NEW PIECES IN THE PUZZLE OF FLIGHT 007

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000604920009-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 4, 2012
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: August 17, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
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ARTkC1.E APPEP;R~D
ON PAGE ?~Q_~
~ JOURNEY INTO DOUBT
New Pieces in
The Puzzle of
Flight 007
NATION
17/24 August 1985
DAVID PEARSON AND JOHN KEPPEL
yeaz has passed since The Nation's special issue
on the downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007,
and the most important questions about the
tragedy remain unanswered. How did the airliner
get to the spot over Soviet temtory where it was shot down
on the night of August 31, 1983? What was it doing there?
What did the U.S. government know and when did it know it?
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Reconstruction by David Pearson and John Keppel, based on U.S. and
Japanese radar data and other material in the public ra:ord.
In recent months, however, new information has come
out that sheds some light on these issues. Most notably, the
Japanese government has-made public radar data that
directly contradict the Reagan Administration's official ver-
sion of events leading to the downing. Other material
already in the public record-including the tape of the final
transmission recorded by Tokyo air traffic controllers
thirty~igltt seconds after the airliner was hit by one or more
Soviet missiles-has also been subjected to state-of-the-art
technical analysis, the results of which aze reported here for
the first time. If the new evidence is accurate, the following
can now be demonstrated:
? That K.A.L. 007 changed altitude and speed as it
entered and flew over Sakhalin Island in Soviet territory,
without reporting to Tokyo air traffic controllers as re-
quired under international aviation procedures.
Diavid Pearson, a doctoral candidate in sociology at Yale
University, is working on a book about K A.L. 007. John
Keppel, a retired U. S. Foreign Service officer with two tours
of duty in Moscow, took part in the abortive cover-up of
the ~U-2 jiight in 19b0. The authors acknowledge the role of
the Fund for Constitutional Government in financing the
ongoing acoustic study of the communisations tapes.
? That neaz the end of the flight, Tokyo air traffic con-
trollers received reports, ostensibly from K.A.L. 007, about
an altitude chatlge by the airliner that never took place.
? That the airliner changed course over Sakhalin Island
without reporting to Tokyo air traffic controllers.
? That eazly in the flight K.A.L. 007 must have made an
unreported turn to the north towazd Soviet territory.
? That the tape of the airliner's final radio transmission
says something quite different from what the International
Civil Aviation Organization (LC.A.O.) claimed it said in a
report that U.S. officials have heralded as "authoritative."
The new information, some of which has received exten-
sive attention in the international press, has disturbing im-
plications. It shows that the crew of the Korean airliner
could not have accidentally or unknowingly flown its
dangerous course over the Soviet Union's Kamchatka
Peninsula and Sakhalin Island. This means that the official
U.S. government and I.C.A.O. explanations of the
tragedy-that K.A.L. 007 innocently flew over Soviet ter-
ritory as a result of some navigational error-aze not
credible. It also strongly suggests that the Reagan Ad-
ministration, which had its o~vn information and must have
had access to that of the Japanese military at the time of the
incident or soon afterwazd, has covered up vital evidence
about the downing.
The New Japanese Radar Data
The most dramatic advance in the case during the past
yeaz was the release of altitude and speed data from the
Japan Defense Agency (J.D.A.). These data show that at
1815 Greenwich mean time (G.M.T.), almost precisely the
moment K.A.L. 007 entered Soviet territory over Sakhalin,
it descended from an altitude of approximately 32,000 feet
to approximately 29,000 feet. The airliner was supposed to
have been flying at its assigned altitude of 33,000 feet. It in-
creased speed as a Soviet SU-15 interceptor aircraft closed
~in. After the Soviet pilot fired tracer rounds as a warning
signal, the airliner ascended 3,000 feet, and in the final
moments before the fatal missile was fired, the J.D.A. data
suggest, the pilot of K.A.L. 007 once again increased speed
(see chazt below).
