MAJOR GENERAL GEORGE KEEGAN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000200860004-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 27, 2008
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: September 2, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
4701 WLLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 656-4068
FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
PROGRAM The Larry King Show STATION WTOP Radio
MBS Network
DATE September 2, 1983 12:05 A.M. CITY Washington, D.C.
SUBJECT Major General George Keegan
LARRY KING: We are going to devote the early portion of
the program tonight to a discussion of the flight of the almost
macabre-named 007, the Korean Air Line flight from New York to
Seoul with a stopover for refueling in Anchorage.
Our guest, first, will be Major General George Keegan,
United States Air Force (Retired). Major Keegan is the former
head of Air Force Intelligence.
KING: I thank you, Major General Keegan, for, on rather
short notice, coming over.
MAJOR GENERAL GEORGE KEEGAN: I'm delighted to be here,
Larry.
KING: I think the easiest thing from the top is, what
the hell happened?
GENERAL KEEGAN: Well, what happened is very much
characteristic of what goes on in and over the Soviet Union.
Obviously, it is a tragic, unconscionable incident. I think
others will occur in the future because the courses of action
open to a President who is sort of a captive of the forces and
the pressures that he is captive of makes it very difficult for
this President, or any President, to take forceful, vigorous,
direct, consistent action that would be held to over a long
period of time. So, therefore, I think we're going to roll with
the punches, as we have in most previous cases.
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What happened, however, shall have to wait some further
clarification. I'm very familiar with the Koreans, the Korean
Air Force, [unintelligible] the Korean Air Lines. And over the
years, those of us who have been very familiar and individually
involved with their operations have noticed that, like a lot of
the Third World airlines that have moved into high technology,
there's a long tendency to have been careless. And I was aware
for many years that Korean pilots were taking these new modern
jets, were falling asleep at the wheel, putting the aircraft on
automatic pilot, were not being very consistent and thorough
about their navigation.
As far as I'm concerned, I think it inexcusable on the
part of the South Korean crew of that aircraft that they should
not have discovered their error much earlier. And in view of
their known past propensity for carelessness -- maybe this was
not the case here at all -- you'd have thought that the Koreans
would have long since learned and skirted and given wide, wide
berth to the peripheral borders of the Soviet Union. Those
flights in those international waters should not come that close
to Soviet territory because of the traditional Soviet sensitiv-
ity. They should have flown directly from Anchorage to Tokyo,
which many American flights do, and from there be vectored by
radar safely on to Seoul, Korea.
KING: That, of course, does not excuse what the
Russians did to them.
GENERAL KEEGAN: Absolutely not. The act was a barbaric
But on the other hand, if you take the long perspective
of characteristic Soviet paranoia -- and granted that they are a
great imperial power, they're very tough, and they're mean as
hell about what they do. And what is it that they're sensitive
about in this area of the world?
KING: Yeah, what?
GENERAL KEEGAN: Two things. For a great period of
time, since the early 1950s, the Soviets have been militarizing
the Far East. I presume, originally, in order to beef up their
offensive capabilities against China. I was very -- I was the
CINCPAC J-2 during that time period, so I was aware of what was
going on. What the Soviets have built in that part of the world
that makes them very sensitive is probably the greatest naval
cantonment in the world, a string of naval bases, ports, handling
facilities, fishing warehouses, large cranes, the
ability
to
handle enormously expanded naval traffic of all kinds
all the
way
from Vladivostok on up through Margadan, all the way
through
the
Sea of Okhotsk. And the Western World has been quite
ignorant
of
this, including most of the Japanese leadership.
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The last study that I did about the area showed that in
a 15-year period the total port handling capacity built by the
Soviets from Vladivostok northward to Kamchatka and Petropavlovsk
more than doubled all the port capacity on the West Coast of the
United States from Alaska down to the southernmost exposure to
the Pacific Ocean in Mexico, a shocking, staggering fact,
considering that the Soviet Far Eastern hinterland involves a
population of three or four million people, at the outside.
So that's one reason for the sensitivity.
The other is a political territorial one. The Soviets
have been very sensitive about the Sea of Okhotsk because it was
an area of peripheral reconnaissance by the United States for
many years. Reason: Before the entry of satellite reconnais-
sance means and their availability to us, that was a very closed
area of the world. And those of us who were in the strategic air
arm of the United States Armed Forces had great difficulty doing
our defensive war planning and route planning for the penetration
of our bombers. We were looking for safe routes. We didn't know
where the Soviet radars were. So it was very important, for
tactical, strategic reasons, to get all of the latest radar data
on Soviet defenses. And it meant flying in the Sea of Okhotsk.
