Laika or Not?

The space dog Laika, of humble origin, blessed with only a Christian name, bred and housebroken on the amber steppes of Mother Russia, was a simple unpretentious canine that would soon be world famous for her daring exploits and globe‐spanning heartbeat telecasts.

The double-whammy of Sputnik’s boomerang repercussions for the satellite-fed future was troubling the sleep of KGB masterminds deep within Strangelovean Kremlin sun-basements, as they asked themselves again and again, “Which nation is to be the rising star in the coming era of world encircling space-headed mania?”

Wormwood prophecies from Revelations & other Biblical verifications of Russia’s inevitable ascendance were studied and restudied by the USSR’s very own and very intense political bigwigs & chess masters of totalitarian technocracy. Neither chaos nor spectre, yet Russia was convinced she had been called upon to assume the mantle of avatar over the beckoning masses who were only waiting for a sign.

Searching the hidden history of Euro-American fears and phobias, the parnoia-fueled KGB Marx mobsters thought they had found, at last, the perfect PR ploy. For there, like a feverish muzzle of a Russian wolf-hound peering out of the pages of Nostradamus’ quatrains:

“When the animal domesticated by man
after great pains & leaps will come to speak
the lightning to the Virgin will be very harmful
taken from Earth & suspended in the air.” –Nostradamus

What else could it mean except the glorious Soviet space program would prevail & a tongue-wagging canine cosmonaut would lead the oppressed out of capitalistic bondage?
–Jay Mandeville and Dwight Frizzell

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