Monte Reel

Monte Reel's biography of the Victorian adventurer Paul du Chaillu is an eye-opener. du Chaillu was the first Westerner to see gorillas, and brought specimens back to London, just as Darwin's Origin of Species was fuelling an acrimonious debate about the relationship between primates and man. He was unintentionally caught up in this debate, and became the target of eminent men determined to destroy his reputation to further their cause.

Reel paints a portrait of a man who was, in his way, almost a complete cypher, yet was the inspiration for many in science, literature and even film. He was a colleague of Richard Burton, Algernon Swinburne, Richard Owen, Conan Doyle and many other Victorian luminaries. Jack London, R.M. Ballantyne and other writers owed a debt to him, and even the movie King Kong was partially inspired by him. And yet his origin, his early life, his scientific expeditions and even his death remain shrouded in mystery and controversy. A really engaging read.… (meer)

The book's Title and sub-title provide a basic description of what's to follow, but Monte Reel's story of Paul Du Chaillu and his African explorations surprised me in several ways. I'd never really thought about when and where the gorilla became known to the industrialized nations, but I would have guessed it was hundreds of years earlier than this book revealed. The reluctance of many in the Royal Societies of England to accept the validity of Du Chaillu's discovery of the gorilla is both amusing and sad. Reel describes the difficulty of many Christian fundamentalist's in England in accepting the controversial theories of Darwin regarding evolution, and the near simultaneous discovery of a potential "missing-link" only added fuel to the fire. Also, "Between Man and Beast" gives the reader a taste of what central African exploration was like, and the hardships of the explorers is hard to fathom.

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This is a fascinating and very readable account of the events surrounding the U-2 spy plane. Focusing mainly on four important characters, Monte Reel shows how the U.S. entered the world of spy-craft during an intense period of the Cold War.

In the mid 1950s, there was great concern over the perceived "missile-gap." It was believed that the USSR had developed far more nuclear missiles than the US and that America was at imminent risk. (It must be remembered that many at the time expected nuclear weapons would certainly be used.) The problem was that there was little evidence or knowledge of the actual state of things in the Soviet Union, and America didn't have a knowledgeable spy network. Instead of developing a human system of informants (which would have taken a lot of time), a technological solution was devised.

Edwin Land, the inventor of the Polaroid camera, was enlisted to develop a camera that could produce detailed photos from a great altitude, and Kelly Johnson of Lockheed came up with a very unconventional plane that would fly above 70,000 feet. Richard Bissell of the CIA was charged with overseeing the operation, which was kept out of the military to avoid the appearance of an overt act of war. It was believed that the U-2 would fly so high that it wouldn't be detected by Soviet radar.

Unfortunately, the U-2 was detected on its very first flight. And while Soviet fighter jets couldn't fly high enough to shoot them down, Nikita Khrushchev saw the invasion of Soviet airspace as an act of war. But the information gathered by the U-2 flights turned out to be a goldmine of information for the U.S. until May 1, 1960, when U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the USSR. It was believed that neither the pilot nor the plane would survive from such a height, but Powers survived relatively unhurt and many incriminating parts of the plane were recovered.

As I said before, this is a very fascinating account. I came away with an appreciation for not only the men who built and flew the U-2 (even though some of them weren't always very noble), but a better understanding of some of the pressures the leaders of both countries faced. And I especially gained a greater appreciation for the plane itself. Several years ago I saw one at an airshow at Edwards AFB (next to an SR-71 Blackbird in fact) and was stunned at what a weird-looking plane it was (both of them, actually). This is a book I highly recommend for those who enjoy reading about the Cold War. (I rec'd an advance copy of the book through Amazon Vine.)… (meer)