KGB
The KGB, translated in English as Committee for State Security, was the main security agency for the Soviet Union from 1954 until its break-up in 1991. As a direct successor of preceding agencies such as Cheka, NKGB, NKVD and MGB, the committee was attached to the Council of Ministers, it was the chief government agency of "union-republican jurisdiction", acting as internal security and secret police. Similar agencies were constituted in each of the republics of the Soviet Union aside from Russia, consisted of many ministries, state committees and state commissions; the agency was a military service governed by army laws and regulations, in the same fashion as the Soviet Army or MVD Internal Troops. While most of the KGB archives remain classified, two online documentary sources are available, its main functions were foreign intelligence, counter-intelligence, operative-investigatory activities, guarding the State Border of the USSR, guarding the leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Soviet Government and ensuring of government communications as well as combating nationalism and anti-Soviet activities.
In 1991, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the KGB was split into the Federal Security Service and the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation. After breaking away from Georgia in the early 1990s with Russian help, the self-proclaimed Republic of South Ossetia established its own KGB. A Time magazine article in 1983 reported that the KGB was the world's most effective information-gathering organization, it operated legal and illegal espionage residencies in target countries where a legal resident gathered intelligence while based at the Soviet embassy or consulate, and, if caught, was protected from prosecution by diplomatic immunity. At best, the compromised spy was either returned to the Soviet Union or was declared persona non grata and expelled by the government of the target country; the illegal resident spied, unprotected by diplomatic immunity, worked independently of Soviet diplomatic and trade missions. In its early history, the KGB valued illegal spies more than legal spies, because illegal spies infiltrated their targets with greater ease.
The KGB residency executed four types of espionage: political, military-strategic, disinformation, effected with "active measures", counter-intelligence and security, scientific–technological intelligence. The KGB classified its spies as controllers; the false-identity or legend assumed by a USSR-born illegal spy was elaborate, using the life of either a "live double" or a "dead double". The agent substantiated his or her legend by living it in a foreign country, before emigrating to the target country, thus the sending of US-bound illegal residents via the Soviet embassy in Ottawa, Canada. Tradecraft included stealing and photographing documents, code-names, contacts and dead letter boxes, working as a "friend of the cause" or as agents provocateurs, who would infiltrate the target group to sow dissension, influence policy, arrange kidnappings and assassinations. Mindful of ambitious spy chiefs—and after deposing Premier Nikita Khrushchev—Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and the CPSU knew to manage the next over-ambitious KGB Chairman, Aleksandr Shelepin, who facilitated Brezhnev's palace coup d'état against Khrushchev in 1964.
With political reassignments, Shelepin protégé Vladimir Semichastny was sacked as KGB Chairman, Shelepin himself was demoted from chairman of the Committee of Party and State Control to Trade Union Council chairman. In the 1980s, the glasnost liberalisation of Soviet society provoked KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov to lead the August 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev; the thwarted coup d'état ended the KGB on 6 November 1991. The KGB's main successors are the FSB and the SVR; the GRU recruited the ideological agent Julian Wadleigh, who became a State Department diplomat in 1936. The NKVD's first US operation was establishing the legal residency of Boris Bazarov and the illegal residency of Iskhak Akhmerov in 1934. Throughout, the Communist Party USA and its General Secretary Earl Browder, helped NKVD recruit Americans, working in government and industry. Other important, low-level and high-level ideological agents were the diplomats Laurence Duggan and Michael Whitney Straight in the State Department, the statistician Harry Dexter White in the Treasury Department, the economist Lauchlin Currie, the "Silvermaster Group", headed by statistician Greg Silvermaster, in the Farm Security Administration and the Board of Economic Warfare.
