Small business owners, this one's for you. Chase for Business and iHeart bring you a podcast series called The Unshakeables.
This one-of-a-kind series will shine the spotlight on small business owners like you who faced a do-or-die moment that ultimately made their business what it is today. Learn more at chase.com slash business slash podcast. Chase, make more of what's yours. Chase mobile app is available for select mobile devices.
Message and data rates may apply. J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, N.A. member FDIC. Copyright 2024.
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Let's get into the story. It's the Hall of Columns in Moscow, scene of many a previous Russian trial, and now Francis Gary Powers, pilot of the American U-2 spy plane shot down over Russia, faced the judges with composure. Now Abel has been exchanged for U-2 pilot Gary Powers. His life was possibly at stake.
There's much we can say about Frank Powers. He was, as Jim Brown indicated, an unlikely man who had to deal with notoriety. He was a CIA U-2 pilot flying reconnaissance missions over the Soviet Union and other foreign hostile countries in the 1950s. In May of 1960, May 1st of 1960, he gets shot down over the Soviet Union. He's imprisoned by the KGB. He is ultimately exchanged for a Soviet spy, Rudolph Abel, in February of 1962.
So he made the history books because he got caught spying for our country against the Soviets. Well, how do I know the man? I know the man as dad. So it was a normal life, middle class family, upper middle class family in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles.
Mom was a housemaker raising two kids. Dad was a pilot working for radio stations at the time. I remember hiking and biking and fishing and being disciplined and having conversations with him. He taught me to shoot a 22, but I also was able to fly with him. He would pick me up after school about three o'clock-ish. Then we'd go to the airport, we'd get in the KGIL airplane, then we'd fly around the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles.
He would be doing his skywatch reports for the afternoon rush hour traffic. Sometimes if it was bad weather, he'd be in a car, a Ford Mustang, and it was all green and it was painted with the KGIL letters on the side, and he'd run around the streets in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles with me in the car before school. But the other memories I have of him is just as a normal dad. I was very sheltered. I didn't understand why people wanted to talk to me, including the press that would call the house, or people at school would come up to me and ask me questions. What it was like to have a spy as a dad. Why did your dad do these missions? What countries was he overflying?
Why didn't he kill himself when he was captured? Things like that. And I didn't know the answers. In 1976, there was a movie made about him for NBC Television, the Francis Gary Powers story, starring Lee Majors. Lee Majors was at the peak of his career as the six million dollar man, and so I was more impressed with meeting the six million dollar man than I was with a movie being made about my dad.
I just, so you know, I'm just a normal kid that could care less about what dad did. But then, there's much we can say about Frank Powers. He was, as Jim Brown indicated, an unlikely man to have had to deal with notoriety. He was quiet and self-effacing, but he dealt with his notoriety in a straightforward, straightforward, thoroughly honest way. To some, Francis Gary Powers was a hero, but not to himself. To others, he was less than a hero. It is small comfort to us, even less for his family, his wife Sue, his daughter Dee, his son Gary, to know that Francis Gary Powers died doing what he liked to do. On August 1st, 1977, my dad dies in a helicopter crash while working for NBC Television.
Our lives are turned upside down, and that's when the light bulb goes on over my head. Oh, not everybody's dad gets shot down, imprisoned, or exchanged. In college, I came out of my shell. I was curious. I started to do this research to find out more about my father. More importantly, I wanted to find out the truth because he was controversial. There were conspiracy theories about him.
There were armchair generals. He should have done this. He should have done that.
If I was there, I would have done it this way. Oh, he disobeyed orders. Oh, he should have killed himself. Oh, he didn't follow orders to kill himself. News in the newspapers said that he had a flame out, said that he defected, said that he spilled his guts and told the Soviets everything he knew. I didn't know what the truth was. I didn't know how to answer questions being asked of me.
He never really sat me down, per se. So, dad is born in Southwest Virginia in August of 1929. His dad's a coal miner. It's the height of the Depression.
There's not a lot of money to spread around. He's running around barefoot, going to a single-room schoolhouse, growing up on the family farm, hunting, fishing. And sometime in about 1940, 1941, he's 10, 11 years old, the family goes to a country fair in Princeton, West Virginia. There's a sign, airplane rides, $2.50, and my dad begs his father for $2.50 to do this plane ride.
