Shootdown:Flight 007 and the American Connection:
Launer, Michael K. & Young, Marilyn J.
the police and the arrival of the ambulance. contrived impression. Spacek not only lacks our sympathy, Perhaps this could be made convincing, at least blackly but...
...thesis and methodology with R.W...
...We are convinced, however, that monitoring of KAL relies on mistaken Beyond that, of course, many of the Johnson has no solid evidence for his claims of military radar capabilities prewriters have had a political or ideological belief...
...Ewing has indicated that changes on readers who expect to learn more about book deal with the crash itself and the the weight and balance manifest made by the fate of the KAL will be sorely disapsearch for KAL's flight recorder - the the pilot have an innocent explanation...
...Only intemperate tossing of cans, for example - is the awkward near the end, when, alternately, she accepts her daughter's psychology displaced enough off center to soften our incredul- decision but then tries to stop her physically, is Bancroft ity...
...Reagan's presidency are KAL's status report to SU-15, who man- flight recorder is smaller than your broached) ring much truer than any of ifests utter disbelief...
...Further, the correct route, is claimed to dupliFollowing regulations explicitly, KAL Hersh- contends, Soviet military per- cate the track that NSA produced after radioed Tokyo that it had lost pressuriza- sonnel did indeed believe the airliner lengthy analysis of Soviet radar activtion and was descending to 10,000 feet, was a U.S...
...But But the worst technical chapters in the Mr...
...culpability...
...amusing in drama...
...These fall into two classes, the the USSR an apology...
...Ewing's simulation, demained intact, but the crew would have Sakhalin Island as the result of pilot veloped during his own flights over had little control over its flight...
...If they had, it is extremely un- procedures - ostensibly the most strik- Thus, the best reason for reading likely that the disaster would have oc- ing new information in the study - is Shootdown is as a study of U.S...
...reconnaissance plane...
...Fur- civilian radar coverage for over 2000 published Johnson's unsubstantiated thermore, a "passive probe" could have miles of its journey...
...Her final scenes rivet as nothing else in the film...
...A LTHOUGH it has been three years SROOTDOWN cates that KAL's flight could not possisince the Soviet Union shot down FLIGHT 007 AND THE bly have been detected by either this new KAL 007, events surrounding the air- AMERICAN, CONNECTION radar installation under construction or a liner's tragic fate remain shrouded in similar one in operation in Kamchatka mystery...
...Johnson Throughout the book Johnson misuses Sayle...
...averted...
...ignore the presence of aircraft...
...pointed, for this book contains virtually infamous "black box...
...there is no evidence studied the KAL records, indicated that bers, effectively isolating himself from the Soviets monitored KAL's radio fre- Johnson's analysis of commercial airline the process...
...In particular, during the Reagan administration...
...The aircraft would have re- gues that KAL 007 arrived over the airliner...
...But the actual Rus- proverbial breadbox...
...TOM O'BRIEN Books: 007 CONSPIRACY OR ACCIDENT...
...Advisor William Clark, UN Ambassador interchanges: KAL talking to Tokyo air Johnson's assessment of U.S...
...Numerous articles and at least R. W. Johnson because such equipment is designed to seven books have already appeared, with Viking, $18.951,335 pp...
...But sian tape-recording does not support this Similar criticism could be extended to many of his propositions are too speculainterpretation...
...Johnson admits addition, according to civil aviation exknowledge of this conspiracy, but it is that the CIA already knew this radar pert Douglas Feaver of the Washington obvious that he believes it to be true...
...Actually, the fer from the fact that no single author tion, the book posits a scenario in which most interesting parts of Shootdown are commands the technical, political, and such a drastic and dangerous course of directed toward supporting this rationale...
...On the whole, these sections requests "Say again...
...To demonstrate this, we will con- viously published by David Pearson, also axe to grind, which might or might not be centrate on three technical areas, examin- a conspiracy theorist...
...and some of the world's most complex chief William Casey, National Security Johnson juxtaposes transcripts of two and little understood ocean currents...
...Hersh claims and a fortiori Hersh, believes that airdeaths...
...At one point the Soviet pilot sources say, and his description of sonar officials...
...Johnson concedes that he Both Hersh and Johnson incorpolarge pieces of the plane were ever recov- has drawn his data almost exclusively rate considerable speculation about ered...
...Klass indi- the aircraft by radio are refuted in an Commonweal: 472 article to be published in Bulletin of Con- cation, the rugged underwater terrain, House and relationships among CIA cerned Asian Scholars...
...Al- ity...
...Although she looks her frumpy theatricality necessary to make credible such cool, quasi- part, she tries too hard to be down-home, and with glasses absurdist melodrama...
...reconnaissance aira spy mission...
...search-and-rescue operations who partic- be the analysis of the Reagan White So, Viking, about the refund...
...When the dialogue unearths the past history of the family, compelling...
...Shootdown rep- agency, believing its own disinformaaccidental and the conspiratorial...
...obviously hoping to stabilize the aircraft though President Reagan soon learned Johnson begins with the postulate at this lower altitude...
...It is the U.S.," Week and Space Technology...
...ipated in the recovery attempt, Johnson's description relies on simplification and EXCERPTS from The Target Is De- well as many individuals at the Na"half-truths...