JAPAN DEFENSE AGENCY ALTITUDE DATA COMPARED TO OFFICYIL VER910N OF IUIL 007' ALTITUDE
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SOURCES: Japan Defense Agency, U.S. State Department
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oC/
For obvious safety reasons, all changes in altitude and
speed are supposed to be reported to air traffic controllers,
but the airliner's pilot did not do this. On the contrary, at
1815 G.M.T., Tokyo air traffic controllers received acalm-
voiced radio transmission, ostensibly from Flight 007, re-
questing permission to ascend to 35,000 feet. Five minutes
later, Tokyo called back granting permission. Three minutes
after that, another calm-voiced transmission reported to
Tokyo that the airliner had reached the new altitude. Yet,
according to the radaz data, the ascent to 35,000 feet never
took place. Instead, it was during the time between these
transmissions that the Soviet interceptor fired cannon bursts
and overran the Korean airliner. Why did the two calm-
voiced transmissions fail to report the airliner's actual
altitude changes or the grim reality that the plane was being
intercepted? Was the crew deliberately sending false reports
to Tokyo? Or might the transmissions not have come from
K.A.L. 007 at all? Tapes of the transmissions, withheld for
nearly two yeazs and finally released in July by the J.D.A.,
may provide some answers once they are analyzed.
Meanwhile, however, the J.D.A. data suggest that
K.A.L. 007's pilots were awaze of the airliner's position on
approach to Sakhalin, that they knew shortly thereafter that
they had been intercepted by Soviet aircraft, that they took
evasive action rather than comply with waznings as is called
for in international aviation agreements and that Tokyo air
traffic controllers were deliberately deceived about what was
happening. All this stands in direct contradiction to both the
I.C.A.O. and U.S. government accounts, which say that
the airliner's crew, unawaze of its position, maintained
assigned altitude until the plane was shot down. (l~either ac-
count mentions changes in speed. )
The release of the radaz data, informally in Mazch and
then formally in May by Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone
to a member of the Diet, made front-page news in Japan. In
the United States, by contrast, the story was picked up by
only some of the major media and was given cursory cover-
age. The Washington Post's article appeazed on page A19
under the subhead "Significance of Incorrect Altitude Un-
cleaz." The New York Times made no mention of the story
at all. Of those publications that did mention the new Jap-
anese data, none commented on the serious implications.
The U.S. government has made no public statement
about the Japanese radaz data. On "background," a State
Department official dismissed the data as "fragmentary and
defective." "You know how inaccurate radazs aze," he told
The Nation. But the Japanese senator, Yutaka Hata, who
requested and received the J.D.A. data said that the
discrepancies in altitude could not be accounted for by the
radaz's mazgin of error or errors in on-boazd altimeters.
The State Department official also said that the I.C.A.O.
had been given the Japanese altitude and speed material and
had considered it in its report. However Marinus Heijl, a
member of the organization's inquiry team, admitted to The
Nation that the I.C.A.O. had never seen it. Thus the corner-
stone of the U.S, official line, the I.C.A.O. report, was
based on woefully incomplete information.
More disturbing, there is good reason to believe that the
United States had access to the Japanese radaz data soon
after the downing. The State Department official refused to
comment on this on the record, but the Administration has
publicly acknowledged that it received Japanese recordings
of communications between Soviet pilots and ground con-
trollers-a form of intelligence that is generally considered
more sensitive and less likely to be shazed than radaz data.
Moreover, according to an account in Tokyo's Asahi Eve-
ning News based on interviews with Japanese government
sources, Japanese intelligence on Flight 007 "was checked
against information obtained by the U.S. from satellites and,
American facilities within Japan and confirmed as ac-
curate." The sources revealed that "information concern-
ing the Soviet Faz East forces is constantly being exchanged
between the United States and Japan." The Japanese
analysis of the K.A.L. 007 data, the Evening News reported,
began one and a half hours after the airliner was shot
down. Four hours later, the analysis, including
verification with U.S. sources, was concluded. That is, the
Japanese and the Americans were comparing their data
before the Administration even acknowledges it had any in-
formation about the downing.
Even if the U.S. government did not see the Japanese
radaz data until it was publicly released, it must have had
independent information about the movements of K.A.L.
007 from its own radaz and electronics stations at Wak-
kanai, on the Japanese island of Hokkaido, and Misawa, on
the Japanese island of Honshu, and perhaps from other
listening posts. Secretary of State George Shultz's statement
on September 1, 1983, contained references that showed the
United States had radaz data other than those of the
Japanese. The United States must also have intercepted com-
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PROPAGANDA COUP
When KA.L. 007 went down over Sakhalin Island,
the U.S. government immediately went on the air with
its version of the event: the airliner had strayed in-
advertently over Soviet territory without the knowl-
edge of U.S. intelligence, and Soviet pilots had shot it
out of the sky without warning.
Voice of America transmitters were boosted faz
beyond their normal capacity. A week after the down-
ing, the station was broadcasting ninety additional
hours a week. Engineers warned that sustaining the ef-
fort could lead to major equipment failure, but every
technical resource was pushed to the limit because, as
one VOA news manager told me, "This was the big-
gest story. of the yeaz, maybe the decade."
