most effective operations for shifting public opinion, creating justifications for war, and so on. The thing I find disappointing is how much people refuse to accept reality. Most people will not believe the two paragraphs I wrote above even though there is declassified material literally acknowledging exactly what happened. But it doesn't fit the way we naturally like to view our government, so most people resort to cognitive dissonance instead of acknowledging that their preconceived notions might not actually be correct. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat#Government_Records https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta... [3] - http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-...

ethbro 9y ago
I would have gone with the Gulf of Tonkin incident [1], in which it was later revealed that MACV-SOG had inserted a covert operations team (which was captured) and paid for an airstrike the night before North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked. Congress was naturally not told of any of this before they passed the resolution that arguably led to the escalation of the war under Johnson. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident#Background https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident#Back...

rando444 9y ago

I agree with the general direction of your argument, but wholeheartedly disagree that this doesn't constitute "planning", and find your de-emphasis of 'using the aircraft in a covert operation to attack the US', disconcerting.

1001101 9y ago
My application of Occam's razor agrees with you.
megaman22 9y ago
The Defense Department has war plans for a thousand and one eventualities. That is their job.
- fapjacks 9y ago
  Indeed. Even SOPs for a zombie apocalypse. Now, before you downvote, I'm being totally serious, even if the SOPs aren't.
  - thephyber 9y ago
    A potential Zombie Apocalypse is not a bad thing to plan for. Sure, a disease outbreak might not turn people into the exact kind of zombie planned (there are as many zombie "rulesets" in movies as there are time travel "rulesets"), but it's an exercise which probably doesn't veer far from an actual worst-case scenario of disease outbreak. Remember that the Spanish Flu outbreak killed 3%-5% of the world population in 3 years[1]. It's not even a bad thing for the CDC to plan for[2]. I have a conservative cousin who is in the Marine reserves and is an FBI special agent. He complained to no end that the CDC was "wasting" our taxpayer dollars on the zombie outbreak preparedness marketing campaign. But he also failed to see that as a marketing campaign, it went viral because of unassuming hosts like him (very meta) and, ironically, it was an extremely efficient use of taxpayer dollars. A false flag attack which attacks US or allied property is just a justification to lie to the American voter and to co-opt American tax dollars. If anything, the author who suggested it for such a purpose is part of the Pentagon "swamp" (in Trump terminology) and is part of the reason the US is currently waning in power (soft, hard, economic, etc). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/why-did-the-cdc-develop-a-plan-for-a-zombie-apocalypse/239246/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/why-did...

Tech-Noir 9y ago

I don't think this is a particularly big deal, and certainly less serious than other publicly known events in the 1960s (and 1980s) that almost started WWIII, however... > But note that the documents do not describe the mental status of the authors, they're just listing facts. Do government documents normally describe the mental status of the authors, rather than sticking to facts (whether true or not)? > The US government is a very, very large organization, that asks a lot of questions and produces a lot of documents. What percentage are serious enough to get discussed by the National Security Council and/or Attorney General? > Within the Soviet government, someone else investigated what it would cost to procure some F-86 and F-4 aircraft I haven't seen any documents on that, but did the Politburo discuss how US planes could be used in a false flag attack? If they did, how would it justify or excuse the US doing so? > it would be irresponsible not to check It's irresponsible of the US government to not look into the possibility of murdering Americans in order to start WWIII?

Feniks 9y ago

Considering how Vietnam and more recently Iraq happened I'm not too convinced of the US government making the right choice.

linkregister 9y ago
You mean us. Our elected officials made those decisions. Congress funded both. OIF/OEF did not go forward without the blessing of Congress. Sure, the Executive Branch lied about the key detail, but part of decisionmaking is deciding the risk of deception.
- mywittyname 9y ago
  To many, being a war hawk is being a patriot. Even if members of Congress knew the truth, they are still beholden to the public, who did not.
  - linkregister 9y ago
    Only perhaps the Senate Intelligence Committee probably knew, almost everyone else in Congress gets their news from the papers like us schmucks, unfortunately. It’s a shame that the only major customers of our expensive intelligence community are various Executive Branch officials and the Senate & House Intelligence Committees. Even moderate Democrats were sucked into the Iraq War. From my vantage as a random service member at the time, I thought it was unjustified, but I was light on the cable news and AM radio.
- Feniks 9y ago
  I'm not USian but yes. My country was part of the "coalition of the willing". It was not a proud moment in history. Geopolitical and economical reality means supporting the US straight into hell.
  - linkregister 9y ago
    Even domestically, moderate politicians were dragged into it. The narrative had been set up by the hawks and regime changers that if you don’t support invading Iraq, you’re for the terrorists and against America. Even though the lie of Al Qaeda training on Iraqi soil was paper-thin, anti-war politicians and celebrities were shouted down and shunned. It didn’t matter that it made no sense, that Al Qaeda was expressly against the Saddam regime, the momentum was overwhelming. Everyone wanted to trust in the Bush administration’s war effort. The nation was temporarily unified after 9/11.