Moreover, when Whittaker Chambers Alger Hiss's courier, approached the Roosevelt Government—to identify the Soviet spies Duggan and others—he was ignored. Hence, during the Second World War —at the Tehran and Potsdam conferences—Big Three Ally Joseph Stalin of the USSR, was better informed about the war affairs of his US and UK allies than they were about his. Soviet espionage was at its most successful in collecting scientific and technological intelligence about advan
The Last Flight (The Twilight Zone)
"The Last Flight" is episode 18 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. Part of the production was filmed on location at Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino, California; the vintage 1918 Nieuport 28 biplane was both owned and flown by Frank Gifford Tallman, had appeared in many World War I motion pictures. Flight Lieutenant William Terrance "Terry" Decker of 56 Squadron Royal Flying Corps lands his Nieuport biplane on an American airbase in France, after flying through a strange cloud, he is taken into custody and questioned by the American base commander, Major General Harper, his provost marshal, Major Wilson. Decker identifies himself and his squadron and claims that the date is March 5, 1917, he is informed that it is March 5, 1959. Decker tells the officers that he and his comrade Alexander "Old Leadbottom" Mackaye were fighting seven German aircraft; the Americans tell him that Mackaye is alive and is an Air Vice Marshal in the Royal Air Force, a war hero from World War II who saved hundreds, if not thousands of lives by shooting down German bombers over London.
The American officers add that Air Vice Marshal Mackaye, in addition to being alive and well, is coming to the base that day for an inspection. Major Wilson tries to help Decker remember. Decker confesses that he has avoided combat throughout his service, that he deliberately abandoned the outnumbered Mackaye when the two were attacked by the German fighters, he refuses to believe. When Wilson suggests that someone else helped Mackaye, Decker realizes that he has been given a second chance, he tells the American officer that there was no one within fifty miles who could have come to Mackaye's aid, so if Mackaye survived, it had to be because Decker went back himself. Knowing he cannot have much time to go back to 1917, Decker pleads with Wilson to release him from custody; when Wilson refuses, Decker escapes. Running outside, he locates his plane, punches a mechanic who tries to get in his way, starts the plane's engine, he is about to take off when Wilson puts a pistol to his head. Decker tells Wilson he will have to shoot him to stop him, as he would rather die than remain a coward.
After hesitating, Wilson allows him to escape and Decker flies his plane into white clouds and vanishes. Major Wilson is rebuked by Major General Harper for believing such a fantastic story and for allowing Decker to escape; when Mackaye arrives, Wilson asks he. Mackaye, says Decker saved his life. In March 1917, Mackaye and Decker were attacked. Decker flew off into a cloud, Mackaye believed at first that Decker had abandoned him. Decker came diving out of the cloud, proceeded to shoot down three of the German planes before being shot down himself. General Harper shows Mackaye Decker's badge and personal effects, startling Mackaye, who remarks that those items had never been returned by the Germans. Major Wilson suggests that "Old Leadbottom"—a nickname known only by Mackaye's comrades back in World War I—sit down while it is explained how these items came into the Americans' possession; this was the first episode of The Twilight Zone scripted by Richard Matheson. Rod Serling had adapted the episode "And When the Sky Was Opened" from a short story of Matheson's.
The United States Air Force major general refers to Mackaye as "sir", suggests that he is a superior officer inspecting the air base. However, Mackaye is ranked as an air vice marshal, a Royal Air Force rank equivalent to major general, thereby making the two officers equals – unless the American general was junior in rank by date of commission; the Royal Flying Corps never flew the Nieuport 28, which did not enter service until 1918. The death of Georges Guynemer is mentioned by Decker but Guynemer died in September 1917, six months after Decker's last flight. 56 Squadron was not deployed until April 1917, at which point it flew the S. E.5 aircraft. The rank of flight lieutenant existed in the Royal Naval Air Service and in the RAF but it never was used in the Royal Flying Corps. However, the only reference to "flight lieutenant" is during Mr. Serling's introduction. However, "Second lieutenant" the most junior commissioned officer rank is equal to a "Pilot Officer" in the RAF. Flight Lieutenant is equal to the Army rank of Captain.
