james_davis_nicoll

From:

fridgepunk.livejournal.com

The relevent graft:

Jerry Pournelle also told me that Leka, son of King Zog, was 7 feet tall.

Jerry should know because back in 1967, Jerry, Stefan Possony, and then-Crown Prince in Exile Leka (or Laika) organized an invasion of Albania by exiles to overthrow Communist dictator Enver Hoxha. King Hussein of Jordan agreed to provide air cover to wipe out the small Albanian air force to allow the invaders to cross the channel from Corfu, where they were training in the King Constantine of Greece's palace. Jerry spent a lot of time in Jordan training their pilots on how to pull off a sneak attack and wipe out the Albanian planes on the ground. Then, in June 1967, the Israelis pulled off their own sneak attack and wiped out the Jordanian air force on the ground, so the liberation of Albania had to be called off.

Decades later, Jerry met the President of Israel, Ezer Weizman, who had been in charge of the Israeli Air Force in 1967. Jerry explained how Weizman had wrecked his invasion of Albania. Weizman exclaimed to the effect that You were that foreigner who was training the Jordanians how to pull of a sneak attack? We thought you were a Russian training the Jordanians to attack us!

To fully unpack some of that; April 1967 is when the General's Coup ends up taking over Greece with the King's support in april, so we have muslim albanian royalist troops in fascist junta greece who are going to be supported by the jordanian airforce and all 20 of its aircraft*, on the eve of the six day war (also 1967), who themselves are being advised by a southern gentleman who can't fly a plane how to pull off low level interdiction strikes upon a warsaw pact country's airforce... with the added bonus that most of the jordanian airforce is made up of british made planes...

So open up the salt mines when considering that whole thing.

* note that Jordan as a country is landlocked and that israel, syria, lebanon and the mediterranean sea lie between jordan and albania.