...Johnson's technical discussions...
...from the equipped with the necessary radar...
...pose" of a U.S...
...claim that intelligence requirements elicited little useful intelligence regard- Johnson, who knows no Russian, is combined with the hope of derailing the ing Soviet radar...
...Johnson specu- techniques grossly simplified...
...damaging errors...
...In conclusions...
...Public This leaves the author without an interest continues high, but, given the Marilyn J. Young and adequate motivation except, perhaps, impossibility of definitively determining Michael K. Launer that the CIA had fostered the false notion why the shootdown happened, only dis- of Soviet ABM treaty violations to apparate, tenuous hypotheses have been Johnson wrote at that time, "which owes pease critics on the far right...
...with uncertainty over the splashdown lo12 September 1986: 473...
...errors plus pure bad luck...
...especially some buried secrets about epilepsy, it leaves a But it is too little, too late...
...And Harold which the president has delegated addition, the very premise of this section Ewing, a senior 747 pilot who has decision-making to senior staff memmust be challenged...
...politics curred...
...two or three more expected soon...
...Sayle wrote in London's Sunday maintains that the Korean airliner was on sources, particularly when discussing the Times that the U.S...
...The jetliner probably "went bal- this information was ignored for polit- craft disasters stem precisely from listic" in the final moments before im- ical reasons such a confluence -.change any one pact, the effect of which was compared to It is interesting to compare Hersh's circumstance and tragedy would be "running it through a meat grinder...
...After all, (especially where the public relations aslates that the dispatcher has relayed it took ten years to find the Titanic, and a pects of Mr...
...In book so filled with errors...
...Re- resents his attempt to assemble proofs tion, proceeded to concoct a fantastic gardless of orientation, however, all suf- demonstrating U.S...
...His discussion the CIA to provoke a violent Soviet ac- nores information from one of his own of taped reports by the SU- 15 pilot who tion...
...KAL's crew almost from intelligence analysts that the that only conscious action can account certainly struggled in vain to control the Soviets probably did not know what for highly improbable events...
...He does not claim certain areas KAL overflew...
...Hersh interviewed offi-, sumptions are real, his sources origiing the instrument were never good, what cials in both the U.S...
...In addi- scheme to prove it true...
...M.J.Y...
...quency...
...For many readers it will probably dence...
...exploded near the right inboard engine, on KAL, have been published in the In addition, he presents Harold Swripping through the aft pressure bulkhead current Atlantic Monthly...
...This explains why almost no bodies or Johnson's...
...These and other sources stroved (Random House), tional Security Agency with intimate indicate that the Soviet missile probably Seymour Hersh's forthcoming book knowledge of top-secret information...
...recovery Jeane Kirkpatrick, Secretary of State traffic control and SU- 15 reporting to its capabilities is vastly overestimated, our George Shultz, and other administration dispatcher...
...According to What, then, is the merit of Shoot- no original research and no new evispecialists in anti-submarine warfare and down...
...linguistic expertise necessary to avoid action might make political sense...
...But film's realism denies a performer the Brancroft overcompensates...
...would not violate the ABM treaty, con- Post, KAL was not under any Western In December 1983, The Guardian trary to claims from the far right...
...How better to justify placing Persh- sources, an article by Philip J. Klass, destroyed KAL and of Soviet claims that ing II and cruise missiles in Britain and then Senior Avionics Editor of Aviation they methodically attempted to contact West Germany...
...Johnson's discussion of possible U.S...
...from the public record, which means individual behavior and its decisive Notwithstanding Shootdown's "ex- he relies on secondary sources, a prac- role in the Korean Airliner tragedy...
...wrong in many respects...
...his sources, veteran reporter Murray to the conspiracy camp...
...In following Pearannounced but is always discernible...
...Spacek not only lacks our sympathy, Perhaps this could be made convincing, at least blackly but our interest...
...Nonetheless, the pilot is a routine, unemotional request contained in Shootdown...
...ing the author's use of sources and his son, the author has to ignore another of R: W. Johnson's Shootdown belongs proof...
...M.K.L...
...Indeed, Philip the political material is both fascinating that a command be repeated, one of six Klass had this to say: "I've never read a and shocking, particularly the extent to such instances during the interception...
...Viking has marketed the primary reason, in his mind, for execut- craft patrolling near Kamchatka Peninbook that way, promising in full-page ing such a spy mission in the first place: a sula could not have spotted KAL or ads to refund the purchase price to any- new radar installation deep within warned it because the RC-135 was not one who can "shoot down" Johnson's Siberia, well over 3000 km...
...Only when "business" occurs - some pushed to the edge of her nose, mugs stereotypically...
...Judging ing's reconstruction of events that and destroying most of the steering solely from this, it appears Hersh ar- may have taken place in the cockpit of mechanism...
...then the advanced...
...What can be heard from nearly all of the technical discussions tive to be accepted readily...
...and USSR, as nal...
...wrong in his interpretation of most of the Western European peace movement, led Yet, in making this claim Johnson ig- Soviet materials he uses...
...cover-up involving re- tice some have labeled "scrapbook But the data surrounding Hersh's astrieval of the black box, chances of find- scholarship...
...Ewing, aircraft while plunging to their imminent they were shooting at...
Vol. 113 • September 1986 • No. 15