DeVoe, Bill.. Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0 Grams, Martin.. The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0 "The Last Flight" on IMDb
Mirror Image (The Twilight Zone)
"Mirror Image" is episode 21 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It aired on February 26, 1960 on CBS. Millicent Barnes waits in a bus depot in Marathon, New York, for a bus to Cortland, en route to a new job. Looking at a wall clock she notices, she asks the ticket agent when the bus will arrive, he gruffly complains that this is her third time asking. Millicent denies this. While speaking with the ticket agent, she notices a bag just like hers in the luggage pile behind her, she mentions this to the ticket agent. She does not believe this, she washes her hands in the restroom and the cleaning lady there insists this is her second time there. Again, Millicent denies this. Upon leaving the restroom, she glances in the mirror and sees, in addition to her reflection, an exact copy of herself sitting on the bench outside, she meets a young man from Binghamton named Paul Grinstead, waiting for the same bus. Millicent tells Paul about encountering her double. Paul, attempting to calm Millicent, says it is either a joke or a misunderstanding caused by a look-alike.
When the bus arrives and the two of them prepare to board, Millicent looks in the window and sees the copy of herself seated on the bus. In shock, she faints. Millicent lies unconscious on a bench inside the depot while Paul and the cleaning lady attend to her. Paul agrees to wait for the 7:00 bus. While they wait, now coming to, insists the strange events are caused by an evil double from a parallel world - a nearby, yet distant alternative plane of existence that comes into convergence with this world by powerful forces, or unnatural, unknown events; when this happens, the impostors enter this realm. Millicent's doppelgänger can survive in this world only by replacing her. Paul says the explanation is "a little metaphysical" for him, believes that Millicent's sanity is beginning to unravel. Paul tells Millicent he will call a friend in Tully who has a car and may be able to drive them to Syracuse. Instead, he calls the police. After Millicent is taken away by two policemen, Paul begins to settle himself.
After drinking from a water fountain, Paul notices. Looking up towards the doors, Paul notices another man running out the door of the bus depot. Pursuing this individual down the street, Paul discovers that he is chasing his own copy, whose face shows excited delight, his copy disappears as Paul calls out "Where are you?" while looking around in confusion and shock. Vera Miles as Millicent Barnes Martin Milner as Paul Grinstead Joe Hamilton as Ticket agent Naomi Stevens as Washroom Attendant In a short film pitching the Twilight Zone series to a Dutch television station, creator Rod Serling claimed to have gotten the idea for "Mirror Image" following an encounter at an airport. Serling noticed a man at the other side of the terminal who wore the same clothes and carried the same suitcase as himself. However, the man turned out to be younger and "more attractive"; this is one of several episodes from season one with its opening title sequence plastered over with the opening for season two. This was done during the Summer of 1961 as to help the season one shows fit in with the new look the show had taken during the following season.
This episode inspired Jordan Peele's 2019 film Us. DeVoe, Bill.. Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0 Grams, Martin.. The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0 "Mirror Image" on IMDb
Mr. Bevis
"Mr. Bevis" is episode thirty-three of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone, it aired on June 3, 1960 on CBS. This episode is notable for being one of only four episodes to feature the "blinking eye" opening sequence, the first to feature the opening narration which would be used for every episode throughout season 2 and 3. A kindly fellow's life is turned topsy-turvy. Mr. Bevis loses his job, gets tickets on his car and gets evicted from his apartment, all in one day. Bevis meets and gets assistance from his guardian angel, one J. Hardy Hempstead. Bevis gets to start the day over again, except now he is a success at work, his rent is paid and his personal transportation is now a sportscar instead of Bevis's previous jalopy, a soot-spewing 1924 Rickenbacker, but there is a catch: In order to continue in his new life, Bevis must make some changes: no strange clothes, no loud zither music, no longer can he be the well-liked neighborhood goofball. Realizing all these things are what makes him happy, Bevis asks that things be returned to the way they were.