Well, $2.50 in 1940 is probably $80 today. And so when you don't have a lot of money and you're a coal mining family on a farm, that's a lot of money to give your kid for an airplane ride. But dad is able to sweet-talk his dad into it. He takes this plane ride, a female pilot in a Piper Cub airplane, keeps him up for about 10 minutes longer than she should have because he was so excited and enthralled by this airplane ride. So he comes down, he lands after 20 minutes, he rushes up to his mom and dad, he grabs him, basically says, I've left my heart up there. He knows from that moment on, he wants to be a pilot and he's going to do everything he can going forward to pursue that dream.
He is the first of his family to go to college. He graduates in 1950 and immediately enlists in the US Air Force. He's an F-84 pilot, but then as things happen, he ends up with an appendicitis.
It lays him up in the hospital. He misses his deployment over to the Korean peninsula with his squadron. He's walking around the Air Force base one day, he sees his name on a duty roster. The commanding officer wants certain pilots to report to talk to some gentlemen of Washington, DC about career opportunities.
My father's a little confused. Career opportunities? What possible opportunities are there? I'm an Air Force fighter pilot, I've been in for six years, I've got 14 more years to go until I retire.
What possible opportunities could there be? So it goes to this meeting, two guys in suits from the CIA, they are looking to recruit the best pilots out of the Air Force to fly these reconnaissance missions in a civilian capacity. They tell the pilots just enough to get them interested. It's dangerous, it's patriotic, it's vital for national security, and oh, the pay will be doubled or tripled at the Air Force salary because of overseas duty pay, hazard duty pay, things like that.
Just enough incentive to get the best pilots to sign on the dotted line. And you've been listening to Gary Powers Jr. tell the story of his dad. By the way, we love it when these family stories get preserved by family members. It's a part of the mission of this show, that the American family preserve our American stories.
And my goodness, what a stem winder this is. This man, this dad, this father, who raises his kids in the LA suburbs, San Fernando Valley. He's a pilot for a radio station, he hustles, he provides his kids with an ideal life, and ultimately his son, well, he starts to learn about what his dad did for a living, really what he did for a living before this living he made for television, and learn more about what his dad did for the country when his dad passed. And it lit a fire under his son. His son wanted to know the truth of what happened to his dad. Who was he? What did he do for the CIA?
What happened when that plane was downed? And my goodness, all the conflicting reports must have driven him crazy. And what if those stories, some of them terrible, were true about his dad?
What if they weren't? In the end, he was sort of an investigator trying to find out the truth about his own family story. More of the story of YouTube pilot Francis Gary Powers, who was shot down over Russia, resulting in one of the most heated controversies of the Cold War. We return to our American stories after these messages. Small business owners, this one's for you. Chase for Business and I Heart bring you a podcast series called The Unshakeables.
This one-of-a-kind series will shine the spotlight on small business owners like you who faced a do-or-die moment that ultimately made their business what it is today. Learn more at chase.com business podcast. Chase, make more of what's yours. Chase mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply.
JP Morgan Chase Bank, NA member FDIC. Copyright 2024. You wake up, put on your Ray-Ban meta glasses.
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Now I can go through my day pain free. Go to PowerStep.com slash OAS and use code OAS for 15% off your first order. That's PowerStep.com slash OAS and use code OAS for 15% off your first order. And we return to our American stories with Gary Powers Jr. telling the story of his father, a fighter pilot turned spy, buying the controls of one of the world's most advanced and highly secretive planes, the U-2. Gary is an author, speaker, and expert on all things Cold War. He even does Cold War tours.
You can find out more at chadashtours.com or Gary's website garypowers.com. Let's get back to the story. We lead off with Gary Powers himself followed by his son to explain how and why the U-2 program came about. What do you feel, what are your feelings on the CIA now? Did you get pretty much involved with the CIA? Well not not involved in, I worked for them and that's just about the extent of it. You mean the U-2 thing was planned by the CIA?
Yes it was planned, conducted, and you know financed and everything by the CIA and of course the information was also given to the other branches of our military that needed it. We were just coming off the heels of World War II. The Soviets, the Americans, were allies but tensions had started to rise even before the end of World War II between Stalin and Roosevelt primarily because of our two ideologies.
