ALLEGATIONS CONCERNING COSMONAUT LOSSES, GAGARIN'S ROLE REFUTED

• Document Type: FOIA
• Keywords: UFO SPECIAL COLLECTION
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0005517536
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: June 24, 2015
• Document Release Date: January 31, 2011
• Case Number: F-2010-00651
• Publication Date: September 22, 1990

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Classification: UNCLASSIFIED Status: [STAT]
Document Date: 22 Sep 90 Category: [CAT]
Report Type: JPRS Report Report Date:
Report Number: JPRS-USP-91-002 UDC Number:
Author(s): KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA staff correspondent Ye. Chernykh,
Prague: "Was Gagarin Really in Space?: Cosmonaut No. 1
Flew Around the Planet One Time. But This Fairly Shabby
'Canard' Is Making Its Umpteenth Orbit"]
Headline: Allegations Concerning Cosmonaut Losses, Gagarin's Role
Refuted
Source Line: 90700167 Moscow KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA in Russian 22 Sep
90 p 3
Subslug: [Article by KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA staff correspondent Ye.
Chernykh, Prague: "Was Gagarin Really in Space?: Cosmonaut
No. 1 Flew Around the Planet One Time. But This Fairly
Shabby 'Canard' Is Making Its Umpteenth Orbit"]
FULL TEXT OF ARTICLE:
1. [Article by KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA staff correspondent Ye.
Chernykh, Prague: "Was Gagarin Really in Space?: Cosmonaut No. 1
Flew Around the Planet One Time. But This Fairer Shabby anar s --
Making Its Umpteenth Orbit',]
2. [Text] The book " Gagarin--kosmicheskiy lozh?" [Gagarin--a Space
Lie?] came out recently in Hungary. The author, I. Nemere, alleges
that Gagarin did not fly around our planet on 12 April 1961. The
Vostok craft had gone into space several days earlier. In it was the
son of the famous aircraft designer, Ilyushin. But after a difficult
landing, he looked more like a human wreck than a Soviet "hero."
Someone like that couldn't be shown to the world. Just the opposite,
he would have to be kept out of sight for a long time, or better yet,
for ever. In that same year, Ilyushin was in a serious traffic
accident.
3. An attractive fellow with an optimistic smile and excellent
biographical particulars was quickly found from among the workers. He
also played the role of the representative of the grandiose success
of Soviet science and especially of Soviet policy. It is clear that a
person with such a terrible secret could not live long.
4. I. Nemere, a social and political affairs writer, spent many
years in Moscow, where he met "with knowledgeable people.- He
concealed his authorship right up to the publication of the book,
fearing that, even in Hungary, there would be people who would be
Approved for Release 3Z2
UNCLASSIFIED
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prepared to take whatever steps were necessary to preserve the legend
and the eternal "truths." It wasn't until a press conference at the
end of August that journalists learned the name of the author of the
sensational book.
5. They have lived for some time in the fraternal countries of
socialism, and I can visualize the reaction. They are removing the
statues of Lenin and defiling the memorials to the Soviet soldiers.
Now they have even gone after Gagarin.
6. But it is someone "from among them" who came forward in defense
of Gagarin--the famous Czechoslovakian journalist and author of 12
books on the space program, Karel Patsner. His article has just been
published in Prague by the newspaper MLADA FRONTA DNES. One detail:
after 1968, Karel had big problems. So, wish as you might, you
cannot regard him as a staunch Marxist ready to defend "communist
legends" at any price.
7. "To tell the truth, doubts about Yuriy Gagarin being the first
person in space are nothing new," wrote K. Patsner. "This began
back in the mid-1960s. All the rumors that appeared in the Western
press were filed by the American writer, D. Oberg, in his book
`Secret Soviet Accidents,' published in 1988. Cosmonaut Lodovskiy
died in 1957 while taking off from the Kapustin Yar cosmodrome. In
that same year, Shiborin died. Two years later, re was the d6atK----
of Mitkov. A cosmonaut, still unknown to this day, crashed in May of
1960. In September of 1960, while Khrushchev was giving a. speech at
the UN, an unknown cosmonaut died, identified at one point as Petr
Dolgov. On 4 February 1961, some Western amateur radio operators
picked up a transmission from an astonishing Soviet satellite of the
`beating of a human heart,' which faded away shortly thereafter.
According to some reports, two Soviet cosmonauts were circling the
Earth and, according to others, there were three of them: Belokonev,
Kachur and Grachev. In early April 1961, Vladimir Ilyushin flew
around the earth three times, but he was injured during the return.
In mid-Hay 1961, some amateur radio operators in Europe caught a weak
call for help coming, apparently, from two Soviet cosmonauts. On 14
October 1961, a Soviet craft with a crew was lost in the vast reaches
of space. In November of 1962, Italian amateur radio operators heard
SOS signals from space. According to some sources, that's when
Belokonev died. On 19 November 1963, an attempt to place a second
female cosmonaut into orbit ended tragically. One or more Soviet
experimenters, again according to the reports of Italian amateur
radio operators, died in April of 1964.
8. " Oberg himself was previously engaged in military missile
research and worked at NASA's space center. Be emphasized that all
those reports were absolutely false.
