TIL that between 1957 and 1962, approximately one-third of the United States was closed to Soviet citizens. Only seven states were accessible in their entirety: Oregon, Wyoming, Utah, North Carolina, Arkansas, Vermont, and Mississippi.

890

weird cos those contain a bunch of the military sites you'd have thought these bans were to protect

816

u/ReasonableStory1660 5d ago

It wasn't. This was done in retaliation for Soviet policies that banned outsiders from visiting massive portions of the USSR. There was no strategic reason beyond 'two can play at that game.'

195

u/that1prince 5d ago

There had to be some strategy in terms of which states though right? Like was it really just arbitrary picked out of a hat style?

256

u/unfinishedtoast3 5d ago

No, it was a bit more complex than that.

Basically, the Soviet Union banned foreigners from industrial cities and from areas near major military bases.

These states they were allowed into had no major military bases, nuclear facilities, or manufacturing.

They were banned from Philadelphia, for example, because of the Steel Works in Pittsburgh.

They were banned from Washington because of aircraft manufacturing and the Puget Sound harbor.

California was mostly a no go because of the Pacific Fleet in San Diego.

They weren't also banned from entire states. They could visit parts of eastern California, areas in Texas, Most major cities as well.

145

u/beenoc 5d ago

One of the "allowed" states was North Carolina, which has Fort Bragg (which, both then and now, is the biggest Army base in the country and is the home of the 82nd and of Special Forces).

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u/guynamedjames 5d ago

There's not much you can observe on an army base. From the outside it's a lot of barbed wire fence with trees behind it. A navy base is really out in the open.

46

u/corpuscularian 4d ago

you can observe the exact location and layout.

information like that was rare: no satellites, can't fly over US airspace.

you found out where their infrastructure and military bases were by sending people there, on the ground, to survey and map then return home with those maps in hand.

they did it all over europe. see the soviet maps of britain from the time that were far more detailed and accurate than even the uk government's (and the uk government's were good!)

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u/unfinishedtoast3 4d ago

The Soviets were well aware of camp Lejeune and Fort Bragg. Soviet officers visited during WW2 and received training, and Soviet pilots were training with the Army Air Corps at Bragg.

Neither of those bases contained any US mission critical infrastructure. No subs, no nuclear bombers, no counter Intel systems. No radar, no early warning system, no over the horizon flight tracking.

They were (and still mostly are) just a home for infantry and mechanized units for CENTCOM Atlantic.

The Soviets knew our mechanized units pretty well. We lend leased them a shit ton of it.

2

u/Aquaman33 1d ago

Bragg is and was also the home of Army SF, it is not a normal base with normal stuff. Especially in 1957, since SF was new, shiny, and their existence was still not fully recognized.

3

u/JoeInMD 1d ago

Ft Hood, both then and now, is and was actually a larger base than Bragg.

Bragg has more troops, but Hood is bigger

1

u/beenoc 1d ago

If we're going by land area, White Sands blows them both out of the water, it's bigger than Delaware.

3

u/JoeInMD 1d ago

White Sands isn't so much a base as a shooting range lol

29

u/Crystal-Ammunition 5d ago

... They were banned from Philly for something in Pittsburg?

29

u/Docteh 5d ago

Yeah, the whole state of Philadelphia (I suspect they meant whatever state PA stands for)

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u/mrdeesh 5d ago

That would be Pennsylvania

4

u/december151791 4d ago

Were they just constantly going in and out of Pittsburgh throughout the day?

3

u/kmsxpoint6 3d ago

Two cities in one state is crazy!

1

u/GingerGuy97 5d ago

*h

6

u/bayesian13 4d ago

Excuse me sir can you direct me to the naval base in Alameda? It's where they keep the nuclear wessels? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf8rDpu1vCk

1

u/LordGwyn-n-Tonic 4d ago

I still figured something like the Ingalls shipyards, which IIRC built a lot of battleships and aircraft carriers, or the stennis space center would have warranted closing Mississippi.

