USS Vincennes to the Rescue

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Lead: In the spring of 1940 the heavy cruiser, USS Vincennes, was sent to Europe on a most unusual rescue mission.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: The nations of western Europe were collapsing before the Nazi onslaught and French armies were falling back on Paris, when, on May 28th, the navy sent an urgent message to the Vincennes riding at anchor at Hampton Roads, Virginia. In less than four hours the crew, most of which was scattered from Norfolk to Cape Hatteras on leave or liberty, had been rounded up and the ship was on its way into the Atlantic. Vigorous discussion among the crew as to their mission enlivened the hours of passage. The ship arrived off the coast of San Miguel Island in the Azores on the 3rd of June and awaited orders. 

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Berlin Spy Tunnel II

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Lead:  In 1954 the Central Intelligence Agency dug a 1400 foot tunnel under the border of East Berlin to spy on Soviet military messages. It was an engineering triumph, but there was one hitch. The Soviets knew it was there.

Intro.: "A Moment In Time" with Dan Roberts.

Content: George Blake was a member of the British Secret Intelligence Service. During the early days of the Korean War he was captured by the North Koreans and held for three years. Sometime during his prison stay he went over to the other side. In 1954, when the spy tunnel was first discussed by the CIA and its British counterpart, MI6, Blake was in the meeting, took extensive notes, and passed the sketches and drawings to his KGB control officer within two days.

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Berlin Spy Tunnel I

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Lead: In 1954, at the height of the Cold War, the CIA and British MI6 dug a tunnel under divided Berlin to spy on the Russians. They thought it was a secret.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: The city of Berlin during the 1950s was divided east and west and was the focus of much tension between the Soviet Union and the western Allies. It was also crawling with spies. One of those was the CIA's station chief in Berlin, William King Harvey. He received information that the Soviets had laid three telephone and telegraph cables 18 inches beneath the soil near the road to Shönefeld Airport. Over these lines the Soviet military command in Berlin communicated with Moscow. Building on the experience of the British who had conducted a similar but smaller operation against the Soviets in Vienna, Harvey convinced his bosses to construct a tunnel, intercept the cables and tap them.

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The Dancing Stallions of Lipizza II

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Lead: Bred as royal horses of the Austrian emperors, the beautiful and graceful Lipizzaner stallions were the subject of a spectacular rescue at the end of World War II.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: The Hapsburg emperors bred the Lipizzaners for their strength and intelligence. With the end of World War I, the empire was no more but the white stallions, in their home at Vienna's Spanish Riding School, continued the tradition of the precision riding originally developed as battlefield maneuvers against enemy soldiers.

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The Dancing Stallions of Lipizza I

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Lead: The graceful and elegant stallions of Vienna's Spanish Riding School have a long and fascinating history.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: It is hard for those living in the late twentieth century to imagine a time in which motorized transport was nonexistent and the horse in its various breeds was the indispensable provider of locomotion and carriage for goods and people. Today, expensive to maintain and relatively rare, the horse has largely become a diversion and source of entertainment for the well-to-do. There was a time, however, when one had a horse or walked, when goods were mostly conveyed by horse power or by humans, when the fate of nations was decided by the quality of horse bred and fought in their service.

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The Spruce Goose II

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Lead: With Allied shipping in serious jeopardy due to German submarine attacks during the early years of World War II, military planners turned to aircraft manufacturers. Howard Hughes responded with the Spruce Goose.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Metal for the construction of experimental aircraft was scarce in 1942. Therefore, when the designers at Hughes Aircraft began their mock-up of the gigantic new cargo plane, they built their model using Duramold, lightweight plywood saturated with synthetic glue to make it waterproof and very strong. The basic airframe had no nails, screws or rivets, no metal at all. Skilled woodworkers crafted special joints that were bonded with glue for strength.

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The Spruce Goose I

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Lead: Of all the problems the Allies faced in the summer of 1942, none was more threatening than unrestrained submarine warfare. German U-boats were sinking transport ships faster than they could be built.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Fresh challenges seemed to inspire Howard Robard Hughes, Jr.. At the age of 17 he took control of the Hughes Tool Company upon the death of his father. This provided the financial base for Howard's other interests. In 1926 he migrated to Hollywood where over the years he produced numerous motion pictures and premiered actors such as Jean Harlow and Jane Russell. Hughes eventually owned and later sold RKO Pictures.

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Alan Turing III

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Lead: After describing the modern programmable computer and helping break the German Enigma codes, British mathematician Alan Turing turned his attention to artificial intelligence.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: After the wartime emergency, Turing joined Britain’s National Physical Laboratory. There he helped finalize plans for an Automatic Computing Machine (ACE), which followed his 1937 theory advocating a device that could do many tasks depending on the information fed into it. Unfortunately, the National Lab was bogged down in bureaucratic inertia and, discouraged by the slow pace, Turing, in 1948, accepted a position at the University of Manchester.

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