ARMS-D-Request@MIT-MC.ARPA (Moderator) (01/04/86)
Arms-Discussion Digest Saturday, January 4, 1986 3:55PM
Volume 6, Issue 5
Today's Topics:
Administrivia
Government secrecy and KAL007
Rejoinders, mostly re LOWC
Better dead...
Aircraft Carriers
"Legitimate" Soviet defense needs
Legitimate Soviet Defense Needs
Conflict Resolution
railway gauges
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Date: Sat, 4 Jan 86 12:45:18 EST
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
re: back issues
I have received a complaint from someone about being unable to FTP
back issues of ARMS-D. Have others had a problem FTPing?
Specifically, can you FTP big files?
If there is trouble with this, pls let me know.
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Date: Sat, 4 Jan 86 12:36:40 EST
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: [GA.CJJ: Government secrecy and KAL007]
Date: Fri, 3 Jan 86 14:47:30 PST
From: Clifford Johnson <GA.CJJ at Forsythe>
To: LIN at MIT-MC.ARPA
Re: Government secrecy and KAL007
My comment that "KAL007 was evidently an unconstitutionally
authorized spy plane" drew a lot of flak, but has not been shot
down. Nor has the evidence I cited in support thereof been dented.
In summary: (1) I am not claiming PROOF that KAL007 was a spy
flight, merely that substantial conflicting evidence exists, and US
government secrecy inevitably gives rise to the conclusion that
US/USSR roles in the matter =Tweedledum/Tweedledee; (2) nowhere does
anyone illuminate the secret Congressional inquiry into KAL007
precipitated in Sept. 1985 by testimony that the flight was
intentional; (3) the main article I cited appears to have been
misidentified by flamers as having been a discredited British
publication.
First and foremost, the supposedly definitive American Spectator
(October, 1985) article on KAL007 does not rebut ANY of the specific
instances of evidence I cited, instead blasting books I didn't cite
for factual errors I don't mention. Oberg's article contemptuously
talks of "spy crackpottery", and of "conspiracy nuts", and
irritatingly and erroneously asserts that the media only reported
such irresponsible sensationalism, while ignoring sober arguments
that the plane was not spying. My experience is quite the contrary
- the Defense Electronics (March, 1984) article I quoted received no
attention whatsoever from Oberg in his supposedly exhaustive review
of the literature, and, even more damming, there was almost no
attention paid by this nation's media to the secret investigation
into KAL007 initiated this September on account of testimony that
the flight was intentionally routed over Russia.
(The US media's readiness to collaborate in suppression of US spy
flights over Russia is a fortiori proven by the suppression of
knowledge of U2 flights for some years by the editors of both the
New York Times and Washington Post. Only after Gary Powers was shot
down did the information that these editors had known of the flights
come to light.)
Here is the news story I referred to re the Congressional inquiry:
"A sub-committee of the US Congress is to hold an investigation in
secret to try to get at the truth of what happened before the Korean
airliner KAL007 was shot down by a Soviet fighter two years ago with
a loss of 269 lives, writes Ian Mather. Officials of a
sub-committee of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee
say new allegations cast doubt on the official Washington claim that
the airliner was over Soviet territory by accident and that nobody
was aware of this. Am American lawyer involved in a damages suit on
behalf of the victims of the crash says the pilot's widow told him
and three other lawyers that the pilot and co-pilot were paid extra
to fly over Soviet territory. There has also been evidence that the
airliner's course was known and that an air traffic controller said
'We should warn him'. The sub-committee is also expected to
investigate the destruction of a tape by the US Air Force."
London Observer, Sept. 29, 1985, p.2.
The less-than-exhaustive evidence that I have so far seen and been
pointed to, seems to me to weigh in favor of KAL007's being a spy
plane. No, the evidence is not "beyond reasonable doubt"; if I'd
said that you could call me a crackpot. Even Oberg admits that
"innocent flight crew error" was no more than "the least unlikely"
cause of the flight path. In passing reference he confirms such
facts as "[the crew] had chances to discover the flight was off
course, but apparently never took advantage of them"; and "the
Soviet air defense forces attacked ... as it neared international
airspace and 'escape'". However, most of Oberg's article is wasted
by lengthy rebuttals of silly theories such as the theory that
Russia deliberately lured KAL007 off course to kill Congressman
Larry Macdonald.
P.S. Some of Oberg's lopsided rhetoric seems to have spilled into
the misinterpretation that I had alleged an "airliner spy base in
New Mexico". I read a wire story I think probably true, which
quoted an unnamed Air Force official who stated that the US Air
Force recurrently fitted commercial passenger planes of friendly
foreign nations with spying equipment at a base in New Mexico. The
fitting was formally at the friendly nations' request, and I believe
certain African nations were example customers. There was a hint
that such activity would be performed in future outside of the US on
account of the Korean incident. That's my memory of the article.
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End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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