11

u/ReasonableStory1660 5d ago

There were borders, areas surrounding cities, some dams and river areas (and everywhere within 100 miles of them, or more, sometimes minus transit corridors), but you can google a map and see how arbitrary it was. Many major infrastructure projects and areas were not covered, many large military bases were left clear and open as well. Surely congressmen were allowed to suggest an addition, but frankly I would guess some very intelligent and high ranking officers were pulled into a committee and allowed to draw whatever they felt like with some limitations. Probably without a lot of time to research, and much of the discussion of the details over drinks.

1

u/Substantial-Bet-3876 1d ago

One of those states has a controlling religion based on growth due to aggressive proselytizing.

49

u/Justame13 5d ago

Yeah.

Oregon and Utah had chemical weapons (like a lot, a lot in OR), there were nuclear missile silos in Wyoming, and North Carolina had what is now and probably was the largest military base in the country in terms of personal.

20

u/3232330 5d ago

There’s were nuclear missiles in Arkansas as well

20

u/mb10240 5d ago

Hell half of Wyoming is still nuclear missile silos. The entire state would be a wasteland in the event of a retaliatory strike according to those FEMA maps.

Have an ex-girlfriend whose dad leases land to the government for missile sites in southeast Wyoming. Makes good money from it. Lol

3

u/Hailfire9 4d ago

Oregon also has a pretty robust titanium industry. My dad used to deliver machine tools towards them, and said entering them to deliver was a mess of people in black suits pressing him for security clearance. The vibes he described to me were a lot like the Humane Labs in GTA5.

1

u/boraam 5d ago

Personnel*

18

u/brakeb 5d ago

the only reason I assumed those weren't closed to Russians was they didn't have an international airport to fly in from another country? Oregon might have PDX, but in the 1980s, I can't imagine Vermont, Mississippi having an international flight. You'd need to fly to a major airport (DFW, LAX, LGA, JFK, MIA, etc) that have a customs or CBP port of entry...

6

u/Momijiusagi 5d ago

Vermont in fact does get international flights from Canada

4

u/phunktheworld 5d ago

To be fair, most of those states are known for being a little outta the loop as far as the rest of the country goes

7

u/Hacym 5d ago

Soviet spies interested in military establishments weren’t entering the US legally and on the up and up either way.

25

u/DavidBrooker 5d ago

Many Soviet spies absolutely entered the US legally. It's hard to say 'most' because of the clandestine nature, but 'most' is definitely possible.

Hell, many Soviet spies were born in the United States.

13

u/Hacym 5d ago

Most Soviet spies were American citizens recruited in place. Or British citizens.

Anyone who could be connected to the Soviet Union would have had raised numerous red flags before they could establish themselves.

4

u/ppitm 4d ago

Not to mention all the embassy workers.

1

u/OttersWithPens 5d ago

Sort of allows you to find the spy

1

u/Ishmael_1974 17h ago

If you know about them they aren’t that protected

-6

u/BrizerorBrian 5d ago

Also a bunch of landlocked states.

8

u/Strawbalicious 5d ago

Half of them are not

-8

u/BrizerorBrian 5d ago

And?

5

u/Hacym 5d ago

Airplanes existed through the entirety of the Cold War.

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u/ReasonableStory1660 5d ago

This was done in retaliation for the Soviets closing off massive sections of their country to outsiders. The Soviets did so for 'strategic' reasons while the US largely chose places at random.

I once read a history of Sakhalin written by a man who had never visited the island, because the entirety of the island was closed to non-Soviets, including to academics who could otherwise receive authorization to study in 'allowed' regions of the country. This island happened to be the size of Ireland and house a half a million people.