Hempstead obliges warning him that he will still have no job, car, or apartment—but moved by his kindness and the warmth people have for him, arranges for Bevis to get his old jalopy back. In the final scene of the episode, Mr. Bevis is shown finishing his fifth shot of whiskey, he pays his total tab of $5.00 with one bill. He leaves the bar, where his Rickenbacker was parked in front of a fire hydrant; when Bevis is about to be ticketed for this infraction, the hydrant disappears and reappears next to the officer's motorcycle.'J. Hardy Hempstead' is still watching over him after all. Orson Bean as James B. W. Bevis Henry Jones as J. Hardy Hempstead Charles Lane as Mr. Peckinpaugh Florence MacMichael as Margaret William Schallert as Policeman Vito Scotti as Tony, the Fruit Peddler Horace McMahon as Bartender DeVoe, Bill.. Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0 Grams, Martin.. The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing.
ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0 "Mr. Bevis" on IMDb "Mr. Bevis" at TV.com
A World of Difference
"A World of Difference" is episode 23 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. You're looking at a tableau of reality, things of substance, of physical material: a desk, a window, a light; these things have dimension. Now this is Arthur Curtis, age thirty-six, real, he has flesh and blood and mind. But in just a moment we will see how thin a line separates that which we assume to be real with that manufactured inside of a mind. Arthur Curtis is a businessman planning a vacation to San Francisco with his wife Marian. After arriving at his office and talking with his secretary Sally, after finding that his telephone is not functional and hearing someone yell "cut," he discovers his office to be a movie set on a sound stage, he is told that Arthur Curtis is a role he is playing, that his real identity is Gerald Raigan, a movie star, caught in the middle of a brutal divorce from a hostile wife Nora, his own alcoholism, a declining career. He leaves the studio with Nora, he tries in vain to locate Arthur Curtis's house, mistakes a little girl for his daughter, scaring her.
Nora drives him to their actual home. Inside, he meets his agent, who tells him that if he fails to continue work that day, he will drop him as a client. Curtis still protests that he is not Raigan, tries to call his workplace, but the operator cannot find any listing of it, his agent believes that he is having a nervous breakdown, shows him the shooting script of a movie called The Private World of Arthur Curtis. He tells him that the movie is being canceled due to his outburst in the studio. Raigan/Curtis rushes back to the set, being dismantled, pleads not to be left in the uncaring world of Gerald Raigan. Curtis reappears in his office. Sally gives Arthur his plane tickets; as Arthur hears echoes of the studio sounds, he tells Marian that he never wants to lose her, that they should leave for their vacation immediately. Meanwhile, in the other world, Raigan's agent shows up on the set to find; as the set is being dismantled, a teaser shows the "Arthur Curtis" script left on a table, waiting to be thrown into the rubbish bin.
In the last scene and Marian board a plane, which takes flight and fades away into the sky. The modus operandi for the departure from life is a pine box of such and such dimensions, this is the ultimate in reality, but there are other ways for a man to exit from life. Take the case of Arthur Curtis, age thirty-six, his departure was along a highway with an exit sign that reads, "This Way To Escape". Arthur Curtis, en route to the Twilight Zone. DeVoe, Bill.. Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0 Grams, Martin.. The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0 "A World of Difference" on IMDb "A World of Difference" at TV.com the-croc.com episode page
Payback (1999 film)
Payback is a 1999 American neo-noir crime film written and directed by Brian Helgeland in his directorial debut, starring Mel Gibson, Gregg Henry, Maria Bello, David Paymer. It was based on the novel The Hunter by Donald E. Westlake using the pseudonym Richard Stark, which had earlier been adapted into the 1967 film noir classic Point Blank, directed by John Boorman and starring Lee Marvin. In 2006, Helgeland issued a director's cut that differs from the version released by the studio. In a kitchen of an underground abortionist, a former medical doctor puts on surgical gloves and drinks a glass of whiskey. Face down on the kitchen table is a conscious Porter wounded with two large bullet wounds in his back; the doctor digs out the bullets. Porter spends five months recuperating. Porter begins tracking down gangster Val Resnick and Lynn, his estranged wife and a heroin addict, both of whom betrayed Porter following a $140,000 heist from the local Chinese triads. After Lynn shot Porter and the two left him for dead, Val rejoined the Outfit, using $130,000 of the heist money to repay an outstanding debt.
