ARMS-D-Request@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU (Moderator) (08/05/86)
Arms-Discussion Digest Tuesday, August 5, 1986 3:48PM
Volume 6, Issue 135
Today's Topics:
Administrivia
KAL007
Risks of CAD
Re: radiation and health
Re: KAL007 and the muddied sky
No first use
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Date: Tue, 5 Aug 1986 09:11 EDT
From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Subject: Administrivia
Someone please help with the following message:
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Date: Mon, 4 Aug 86 14:36:27 PDT
From: Clifford Johnson <GA.CJJ@Forsythe.Stanford.Edu>
Subject: KAL007
> To make the mistaken data entry theory credible, one must construct
> one or more hypothetical errors that could have resulted in the
> flight path (which is now quite accurately known).
>
> That doesn't bother me.
It doesn't bother the U.S. government either, but it sure has
bothered the ICAO's Air Navigation Committee and anyone who has
seriously proposed the bad data entry hypothesis. Even the strongest
proponent of the theory (Sayle) noted that if it was proved that
KAL007 veered over north over Sakhalin at the last, it must have
been an intentionally intrusive flight. Since then, the turn has
been proved - or are you of the opinion that radom atmospheric
conditions might have created bogus images on the radar tapes - I
would have to admit this is theoretically possible. (Shootdown, at
247-249, actually sketches probability chains resulting in
billions-to-one against the accidental route hypotheses.) But to
return to the point at issue - surely you agree that the question of
whether KAL007's route was preplanned is (1) unknown and (2) if it
was preplanned, might well be determinable by a congressionable
investigation?
> But those on KAL007 are dead, and they are the only ones who would
> know FOR SURE that they were on an intelligence mission.
No way. The CIA/KCIA/DOD agents who planned it would know, the
RC-135 pilot would know (even instructions that he was not to warn
KAL007 of its path into the Soviet Union would establish that it was
intentionally routed), ditto re KAL015's peculiar dummy-relay
mission and it's pilot, the persons who ordered the destruction of
the Air Force radar tapes would likely know, in fact, I'd be
surprised if the number of people who KNEW KAL007 was intentional
was ultimately under 50, excluding those on board.
> It seems clear to me that if you were in international air space,
> you'd just keep on, annoyed at the harassment, which you would
> immediately report to ground control.
>
> That's what I would try first. But what if nothing happened, e.g., a
> dead radio?
Didn't you follow the last part of my message, repeated here?
"And - if you weren't on an espionage mission, would it occur to you
IMMEDIATELY BEFORE DESCENDING TO CALMLY RADIO TOKYO FOR PERMISSION
TO ASCEND, THEN TO DESCEND AND ACCELERATE, THEN TO ASCEND AND
DECELERATE, AND THEN TO CALMLY RADIO BACK TO TOKYO ANOTHER FALSE
ALTITUDE? Hardly; but these antics are proven by the tapes."
While making the evasive final maneuvers, KAL007 broadcast and
received and acknowledged perfectly normal radio communications
with Tokyo! (The radio communications are voice-print certified.)
> All of the various KAL007 intelligence gathering theories have the
> air of conspiracy theories about all kinds of things like the JFK
> assasination. The general line of argument is "Here is a set of
> events. Isn't it unlikely that these events would have occurred by
> chance? Therefore, there must be a unifying theory (i.e., a
> conspiracy) that accounts for all of them."
First, the "conspiracy theory" is in this instance far from
far-fetched, since the partners in it are the CIA and KCIA who
conspire all the time. Second, the evidence is far more direct
than you imply, nor has anybody answered it in the digest.
> In every accident there are anomalous data.
That is why an inquiry is needed as a matter of course, and required
as a matter of law.
> You (Cliff) have shown a proclivity to view it as malicious, which I
> believe guides your judgments in individual cases. I have a
> proclivity to take a somewhat more benign/incompetent view, which
> guides my judgments.
Thoreau put my position well: "Some circumstantial evidence is very
strong, as when you find a trout in the milk." Come off it, I've
cited notes in the captain's own handwriting, the pilot's spouses
saying the pilots were paid extra to fly over Russia, the amazing
relaying of false positions by KAL015, the "normal" but false radio
communications of KAL007 during its evasive last-minute
moments, et al. I'd far rather believe the incompetence theory,
and have strong inclinations that way; e.g. I think that Soviet
incompetence resulted in KAL007 not being picked up until it
was about to escape. (The commander of Kamchatka air defense is
reportedly dead.)
As for maliciousness, you are incorrect. I perceive the intent
of the mission would have been to benefit the world in the fight
against oppressive Soviet expansionism. The cover-up could be a
genuine perception that national interest is not best-served by
revealation of such a fact. I would use the term "seriously
misguided," not malicious, in any event.
> This will be last message on the subject.
I appreciate your feedback despite, even because of, the disagreement.
Cheers.