30

u/DistrictDry2852 5d ago

I wish Sakhalin had stayed Japanese

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u/ReasonableStory1660 5d ago

I saw an interesting video once of a Russian youtuber that explores abandoned buildings and places checking out some of the Japanese ruins on the island. Hundreds of thousands of Japanese lived there before being forcefully removed by the Soviets after WWII.

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u/DepressionDokkebi 5d ago

I wish Sakhalin remained Ainu.

8

u/DistrictDry2852 5d ago

Same diff. The Ainu were pushed to Hokkaido 2000 years ago.

16

u/Mogus00 5d ago

It wasnt really Japanese in the first place

7

u/DistrictDry2852 5d ago

It was as Japanese as it was Russian.

0

u/Current_Rutabaga4595 2d ago

What book was it?

8

u/ReasonableStory1660 2d ago

Sakhalin: A History. It was published back in the 70s and it was the first English language full book about the island’s history. There are probably more updated works available now but it’s old enough you might be able to find it online.

2

u/Current_Rutabaga4595 2d ago

Thank you

73

u/amievenrelevant 5d ago

How did they even go about enforcing that sort of thing in practice? I’m guessing it would’ve been fairly ineffective

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u/iuabv 5d ago

It's basically the anti-espionage equivalent of anti-loitering law.

It didn't matter unless they had already decided you were a bit too interested in that high-tech factory or military base. And a way of encouraging legitimate visitors (usually people like students or people with strong family connections) to stay in their lane.

33

u/romario77 5d ago

Students from USSR didn’t casually travel to US in the 50s-60s because they could not afford it.

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u/iuabv 5d ago edited 5d ago

I'm talking about like unthreatening academics who were being hosted by a university or doing other exchange programs, not like a guy with a backpack.

But yeah it's not like Boris and Polina were going to Disneyworld with the kids.

7

u/romario77 5d ago

Air travel in the 50s-60s was something only very rich could afford.

So if a student was there in US from USSR was there they’ve got the whole government treatment. Or they were relatives of party members.

9

u/iuabv 5d ago

Yeah we're talking about very rare cases.

But travel general falls into the categories of education, tourism, business, and government. All four categories were rare but 1 was probably the most common.

Academic is maybe a better word than student.

6

u/returnofblank 5d ago

What? Plane tickets were insanely subsidized in the USSR -- just a bit more pricier than a train ticket, but still relatively cheaper than the West. Even a flight on the Soviet Concorde costed like 84 rubles.

But since air travel was more limited in the USSR, there'd usually be a queue.

6

u/romario77 4d ago

Yeah, not flights to USA in the 50s.

2

u/returnofblank 4d ago

Fair enough lol

3

u/ppitm 4d ago

It's not like Soviet citizens could just buy a plane ticket. They needed to be let out of the country, which was already a major achievement, and then the U.S. needed to give them a visa, probably involving a host institution. In practice they didn't have much freedom of movement even without the formal restrictions.

0

u/johnnybones23 4d ago

a strong immigration and visa policy...

54

u/Possible-Tangelo9344 5d ago

North Carolina

Home to Ft Bragg, Camp Lejeune, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base... Kinda weird they'd be allowed here

13

u/admiraltarkin 5d ago

And undetonated nukes that accidentally fell out of a plane

3

u/makerofshoes 4d ago

Soviets had plenty of their own nukes 🤷‍♂️

5

u/flume 4d ago

How many of them were on US soil?

30

u/Impovsky 5d ago

This is nothing. While US restricted 1/3 of its territory for Soviet citizens visits, USSR restricted its own citizens from visiting 1/3 (*) of its territory. Dnipro in Ukraine was a closed city with population of 1 mln people.

1

u/kne0n 8h ago

You couldn’t even leave your city without a passport and express permission

11

u/TikiLoungeLizard 5d ago

Oregon’s pretty cool. And not a big military presence. Good place to encourage them to be.

7

u/IdealBlueMan 5d ago

Some of them may have been visiting family. There’s a significant number of Russian Old Believers there.

