KAL 007 MEDIA MISCUE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00845R000201300025-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 18, 2010
• Sequence Number: 25
• Publication Date: June 28, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/18: CIA-RDP90-0
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE C
REED IRVINE
KAL 007
media
miscue
A six-column headline
across the top of Page A14
of The Washington Post of
June 19 proclaimed:
"Article in Britain Links Ill-Fated
Flight to Intelligence Mission."
The lead paragraph read: "An
article in a British defense mag-
azine strongly suggests that the
Korean Air Lines jet shot down by
Soviet fighter pilots last September
was part of a coordinated U.S. intel-
ligence plan, involving spy satel-
lites and the space shuttle, to gather
data on Russian air defenses"
The article in question had
appeared in a small-circulation
British magazine, Defense Attache.
It appeared under the pseudonym,
P.Q. Mann, whose qualifications
were not provided. The Post's story
reported that the author had made
heavy use of an article published in
Pravda on Sept. 20, 1983, by Mar-
shal of Aviation Pyotr Kirsanov,
"laying out the Soviet version" of
the shooting down of Korean Air
Lines Flight 007.
"Mann" went back 20 years, cit-
ing two cases in 1964 when two U.S.
Air Force planes were shot down
when they intruded into Soviet-bloc
airspace. He claimed that these
intrusions occurred just as an
American spy satellite was orbiting
over the area. He concluded that
the intrusions were deliberately
carried out to activate air defense
activity that could be monitored by-
the satellite. "Mann" jumped from
this assumption to the conclusion
that something similar had hap-
pened Sept. 1, 1983, when KAL 007
flew over the Kamchatka Peninsula
and Sakhalin Island.
He said that the U.S. space shut-
tle had been launched from Cape
Canaveral 36 hours before the Sovi-
ets shot down KAL 007 and that at
the time of the shootdown, the shut-
tle was in orbit 1,200 to 2,000 miles
south of the KAL track. He said that
WASHINGTON TIMES
28 June 1984
was "amply close to involve the
shuttle in its (military) command.
control, and communicaions role in
the conducting of the extended
intelligence operation." In other
words, "Mann" was arguing that
the space shuttle was serving as a
-spy satellite, monitoring the Soviet
air defenses activated when the
Korean passenger airliner flew
over Soviet territory. He embroi-
dered this fanciful scenario further
by suggesting that the RC-135 Air
Force reconnaissance plane that
had briefly been in the same area
that night was there to fool the Sovi-
ets into thinking that the KAL 007
was military aircraft.
The Washington Post noted that
Secretary of Defense Casper Wein-
berger had called this article a rep-
etition "of the total set of lies that
the Soviet Union published" after
the KAL massacre. But that didn't
stop it from dignifying the story
with 33 column-inches of its space.
The New York Times, on the other
hand, ignored the story, as did ABC
and CBS. NBC mentioned it briefly.
Some papers around the country
carried wire-service stories about
it. Taxpayer-supported National
Public Radio gave it big play, run-
ning a lengthy interview of the
author, without disclosing his true
identity.
The same day the story ran in The
Washington Post, the Associated
Press took the trouble to check with
a space expert, Jim Oberg of the
Johnson Space Center. Mr. Oberg
was quoted as saying: "The story is
so basically flawed that there is no
way anyone familiar with the shut-
tle would give it a second's
credibility. . . . One can never say
the story is a plant, but it's consis-
tent with a Soviet campaign to
smear the space shuttle. The level
of propaganda is increasing. It has
doubled and redoubled in recent
months."
Mr. Oberg said: "Basic laws of
nature and geography show that the
shuttle could not have participated
in any scenario that resulted in the
downing of the Korean jet" He
pointed out that the shuttle's orbit
carried it no farther north than the
southern tier of states in the United
States. He said this would have kept
it far out of radio or radar contact
with any aircraft flying as far north
as KAL 007.
Mr. Oberg said the story was
similar to Soviet propaganda
charges attacking the shuttle as
being military. He said: "They say
the things that the shuttle plans to
do are things for which they shot
down other aircraft." He thought
this was ominous, since the Soviets
do have the capability of shooting
down the shuttle.
The Washington Post did not pub-
lish the AP story on Jim Oberg's
expert comments.
Reed Irvine is chairman of the
board of Accuracy in Media.
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/18: CIA-RDP90-00845R000201300025-5