Communism on one side, capitalism on the other. It's like oil and water, they just don't mix and so Americans started to get concerned about the Soviet's advancements and their quote-unquote domino theory where they were taking over countries and communism was spreading and we didn't want communism to take over the world and then you have to throw into the mix America had the nuclear bomb. Well in August of 1949 the Soviets explode their first atomic bomb. So now there are two countries with nuclear weapons that have different political ideologies. There's a bomber gap, there's a missile gap, they are developing these missiles like sausages is what Khrushchev said at some press conference. So this fear, this tension rises between these two countries which is basically the Cold War. And the CIA was tasked with finding out the strengths and weaknesses of our adversaries. How many missiles, how many bombers, what are they planning to do?
Are they going to launch a surprise attack? So this is what the CIA is tasked with is to gather intelligence to keep Americans at home safe and the CIA develops the U-2 spy plane to find out by taking pictures what they're doing. Because we could not get ground agents into the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union, a closed society, you could not just sneak in to the country like Soviet spies could sneak into America through Canada or Mexico.
It couldn't be done because they had checkpoints, these cities could not be accessed. So the easiest way to get information was to fly over these foreign countries to find out their strengths and weaknesses by developing the U-2 spy plane. It took about eight months to develop in 1955. They did it with a slide rule before computers and this is a technologically advanced airplane that's flying at 70 to 75,000 feet.
So it was just amazing that they could do this back in the 1950s with the technology they had at the time. The reason that the CIA was tasked to do the U-2 program is that it was a civilian agency. The pilots were sheep dipped out of the Air Force. They were then in a civilian capacity working for the quote unquote state department or for NASA, not the CIA because if it was a military plane with a military pilot flying over a foreign hostile country that would be an act of war.
Eisenhower did not want to provoke World War III, he wanted to gather intelligence. There were three initial squadrons of CIA U-2 pilots, the A, B, and C squadrons. Dad was in the B group, the second batch. The pilots were the best of the best. They were basically the top gun of the time. Some of them had egos, they're fighter pilots, I mean come on.
Dad did not have an ego. He was a very mild-mannered down-to-earth individual who just loved to fly. The U-2 pilots were a very tight-knit group, they couldn't talk to anybody about what they were doing including their family.
All they could say if it was ever brought up, oh we're doing weather research, weather analysis, we're studying air currents, we're studying precipitation, things like that, which was the cover story. My grandfather at one point in time after dad has been recruited, he's been trained, he's going to go overseas. Right before he's departing my grandfather, his dad calls him up and says, I know what you're doing, you're working for the FBI.
He was close. Normal people could probably put two and two together, but it was so secret at the time that it had to have a cover story. The plane was new and it was breaking altitude records. Every day it flew above 70,000 feet, but they couldn't boast or brag about it. They just had to bite their tongue and know that they were doing a job vital for national security. And so this is what my father was doing for about six years, 1956 to 1962.
Well two of those years were in prison. So the YouTube program is doing successful flights over the Soviet Union, China, other countries between 1956 and 1960, May 1st of 60. Now the first four years the Soviets are aware that these planes are flying over their territory. Khrushchev publicly appears at the UN and lambasts the US for flying these missions. But the US says, what planes?
We're doing weather research. We're not over your country. Prove it. So Khrushchev desperately wants to shoot down one of these planes, but for the first four years, well, they can't.
They can't do it. The Soviets have a missile at that time called the SA-1. It could only reach 60,000 feet. U-2s were flying at 70,000 feet and above.
They were safe. But over four years of research and development, the Soviets improved their weapons system. They now have developed the SA-2 missile that can reach 70,000 feet and above. So on May 1st, my father is tasked with flying over a city called Sverdlovsk, gets up very early, goes through his briefing, gets into his pressure suit, takes off in the airplane at about 9 a.m., crosses over the Soviet's border, starts to flip on and off the camera switches that will take the photographic imagery of the ground below. He's at his assigned altitude of 70,500 feet. The MiGs are scrambled. Two of them go up to try to intercept him. They can't reach his altitude. The missiles can.
Eight of these new and improved missiles, the SA-2s are fired at his airplane. One of them explodes behind the tail section. The tail basically is blown off.
