Shootdown — the verdict on
KAL 007, Chatto and Windus, £10.95.
THE DESTRUCTION of a Korean Airlines
September 1983 marked a turning point
in the American cold war offensive. The
outrage at the deaths of 269 people was
fully utilised by the American anti-
communist publicity apparatus, and coming on the eve of arms control negotiations was very useful to the right wing in US politics who wanted no agreement with the Russians. The chorus of condemnation of the Soviet Union was virtually unani. mous, from right to left. The Soviet counter-publicity was so inept that the US won the publicity battle hands down.
The most influential explanation of the shootdown, expounded at length by Au. stralian journalist Murray Sayle in the Sunday Times, was that of instrument and pilot failure, which took KAL over Soviet territory accidentally, where the callous Russians shot down the innocent passenger plane. But a detailed examination of the known facts virtually excludes this explanation.
RW Johnson's book is the first full-scale and serious examination of what happened. Mr Johnson, a liberal academic with no known Soviet sympathies, simply presents the facts and the possible conclusions which can be deduced from them - leaving readers to come to their own conclusions. As it happens, what he records confirms large chunks of the Soviet case.
It is impossible in a short review to do justice to the story which Johnson tells, every bit as exciting as a Le Carré novel, and besides it would be unfair to give the whole story away. However salient facts for those unwise enough not to borrow or buy this book include the following.
There is a long history of United States aerial incursion into Soviet territory. Indeed, such incursions have taken place thousands of times, but US technological supremacy has made the shooting down of us aircraft a rarity; the downing of the U2 spyplane piloted by Gary Powers in 1962 was a spectacular exception. The US today possesses a spyplane, the SR-71 Blackbird, which flies so high and fast that it is virtually impossible for the Soviets to stop it, or even defect it.
KAL 007 was piloted by the senior pilot of Korean airlines Chun Byong-in, former airforce pilot who had worked with the Us airforce. From taking off at Anchorage in Alaska it flew the wrong route throughout, although it made regular reports during the flight that it was on INTERNAIIONAL No. 6. Ortober/Noverntry 198r:
course. Given the type of sophisticated
instruments and checking procedures possessed by airliners today, such an
error is virtually impossible.
Many of the reports of KAL's position another Korean airlines plane which followed at a distance; this was an unusual procedure, which minimised direct contact with the ground. The evening of the shootdown was a time of intense US aerial activity off eastern Russia, and KAL 007 crossed the path of a US spyplane just outside Soviet territory.
It took a long time for Soviete aerial
defence forces to find and chase the
Korean plane. It was shot down just as it
wris about to leave Soviet airspace having overflown for an hour. The Soviet pilot who destroyed the plane claims that
warning tracer bullets were fired, and an attempt to signal the plane was made. US tapes of his converation with Soviet
ground control confirm this. When the
orcan jet was hit, it made no Mayday alarn signal, which is standard and compulsory in an emergency situation.
Finally, given the huge amount of us radar and other surveillance facilities in that tense part of the world, it is virtually certain that the whole episode was monitored in detail and minute-by-minute by US military forces. Why did they not signal KAL 007 that it was about to be chased and shot down. Why was no alert to rescue services given?
This is a very brief account of the facts that show something very unusual with KAL flight 007. RW Johnson piles mystery upon mystery.
But, when all is said and done, why