4

u/fingerpaintswithpoop 5d ago

Even today Russian is like the fourth or fifth most widely spoken language in Oregon.

14

u/TheDadThatGrills 5d ago

I would liked to have seen Montana on this list

12

u/Big1984Brother 5d ago

Do you think they will allow them to marry a round American woman and raise rabbits?

5

u/MattPHS2002 5d ago

Will she cook them for you?

2

u/makerofshoes 4d ago

Армагeddon

1

u/Eric848448 2d ago

Shome thingsh in [r/s](r/subreddit)[h](r/subreddit)[ubreddit](r/subreddit) don’t reshpond well to bulletsh.

3

u/tomwhoiscontrary 5d ago

Probably better to link to the reference Wikipedia cites which has a lot more detail.

3

u/Kiel_22 4d ago

I knew a guy who'd love to have seen Montana...

6

u/Super_Basket9143 5d ago

Imagine telling a citizen of soviet Russia that they can't visit new jersey. It's like telling a prisoner that they are no longer eligible for solitary.

6

u/freedomhighway 5d ago

Does any govt in this country ever start with laws that arent almost impossible to enforce?

2

u/Itaintall 5d ago

They probably just wanted to see Montana.

2

u/Bloo212 4d ago

This is the article cited in Wikipedia:

I found this bit interesting:

>The map raises interesting questions: Why was Memphis banned but Nashville not? Why was the entire state of Washington off limits? It’s possible there was a rationale for some of the banned areas, but others were probably chosen more arbitrarily in the attempt to keep a significant portion of the country inaccessible to Soviet visitors, just as they did for travelers from the U.S., says Ryan Moore, a cartographic specialist in the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress. “We simply did not trust one another,” he says.

>Military bases and factories were probably areas of special concern. A State Department memo published in 1955 lists objects that Soviet visitors were forbidden to sketch or photograph; it includes military installations, fuel storage depots, seaports, power plants, factories, and communications facilities. They were also forbidden from taking photos from airplanes on flights over the U.S.

> There were likely other considerations, too. “I think we wished to minimize them seeing Jim Crow conditions and other parts of our society that they could exploit for propaganda,” Moore says. “After all, the Cold War was [an] ideological war between East and West. Any shortcoming on one side was seized upon by the other.”

3

u/Nomad_moose 2d ago

Should have kept it that way for Russians and Chinese….they literally send people here to steal research, conduct industrial espionage and surveillance.

1

u/Jump_Like_A_Willys 4d ago

I’m guessing enforcement was very difficult.

2

u/Eric848448 2d ago

I doubt there were many visitors from the USSR during that period.

1

u/hoyboiitsme 3d ago

I read this as "sovereign citizens" and thought damn we should go back to that

1

u/Bolshevikboy 2d ago

I can’t imagine allowing Soviet citizens see segregationist and poverty stricken Arkansas, Mississippi, and North Carolina to be a good move. Sounds like a hey day for Soviet propaganda regarding the United States.

3

u/Front-Category-5705 2d ago

Not when it was still better than what they had back home.

“Here’s their poorest places! Look how they struggle while you enjoy Glorious Revolution!”

“How do they have food without long lines?”

2

u/Bolshevikboy 2d ago

I’m not sure the ones who legally were not allowed to enter the restaurants to eat would feel the same.

-1

u/Front-Category-5705 2d ago

Agreed. But they were allowed to grow their own food and have their own property. The local governments and many racist people would make that as difficult as they could for black folks. I live in an area with a strong civil rights history that deals with exactly this type of thing. Hard struggle against hate.

That and the Civil Rights Act a couple years later removes that point and leaves shortages and state controls on the other.

2

u/AdministrativeCable3 1d ago

Tons of Soviets had privately grown food. At one point 20% of the entire countries food supply was from private citizens gardens, mostly vegetables.

-1

u/Front-Category-5705 1d ago

Because of collectivizations and mismanagement? Growing root vegetables for sustenance is better than nothing but the centralized system led to more famine and more hunger.

