4WD Diplomacy: We Retrace U.S. Intelligence Cold War Routes in a Mercedes G-Wagen and SRT Jeep

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‘‘Soviet soldiers were always hungry,” says Larry Kelley, a retired Marine Corps colonel who during the Cold War swapped the excitement of piloting Douglas A-4 Skyhawks for the even greater thrills of gathering ­military intelligence behind the Iron Curtain. Apparently, rather than issue maps, the Red Army used “route directors,” or troops who would be dropped at junctions to act as human signposts, showing a ­convoy which way to go. “They’d be left for hours, sometimes even forgotten,” Kelley explains. “We’d give them cigarettes or sandwiches. If there was nobody around, they’d often talk to us, tell us where they were from, even when a column was coming back.” READ MORE ››

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