The K.A.L. story became the "Must~Lead" item on
each newscast in all forty-two languages broadcast'
during every on-air hour. Excerpts from an interview
with U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Arthur
Hartman were broadcast frequently. Secretary of
State George Shultz's day-after speech was translated
into Russian and Ukrainian and repeatedly aired. So
were President Reagan's speeches of September S
and IO (the full text of the latter was translated into
forty-one languages). In addition, VOA carried
heart-wrenching stories about the victims' families
compiled by a stringer in Seoul.
The station's coverage of the story was coordinated
by the Special Planning Group on Public Diplomacy,
established by the executive branch in January 1983.
Each day for two weeks after the tragedy represent-
atives from the departments of State and Defense, the
National Security Council, the United States Informa-
tion Agency, the Agency for International Develop-
ment and the Voice of America met to plan strategy. A
liaison from the State Department's Korean Working
Group consulted daily with VOA personnel. Policy
directives for coverage of events drew from both
White House and State Department sources. And the
State Department had heavy input into the station's
frequently aired editorials.
Although the Voice of America is only a small com-
ponent of the foreign policy apparatus, its role in the
government's K.A.L. propaganda effort was signifi-
cant. VOA's heroic efforts paid off when Reagan re-
quested 548 million in additional funds for the station
for fiscal 1984. Appropriations for 1985 were approx-
imately 5160 million, and Congress has allotted
51.3 billion for a multiyeaz expansion and moderniza-
tion program now under way. In his request for
money following the K.A.L. incident, Reagan said,
"In tunes like this, few assets are more important than
the Voice of America and Radio Liberty."
LAURIEN ALEXANDRE
laurien Alexandre, a research associate at Immac-
ulate Heart College Center, is worming on a book
about Voice of Amerirn.
munications of the Soviet Air Defense Forcas as it tracked the
airliner over Soviet territory. U.S. deputy representative to
the United Nations Chazles Lichenstein appeazed to confirm
this at a Security Council meeting on September 2, 1983,
when he told Soviet deputy representative Richard Ovin-
nikov, "We followed you following the flight."
That . U.S. intelligence obtained information from
"satellites and American facilities within Japan," as the
Evening News reported, indicates that the U.S. government
knows more about the event than the Administration has ad-
mitted. Why has the government kept the information secret
for nearly two years?
The Flight PAth in Soviet Airspace
The Japanese radar data aze only part of the evidence in-
dicating that K.A.L. 007's pilots were deliberately flying the
airliner over Sakhalin Fsland. The day Flight 007 was shot
down, the J.D.A. put out a map describing the course of the
airliner over southern Sakhalin. The map showed that
K.A.L.. 007 had. bcen flying a broad azc, a turn of about
twenty degrees in total, which the plane's crew could not
have flown unknowingly. Although U.S. journalists saw the
map, the only U.S. publication that reproduced it
was the aerospace industry journal Aviation Week & Space
Technology. The turn over Sakhalin has been confirmed by
Yoshitazo Masuo, in the May 1985 issue of the Japanese
magazine Sekai, and by Duncan Campbell, in the April 26
issue of New Statesman.
What is known about K.A.L. 007's course suggests that
the airliner had made another turn, to the west-northwest,
as it approached Sakhalin. The radar data show that the
plane flew an azc over Sakhalin. Assuming the plane was
not flying in circles prior to that, it is logical to infer that it
made an eazlier turn to get into the curving path. Moreover,
at 1809 G.M.T., the pilot of a Soviet SU-15 interceptor
reported to his ground controllers, "Affu~cnative, it has
turned ...the tazget is eighty [degrees] to my left." The
recently released J.D.A. data are not instructive on this
point because they begin at 1812 G.M.T., three minutes
after the turn likely took place. It is probable that J.D.A.
radaz at Wakkanai picked up K.A.L. 007 earlier than 1812,
however, because at that time the airliner was well within its
range. According to a U.S. government spokesman, the
plane was also tracked by J.D.A. radazs at Nemuro and
Abashiri, on the north coast of Hokkaido. Data from the
radar at Abashiri as well as eazlier data from Wakkanai
could describe the turn toward Sakhalin. Documen-
tation of such a turn would provide further evidence
that the airliner was flown deliberately over Soviet
territory.