Porter is intent on reclaiming his $70,000 cut. Porter first confronts his wife Lynn, who has become a prostitute. After seeing how low she has sunk, Porter takes pity on Lynn and confines her to her bedroom, only to discover the next day that she has died from a heroin overdose. Porter enlists the help of Rosie, a call girl, affiliated with the Outfit. Porter once served as her limo driver. Lynn's jealousy and the fact that Porter had cheated on her with Rosie led to Resnick and her double-crossing Porter. To get to Resnick, Porter must deal with a lowlife drug dealer and gambler named Arthur Stegman, crime bosses from the Outfit, the Triads, two corrupt police detectives named Hicks and Leary. Resnick is seeing a dominatrix named Pearl, who has connections with the Triads, when Porter violently re-enters his life. Resnick goes to the Outfit to explain why Porter is demanding $70,000. Resnick is killed by Porter in Rosie's apartment. Porter kills three of the Outfit's hitmen, who have been sent to kill him.
That evening, Porter confronts Carter in his office and threatens to kill him if he refuses to pay the $70,000. Carter explains to Porter that he is only an underboss and is not authorized to make any financial decisions. Porter makes Carter phone the boss, whose name is Bronson; when Bronson refuses over the phone, Porter kills Carter. With the aid of Rosie, he kidnaps Bronson's son Johnny, he arranges for Hicks and Leary to be busted by their own colleagues in Internal Affairs by planting Leary's fingerprints on the gun Porter used to kill Resnick as well as stealing Hicks's badge and leaving it with the gun in Resnick's hand. Porter is captured by the Outfit's men after a shootout involving Stegman and the Triads, which ends with Stegman and all of Pearl's men being killed. Porter is taken to a warehouse, where he is beaten and tortured for several hours by men belonging to Bronson's associate Fairfax until Bronson arrives with $130,000 and uses a more gruesome method to force Porter to give up the location of Bronson's son.
Porter is locked inside a car trunk and taken by Bronson and their men to an apartment, rigged with plastic explosives. After his captors meet an explosive demise, Porter goes to pick up Rosie. Leaving Johnny behind, the two take off with the money the mob owed him and drive off to Canada to begin a new life; the film was shot during September/November 1997, in Chicago and Los Angeles, though neither city is referred to in the film. Although credited as director, Brian Helgeland's cut of the film was not the theatrical version released to audiences. After the end of principal photography, Helgeland's version was deemed too dark for the mainstream public. Following a script rewrite by Terry Hayes, director Helgeland was replaced by the production designer John Myhre, who reshot 30% of the film; the intent was to make the Porter character accessible. The film's tagline became: "Get Ready to Root for the Bad Guy." A controversial scene which arguably involves spousal abuse was excised and more plot elements were added to the third act.
After 10 days of reshoots, a new opening scene and voiceover track were added, Kris Kristofferson walked on as a new villain. Helgeland's version, Straight Up: The Director's Cut, was released on DVD, Blu-ray, HD DVD on April 10, 2007, after an October 2006 run at the Austin Film Festival; the Director's Cut version features a female Bronson, voiced by Sally Kellerman, does not include the voice-over by Porter and several Bronson-related scenes, has an different, ambiguous ending. A June 4, 2012, look at "movies improved by directors' cuts" by The A. V. Club described Payback: Straight Up as "a marked improvement on the unrulier original." Mel Gibson stated in a short interview released as a DVD extra that it "would've been ideal to shoot in black and white." He noted that "people want a color image" and that the actual film used a bleach bypass process to tint the film. In addition to this, the production design used muted shades of red and grey for costumes and cars for further effect. Payback was well received at the box office.
