Biography
Richard D. Bailey was one of the Intrepid Four, four enlisted U.S. Navy sailors who deserted the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid in Japan on October 23, 1967. Bailey, then 19 and from Jacksonville, Florida, said that assisting the carrier’s air operations had made him feel that he was participating in murder. Japanese antiwar organizers concealed Bailey, Craig Anderson, John Barilla and Michael Lindner and moved them aboard the Soviet liner Baikal on November 11. The four spent about a month in the Soviet Union making antiwar statements before reaching Sweden in December 1967. Bailey’s Soviet stay was transit within a longer exile from U.S. military authority.
Dated exile-route milestone
The NIS historical account Operation Gold Filling reports that the Intrepid Four arrived at Arlanda Airport, Stockholm on December 29, 1967 and received asylum. This refines the route milestone previously described only as December. It marks arrival in Sweden after Soviet transit, not the end of exile from U.S. military authority, a U.S. custody release, or a new imprisonment. No prisoner admission or release field is changed. The later unnamed deserter detained in the operation cannot be identified as one of these four from the account.
