Two exciting events occurred last month that confirm that the rest of the world still believes the United States is the best country to live in.
On September 9 it was announced that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the great Russian Nobel Prize-winning writer, has moved from Switzerland to Vermont, where he bought a home. He has received a permanent visa to live in America.
Switzerland, where he was living after being expelled from the Soviet Union, now has the highest per capita wealth in the world, while the United States has dropped to a tie for fourth place. The Swiss are famous for their low crime rate, the absence of political corruption, a balanced national budget, and the scenic beauty of their countryside. It is very complimentary that Solzhenitsyn has chosen to move from Switzerland to our country.
On the same day as the Solzhenitsyn announcement, Lieutenant Viktor Belenko, a young Soviet fighter pilot, arrived in Honolulu on his way from Japan to live in mainland United States. Three days earlier, Belenko had flown the latest and best Soviet fighter plane, the MIG-25, to northern Japan from Vladivostok.
This twin-jet fighter plane was described by our Secretary of the Air Force, Robert C. Seamans, as “probably the best interceptor in production in the world today.” Japanese aviation experts describe this MIG-25 as “the most advanced fighter of the Soviet Air Force.”
Japanese and American aviation engineers are now eagerly inspecting the plane in minute detail in an effort to discover the Soviet secrets that enable the plane to fly so much faster than our best fighter planes.
Of particular importance to U.S. and Japanese technicians examining the Soviet plane are its two 24,250-pound thrust engines, and its electronic counter-measures and counter-counter-measures equipment, which the Soviets have developed and are now deploying on advanced Soviet combat aircraft.
Lieutenant Belenko’s flight to freedom provides new and dramatic proof of the high risks that individuals will take to escape from Communism when they get the chance. His escape was very hazardous because he was on a patrol flight under the constant surveillance of another Soviet MIG-25. To lose his escort, Belenko feigned engine trouble and slowed his supersonic jet, while the escort plane continuously circled above him. When the escort plane was too low on gasoline to follow, Belenko suddenly accelerated and headed for Japan.
Even then his flight was a daredevil risk. The first Japanese airport he reached was fogged in. The second airport he found had too short a runway, but Belenko managed to land his plane safely anyway, despite being almost out of gasoline.
Beleuko’s thrilling flight to freedom ranks with Madane Gisana Kosenkina’s leap to freedom from the upper floor of the Soviet consulate in New York City in 1948, with Simas Kudirka’s attempted leap to freedom from a Soviet fishing vessel to a Coast Guard ship off the coast of Massachusetts in 1970, and with the daring dive to freedom from the deck of a Russian ship near Florida in 1970 by East German engineer Karl Bley.
If Jimmy the Greek had been taking bets on the success of any of those escapes, it is unlikely that he would have gotten any takers. It is thrilling to note that such successful and intelligent individuals are willing to pay so high a price for a chance to enjoy the precious freedom we all take for granted in America.
