KOREAN AIRLINER INCIDENT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000201360009-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 22, 2008
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: August 31, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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31 August 1984
KOREAN AIRLINER LEHRER: Shultz also said the shooting down of Korean
INCIDENT Airlines Flight 007 a year ago put an indelible stamp on
U.S.-Soviet relations. At today's State Department
briefing, spokesman John Hughes also had this to say about
that. JOHN\HUGHES (State Department Spokesman): There
. - .can be no real--compensation for the--loss of life,-,in this
tragedy. Nevertheless, we're deeply troubled by the fact
that the Soviet Union has never apologized for its action
nor offered restitution to the families of the victims.
Finally, we must do what we can to ensure that such an
.event never happens again. To that end, the United States
calls on the Soviet Union to join the international
community in observing accepted practices with regard to
the safety to civil aviation. The world simply will not
accept the repetition of such a senseless tragedy.
LEHRER: There is more to be said and discussed tonight
about the KAL anniversary, and Judy Woodruff is in charge
of that. Judy?
WOODRUFF: Jim, the Soviets made it clear today they
weren't going to sit back and let the Americans reap a
free propaganda bonanza from the KAL anniversary. A
Soviet TV news commentator reiterated charges the plane
was on a spy mission, and the Soviet news agency issued a
report which suggested. the U.S. may have recovered the
black box flight recorder from the downed plane, but is
keeping.it a secret because its contents helped prove that
the plane was spying. Here in Washington, a State
Department spokesman called the report absolutely wrong.
He said there were international authorities as well as
Japanese officials on hand when the search for the black
box was conducted and that there was no way the U.S. could
have found it without others knowing about it. Also out
of Moscow today, the Soviets for the first time
acknowledged that the plane was shot down. The phrase was
used in a report in the Communist Party newspaper Pravda.
In the past, the Soviets have always referred to the plane
having been stopped or terminated. Meanwhile, in South
Korea, there was a report today that the South Korean
government is still seeking compensation from, the Soviets
for the downed plane and its passengers. All previous
demands for compensation from the Soviets have been
rejected. Although it's been a year since the incident
took place, it is still vivid in everyone's memory, and
its impact on East-West relations is still being felt.
Because there is so much mystery associated with the fate
of KAL 007, we decided to take a brief look back at what
happened and at the theories that have emerged since then
about why it happened. On Sept.. 1, 1983, Korean Airlines
Flight 007 took off from Anchorage, Alaska, and headed f'or
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Seoul, South Korea. Veering westward, the jetliner
eventually entered Soviet airspace, first over the
Kamchatka Peninsula, the site of a Russian submarine base.
Flight 007 continued on across the Sea of Okhotsk and
again penetrated the USSR, this time over Sakhalin Island,
where the Soviets test fire missiles. Russian fighter
'planes-which had failed to intercept Flight 007 over
Kamchatka this time zeroed in on the civilian airliner. A
Soviet pilot fired and hit the Korean airliner with a
heat-seeking missile. KAL 007 plunged into the Sea of
Japan. All 269 people aboard died. The United States has
contended from the outset that Flight 007 accidentally
wandered off course and that the Soviets downed the plane
in reckless disregard for human life. The Soviets, after
initial contradictory statements, charged the plane was on
a spy mission for the U.S., which they say bears
responsibility for the tragedy. Despite an extensive air
and sea search by the U.S., the Soviet Union and Japan,
the Korean airliner's flight recorder was never recovered.
Without the plane's black box, there can be no definitive
answer as to why Flight 007 was off course. The
International Civil Aviation Organization cited probable
human error in programming the jetliner's navigational
computer, or possibly a computer malfunction, but other
aviation experts are dubious. One year later, the story
of the downing of Flight 007 is incomplete. A lack of
hard evidence and government secrecy for national security
have helped fuel speculation. Reports in American and
British journals and a British TV documentary have raised
questions about the extent of U.S. knowledge and
involvement, questions like, how could the U.S., with its
massive electronic listening posts in the region, fail to
detect an airliner more than 200 miles off course? And
how can an American spy plane, which also happened to be
in the vicinity, not have spotted the Korean airliner and
made sure it was warned that it was off course? The .
reports conclude it's very unlikely the entire episode was
an accident. Instead, they assume it was one of two
things, a deliberate and carefully planned intelligence
operation or, originally, an accident. But when U.S.
officials became aware of it, and believing the Soviets
would not shoot down an unarmed passenger jet, they
permitted the plane to continue on its course in order to
gather valuable intelligence-about-how the Soviet Union
responds to an invasio'h of its airspace. Here to debate
these and other questions is, first, the man who was a
source for those news reports, John Keppel, who spent 22
years with the State Department Before he retired in 1969.