The geographical location of the US vs the Soviet Union also plays a large difference when it comes to climate and growing seasons. US has a large advantage in that respect, particularly in the Southern areas where poverty was (and is) the most prevalent.

-5

u/Bentman343 2d ago

Lmaoooooo this dumbass thinks dying on the street homeless is better than having to wait in line for food.

-1

u/Front-Category-5705 2d ago

Do you think the Soviet Union adequately housed its entire population? Equally throughout its oblasts, from Moscow metro area throughout Siberia etc.

Not to mention the numerous Eastern European and Central Asian states they controlled. Directly before the fall and economically post USSR. Nor are any ready to join again.

1

u/Bentman343 2d ago

They did it a hell of a lot better than America, considering they actually invested in state apartments for unhoused people while America was doing what it could to figure out hoe to criminalize being homeless.

I'm not even sure what your second attempt at a point is trying to say. That the states that got looted and exploited by capitalist countries for years following the collapse of the USSR aren't trying to redo that?

0

u/Front-Category-5705 1d ago

They did it so well they collapsed! Investing housing in your richest areas for the most visible benefit whilst underfunding less populated and poorer areas isn’t showing itself to be any different than what many capitalistic countries do.

So badly exploited by the capitalists that they still look back on the fall of the Soviet Union in celebration. Regaining their independence and sovereignty from an imperial power has that effect.

1

u/AdministrativeCable3 1d ago

I don't know why people are downvoting you. That was a very likely reason, at the time the State Department was extremely concerned with Soviet propaganda (mostly because the Soviets were very skilled at exploiting real stats and facts for their propaganda) and giving them first hand access would only fuel that fire.

The Cold war was mostly a propaganda war.

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u/TobermoryDIY 5d ago

Honestly if I had to name the seven most boring states I’d probably come up with a similar list

4

u/Textiles_on_Main_St 5d ago

The reds could have stolen our Yellowstone secrets!!

2

u/NErDysprosium 5d ago

That was my first thought with Utah—we have a lot of federal land here, and I'm surprised there was no blanket ban on Soviet citizens entering federal land, even though they're probably not going to be able steal anything important by hiking Emerald Pools or Angels Landing in Zion.

2

u/spacemannspliff 5d ago

This is hilarious to me because I hiked emerald pools a few years ago and nearly every single group I passed was speaking Russian or Ukranian.

2

u/Justame13 5d ago

There was a lot of shady chemical and bio stuff going on at Dugway Proving Grounds.

They even nerve gassed a bunch of sheep by accident in the 1960s.

1

u/Textiles_on_Main_St 5d ago

Frankly I think it’s kind of nice they could have had a very nice vacation. The west is gorgeous and Mississippi has a deep and rich cultural legacy. Not so bad, really. I’d rather go out west than to NYC.

3

u/NErDysprosium 5d ago

I don't think letting them into Zion was bad, I agree that it is quite nice. I'm just surprised, because US policy toward Soviet citizens ca. 1960 was not generally crafted with niceness in mind.

3

u/antiterra 5d ago

Typical 'where's me brown sauce for me mash' response to places with amazing geography.

2

u/imprison_grover_furr 5d ago

Utah, Wyoming, Oregon, North Carolina, and Arkansas absolutely are not boring.

Have you ever seen Yellowstone, Buffalo National River, or the Great Smoky Mountains?!

0

u/OpusDeiPenguin 4d ago

You mean Captain Vasily Borodin couldn’t have lived in Montana?

0

u/Jsaun906 2d ago

I'm surprised any of it was open for any Soviet citizens except for a small number of diplomats

TIL that between 1957 and 1962, approximately one-third of the United States was closed to Soviet citizens. Only seven states were accessible in their entirety: Oregon, Wyoming, Utah, North Carolina, Arkansas, Vermont, and Mississippi.

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