1983 Apocalypse averted

six weeks in September and October were the most dangerous the world has ever experienced.  A false nuclear strike alert on September 26, 1983 was caused by nothing more than high-altitude clouds that had been picked up by a satellite's sensors and interpreted as missiles in flight. Stanislav Petrov, a lieutenant-colonel in the military intelligence section of the Soviet Union's secret service, may have prevented all out nuclear war between the US and the USSR, the paper marks. Instead of calling an alert that within minutes would have had Soviet missiles launched in a retaliatory strike, Petrov decided to wait and the warning lights went off.

READ MORE

Elements of a novel

Folks often ask me: How to write a suspense novel?

Being an author of three novels (published and pending publication) I do not feel competent to answer this question definitively. I doubt I will have a definitive answer even with 10 books under my belt. As someone once said: When a writer begins to think that he knows how to write - he will never write anything worth reading again. I do not pretend to know how to write, however, being also an avid reader, I can at least attempt to describe my combined writer/reader observations.

When you pick up any novel, be it a thriller or a mainstream story, you will notice that it starts off with some sort of a crisis. To cut it short: the rest of the story deals with solving the crisis.

In more detail: the crisis is where something happens, and where the main characters are introduced. This must grab the readers' attention or else the novel is a bomb.

Next major step is required to keep the tension growing, and that step is called a twist. It involves some kind of trouble, or a turn in development of the plot that is surprising to the main character and readers.

Most authors of suspense and thriller novels will add a second twist, to keep the tension boiling, but also, and just as importantly so the reader doesn't think she already solved the mystery. This is where the protagonist's efforts at figuring out the first twist are shattered.

I think that readers are often way ahead of the writer in terms of figuring our where the story leads, and after the second twist they can usually tell the outcome, sometimes staying with the novel to the end, but often fingering through or outright dumping it. Yeah, I am that reader. So, as a writer I like to add a third twist, where any readers' notions of figuring out the plot are shattered into pieces. 

The twists should be constructed and presented in such a way that the buildup of tension leads to the climax, that point in the novel, not too far from- and not too close from the end where it is very difficult to put it down, whether or not one figured out what is about to happen.

Then the climax brings the resolution, that point where all the twists become clear, and lead to the only natural closing. The closing is the most difficult stage. It depends entirely on the previous stages. It is here that many authors fail their readers - where readers just shake their heads and say - It's ridiculous! Keep in mind that closing also means open end, if that is what comes as a natural result of everything that happened.

Of course the above treats the subject in the most shallow way -perhaps I will find the time to expand on it some day...

More than one Kim Philby

Soviets had assets at the top of the Western security apparatus, such as:

[...] Kurt, one of the most valuable agents of the Soviet inteligence, who might be compared with legendary Kim Philby. Kurt was the nickname of the ex-SS Haupsturmfuerer Heinz Felfe [...] the head of the department of "counterespionage against the USSR and the Soviet missions". [...]

Only in 1969, Russians managed to exchange Felfe for 18 agents of the West German and 3 agents of the American intelligence. The exchange took place at the point of entry at Heerleshausen on the border of the two German states. After the release Felfe found his domicile in the German Democratic Republic. In March, 2008, Felfe is to celebrate his 90th birthday [...]

SOURCE

The bodies of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun

Russian security service comes clean on the whereabouts of Hitler's remains:

On May 4, «in a shell-hole nearby the bunker of the Fuehrer, two more – female and male - corpses were discovered. Both were strongly scorched and it was impossible to identify them without corresponding examination. Corpses had been delivered to the counterespionage department of the 3rd assault army. After forensic examination they were buried in the outskirts of the city of Buch. Due to relocation of department of counterespionage “the corpses were withdrawn and transported to the area of Finow, and then on June 3, 1945, to the area of Rathenow, where they finally were inhumed”. It was only on March 20, 1970, when on the initiative of then the KGB chief Yuri Andropov, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a plan that received the code name Operation Archive. In 15 days an operative group of five agents under Colonel Kovalenko arrived to Westend Strasse 36 in the city of Magdeburg. Remains of Hitler and Eva Braun had been delivered there. Colonel Kovalenko handwrote a report on re-exhumation of the remains that they were put into a box in the night and morning on April 4, 1970. Then in the morning of April 5, 1970, the remains were cremated. Ashes together with coal «was mixed up to condition of homogeneous volume, collected and spilled out in the waters of the nearest river».  SOURCE

90 years of KGB

Today marks the 90th anniversary of the formation of what would become the KGB.

Cheka, headed by Felix Dzerzhinsky, at first had only 23 employees [...]

In 1921 it numbered over 30,000 officers, agents and even border guards [...]

At the height of the Cold War, the organisation, which changed its name again to the KGB, the organisation serving as the Soviet Union's premier security agency, secret police and intelligence agency, maintained thousands of agents in foreign countries. At home its web of millions of informers permeated every sphere of public life [...]

More.

Conspiracy theory feedlot

Every conspiracy theory buff knows about the Carlyle Group. Basically, it is not a nice creature.

From the disinformation encyclopedia - WikiPedia:

Critics of the Carlyle Group frequently note its connections to various political figures. Some of the sectors and companies in which it invests are highly sensitive to political activity; indeed, its actions may be viewed as a form of political arbitrage. This may create conflicts of interest when political decision makers have their own personal wealth linked to such investments. Carlyle is the largest private equity firm located in Washington, D.C. - its corporate headquarters are located on Pennsylvania Avenue. Some have also linked Carlyle to some of lesser-known companies that have been linked to US Intelligence, such as Centre Analytics and In-Q-Tel.

and

Carlyle acquired United Defense Industries in October 1997, bringing in over 60% of Carlyle's defense business.

Well. Listen to this now:

David Rubenstein, co-founder and president of The Carlyle Group, has bought at auction a 710-year old copy of the Magna Carta. He paid $21.3 million for it.

Word has it the the Carlyle Group holds major investments in shredder manufacturing business...

Who REALLY killed JFK

So, the FBI admits that the official investigation to the assassination of JFK is full of holes. Now, the questions is: Are we ever going to find out what really happened?

Here's what I heard from an old spy, one with roots in the OSS days:

“You know what they will find when they open the file on JFK? Nothing. There will be nothing in it.”

I disagree. This is still too big a story to simply brush it away with - "Hey, it all evaporated!" What we'll find will be fine-tuned to present a plausible and undeniable show - after all they had decades to come up with a good story. For crying out loud - Kubrick had only weeks to produce the Moon landing and it sticks.