THE SEVEN YEARS FOLLOWING the end of World War II brought to the world only a turbulent and troubled peace.
By 1946 Winston Churchill was warning that the Soviets had lowered an "iron curtain" across Europe. In 1948 a Russian blockade of Berlin carried with it the potential to ignite World War III with each of the 200,000 American relief flights over Soviet-controlled territory. In early 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty was signed, declaring that any attack against Britain, France or other western nations would be treated as an act of war against the U.S. itself. By the end of 1949, communist revolutionaries had won control of China, and Russia had set off it's first atomic weapon. Close on its heels the first war between these new global forces erupted in deadly earnest in Korea, where 'MiG alley' became the world's first battlefield for jet fighters and the superior performance of Russian MiGs shocked the American public.
Yet the largest and longest military press conference since World War II would be about none of these, but instead address reports of aerial intruders -- commonly labeled 'flying saucers' -- over the nation's capital in early summer, 1952.
This is the story of that press conference...
This diary series is moving to its new home at Saturday Night Uforia and will appear in Summer-Fall 2012.