He was on the Soviet desk of the Bureau of Intelligence
and Research at the time of the U-2 spy plane shoot-down
in 1960. Also, Lawrence Eagleburger, who put in 27 years.
at the State Department before he retired earlier this
Conlinuld
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3
year as the undersecretary for political affairs. As the
third-highest official in charge at the department, he
coordinated the U.S. response to the incident when it
occurred. Mr. Keppel, let me begin with you. How can you
be so sure that this entire incident was not an accident?
JOHN\KEPPEL (former diplomat): I think the first part of
---the question is whether you can believe that the, whether
you can convince yourself that it could, that the plane
could have got to Sakhalin accidentally. And there, I
would like to say that the ICAO report, which put forward
two of the most plausible theories as to how an innocent
navigational error could have brought it there, was
repudiated by a second ICAO body, the Air Navigation
Commission. Now, I'm not an airman myself, but I've
talked to quite a few, particularly Bob *Allerdyce, who
was on 20/20 magazine last night, who has really been
through this thing with great care.
WOODRUFF: Well, what... KEPPEL: And it seems quite
clear that you cannot fly this course without entering in
the position reports that-are turned in, accidentally.
WOODRUFF: And yet the ICAO report indicated that it was
probably human error. KEPPEL: Yes. And I, but as I say
the Air Navigation Commission of the ICAO, it said itself,
repudiated those two innocent hypotheses. And, oh, we
don't have time to do it now, but there are quite concrete
reasons why they don't work. And there are a number of
other scenarios of innocent errors that don't meet the two
sets of facts I mentioned. The day that...
WOODRUFF: The fact... Go ahead. KEPPEL: Sorry. The
data in the, the data that in the position reports or what
we know of the course that was actually flown.
WOODRUFF: What do you think happened? KEPPEL: I think
it was, it had to get there intentionally, and that
therefore, you have to face the other questions in the
case. Now, I think the evidence is less certain with
regard to whatever possiblb U.S. involvement there was in
the case. But I think that the apparent relationship to a
number of U.S. intelligence assets was sufficiently close
so that you have enough evidence to warrant a proper
inquiry.
WOODRUFF: You're saying you think the plane was on a spy
mission, or not? KEPPEL: I'm saying I'd like to not to
be the.judge and the jury. I'm trying to say that I think
there's enough evidence to require a proper inquiry.
WOODRUFF: Mr. Eagleburger, how do you respond to that?
LAWRENCE\EAGLEBURGER (former undersecretary of State):
Well,' with total disagreement, I guess is-the simplest way
to put it. And'without getting into a debate about
Cad
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reports, I'm prepared to accept an ICAO report written by
aviation experts, not Americans, international experts,
which clearly said that in their judgment, there had to be
some sort of.a navigation error that led to the plane's
being off the course. I have also read the Air Navigation
Commission report that Mr. Keppel talked about. I read it
differently. -?---h--read--it as simply.-saying -that there was not sufficient evidence to make a difference. I don't
think it is at all clear that that report repudiated the
ICAO report. But all of this, it seems to me, misses the
basic point, which is that a year ago, the Soviets
murdered 269 people. And for some period of time, the
Soviets have been trying, one way or another, to try to
establish a case that it was our fault and not theirs,
without any success. And here we are now, a year later,
debating that same issue all over again.
WOODRUFF: Is there any possibility in your mind that the
plane could have been on an intelligence, on a spy
mission? EAGLEBURGER: There is absolutely no reason for.
me to believe that. When I was in the department at the
time, I was in fact responsible within the State
Department for most of*the contacts with other agencies,
including with regard to intelligence missions, and'I can
state absolutely and categorically that I know nothing
about any such flight, and I don't believe it ever took
place. .
WOODRUFF: All right. And what, then what about the other
.theory that this whole thing started as an accident, but
once the Americans realized what was happening, they
thought, 'OK, we'll go ahead and let the plane continue on
its course and we'll get this great once-in-a, you know,
many-years' opportunity to see how the Soviets respond to
a penetration of their airspace'? EAGLEBURGER: Well, I
think there are two answers to that. The first of which.
is, with all respect, the U.S. government can't act that
quickly. We just don't do things that way. Secondly, it
would have had to have been approved ata very high level
and again, I was not aware of any such thing. The
secretary of State, I know, was not. I totally. believe
that the president or no one else was. It was not done
for those reasons at all. In my view, it's just not
acceptable.
WOODRUFF: Mr. Keppel? KEPPEL: I, I...
WOODRUFF: Is that plausible to you? KEPPEL: Not really.