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9. "However, even Oberg, although a specialist himself, could be
wrong. But there are also other sources. Of course, one can't believe
the official Soviet sources of the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras. It
is interesting, however, that an emigrant, V. Fedorov, in a critical
article about the Soviet space program, published by DER SPIEGEL in
1973, also refuted rumors about allegedly concealed cosmonaut losses.
Only one name is mentioned--Yuriy Dolgov. But he, according to
Fedorov's data, died while testing a space suit."
10. "It should be stated," Karel Patsner continued on, "that,
over the 25 years that I have been traveling to the USSR, I have
never heard anything like that from my own friends--scientists,
cosmonauts and journalists. Even in conversations at midnight, when
vine or cognac had loosened tongues and they talked to me frankly
about launch delays, about details as yet unpublished about the
deaths of the crews of the Soyuz-1 and the Soyuz-11, about the many
accidents of rockets involving people and about the difficulties with
the hush-hush moon project. However, there was not even a hint of
tragedies involving unknown cosmonauts. As for accidents prior to the
end of 1960, they can be ruled out if only for technical reasons. At
that time, the Soviets still did not have a readied, tested
spacecraft. In fact, the first satellite was launched in October of
1957. But fine, assume that I had not met with 'knowledgeable people'
and that those launches were conducted in a spe- dal, supersecret
sector, so that my informants could not know anything about them. But
that is illogical because a tremendous amount of money would have
been required to carry out two parallel programs. And the existence
of the programs cannot be kept a secret among the specialists."
11. Patsner reported in detail about Ya. Golovanov's book
"Kosmonavt nomer.,odin" [Cosmonaut No. 11, published in 1986.
Discussed in it as well were rumors about our cosmonauts'
catastrophes. Back in the spring of 1961, in an American weekly,
there appeared a report that, several days prior to the 12th of
April, a person had died in space and that Yuriy Gagarin was now
playing his role on the ground. Later, in that connection, the name
of V. Ilyushin, the ship Rossiya and the date--the 7th of April--came
up. But Ilyushin had been in a serious motor vehicle accident back in
June of 1960.
12. Does it not seem that the Hungarian writer was raising the old
rumors to cause.a stir?
13. On the other hand, Patsner still other weighty arguments. Dr. C.
Sheldon--chief of the Research Division of the U.S. Library of
Congress, until his death considered to be the greatest American
expert on the Soviet space--wrote a report for members of congress in
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November of 1967: "Up to 1967, not a single country had lost a
single crew during a space flight.... The stories that a lot of
Russians had died in space are difficult to refute because they are
so persistent and supplied with names and dates. Even such a
prominent informant as 0. Penkovskiy (an American spy--Ed.) wrote in
his reports about those difficulties. However, American government
employees has assured Congress several times that the United States
did not have any information about such Soviet losses.
14. Even F. Klass as well, in the book "Taynaya strazha.v kosmose "
[The Secret Watch in Space], which is devoted to space-based
espionage, has no doubts about Gagarin being the first. The network
of American ground tracking stations along the' Soviet borders and the
reconnaissance satellites make it possible to follow all the flight
preparations in the USSR. For example, President J. Kennedy knew
about the successful launch of G. Titov in August of 1961 even before
it was officially announced by TASS. In 1975, a law was passed in the
United States regarding the declassification of old information from
the intelligence services. M. Kassut, a writer, found nine documents
in the CIA [TsRU] archives about the training of cosmonauts for the
years 1960-1975. And in not a single one was there even a hint of any
suspicions by the intelligence agents about secret Soviet space
flights and catastrophes.
15. " I believe that I. Nemere is one of tTiose auk rs w o ra e
trying to acquire money and fame from the wave of anti-Sovietism
which has flared up in the former communist countries, " wrote K.
Patsner at the end of his article in defense of Gagarin.
16. "If, in 1960, you had published in the press that a cosmonaut
training detachment had been formed and if you had given all the
names of the candidates, is it likely that rumors would have arisen
around Gagarin?" Patsner said to me.
17. "Karel, what do you mean 1960? Even in the 1980's, Komsomolka
[KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA) could not have pushed through Yaroslav
Golovanov's article `Kosmonavt nomer odin,' where, for the first
time, the truth was disclosed about that detachment. And, in order to
publish the book of the same name in 1986, in the time of glasnost,
you yourself wrote that Yaroslav needed the personal permission of
one of the members of the Politburo."
18. "In the summer of 1964, S.P. Korolev vacationed in
Czechoslovakia. Prior to that, Gagarin was here, he liked `Golden
Prague' very much and he talked about it a lot to.Sergey Pavlovich.
The chief designer was here incognito. He was not even registered in
the guest book of the Czechoslovak Communist Party's Central
Committee. When he was leaving, he said then to his entourage: When
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I come to Czechoslovakia next time, you will know who I am.' Korolev
was opposed to the veils of secrecy, but.... There is nothing we can
do, both you in the Soviet Union and we have to endure what has
already died down in the West. The preachers, who have undertaken to
cure the masses suffering from all kinds of illnesses, and the UPOs,
which were of interest to a lot of people there, but which are now of
interest to only individual groups. Those same outdated
sensationalisms....',