spy-in-the-sky

Having disappeared seven days prior whilst presumably over Soviet airspace and the US government issuing a detailed cover story to the press about a missing NASA research aircraft lost in northern Turkey with the possibility that the auto-pilot had kicked in and led the plane further afield, Nikita Khrushchev made the surprise announcement (previously) on this day in 1960 that CIA espionage operative Francis Gary Powers (*1929 – †1977) had been intercepted and was in Soviet custody, embarrassing the Eisenhower administration who faced a dilemma in either owning up to the act or denying responsibility and blaming inscrutable bureaucracy in the intelligence agencies—both alibis potentially endangering a settlement at the upcoming Paris Peace Summit.
In the summer of 1958, the US government negotiated with Pakistan to establish a base of operations to run secret intelligence-gathering sorties over the USSR, using U-2 spyplanes to photograph missile silos and other infrastructure—aloft in the upper stratosphere and out of range of Soviet countermeasures, or so it was believed. The captured agent and photographic evidence was impossible to deny and Powers acceded his actions. Caught in a lie, the US disclosed the full nature of the U-2 missions and the involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency—which was in itself another surprising revelation. Powers, though sentenced to three years in prison with seven additional years of hard labour, was treated very well by his captors and spent most of the time with handicrafts, was freed after two years in a prisoner exchange on the Glienicker Brücke (the Bridge of Spies that connected West Berlin with East German Potsdam) for KGB officer and Soviet spy Rudolf Ivanovich Abel (*1903 - †1971). After being repatriated, Powers retiring from the CIA and took a job as a helicopter pilot for a television station in Los Angeles, dying in a crash whilst filming footage of wildfires, reportedly wilfully diverting his descent to avoid children playing near his intended landing spot.

sesamstraße

H and I shared a cross-cultural moment the other day, him remarking that my hair, already in need of a cut before the lockdown, was getting pretty shaggy and I would look like Tiffy soon. I didn’t get the reference and he explained, “Tiffy, you know the Muppet from Sesame Street?”
I wasn’t familiar and vaguely knew that there were different nationally syndicated versions of the show with different characters and looking up an image, I thought she presents as a Mokey Fraggle and possibly a later addition to the cast. More research, however, showed me what a different and parallel world there was between the Children’s Television Workshop and the studios of Norddeutscher Runkfrunk. They that you call Big Bird and Mister Snuffleupagus we call Tiffy und Samson, a friendly bear with a security blanket called Schnuffeltuch.  Same energy.
Tiffy and her friend were portraying the psychological ages of six- and five-year olds respectively and were with the show since it’s debut in 1977. In late December of 1993, there was a sort of Muppet Monster New Year’s Eve special called Sesame Street Stays Up Late, anchored by Elmo as sort of a CNN style reporter showcasing celebrations by time-zones and featured introductions and interviews with international cast and crew, including Tiffy, Samson and company. I am rocking that Tiffy hairdo.