I think that you have to start with the facts of the
flight, and if you can,-if you cannot convince yourself,
if you cannot see a way in which any of the innocent
hypotheses can make sense, you then have to face the fact
that it may have been intentional. And if you face the
fact that it may be intentional, you then have to start
Coc
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S,
looking at the other evidence. And there is quite a lot
of other evidence that is very suggestive that there was
coordination with, as I say, other intelligence assets.
And let me make a point with regard to the mysteries in
this case. There are at least six areas .in the case that
I can identify where there are quite specific questions,
which.. I_.._think,. could__easily. be..resolved by evidence in the
possession of the United States government for which there
is no valid reason to hold secret. With intelligence
gathering, usually it's the ability to collect the
information rather than the information itself that is
very sensitive.
WOODRUFF: But doesn't'all that come down to an assumption
on your part that, I mean, for any of these theories to
have worked, to have been the real situation, the United
States would have had to have been putting at risk the
lives of 269 innocent people. I mean, doesn't that have
to be part of the motive-at work for any of those theories
that you're saying? KEPPEL: Well, I know enough about
past history to know that funny things do happen in the
world, sometimes in wartime, sometimes on the eve of war,
sometimes in lesser cases. And so I think one has to face
the facts and not face the facts coming from assumptions.
EAGLEBURGER: Well, if I may, if I may, what all of these
arguments, in the last analysis, boil down to, including
Mr. Keppel, is that senior U.S. government officials,
including either implicitly'or explicitly the president of
the United States, engaged in a conspiracy which put at
risk the lives of 269 innocent people. Now, we may have
reached the stage in this country where that is a
legitimate claim that can be made, day in and day out, but
I don't happen to accept it. Neither the president nor
the senior officials of the U.S. government play games
with peoples' lives this way, when there are simple
explanations of why the plane was where it was, and where
civil aviation authorities, not American civil aviation
authorities, can come up with legitimate explanations. I
don't know why we have to go through these conspiracy
fears.
WOODRUFF: Well, then, Mr. Eagleburger, let me ask you
this... EAGLEBURGER: Right.
WOODRUFF: Since Air Force radar spotted the plane within,
apparently within a few minutes after it left Anchorage,
found that it was off course, why wasn't the plane
notified? EAGLEBURGER: Well, with all respect, that's a
fact that I don't think is the case. My understanding and
my recollection from the, a year ago when I was dealing
with this case, in fact, is that our radar can cover that
plane-out to.165 miles from Alaska.- It cannot be picked
up from the Japanese end of the course until it is about
165 miles north of Japan. The large distance in between
those two radars was, in fact, not covered. Our radar did
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not ascertain that the aircraft was wildly off course. ?`"
And there was no way, in fact, to tell it, despite all of
these articles now which say we have all of these
resources. The fact of the matter is, there were two
radars covering that aircraft and we were not covering it
in the period between those two distances in the *Shimya
radar which _is__now..claimed -should have picked it
f
act, could not pick it up at all.
WOODRUFF: Well, if it was picked up, do you think the
plane should have been notified? EAGLEBURGER: If it was
picked up, obviously it should have been notified. I
doubt that it was picked up beyond which the military
radar which are now being referred to. Their task was, in
fact, not to follow civilian aircraft. What we have done
since the Korean shootdown is, in fact, put a radar into
the *Shimya facility on Aleutian, on the Aleutian Islands
which, in fact, now follows civilian aircraft, and when
they are noted to be off course, in fact, notifies them of
such. We did not have such a facility-prior to the
shooting down.
WOODRUFF: Mr. Keppel, do you think all the facts of this
will ever come out? KEPPEL: I don't know. But I would
like to dispute a couple of facts that we've just done.
May I?
WOODRUFF: Sure. KEPP-EL: OK. There was a second radar
on. the Alaskan side which was the military radar at King
Salmon, whose data was revealed later. And the track
given there is approximately a: continuation of the
civilian radar that we started with. This takes you
down...
WOODRUFF: Can you make your point, briefly? Can you make
your point briefly? KEPPEL: All right. OK. Sure. There
is additional U.S. radar data which shows that the plane
was off course, substantially off course, at its first
weigh point, and there is further U.S. radar data. And
there is further U.S. radar data that has not been
disclosed...
WOODRUFF: And... KEPPEL: ...that would show a further
turn to'the north for which there is no innocent
explanation and no reason to hold the radar data secret.
WOODRUFF: And the point of that is, you're saying the
Americans did know and didn't do anything about it? Is
that right, sir?
KEPPEL: We certainly know now after the event that it,
that the kind of ICAO report conclusion won't work, based
on evidence now in the possession of the U.S. government.
WOODRUFF: All right. This is the sort of thing we'll
have to debate again, hopefully, in the near future.
Thank you, Mr. Eagleburger and Mr. Keppel, for being with
us. ';r:'?
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