KAL STORY MAY HAVE BEEN HOAX TO BOOST MILITARY MAGAZINE SALES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00845R000201300026-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 18, 2010
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: June 20, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/18: CIA-RDP90-00
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON _'PAGE _,A..:
WASHINGTON TIMES
20 June 1984
stor may have been - K__A_L Y Y hoax
to boost military m '
a a;~.ne sales
By Peter Almond
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
LONDON - A British defense
magazine's "new evidence" that
Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was on
a U.S. spying mission when it was
shot down
by the Soviets may turn
out to have been a publicity stunt.
The article was published just as
a major military equipment fair
opened this week at . Aldershot, when the magazine was gearing up,
a sales promotion --
Some
Some 30,000 invited guests from
all over the world - most of them
in the defense industry - were
expected at the fair, and all were
potential readers for Defence Atta-
che.
The magazine's. editor and
defense editor were at Aldershot
yesterday and could not be reached
for comment. But the associate
publisher was clearly delighted
with the worldwide press interest,
including that from South Korea.
He said he did not know the name
of the author of the article, which
was published under a pseudonym.
The article attracted scant atten-
tion in Britain, where the only pub-
lications to mention it have been the
left-of-center Sunday Observer
newspaper and the Economist mag-
azine, slightly right of center, both
of which were approached by the
editors of Defence Attache.
"As an investigative piece it can
be easily torn apart,' said one Brit-
ish journalist who said his news-
paper would not run it for that
reason. "It is far too tenuous spec-
ulation."
Other iournalistEsaid the article
appears to be little more than spec-
ulation wed with allegedly new
intelligence evidence.
Published in London, Defence
Attache is well-regarded by British
government and defense industry
officials as a small, specialized
monthly magazine of about 4,000
circulation. It is sent to government
and defense experts around the
world, including those at the Penta-
gon. Its articles focus on military
equipment sales but are rarely con-
troversial.
It aapppears the author of the KAL
article had- conversations will
ante ligence officials - possibiL
wi
th as manly Soviets as Am icans.
But the credibility of the article's
detailed repc its of the movements
of U.S. Ferret satellites in 1964 -
coinciding with the shooting down
of two U.S. military planes over
East Germany, incidents the author
says are similar to the KAL incident
-appears to be damaged by a plea
for the U.S. press to "take up the
challenge" and do more investigat-
ing of the incident.
The article also contains an
unsupported suggestion that for-
mer National Security Adviser Wil-
liam Clark was forced from office
because he erred in not expecting
the KAL airliner to be shot down
with the loss of so many lives.
The author appears to some to
damage his credibility further by
attempting to connect what he says
is a decline in Defense Department
interest in the space shuttle with
the failure of the Soviets even to
mention the Shuttle's alleged
involvement in the KAL operation.
Was a secret deal reached, he
asks, where the Soviets would drop
any mention of the Shuttle in
exchange for the Shuttle's "demili-
tarization?"
Says Andrew Wilson, the
Observer reporter who wrote the-
story for his newspaper about the.
magazine article: "There are still a
lot of questions to be answered
about the KAL incident, and I think
',.you can expect this type of story."
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/18: CIA-RDP90-00845R000201300026-4