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Date: Sunday, 3 August 1986 03:17-EDT
From: decwrl!decvax!utzoo!henry at ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU
To: arms-d@xx.lcs.mit.edu, decvax!CSL.SRI.COM!RISKS at ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU
Re: Risks of CAD
[Forwarded from RISKS]
Alan Wexelblat comments:
> Petroski also fears that inadequate computer simulation is replacing crucial
> real testing...
One can see examples of the sort of engineering this produces in many pieces
of high-tech US military equipment. In the recent times, the criteria used
to evaluate a new military system have increasingly drifted away from straight
field-test results and toward complex and arbitrary scoring schemes only
vaguely related to real use. Consider how many official reports on the
Sergeant York air-defence gun concluded, essentially, "no serious problems",
when people participating in actual trials clearly knew better. Some of this
was probably deliberate obfuscation -- juggling the scoring scheme to make
the results look good -- but this was possible only because the evaluation
process was well divorced from the field trials. Another infamous example
is the study a decade or so ago which seriously contended that the F-15 would
have a kill ratio of several hundred to one against typical opposition.
These are conspicuous cases because the evaluation results are so grossly
unrealistic, but a lot of this goes on, and the result is unreliable equipment
with poor performance.
It should be noted, however, that there is "real testing" and real testing.
Even the most realistic testing is usually no better than a fair facsimile
of worst-case real conditions. The shuttle boosters superficially looked
all right because conditions had never been bad enough to produce major
failure. The Copperhead laser-guided antitank shell looks good until you
note that most testing has been in places like Arizona, not in the cloud and
drizzle more typical of a land war in Europe. Trustworthy test results
come from real efforts to produce realistic conditions and vary them as much
as possible; witness the lengthy and elaborate tests a new aircraft gets.
Even if the results of CAD do get real-world testing, one has to wonder
whether those tests will be scattered data points to "validate" the output
of simulations, as opposed to thorough efforts to uncover subtle flaws that
may be hiding between the data points.
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
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Date: 5 Aug 86 10:19-EST
From: Sam McCracken <oth104%BOSTONU.bitnet@WISCVM.ARPA>
Subject: Re: radiation and health
My favorite Sternglass study is the one which demonstrated that cancer
deaths were rising around the Millston Point II reactor in Connecticut
within five year of its going on line. He chose the only two test
years for which this might be argued--other pairs of years showed that
Millstone Point II _cured_ cancer. When one integrates five years
before and five years after, there is nil correlation. (See my The
War Against the Atom, Basic Books, 1982.
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Date: Tue, 5 Aug 86 07:58 MST
From: Jong@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA
Subject: Re: KAL007 and the muddied sky
Clifford Johnson, commenting on the tragic KAL007 incident,
quotes another Johnson, in the book "Shootdown," and John Glenn:
"...it is certainly true that tracer bullets lose their brilliance
after travelling around 9000 feet - but Major Kasim's SU-15 was
about two kilometers behind 007 when the tracers were fired, and
two kilometers is 6562 feet." (R.W.Johnson, p.246.) As John Glenn
commented: "it's inconceivable that he would have missed all those
tracers going by." (Wash. Post 09/13/83.)
In a later transaction, he quotes the Japanese tapes of the Russian
pilot who shot it down:
"Roger. Repeat heading... To the left surely. Not to the right...
Affirmative, it has turned... I have enough time... I am firing
cannon burts [tracers]... The target isn't responding to the
call... Must get closer to it... I'm going in closer... The
target's light is blinking [first report]. I have already
approached the target to a distance of about two kilometers. The
target is decreasing speed... No. It is decreasing speed... It
should have been earlier. How can I chase it? I'm already abeam of
the target... Now I have to fall back... Say again... The target's
altitude is 10,000 meters. From me it's located 70 degress to the
left. I'm dropping back. Now I will try rockets."
I've been interested in this event since it happened, and my opinion
is that something more than a series of accidents happened. I notice,
though, that the tapes don't support the sequence of event Clifford
Johnson describes. It appears that the Soviet pilot fired his guns,
THEN closed to two kilometers, not the other way around.
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Subject: No first use
Date: 05 Aug 86 13:49:20 EDT (Tue)
From: dm@bfly-vax.bbn.com
The excuse given for the refusal by the U.S. to declare no first use
of nuclear weapons is doing so would make West Germany feel
undefended. If the Warsaw Pact invaded Western Europe, and stuck to a
solely conventional war, we couldn't defend Western Europe (because
neither the US nor NATO wants to commit funds and troops enough for a
conventional defense to be credible). Therefore, we are committed to
using nuclear weapons if our back is to the wall in Europe.
If West Germany feels undefended, they might be tempted to develop
nuclear weapons of their own (after all, France and Britain have) --
something the Soviets regard with considerable trepidation (having
fought two wars against the Germans this century).
That's the argument, anyway. I'm not sure I believe that NATO is so
weak it couldn't defend itself conventionally against an invasion
spearheaded by armies of Poles, Czechs, Hungarians and other reliable,
staunch allies of the SU.
Personally, I think we should defend Western Europe by giving everyone
M-16s modified to accept whatever ammunition the Warsaw Pact gives
their troops. That might turn Paris into Beirut, though...
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End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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