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I’d like to relate an amusing (by hindsight) personal experience with the Cold War 40+ years ago involving international espionage and real spies. But first a bit of background for younger sciencenet readers.

1.       In 1956, Hungary then behind the Soviet Iron Curtain had a brief revolution (during Oct-Nov 1956) and democracy which was soon crushed when the Soviet tanks marched in. Many persons involved with the revolution, known in the West as Hungarian freedom fighters,  were executed but some escaped to the West.

2.       One such freedom fighter, whose name I forgot, came to the US and began operating a travel agency based in Cambridge MA. One day sometime in the late 1960s he was invited to take part in a travel agents convention in Moscow USSR. He went to the convention. On his return Aeroflot (the USSR airline) flight from Moscow to New York, the plane made an unscheduled stop in Budapest, Hungary and he was taken off the plane by Hungarian authorities. This caused an uproar in the US since he was a US citizen by that time.

3.       During the 1960s because of aerospace guidance and control emphasis and my research/consulting, I was cleared for national security work by the US government for top secret access. This is not so much for actual access to secret data but more for convenient access to secure government buildings and agencies without escort. But because you have clearance, travel to then communist countries are highly restricted. Both for my visit to Poland in 1969 and to USSR in 1973, I had to be briefed by the FBI before the visit and de-briefed afterwards.  For these reasons, I stopped doing any classified work after 1973 and by the 80s I was free to travel to China without overt restriction.

4.       Against this background, in 1969 the International Federaion  on Automatic Control (IFAC) was having her 4th Triannual World Congress in Warsaw, Poland (also behind the Iron curtain  and under communist control at that time). I attended my first IFAC Congress in 1966 in London. There were no Chinese delegation present being the start of the Cultural Revolution in China. Thus, I was very much looking forward to meeting any Chinese professional at the 1969 Congress (of course because of the cultural revolution, China did not resume sending delegation until 1975)

Anyhow, in 1969 I already had a small worldwide reputation in my field, my mother said that I should not go to Warsaw on account of the background fact #2 above and that I did classified work for the US government. I will be kidnapped and taken back to communist China and never be seen again. I of course ignored her, thinking that I am not important enough nor I had any real secrets to reveal to warrant such attention. In fact during the Congress I even took time out to visit the Chinese Embassy in Warsaw hoping to see some Chinese since there were no delegates at the Congress. Of course I cannot really visit/enter the Embassy. Instead I just walked back and forth near the entrance to the guarded building for a few minutes. After 20 years with communications totally cutoff, I was eager to make contact with anything/anybody that is Chinese. Nothing happened,  and a couple of days later at the conclusion of the Congress, I boarded a LOTS (Polish national airline) flight at Warsaw for nonstop travel  to London (or was it Copenhagen, I am no longer sure). However, a few minutes into the flight, the pilot announced on the PA system that he will be making an unscheduled stop in the Polish city of Poznan in 15 minutes before going to London.  Recall this is at the height of the cold war, all kinds strange things happen and the memory of fact#2  above still fresh in everyone’s mind. I said to myself this cannot really be happening. Is this because I lingered near the Chinese Embassy building in Warsaw?  Will I be taken off the plane, shipped back to Beijing, and never see my family in the US again? Will I be tortured to reveal any secrets which I don’t know?, etc and etc. Anyhow, the 15 minutes of terror soon passed, the plane landed and 2 new passengers  boarded the plane and we took off again. It turns out that in order to save money, the Warsaw to London nonstop flight will occasionally make an unscheduled stop in Poznan to pick up a passenger. But such fact is not announced beforehand nor listed in the airline schedule. So ended my closest brush with international espionage and cold war.

Added footnote to fact #2 above. Sometime in the 1970s, through the effort of Senator Ed Kennedy, the US government negotiated a deal with the Hungarian government and had this freedom fighter (a US citizen) returned to Massachusetts, USA.  But the story did not end there. A decade later, this man was found dead on a beach in Spain under mysterious circumstance. The newspaper report at that time rumored that he did some work for the CIA.  I tried to verify the facts mentioned here and above. But I cannot find any reference to these facts that I recalled on the Internet (probably for understandable reasons). In fact if weren’t for my personal experience, I certainly would not have connected and remembered these separate facts over several decades. Thus believe it or not.