The nose pitches forward. The wings snap off. Dad goes into an adverted spin tumbling out of the sky from 70,500 feet. He's able to bail out of the aircraft, does not eject. If he ejects, he'll sever his legs on the way out.
He can't get in the proper position. So he's able to crawl out of the airplane, separates from the aircraft. His parachute opens at 15,000 feet. He parachutes down to the ground.
On the way down, he takes off his faceplate. He surveys the countryside. He lands on the outskirts of a collective farm. The farmers rush up to him. They help him. They start to ask him questions. They realize he doesn't speak their language.
That makes them a little nervous. About that time, a black car shows up. Two men get out, put him in the back seat, and they take him to the local officials in town. There, he's in detention, quote-unquote, being asked some basic questions by someone who speaks broken English. That afternoon evening, the KGB show up. They take my father by armed guard on an airplane to Moscow's airport, shuttle him over to Lubyanka Prison.
Lubyanka Prison is the infamous KGB prison, part of and adjacent to the KGB headquarters downtown Moscow. So this is where dad finds himself his first night of captivity on May 1st of 60. And you've been listening to Gary Powers Jr. tell the story of his father.
When we come back, what happens next at that KGB prison in Moscow? The story of Francis Gary Powers continues here on Our American Stories. Small business owners, this one's for you. Chase for Business and I Heart bring you a podcast series called The Unshakeables.
This one of a kind series will shine the spotlight on small business owners like you who faced a do or die moment that ultimately made their business what it is today. Learn more at chase.com slash business slash podcast. Chase, make more of what's yours. Chase mobile app is available for select mobile devices. You can buy it at Chase.com. This app is available for select mobile devices message and data rates may apply.
JP Morgan Chase Bank and a member fdic copyright 2024. You wake up, put on your Ray-Ban meta glasses, classic style, innovative tech. You're living all that you realize you need coffee desperately. So you say, Hey, meta, how do I make a latte brew two shots of espresso? After meta AI gets you caffeinated, you start walking to work, and you need a soundtrack. Hey, meta, play hip hop music.
With the built in camera, you snap a pic of a dope mural on the side of a building that you think is worth sharing. Hey, meta, text my last photo to Eva, sending message after work, you had to meet some friends. Hey, nice glasses. Ray-Ban meta glasses, the next generation of AI glasses. Just say hey, meta to harness the power of meta AI. Listen to music, make hands free calls with open your audio and built in microphones, and so much more. All while staying present to the world around you.
Shop Ray-Ban meta glasses at meta.com slash smart glasses. All right, we're all set for the party. I've trimmed the tree hung the mistletoe and paired all those weird shaped knives and forks with the appropriate cheeses.
And I plugged in the partition partition. It's a home cocktail maker that makes over 60 premium cocktails plus a whole lot of seasonal favorites too. I just got it for 50 off. So how about a Closmopolitan or a mistletoe margarita? I'm thirsty.
Watch. I just pop in a capsule, choose my strength. And wow, it's beginning to feel more seasonal in here already. If your holiday party doesn't have a bartender, then you become the bartender. Unless you've got a Bartesian because Bartesian crafts every cocktail perfectly in as little as 30 seconds. And I just got it for $50 off.
Tis the season to be jollier. Add some holiday flavor to every celebration with the sleek, sophisticated home cocktail maker, Bartesian. Get $50 off any cocktail maker at bartesian.com slash cocktail.
That's B-A-R-T-E-S-I-A-N.com slash cocktail. Make someone's holiday unforgettable with a Vizio 50 inch 4K Smart TV, now just 238 at Walmart. Experience stunning clarity that brings movie marathons to life like never before. With Watch Free Plus built in, enjoy free live and on-demand TV right out of the box. Plus stream all your favorite holiday songs with the iHeart Radio app. Whether it's a gift for a friend or an upgrade to your own setup, this 4K TV offers impressive features that still fit your holiday budget.
Don't wait, get your Vizio 50 inch 4K Smart TV at Walmart for just $238 today. Hi, this is Lee Habib here. Do you wake up every morning dreading that first step out of bed because of foot pain? I know I used to. Living with plantar fasciitis felt like a constant battle. Then I tried Power Step, the number one podiatrist recommended in-soles clinically proven to relieve pain. I was skeptical at first but from the moment I put them in my shoes and sneakers, I felt the difference. Support and comfort exactly where I needed it and when I needed it, especially those really long walks I take each day with my wife. My foot pain vanished and even my back and knee pain was eased. Now I can go through my day pain free. Go to PowerStep.com slash OAS and use code OAS for 15% off your first order.