The EArly Course
Analysis of data from the air traffic control radar at
Kenai, Alaska, and from the military radar at King Salmon,
Alaska, shows that K.A.L. 007 was off course virtually
from the beginning and, furthermore, that it must have
made a turn towazd Soviet territory eazly in the flight.. The
data, made public last yeaz in response to Freedom of Infor-
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nation Act requests, show that the airliner was six nautical
miles north of course as it passed Cairn Mountain; an en
route nonreporting way point, and twelve nautical miles
north of course at Bethel, its first required reporting way
point. Working from these data, a 747 captain who asked
not to be identified projected the airliner's course on a com-
puter. The results demonstrate that if K.A.L. 007 had con-
tinued on the course it flew from shortly after takeoff to
Bethel, it would have flown substantially south of where we
know it went and would have missed the Kamchatka Penin-
sula entirely (see map below). This means that the airliner must
have made a turn to the north-toward Soviet territory-
somewhere after Bethel. The plane's scheduled route called
for a turn to the south at Bethel.
The turn toward Soviet territory may have been within
range of one or both of the U.S. Air Force radazs at Cape
Newenham and Cape Romanzof, Alaska. Unfortunately, it
is impossible to examine data from these radazs, which were
automatically sent in real time to the Regional Operations
Control Center at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage.
According to lawyers defending the U.S. government in a
suit brought by the families of ~ Americans who died on
Flight 007, the Air Force erased the radar tapes from
capes Newenham and Romanzof, even though it is stand-
azd operating procedure to save all information relating to
an aviation disaster. Suggesting that the destruction of the
tapes was routing, Jan K. Von Flatern, a Justice Depart-
ment attorney, explained that the Regional Operations Con-
trol Center "had no idea that it was going to be involved or
that that data would be useful in the litigation at any point."
The data would, of course, be extremely useful in the litiga-
tion and in independent investigations as well. The destruc-
tion of the tapes provides another example of crucial infor-
mation that has been denied to the public.
The Commnnicatlons Tapes
This spring we obtained eight reels of tape of U.S.
and Japanese air traffic control communications with
K.A.L. 007. It is routine after airline disasters for both
private and government investigators to analyze relevant
communications tapes. We contracted with Aviation Safety
PROJECTION
OF TRACK
RADAR TRACK
OF KAL007
AWCHORAG
~--~
--~-- -4- -s- - u? ~~
A 747 pilot's projection of airliner's course based on King Salmon and
Kenai radar data.
Associates International (A.S.A.I.), a leading firm in the
aviation accident investigation field, to do a state-of-the-art
acoustic enhancement of the tapes in conjunction with the
electrical engineering department at Brigham Young
University. The enhanced materials were evaluated Eby a
panel of experts which included our principal consultant,
Malcolm Brenner of A.S.A.I., a Ph.D. in psychology
(human factors) who is a legal expert in aviation accident in-
vestigation and has testified both in court and before Con-
gress on a number of airline accident cases. The panel in-
cluded another legal expert in aviation accident cases, a legal
expert on voice tapes who has a Ph.D. in speech pathology,
a former air traffic controller with a Ph.D. in speech, and a
line captain of a major U.S. airline who served as principal
investigator for a major accident involving an airliner.
(Because of the sensitivity of the K.A.L. 007 case, four of
the five requested anonymity. )
We asked the panel to examine the final "distress mes-
sage," ostensibly from K.A.L. 007, recorded by air traffic
controllers in Tokyo at 1827 G.M.T. The transmission
began thirty-eight seconds after the pilot of the Soviet
SU-15 interceptor reported to his ground controllers, "The
target is destroyed. "* The I.C.A.O. report renders the final
message as follows:
Tokyo Korean Air zero zero seven
Korean Air zero zero seven
(unintelligible)
rapid compressions
descending to one zero thousand
The I.C.A.O. report assumes that the final transmission
originated with K.A.L. 007, that it was addressed to Tokyo
air traffic controllers, that it reported decompression in the
airliner's cabin and that the pilots were following standazd
emergency procedures to descend. But our five experts
disagree with that interpretation. While they do not all agree
on the precise wording of the transmission, their analysis
allows us to say a number of things with certainty. First,
although the I.C.A.O. rendering suggests that the final
message was directed to air traffic controllers in Tokyo, the
consensus of our panel is that the word "Tokyo" is not
discernible. Three of the five experts believe that Tokyo was
not the intended recipient of the message. Second, the
panelists agree that there aze a number of additional words
and syllables in the transmission not accounted for by the
I.C.A.O. Third, a majority of the experts are confident that
part of the passage found to be "unintelligible" by the
I.C.A.O. says either "Repeat that" or "Repeating." Final-
ly, the experts agree with the I.C.A.O. that "rapid compres-
sions" or something similaz was said, but not a single
member of the panel hears "descending to one zero thou-
sand." Three of them heaz no numbers in this final
passage.
