KAL 007

To The Editors of the Crimson:

It is amazing the lengths to which the West's unilateralists will go in trying to absolve the USS of any wrongdoing. This summer the World Council of Churches, in a statement belying that innocuous title, told us that Poland was in Russia's sphere of influence and so we should not worry about it, and that Afghanistan was really not worth mentioning, since it might pact Third World and Eastern Bloc representatives to the Council. Now we have a Crimson editorial blaming the callous destruction of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 on the continuing atmosphere of distrust brought on by the Cold War, and an article by Errol T. Louis which accepts as gospel Russian propaganda claiming the Korean jetliner was really a spy plane, and thus Korea, and by extension the U.S. is to blame for the incident.

Mr. Louis comes to this stunning conclusion by putting together the fact that KAI, has close ties to the KCIA (Korean Central Intelligence Agency), with the notion that Flight 007 was so far off course that it must have been so by design, in order to photograph highly sensitive Russian military bases. This, of course, is the Russian propaganda line, and it truly amazes and frightens me that seemingly intelligent Americans and Western Europeans are willing to believe it over the statements of their own governments.

Let us leave aside the fact that such an over flight would have no intelligence value unless it took place during the day (our infrared devices being next to worthless at altitudes of more than a few hundred feet--the KAL plane was, of course, at over 30,000 feet), and thus that the plane could not have been spying, for this is not the issue. Nor is the issue the true incompetence of Russia's air defenses which failed to tell the difference between an RC-135 (Boeing 707) spy plane and a 747 commercial jetliner, and which so botched the issue that by the time Russian jets finally intercepted the slow-moving plane after it had meandered for more than two and a half hours in sensitive Russian airspace, it was almost in international airspace, forcing the Russians either to shoot it down, or to lose it.

No, the real issue is that the Russians wantonly shot down an unidentified, and perhaps unwarned (let us wait until the black box is found before trying to decide if the cannon bursts fired to warn the Korean pilot were even noticed--the Russians botched the rest of the operation, so why not this?) plane intruding in its airspace, have refused to admit error or to apologize, and have brazenly stated that they would (and will) do so again. This is the truly repugnant aspect of the entire affair--the utter barbarity of the Russians, the callous disregard for human life.

When Israel mistakenly shot down a Libyan jetliner a decade ago (an example Mr. Louis uses to show our double standard concerning Soviet actions), it immediately apologized and offered compensation to the relatives of the victims. This was the civilized thing to do. When Aeroflot and other Eastern Bloc civilian airliners fly over restricted American airspace in order to test our response time, we scramble fighters and shoo them away, but we do not even consider shooting them down, for this is so outside the scope of international law and of our own morality that it would never become an issue.

That is the difference, and it should be obvious. We should not be surprised by Soviet barbarity, for they play by different rules, but we should take this into account in our dealings with them. And we most certainly should not fall for Soviet propaganda designed not so much to fool westerners, but to keep their own citizens wholly misinformed. That Mr. Louis and others have fallen for it hook, line and sinker is not testament to Soviet cunning, but to the incredible aptitude for self-delusion that is so apparent among unilateral disarmers. Eric Stockel '84