AT THE AIRPORT?
It is a valid question, were they at the airport? One of the commenters on the original post, someone very knowledgeable in the art of photography, suggests otherwise, the thoughts raised were that this was a studio shot or shots that were later superimposed onto the airfield image. Shot or shots simply means that there were two individual images of the men which were then superimposed together onto the main shot. There is maybe a clue to that in what appears to be a second reference date of 6 03 47 shown in one reference on the back of this photograph. (RSE 47603)
The question raised other thoughts about the basis of the story of Fedosimov, the question is best posed by asking, how do we know that the man to the right of this image is Novikov? Think about that for a moment. and here's another question. How do we know that the man to the left of the image is Pavel Ivanovich Fedosimov?
Answer 1, NOVIKOV
We know that the man on the right is Novikov not because we have dozens of hundreds of newspaper articles or mentions in FBI files on the man but because what we have is dozens if not hundreds of photographs that link the name directly to them. It's the photographs that provide the proof.
Answer 1, NOVIKOV
We know that the man on the right is Novikov not because we have dozens of hundreds of newspaper articles or mentions in FBI files on the man but because what we have is dozens if not hundreds of photographs that link the name directly to them. It's the photographs that provide the proof.
Answer 2, FEDOSIMOV
We know that the man on the left of this picture is Pavel Fedosimov because the good people at Pravda told us so. Full stop. There are no known images of Fedosimov from either before or after the main date shown on the image of April 25th, 1947.
In other words, we don't really know if the man shown is Pavel Fedosimov, we have no collaborative evidence to support that being the case apart from the mention by Pravda.
What we do have is evidence that suggests that Pavel left the USA bound for Russia in August 1948.
No Lightweight
Far from being a lightweight player in the spy game in those times, Pavel was a one-time handler for Klaus Fuchs and regularly mixed with his host country's senior Government officials including Harry Dexter White, code-named JURIST in the Venona files. Harry Dexter White also departed the USA in August 1948 but not for Russia, he died on August 16th. 1948. Apparently, he died of an overdose of Digitalis, the medication he was taking for an ongoing heart condition. His death occurred two days after the HUAC hearings whilst he was preparing to give further evidence to that inquiry.
Followers of the Somerton Man case will know that Digitalis poisoning was long considered to have been the likely cause of death for SM.
So, the bottom line is that it's essential that we find photographs of the man in this image known as Pavel Fedosimov and dated after November 1948 in order to show whether or not he was, in fact, the Somerton Man. Words alone cannot suffice.