The early visits to the US by soviet aircraft were met by US aircraft to escort them to their locations so that 1. the US aircraft could do the communicating with ATC, etc. and 2. so the russian aircraft could (in theory) take advantage of the better navigational avionics, fitted to the US aircraft by following them.
The whole thing was always planned months in advance. There was no "we're so great, we INTERCEPTED those bad guy Migs".
As I recall, everyone around the squadron was impressed by the fact that the russians met their join up time to the minute.
BTW the Mig design bureau guys thought the zaps were so cool, they allowed everbody to put them on the inside of the L/H gear well of the mig 29. They said when they got home they would save the gear door and put it in the officers mess.
... And the GIV routinely cruises @FL50+.
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