That "rapid compressions" or something similaz was said
suggests that K.A.L. 007 had experienced rapid decompres-
? Although hit, the airliner was not destroyed immediately. According to
George Shultz, it remained in the air and on radar screens for twelve more
minutes.
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sion of the cabin, an extremely serious condition for an
airliner operating at substantial altitude. If the cabin had
lost pressure, according to Brenner, the first item on the
emergency checklist would be for the crew to don oxygen
masks:
At an altitude of about 32,000 fat [K.A.L. 007's altitude at
the time], crew members and passengers would have about
one minute of expaced useful consciousness unless they suc-
cessfully began receiving oxygen from an oxygen mask (in
the event of a rapid decompression this time gets cut to about
thirty seconds, since most of the air in the lungs gets sucked
out during the decompression).... The Captain would then
check with the flight engineer on the state of the pressuriza-
tion system, and if pressuriTation cannot be maintained,
would declare an emergency descent.
Although according to the I.C.A.O. the message indicates
an emergency descent, that is not what the recently released
Japanese altitude data show. They show that the airliner
was still at 32,000 feet at 1829 G.M.T., two minutes after
the final message was sent and more than two and a half
minutes after the attack. This information contradicts an
earner official Japanese announcement that K.A.L. 007 had
descended to about 30,000 feet by 1829 G.M.T. When
Senator Hata formally asked the government of Japan why
it had revised the figure to 32,000 feet, it responded: "In
making public the altitude of the K.A.L. plane at 3:29
A.M., the expression of generally 30,000 feet, which gave
some leeway, was used for the sake of caution." This
"cautious" expression also conveyed the false impression
that the airliner had followed emergency procedures and
descended after the Soviet missile attack.
Some of our experts interpret the final transmission as a
~cortsecutive message from K.A.L. 007 reporting emergency
,conditions, but others are tuicertain about what it might be.
The airliner had already been hit by one or more Soviet
missiles, yet the final message did not contain the word
"Mayday." Brenner found this quite unusual: "There is a
saying in aviation that `one minute's flying is worth two
days' rowing,' and for aircraft over water it would be
critical to get the Mayday message started as soon as possi-
ble and lasting as long as possible. The grotmd station could
then use the radio signal to take a'fix on the aircraft's loca-
tion and likely ditching site." Emergency procedures call for
saying "Mayday" three times, followed by other informa-
tion about the nature of the emergency, Brenner noted. The
cockpit crew should have continued broadcasting until the
last possible moment to help lead rescuers to the plane's
location. But they did not.
Given the possibility that K.A.L. 007 wss not com-
municating with Tokyo, to whom might the final message
have been directed and what might it mean? One intriguing
possibility is that the message was transmitted by two
speakers, only one of whom was in the cockpit of K.A.L. 007.
An examination of the average voice frequencies of the
various parts of the final message reveals that there is a
decided increase in voice stress toward the end, the only por-
tion of the message where the words indicate distress. That
disjunction leads two members of our panel to conclude
that two people were speaking-the first with a decided
"American scant." This hypothesis raises the disquieting
possibility that K.A.L. 007 was in communication with
vJ
some party of unknown identity after the missile attack.
At this stage we aze not prepared to offer a definitive
rendering of the final message. We believe, however, that
our preliminary findings raise enough questions to warrant a
complete state-of-the-art analysis of all voice communica-
tions and radar tapes, many of which are still unavailable to
the public, by a committee of Congress.
Conclusion
The evidence that has come out in the past year casts con-
siderable doubt on the investigation performed by the Inter-
national Civil Aviation Organization. In its December 1983
report, the organization put forward two possible scenaiios
to explain how the airliner might have flown where it did ac-
cidentally. One posits that the crew of K.A.L. 007 misset a
single switch at the start of the flight. The other proposes
that the crew fed incorrect coordinates for Anchorage, its
point of origin, into the airliner's inertial navigation system.
