I remember this episode well and it's surprising that IMDb, Wikipedia or other internet sources don't make much statement about it at all, aside from the episode's title and the briefest of précis.
This episode focuses on the Pentagon's 1960s concerns that Chinese military movement in their west indicated either a military build-up for detonation of a nuclear bomb or prelude to invasion of bordering Asian countries. Raynor Sarnac is assigned the fly-over duties to take images for the Pentagon (or CIA?); in a series of fly-over recon missions, Sarnac does just that, even successfully dodging a retaliatory Chinese SAM missile attack.
Eventually and progressively, the images lead to a false-alarm...and an alarm of an entirely different nature--and proportions. The episode concludes with the closing message that the recon missions revealed that the photographed truck convoys were transporting the dead bodies of Chinese civilians for disposal following a great famine (as a result of China's "Great Leap Forward" program). It was further said in the closing message that as many as 10 million Chinese civilians died; but, over time, facts reveal the number to be more like 15 to 50 million. Also stated was the Chinese Communist Party's admission to this event in the early '80s...20 years after the fact.
This episode focuses on the Pentagon's 1960s concerns that Chinese military movement in their west indicated either a military build-up for detonation of a nuclear bomb or prelude to invasion of bordering Asian countries. Raynor Sarnac is assigned the fly-over duties to take images for the Pentagon (or CIA?); in a series of fly-over recon missions, Sarnac does just that, even successfully dodging a retaliatory Chinese SAM missile attack.
Eventually and progressively, the images lead to a false-alarm...and an alarm of an entirely different nature--and proportions. The episode concludes with the closing message that the recon missions revealed that the photographed truck convoys were transporting the dead bodies of Chinese civilians for disposal following a great famine (as a result of China's "Great Leap Forward" program). It was further said in the closing message that as many as 10 million Chinese civilians died; but, over time, facts reveal the number to be more like 15 to 50 million. Also stated was the Chinese Communist Party's admission to this event in the early '80s...20 years after the fact.