Washington cannot escape responsibility for the provocation with the South Korean plane,

despite its attempts to create a curtain of lies and silence

Having sent a South Korean plane on a spy mission into Soviet airspace more than a year ago, Washington is trying in every way to escape responsibility for the deaths of the airliner's passengers. The US administration is making every effort to hide from the American and world public the revealing documents that leave no stone unturned in the false version with which it is trying to cover up its monstrous provocation. In this, the White House is supported by the leading organs of the bourgeois press, despite the fact that they boast of their "objectivity" and "informedness". The editors of the liberal magazine "The Nation" had to pay a large sum of money to place an advertisement exposing the actions of the American authorities during the incident with the airliner.

When the South Korean plane went off course (as Washington claims without evidence, - Ed.), it entered one of the areas of our planet that is most carefully monitored. The American Navy, Air Force and Ground Forces, the CIA and the National Security Agency have many surveillance stations and satellites whose equipment is aimed at Kamchatka and Sakhalin. These stations and satellites are capable of immediately establishing contact with Washington.

The main question is this: why did we not warn the crew of the plane that the Boeing 747 was flying towards danger? We had hours to do this.

Only two answers can be imagined:

1. American electronic defenses mysteriously failed.
2. We deliberately allowed the plane to fly into the danger zone (or worse, sent it there).

In either case, it is a national scandal. Why isn’t Congress investigating the KAL 007 affair? And where is the American press?

The KAL 007 incident was perhaps the most important event of the last four years. It killed 269 people. It widened the gap between the United States and the Soviet Union. It unleashed an explosion of patriotism (chauvinism and militarism on the wave of anti-Soviet hysteria raised by Washington. - Ed.). It gave Reagan the edge he needed to increase the military budget. It dashed hopes for arms control. It scared the world. But if all this was the result of misleading reporting that hid American involvement, shouldn’t Americans know it?

The investigation of the incident was conducted by David Pearson, a research fellow at Yale University, using documents and statements taken mostly from the public record. It was reported at length in The Nation magazine. Since then, several media outlets have picked up on the story, including NBC's "Today Show," Seattle Weekly, and New York Times columnist Tom Wicker, who has written twice about KAL 007.

But in the year since the incident, no major media outlet has published its own investigation. In fact, to our knowledge, none has done so.

Misinformation about the Airplane's Whereabouts

We don't want the questions raised by this incident to be forgotten. Here are a few:

1. Why Didn't We Warn the South Korean Plane?

As noted above, Korean Airlines Flight 007 flew past dozens of U.S. military and civilian, as well as Japanese, radar stations. The military always informs civilian aircraft and air traffic controllers when an aircraft goes off course. This time, they were silent. Why?

2. When Did Washington Know What Had Happened?

We still haven't been told when Weinberger or Shultz were informed of the crisis or how long they waited to tell the president. We do know that there are several communications systems in place, including the worldwide military command and control system and the Critical Intelligence Reporting System, designed to keep the Pentagon informed of any crisis within minutes.

According to the presidential press secretary, Reagan was informed that the South Korean plane was off course at 10:30 p.m. (New York Daylight Time) on August 31, 1983. He received further information at 1:30 a.m. on September 1. At 10:10 a.m., the president learned that the plane had been shot down.

If this sequence is correct, it would mean that the president was not informed of the crisis until eight hours after the incident. And it would take him 20 hours to receive the full details of what had happened. Is this possible?

Is it possible that multiple parts of a vital national security communications system failed simultaneously? Or was the news deliberately withheld from the president? If so, why? Who was responsible? And finally, it is possible that the president was informed earlier, but will not admit it.

3. Why Did the South Korean Plane Act So Strangely?

The pilot delayed takeoff from Anchorage for 20 minutes for no apparent reason. He also took on an extra 9,800 pounds of fuel, which he failed to report, although he was required to do so.

By the time the plane passed Bethel, Alaska, its first checkpoint, it was 12 miles off course. However, KAL 007 reported that it was on course. Military radar operators noticed the deviation, but did not correct the pilot.

KAL 007 transmitted false position data several more times, and also changed course and altitude without reporting these changes as required. One of the course changes occurred as the plane was approaching Sakhalin Island. The Boeing turned sharply in the direction of classified Soviet military bases. Could this have been a mistake? At the same time, another Korean Airlines plane, Flight 015, was apparently transmitting false information on behalf of 007.

A Pre-planned Intrusion into Soviet Airspace

For part of its flight, KAL 007 flew without its lights on, which is a violation of international law. And when the South Korean plane was finally intercepted by a Soviet fighter, it refused to respond to all requests and took evasive action.

4. What was the role of the American PC-135?

The White House claimed that the reconnaissance plane never came closer than 75 miles to KAL 007, and that the PC-135 was already at its base when the South Korean airliner's flight was interrupted. The US has not backed up this claim with precise details about the flight of the PC-135 or where it crossed the path of KAL 007. Reconstructing the usual reconnaissance flight paths from Shemya Island and comparing them with American and Russian statements quite convincingly suggests that these planes were much closer to each other (than Washington claimed - Ed.), The Russians say that the planes flew in parallel for some time, as a result of which their images merged on the radar. This is one explanation for why the Russians did not realize (as the US itself recently admitted) that they were observing a civilian aircraft.

But even if these planes were 75 miles apart, the radar and sophisticated electronic equipment of the RS-135 would have detected the KAL-007. The question remains: why did the RS-135 not warn the South Korean plane? Perhaps the RS-135 was performing some kind of control function that was related to the mission of the KAL-007?

The idea also arises of a possible communication failure on the part of the Russians. Such a disruption could be caused by deliberate American electronic jamming. The RS-135 has such capabilities; so do many ground stations. If so, was the KAL-007's entry into Soviet airspace premeditated? Was the jamming an attempt to protect the aircraft?

5. What about the tapes?

There are many tapes that could reveal many secrets. The US normally records Soviet air-to-ground radio communications and knows what the Russians saw. Why haven't these tapes been released? The Japanese Defense Agency has publicly stated that it has Soviet air-to-ground communications, but it also refuses to release them. Why? Secretary of State Shultz says the US intercepted Soviet radar data from Kamchatka. This data could shed light on the flight of KAL-007 and the flight of RS-135. But the US won't release these tapes either. Is someone hiding a "gun whose barrel is still smoking"?

Based on all the available evidence — we have lifted only a corner of the curtain in this article — David Pearson has come to the following conclusion: “At a minimum, it appears that the President and his cabinet misled the press and the world about what they knew about the KAL-007 incident and when they learned it. They also appear to have sacrificed the lives of 269 people in the hope of gaining information about the Soviet defense system. If these conjectures are unfounded, then … an unprecedented and apparently puzzling gap has opened up in the security system the United States has spent decades building.” At The Nation, we find the implications of Pearson’s report horrifying. Questions like those Pearson raises must not go unanswered. If his report cannot be refuted, as we believe, it raises the gravest suspicions about the United States. What is needed now is a special, in-depth investigation into what really happened, when, and who made the decisions. Published in the New York Times as a paid advertisement

"Abroad" No. 47 (1272) 1984