I had first heard about this book through watching the associated BBC TV program in a short series called "Reputations". It examined the myths and realities behind the personalities of some of the world's best-known figures. The book turns out to be an eye-opening account of a quite ordinary man, fated to be feted the world over for having achieved the world's first (and, indeed, shortest) orbital flight by a human being, only to find himself unable to live the life expected of him - as well as the victim of utter jealousy within the highest levels of the Kremlin in the USSR in the 1960s.
Gagarin had no pedigree whatsoever, yet the distinct lack of it made him perfect for the Communist idea that anyone, no matter how humble, had the opportunity to rise to new heights (in his case, quite literally, albeit briefly) within a so-called egalitarian society, which, as the First Cosmonaut (as he was known) found out to his cost, was nothing of the kind.
Born in 1934, Gagarin entered training as a foundry-man at the age of 16, and it was then that he discovered a new love - flying. His first flight was on board an old Yak-18 trainer, and that made quite an impact on him. In 1953, he was accepted for pilot training in the Soviet air force and he later met and married his wife, Valentina, a nurse. It was when he had been posted to Nikel, a base near the Arctic Circle, that he was asked questions by some mysterious doctors. Within a few weeks, he and a host of other fighter pilots underwent a series of utterly demanding physical tests until eventually he and 19 others were declared the Soviet Union's first cosmonauts.
Insights into the "smiling farm-boy's" personality can be gained from his colleagues, such as the man who just might have been the first in space, Gherman Titov (who has since passed away). Titov and Gagarin, like the others, came under the scrutiny of the Chief Designer, Sergei Korolev, and the general in command of training, Nikolai Kamanin. Titov claims that he himself never actually had any chance of being first because of the Politburo's insistence that an ordinary peasant's son rather than a teacher's son (as he was) be first. Hence, Gagarin being first was more a political decision, even if both were equally ready in all other respects to be first. However grudgingly, Titov admits, "You know, they were right to choose [Gagarin]. The public loved [him]. Me, they couldn't love." It would therefore appear that the powers-that-be were also looking at Gagarin beyond the space flight, namely as an ambassador for the USSR.
The historic space flight aboard what was a converted nuclear missile is described by the authors in a fairly routine way, with the flight terminating in a field fairly near where Gagarin had his Yak-18 flight years before. Even as he landed, he made an impact with his personality, assuring the locals that he was not an American spy, since Gary Powers had been shot down in his U-2 spy-plane just 11 months before, much to the delight of then President Nikita Khrushchev.
Even if Gagarin's life is described against the backdrop of the trials and tribulations of the early Soviet space program, more is made of what made the man tick. He was very much the favorite of Khrushchev, who was seen by many, including Kamanin, as nothing more than "a pigmy" compared to Stalin. Old Stalinists still filled the ranks of the Politburo, and many within it resented Gagarin's closeness to Khrushchev. After all, Gagarin was only a 27 year old who had made one space flight - so what?
Kamanin himself lamented the fact that Gagarin's excessive drinking and partying led to a crop of embarrassing incidents, including one in the resort of Foros in the Crimea where the cosmonaut was almost caught by his wife kissing a nurse; he decided on a somewhat rash action - jump out of the window - and this resulted in serious injury. "Gagarin was just a hair's breadth away from a silly death," the general noted in his diary, a much-cited source in this book.
The clearest insight yet into Gagarin's troubled personality comes from his former KGB escort and advisor, Venyamin Russayev, who saw how it gradually broke down after Khrushchev was ousted by Brezhnev. "In Soviet society," Russayev explains, "it was not a question of who was who, but who belonged to whom. Gagarin belonged to Khrushchev, and that was enough to finish his career in his lifetime." Gagarin became especially grief-stricken after the Politburo refused to cancel the launch of the first Soyuz spacecraft even if at least 200 technical faults still plagued it. Brezhnev ordered the launch to go ahead, and this resulted in the death of its pilot. Gagarin's close friend, Vladimir Komarov, knew before the launch that he would die, yet he himself refused to refuse to fly simply because that would mean Gagarin flying - and dying - instead.
Gagarin had been due to fly in the next Soyuz, but he was then permanently banned from space flight after Komarov's death. 14 months later, Gagarin was himself dead after crashing his jet trainer after failing to pull out of a dive. Even now, the circumstances surrounding his death are shrouded in mystery, if only because nobody could be seen to cause the death of the First Cosmonaut, even if the actual evidence allegedly still exists but is locked away.
Nevertheless, in spite of dying at the age of only 34, Yuri Gagarin had made his mark in world history and he is still remembered today as a man, albeit a troubled and flawed one who made mistakes, who lived his life with decency and honor, even if he was by no means perfect. Gagarin himself once said at a press conference, "I'm a mere mortal. I've made mistakes." Nevertheless, the legend of Yuri Gagarin remains unshakable in Russia, if only because he is seen as very much a "victim" of the authoritarian Politburo, which, according to rumors which still persist, engineered his death, even if the authors reject the "conspiracy theories" which abound even to this day.