Neither scenario withstands careful technical scrutiny. The
I.C.A.O.'s own Air Navigation Commission refused to en-
dorse either one, saying each "contained some points which
could not be explained satisfactorily." [Drawing on inter-
views with seven senior 747 pilots, David Peazson discusses
some of these unexplained technical points in a letter
scheduled to appeaz in The New York Review of Books in
early September. J
The latest evidence, particularly the Japanese radaz data
which the I.C.A.O. investigators never saw, further
discredits the I.C.A.O. report's conclusions. The scenarios
on which these rest do not work given the airliner's apparent
changes in course: a turn to the north early in the flight
somewhere past Bethel, a turn to the west-northwest ap-
proaching Sakhalin, and an azc over Sakhalin. They do not
explain K.A.L. 007's unreported changes in speed and alti-
tude over Sakhalin, which suggest the airliner was taking
evasive action. Nor do they answer the many questions
about the puzzling final transmission, including why there
was no Mayday call.
Two yeazs after the tragedy, the public has received no
credible explanation for the death of 269 persons. Al-
though the House Permanent Select Committee on In-
telligence, according to a May 30 letter from committee
chair Lee Hamilton of Indiana, is conducting an "ongoing":
staff investigation into the K.A.L. downing, its commitment
is limited. Michael O'Neil, chief counsel, said the staff is not
'actively pursuing the case but would examine any new infor-
mation that came to its attention.
We believe there is already ample evidence in the public
record to warrant afull-scale Congressional investigation.
The data we have presented here would provide a good
startirtg point. But there aze many other leads for Congress
to follow. Among the most intriguing:
~ Both Der Spiegel and New York reported last fall that
shortly after the downing Secretary of State George Shultz,
Director of Central Intelligence William Casey, Edwin
Meese 3d (then counselor to the President), William Clark
(then national security adviser) and two Under Secretaries
of State, Lawrence Eagleburger and Richard Burt, held a
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~p .
teleconference to discuss Flight 007. Der Spiegel also
reported that a widely circulated story that the plane had
landed safely on Sakhalin Island was planted by the Central.
Intelligence Agency to buy time for the U.S. government to
coordinate its version of events with the governments of
Japan and South Korea. Either story, if true, means the Ad-
ministration knew what happened to K.A.L. 007 long
before it says it did.
? On August 23, 1984, attorney Melvin Belli, who repre-
sents several .relatives of those who died in the disaster,,
reported on West German television station ARD a conver-
sation he had in Seoul with the widows of the pilot and co-
pilot of K.A.L. 007: "They told me that the captain and the
co-pilot were paid to intentionally take this shortcut over
Russian territory. They made this statement voluntarily in
the presence of three other American attorneys and thirty
bereaved persons. The widows said that K:A.L. paid its
pilots special bonuses for flying over Russian territory.-The
widows, furthermore, stated that the pilots had become so
afraid of these flights that they wanted to discontinue
them." Another lawyer present during the conversation told
The Nation that Capt. Chun Byung-in's widow said that
Chun had told her Flight 007 was an especially dangerous
mission.
Armed with subpoena power and the right to examine
classified evidence, the House intelligence committee-or
any other Congressional committee-could ascertain if
there is any truth in these and other reports. Perhaps more
important, it could legally demand access to:
'? All data collected by U.S. military and intelligence radars
in Alaska, the Aleutian Islands and Japan, and by U.S.
military vessels and aircraft that were within range of
K.A.L. OOTs course.
? A list of all Japanese radar and communications data that
the U.S. government has been privy to since the downing.
? All Soviet communications intercepted by U.S. military
and intelligence, including air-to-air, air-to-ground and
ground-to-air communications during the time K.A.L. 007
was approaching and passing over Kamchatka Peninsula, as
well as Soviet ground-to-air communications during
K.A.L. 007's passage over Sakhalin Island.
? Logs and names of officers and other military personnel
from the relevant bases and headquarters (Elmendorf Air
Force Base; Shemya Air Force Base; Misawa Air Base;
Commander in Chief, Pacific Command, in Hawaii; the
Pentagon; the White House) who were on duty during the
afternoon and night of August 31, 1983.
A Congressional investigation could subpoena and ques-
tion the duty officers and other working-level Federal Avia-
tion Administration, military, .intelligence and executive
branch personnel about specific ,points raised by careful
technical analysis of the documentary material. It could of-
fer people in the military and intelligence services who may
be unhappy about having become swept up in a cover-up a
place to clear their consciences. Using the new information
it developed, it would then be in a position to question
higher-level officials-and come closer to solving the
mystery of K.A.L. Flight 007. ^
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/04 :CIA-RDP90-009658000604920009-5