COLD WAR: Border Incidents

Seventeen hundred miles south of its Alaskan base, and only 25 miles from Kamchatka, the long tongue of Soviet territory that hangs down from eastern Siberia, a U.S. four-engine B50 bomber sighted two MIG-15s. One of them closed to a cautious 800 yards and opened fire; the B-50's gunners returned a few bursts. The bomber returned to base undamaged.

The U.S. Air Force, announcing the incident last week (three days after it happened), claimed that the B-50, a weather reconnaissance type, had been on a "routine" weather flight. The U.S. lodged a protest....