That's PowerStep.com slash OAS and use code OAS for 15% off your first order. And we return to our American stories and the final portion of our story with Francis Gary Powers Jr., the son of spy and U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers who was shot down over Russia resulting in one of the most heated controversies of the Cold War. Let's return to the story. Khrushchev at the time when this happens is very upset. He was in America in 1959 with his wife. The Eisenhowers hosted them. The Eisenhowers were supposed to go over to Russia in the fall and or summer of 1960, but that trip was canceled because of the U2 incident.
There was also a Paris summit conference that was getting scheduled for May 16th of that year, two weeks after the U2 shoot down. While Khrushchev shows up, Eisenhower, de Gaulle, the British prime minister, they show up. Khrushchev stands up, demands an Eisenhower apology.
Eisenhower refuses. Khrushchev berates the president's storms out of the summit conference. And while all this is unfolding, Dad's been stuck in the Russian prison cell going through the interrogations. Bright spotlight, grueling questions, threats of death, and it looks as if the Cold War is about to heat up. So Dad, at the time of the shoot down, you have to remember that in May of 60 we're coming off the McCarthy era. It's the middle of the Cold War. And so it was easier to blame the pilot than to admit publicly we were behind the Soviets and missile technology. It was easier to blame the pilot than to further embarrass a U.S. president who had just been caught lying. So Eisenhower is the first American president to be caught publicly lying.
After 64 years, we now take that for granted. It sold the press. Fake news is nothing new.
It's been going on for years, centuries. The fake news of the time said that he had a flame out, said that he defected, said that he spilled his guts and told the Soviets everything he knew. Oh, he disobeyed orders. Oh, he should have killed himself. Oh, he didn't follow orders to kill himself. Khrushchev, during his press conference, basically took the poison pin and said, oh, look at what they give these American spy pilots to commit suicide with. This one wanted to see to live another day. But that wasn't the case. The CIA told the pilots, if you're caught, you will be tortured.
Here is a way to alleviate the pain and suffering. It was a hollowed out silver dollar containing a poison tipped needle dipped in kirari or shell fish toxin. One prick, it would shut down the central nervous system. The pilot would die from lack of oxygen. And it was told to the pilots, it's an optional device to use in the event of torture, not in the event of capture.
And that's one of the things we were able to clear up, especially with the declassification conference in 1998. There was no flame out. There was no dissent. There was no sabotage.
There was no pilot error. So my dad goes through three months of interrogations. They're trying to break them. They're trying to get them to cooperate. Bright spotlight, grueling questions, threats of death, no physical torture.
Thank goodness. Because he was too high profile and individual. The Soviets wanted to show the world how nice they wore, how humble they are, what a great country they are. First seven days, he lies to them outright. But then international headlines around the world start to reveal that he's been shot down, he's alive and in Soviet captivity. He can't lie anymore because the United States press are publishing articles about the U2 spy plane and other stuff. So they're starting to trick him up and trap him up in things he said versus what's being said in the press. For example, my father said that he was trained in Arizona, but the New York Times published that he was trained at Area 51 in the Nevada desert. So the KGB guard, the interrogator comes in, shoves the newspaper in dad's face, yells at him, you lied to us. You might as well tell us everything.
We'll get it out of your American press anyways. And so all of a sudden, you know, dad has to take on this different ploy. He tells the full truth when he knows they can verify the information in the press. He lies to them outright when he knows there's no way they can find out the answers.
Then he gives a part truth apart lie dances around the subject when he knows that they know something about the answer, but not enough to counterdict him. And so this is how my father gets through his interrogations for three months. At the end of the interrogations, he's put on trial, the Hall of Columns, downtown Moscow.
Not once did the defense counsel object to any question asked of my father. In the Soviet Union, you are guilty until proven innocent. Unlike here in America, where we are innocent until proven guilty.
The switch of those two words makes all the difference in a democratic versus a communist society. Now they give him a 10 year sentence in the Soviet prison. And the Soviet prison is nothing like the American prison system with air conditioning, color TV, three meals a day.