The film made $21,221,526 in its opening weekend in North America. It grossed $81,526,121 in North America and $80,100,000 in other territories, totaling $161,626,121 worldwide; the review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 54% based on 74 reviews from critics, a weighted
Where Is Everybody?
"Where Is Everybody?" is the first episode of the American anthology television series The Twilight Zone. It was broadcast on October 2, 1959 on CBS. A man finds himself alone on a dirt road dressed in a U. S. Air Force flight suit, having no memory of how he got there, he finds a diner and walks in to find a jukebox playing loudly and a hot pot of coffee on the stove, but there are no other people besides himself. He accidentally breaks a clock, upon which the jukebox stops playing; the man walks toward a nearby town. Like the diner, the rest of the town seems deserted, but the man seems to find evidence of someone being there recently; the man grows unsettled as he wanders through the empty town, needing someone to talk to but at the same time feeling that he is being watched. In a soda shop, the man notices an entire spinning rack of paperback books titled The Last Man on Earth, Feb. 1959. As night falls, the lights in the park turn on, leading the man to a movie theater, the marquee of, illuminated.
He remembers he is an Air Force soldier from Battle Hymn. When the film begins onscreen, he runs to the projection booth and finds nobody there becomes more paranoid that he is being watched. Running through the streets in a panic, the man hits a pedestrian call button; the call button is revealed to be a panic button: the man, whose name is given as Sgt. Mike Ferris, is in an isolation booth being observed by a group of uniformed servicemen, he has been undergoing tests to determine his fitness as an astronaut and whether he can handle a prolonged trip to the Moon alone, though the town was a hallucination caused by sensory deprivation. The officiating general warns Ferris that while his basic needs will be provided for in space travel, he will not have companionship: "next time be alone". Ferris is carried from the hangar on a stretcher as he tells the Moon in the sky not to "go away up there", reminding himself of the loneliness he faces. Earl Holliman as Mike Ferris James Gregory as General Garry Walberg as Colonel Serling's original pilot for The Twilight Zone was "The Happy Place", which revolved around a society in which people were executed upon reaching the age of 60, being considered no longer useful.
CBS executive William Self rejected the story, feeling it was too dark. Unlike other episodes, which were filmed at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, "Where is Everybody?" was filmed at Universal. The episode featured Westbrook Van Voorhis as narrator; when Voorhis was unavailable for episodes, Serling re-recorded the narration himself for consistency. Serling notably changed the opening narration to place the Twilight Zone within the fifth dimension, among other alterations. Serling adapted "Where is Everybody?" for a novelization titled Stories From the Twilight Zone. Serling grew dissatisfied with the lack of science fiction content and changed the story to include Ferris discovering a movie ticket in his pocket while on the stretcher. A variation on this plotline was used in the episode "King Nine Will Not Return"; the New York Times praised the episode, saying that Serling proved "that science cannot foretell what may be the effect of total isolation on a human being", though " resolution... seemed trite and anticlimactic.
In the desultory field of filmed half-hour drama, however, Mr. Serling should not have much trouble in making his mark. At least his series promises to be different. Charles Beaumont praised the episode in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science-Fiction, writing that he "read Serling's first script... Old stuff? Of course. I thought so at the time... but there was one element in the story which kept me from my customary bitterness. The element was quality. Quality shone on every page, it shone in the scene set-ups. And because of this, the story seemed new and powerful. There was one compromise, but it was made for the purpose of selling the series." DeVoe, Bill.. Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0 Grams, Martin.. The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0 Full video of the episode at CBS.com "Where Is Everybody?" on IMDb "Where Is Everybody?" at TV.com
