The Terror of the 509th Air Base

Stalin had four and a half million men lined up ready to sweep across what was becoming known as the Iron Curtain. The fear therefore would have been that if this was a Russian spy device, that if it had Geiger counters or had released people who could come with Geiger counters close to the base,. And Stalin would have gone ahead. So the terror was immediate in the military but then the debris was gathered up and taken to right field. That's where the air material command was run by General Nathan Twining.