mjk@tty3b.UUCP (Mike Kelly) (06/18/84)
LONDON [Reuters] June 17 - The South Korean passenger jet shot down over the Soviet Union last year may have been used to trigger Soviet radar and electronic defense signals so U.S. spy satellites could monitor them, according to an article in a British defense magazine. The article, published by the jornal Defense Attache under the pseudonym P.Q. Mann, said one of the two satellites involved was the U.S. space shuttle Challenger. It also speculated that in the resultant diplomatic confrontation Moscow may have extracted a secret accord from Washington to demilitarize the shuttle. Defense Attache, a twice-monthly journal widely read in the British defense industry, said it did not necessarily agree with all the views in the article but published it to inspire further investigation. The editor said the author had to remain anonymous for professional reasons but was someone well-known to him. The article linked the incident last September to separate incursions into Soviet bloc airspace by two U.S. military planes in 1964, shortly after the first of the U.S. Ferret electronic surveillance satellites went into orbit. The incursions by the U.S. planes, both of which were shot down, coincided with Ferret surveillance of the area, it said. [In Washington, the White House denied the report. "There's nothing to that story," White House spokesman Peter Roussel said.] All 269 people aboard Korean Air Lines Flight 007 died in the crash. Washington said all along that the Korean plane, a Boeing 747, was not engaged in intelligence work. But the article recalled that a U.S. military jet, an RC-135, with a similar profile to that of the Korean plane flew within range of Soviet radar shortly before the airliner entered Soviet airspace. It described this as a dummy-selling tactic to put Soviet defense systems on guard. The writer said Moscow itself initially drew attention to apparent coordination between the Korean plane's movemnt and repeated passes by a Ferret satellite. It also noted that the shuttle was launched 36 hours before the incident "eastwards at the unusual local time of 0232, the first nighttime launch." "It is possible that, in its orbital passes to the south of the Soviet Union, it would have been advantageously placed to eavesdrop on emergency communications streaming east to west across the USSR between the Far Eastern command and the center of political control in Moscow," it said. The most commonly advanced explanation of why the Korean jet crossed into Soviet airspace is navigational failure, though the manufacturers of the navigational equipment have been unwilling to believe that all three systems failed at once. The article speculated that Moscow may have extracted a pledge from Washington to demilitarize the shuttle as the price for not publicly damaging U.S. credibility on the issue. It said Moscow may have let Washington know that it knew that space intelligence-gathering was the real reason why the Korean airliner entered Soviet airspace and threatened to pursue the evidence publicly. It pointed to "an astonishing pall of U.S. and Soviet government silence which rapidly fell over the event." -------------------------------------- The above wire service report appeared in the June 18 Chicago Tribune. Mike Kelly
martillo@ihuxt.UUCP (Yehoyaqim Martillo) (06/19/84)
I hope anyone who believes this ridiculous piece of Soviet disinformation
will write me so that I can sell him the Brooklyn bridge.
--
Yehoyaqim Shemtob Martillo
(An Equal Opportunity Offender)lmaher@uokvax.UUCP (06/21/84)
#R:tty3b:-38300:uokvax:5000099:000:1372
uokvax!lmaher Jun 20 22:46:00 1984
<Why yes, comrade bug, it is a civilian line. Eat it!>
I totally agree with Martillo about the article being
disinformation. I was taking a seminar on Intelligence, with
special emphasis on ELINT and SIGINT such as the RC-135, at the
time the plane was shot down.
We had several students who were serving in the Navy, and
they provided a simulated briefing (using non-classified
material, obviously) on KAL 007's flight, and we discussed
American intelligence gathering in the area. There's just no way
the Soviets mistook a civilian 747 for a military RC 135.
Furthermore, accusations that the U.S. steered the plane
into Soviet airspace to monitor Soviet air defense radar is
ridiculous. Wholly apart from moral considerations, when the
U.S. penetrates Soviet Air Defenses they use SIGINT planes
crammed with gear and technicians, to record every bit of info.
Some U.S. military recon overflights have been shot down, see
_The Puzzle Palace_ for details. I don't recall any recently,
but I can post the older ones that I know of if anyone cares.
The Soviets, on the other hand, do use their civilian planes
for intelligence-gathering, but that's because they're
government-controlled.
Carl (formerly uok!crigney)
..!ctvax!uokvax!lmaher ..!duke!uok!uokvax!lmaherka@hou3c.UUCP (Kenneth Almquist) (07/03/84)
One of the least believable ideas in the article was that Moscow might have agreed not to present evidence of U. S. involvement with the KAL 007 flight in return for an agreement to demilitarize the shuttle. This notion strikes me as absurd. First of all, U. S. / Soviet are more frigid that they have been in years; I have a hard time believing that either side would even try to negotiate such a touchy agreement. Let's face it; the American and Soviet diplomats do not sit down and say, "We appear to have a conflict. Let's sit down and try to find a win-win solution that will meet both our needs." Do you think that Moscow would seriously expect Washington to keep its word on such an agreement of vice versa? The Soviets are quite nationalistic; it is hard to imagine them sacrificing face on the world stage to gain a private concession from the United States. Similarly, there are plenty of hawks in the current administration; I have a hard time picturing this administration "giving in to Soviet blackmail". For that matter, if such an agreement was reached, why hasn't it been leaked to the press by now? Sure, it is possible for the U. S. government to keep a secret if everybody involved agrees that it is vital to the security of the United States, but what would such an agreement protect the security of the United States or would it sacrifice the security of the United States to protect the image of Ronald Reagan? Any such agree- ment with the Soviet Union would be about as secret as the "covert" war against Nicaragua. Kenneth Almquist