In a Soviet prison, you are cold in the winter, you're hot in the summer, dad lost 2530 pounds in captivity because of the poor diet. He ends up serving a total of 21 months captivity, then gets exchanged on February 10 of 62 at the Glendiker Bridge for Soviet spy Willie Fisher. He goes by Rudolph Abel. He is an artist, he's a photographer, he has a flat in New York City.
He actually gets some clients and does some work for some people to make some money painting and or taking photos. But all the while he is a KGB Colonel, a cloak and dagger spy trained in ciphers in hollowed out nickels, hollowed out pencils, radio receivers and transmissions that are secret. He is caught.
He's tried. He's sentenced to 30 years in prison. And so he's serving the sentence when my father is shot down.
Now, behind the scenes, the Americans want to get my father home. They want to debrief him. What the hell happened? How did that plane get into their hands? They need to know what took place.
The Soviets at the same time, the KGB want to get their guy back, debrief him. How did you get caught? What happened? What information did you tell them? What didn't you tell them? We need to do damage control.
So both sides want to get these two agents back. So sometime in June of 1960, my grandfather writes a letter to Rudolph Abel. Mr. Abel, I'm the father of Gary Powers that you may have read about in recent news. I'd like to talk with you about an exchange between my son for you. I will do everything in my power to contact the U.S. government.
If you could contact your government. And Abel writes back, thank you for the letter. I'm sorry.
I'm not the right person to talk to. You'll need to talk to my wife in East Germany, aka the KGB. And so my grandfather gets credit for thinking about, hey, let's do the spy exchange. The American government contracts with James Donovan. James Donovan is an attorney who represented the Soviet spy Abel at his trial. So James Donovan reaches a deal with the Soviets, the East Germans and the Americans to exchange my dad. So my father and Abel are on the bridge. It's cold, dark, foggy morning right out of a John Lake Coray novel. Two spies on each side of the bridge separates east from west.
They're positively ID'd. They walk home to their respective freedoms. Abel returns home, a hero of the Soviet Union, a parade in his honor, a poached stamp in his likeness. My father returns home to controversy, all of which were untruths, mistruths, minuendos or outright lies of the time.
He could care less. And he was often quoted as saying he'd do the exact same things again, given the exact same set of circumstances. It all came out when he appeared before a U.S. Senate Select Committee hearing on March 6th of 62. The senators for two hours asked him questions back and forth, and they got to the bottom of what had happened. And they realized he followed his orders to a T. He did not reveal any sensitive information to the enemy. He did not collaborate with them and did everything he could to prevent the release of information that he knew about.
So my father gets on with his life. Dad, however, is a pilot. He wants to fly, but he's the known spy. The Air Force doesn't want to take him back in.
They would be accused of employing spies. The CIA has no use for him. His cover is blown. So Kelly Johnson, the designer of the airplane, comes to the rescue. He's a Lockheed test pilot between 1963 and 1970. He then picks up another pilot job in 72, flying for radio station KGIL. He works with NBC for about a year and a half until August 1st of 77. His helicopter runs out of gas.
He and the cameraman are killed in the accident. Very important. Up until 1998, it was always a civilian operation. But declassification documents now revealed it was a military operation. CIA working hand in hand, but the Air Force could not be separated. For all intent and purposes, it was a military operation. Once that word military was declassified, that allowed the American government to set the record straight. In May of 2000, they posthumously awarded Dad the POW medal. Then in June of 2012, they honored Dad at the Pentagon with a ceremony awarding him posthumously the Silver Star. So as a family, we were very honored, very humbled, very grateful to our nation for helping to set the record straight.
It took 40 and 50 years respectively, but it goes to show it's never too late to set the record straight. The story of the Powers family, a classic American story, here on Our American Stories. Make someone's season unforgettable with the Vizio 40-inch FHD Smart TV, now just $148 at Walmart. Movie night just got better with stunning full HD clarity. Plus, enjoy watch-free plus right out of the box with over 300 channels of live and on-demand entertainment, all for free. And when you're in the mood for music, just fire up the iHeartRadio app. Whether it's a gift for someone special or a treat for yourself, this TV makes upgrading a breeze. Don't wait.
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