A Swede's Story

Technicare's DR-960 Digital Subtraction
Angiography X-Ray Machine.

Related to Philip Gardocki by Jon Johansson 
One of my classmates in Technicare's Digital X-Ray class was Jon Johansson, who was from Sweden, and this is his Cold War Story – Phil.

My company had sent a group of us to an electronics convention in Vilnius, Lithuania, then a reluctant part of the Soviet Union. We were to man a booth for a few days, showing off our products. On the first day, one of my co-workers discovered a listening device planted in our hotel room. We were surprised at the clumsiness of this effort and had nothing to hide.

For the rest of the convention, we amused ourselves by talking into every vase, picture frame, and inanimate object we could find. It was great fun!

The jokes stopped when the minders showed up. We were breaking down our displays when two rough looking men started watching us. They had long coats, hats and just stared at us as we worked. It was like a movie. They then followed us onto the ferry we took to cross the Baltic Sea to Stockholm. Then, they even got onto our train. They did not leave the train station and I assume they went home, but the message was clear, "We know where you live and we can get you when we want."