Firefox

I can conceive your surprise! However, I think it feasible, providing a pilot can be found. I would think it necessary to employ an American, since our own RAF pilots no longer train in aerial combat (I am considering all the possibilities), and an American with combat experience in Vietnam might be best of all. We have the network in Moscow and Bilyarsk which could place pilot and plane in successful proximity.

Your thoughts on the above should prove enlightening. I look forward to receiving them.

Sincerely,

Kenneth Aubrey

EYES ONLY — PM/'C'

11/2/76

My dear Sir Richard,

I am grateful for your prompt reply to my request. I really wished to know more about the aircraft itself — perhaps you could forward a digest of Aubrey's reports over the past three years? As to his suggestion — I presume he is not in earnest? It is, of course, ridiculous to talk of piracy against the Soviet Union!

My regards to your wife.

Sincerely,

Andrew Gresham

'C'/KA

13/2/76

Kenneth —

I enclose a copy of the P.M's letter of yesterday. You will see what he thinks of your budding criminality! At least as far as aircraft are concerned. His opinion is also mine — officially. Privately, I'll admit this Bilyarsk think is scaring the pants off me! Therefore, do what you can to find a pilot, and work up a scenario for this proposed operation — just in case! You might try making enquiries of our friend Buckholz in the CIA, who has just got himself promoted Head of the Covert Action Staff — or is his title Director over there? Anyway, the Americans have as much to lose as Europe in this, and are just as interested in Bilyarsk.

Good hunting. On this, don't call me, I'll call you — if and when!

Sincerely,

Richard

EYES ONLY — PRIME MINISTER

29/6/76

My dear Prime Minister,

You requested Sir Richard Cunningham to supply you with clarification of certain technical matters arising in connection with the aircraft we have codenamed the Firefox' (Mikoyan Mig-31). I suppose that this letter is an opportunity to further plead my cause, but I think it important that you understand the gravity of Russian development in certain fields of military aviation, all of which are to meet in the focal point of this aircraft.

Our information comes principally from the man Baranovich, who has been responsible for the electronics that make practical the theoretical work of others on a thought-guided weapons system for use in high-technology aircraft. Baranovich cannot supply us with all the information we require even on this area of the Bilyarsk project, and we would be unlikely to successfully remove him from Russia, guarded as they all are in Bilyarsk. Hence my suggestion that we steal one of the later series of production prototypes, which will contain everything the Russians intend to put in the front-line versions.

Perhaps I should cite at this point an interesting civil development of the idea of thought-guidance — the latest type of invalid chair being studied in the United States. This is intended to enable a completely paralysed and/or immobilised person to control the movements of an invalid carriage by positive thought activity. The chair would be electronically rigged so that sensors attached to the brain (via a 'cap' or headrest of some kind) would transmit the commands of the brain, as electronic impulses, to the mechanics of the wheelchair or invalid carriage. A mental command to move ahead, turn round, to move left or right, shall we say, would come direct from the brain — instead of the command being transmitted to wasted or useless muscles, it would go into the artificial 'limbs' of the wheelchair. There is no projected military development of any such system; whereas the Soviets, it would appear, are close to perfecting just such a system for military use. (And the West has not yet built the wheelchair.)

The system which we are convinced Baranovich is developing seems designed to couple radar and infra-red, those two standard forms of detection and guidance in modern aircraft — with a thought-guided and — controlled arsenal aboard the plane. Radar, as you are aware, bounces a signal off a solid object, and a screen reveals what is actually there: infra-red reveals on a screen what heat-sources are in the vicinity of the detection equipment. For guidance purposes, either or both these methods can be used to direct missiles and to aim them. The missiles themselves contain one or both of these systems. However, the principal advantage of the thought-guided system is that the pilot retains command of his missiles after firing, as well as having a speeded-up command of their actual release, because his mental commands become translated directly to the firing-sytem, without his physical interference.

It must be said that we do not have, nor do the Russians we understand, weapons that will exploit such a sophisticated system — such as new kinds of missile or cannon. However, unless we quickly nullify the time advantage of the Russian programme, we will be left too far behind by the undoubted acceleration of missile and cannon technology ever to catch up.

Therefore, we must possess this system. We must steal a Mig-31, at some time.

Sincerely,

Kenneth Aubrey

PM TO KA

24/9/76

My dear Aubrey,

My thanks for your communication. I appreciate your anxiety, though I reject your solution. And, in view of the recent 'present' brought to the West by Lt. Belenko, namely the 'Foxbat', are you not perhaps worrying unduly? It will take the Russians years, surely, to recover from the loss of the Foxbat's secrets?

Sincerely,

Andrew Gresham

KA TO PM

30/9/76

My dear Prime Minister,

In reply to your query, I am convinced that the Foxbat, the Mig-25, is little more than a toy compared with the projected aircraft which Nato has codenamed the Firefox. We must not be lulled into a false sense of security by the recent accident in Japan — a piece of good fortune we hardly deserve, and which may not prove to our final advantage.

I should also add that information coming back to our technical experts here from Japan suggests that the Mig-25 is not all that it might be. It is constructed in large part of steel rather than titanium, it has difficulty in obtaining its maximum speed and holding it, and its electronics are by no means as sophisticated as we were led to believe.

However, we have the opinion of Baranovich in Bilyarsk that the proposed Mig-31 will live up to even extravagant expectations. He is aware of the shortcomings of the Mig-25, by means of scientific gossip — but no one is carping at Bilyarsk about the Firefox.