And the Soviets were particularly sensitive.
Secondly, they had a large missile test range terminat-
ing in Kamchatka, where access to the area would allow us to
determine how accurate some of the Soviet intercontinental
missiles were.
KING: Given all that, though, a 747...
GENERAL KEEGAN: Inexcusable.
KING: ...is a passenger plane.
GENERAL KEEGAN: But I'm explaining the background...
KING: Their sensitivity.
GENERAL KEEGAN: ...over many, many years.
Finally was the political question of the international
waters, of which the Sea of Okhotsk was involved in. And the
dispute between the Free World, the United States, and the
Soviets simply involved the age-old classical struggle for
maintaining free international use of important waterways, of
which the Sea of Okhotsk is one.
So, from the very outset, the Soviets were more than
sensitive about access to the Sea of Okhotsk and did everything
in the world to pressure us, to intimidate us, to fire upon our
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aircraft, to induce some of our -- to lure some of our aircraft
into traps that were deliberately laid by radio means for them.
KING: They've done this before.
GENERAL KEEGAN: Oh, yes. Many times.
KING: But they never shot down one of ours, though,
have they?
GENERAL KEEGAN: Well, let me put it this way. I'm
aware of more than 65 shooting incidents since 1948, when my
first involvement began, up through 1977 and beyond, when I left
government.
KING: Them shooting at us.
GENERAL KEEGAN: Them shooting at us. Some of these
were incidents involving ships. Others were shooting against
commercial aircraft. The bulk of them were against military
reconnaissance flights flying over international waters beyond
the legal limits of the Soviet peripheral territorial claims.
KING: In other words, this could have been an American
passenger plane.
GENERAL KEEGAN: Oh, yes. Most assuredly.
KING: And it might have been 15 years ago when they
KING: Our guest, Major General George Keegan.
KING: Okay. They're very uptight about the area, with
some understanding. Indeed, possible paranoia about the area.
And a Korean jetliner broke through that thing some years ago,
didn't it once, again through navigational intelligence, but
still broke the corridor?
GENERAL KEEGAN: Another part of the world.
KING: But they knew they were shooting down a passenger
plane, didn't they?
GENERAL KEEGAN: No question about it at all.
KING: And they're, therefore, killing a lot of innocent
people who were not spies.
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GENERAL KEEGAN: Yes. And they had to be fully aware of
KING: Why would the Soviet Union -- forget the United
States -- with its desire to appeal to Western European thinking,
a desire that's been very successful in some circles, like in
Germany, why would they do this dumb thing? Forget the horror of
it, the dumbness of it.
GENERAL KEEGAN: Well, these considerations don't always
obtain, as they relate to dumbness of some of these actions.
KING: In other words, we're dealing with our logic.
GENERAL KEEGAN: Yes. The Soviets have the largest air
defense system in the world. Their air defense structure is
larger than the entire United States Air Force. They have a long
tradition of extreme sensitivity and aggressiveness. And I am
personally familiar with a number of cases going back as far as
30 years in which high-ranking Soviet commanders were shot as the
consequence of their failure to successfully intercept whatever
was bothering them. And as that tradition has come down into
modern times, they have modernized, automated their air defense
system, employed the latest automated American technology.
The chain of command, at the same time that it was
decentralizing control, was also, through improved communicat-
ions, able to exercise greater discipline in Moscow. And the
discipline in all those years remained unchanged, as did the
rules.
Now, not many people are familiar with the Soviet law
and Soviet regulations that go back to 1944. These rules
essentially are, both in Soviet law and by international agree-
ment, that interlopers, penetrators, be they commercial or
military, entering Soviet airspace will be responded to in a very
strict fashion.
First, interceptors will be launched. Identification
friend or foe will be made. And after such identification, by an
agreed system of international air signals, if radio communicat-
ions cannot be established, the intercepting fighter is to go in
front of the interloping aircraft, intruding aircraft, waggle his
wings and signal the intruder to lower his gear and land by
following the fighter. And failing that, of course, the in-
structions are clear in the Soviet regulations: destroy the
intruder.
And the Soviets behave very characteristically, and were
doing so today, I don't have any question.
KING: According, though, to Secretary of State Shultz
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-- and you agreed with me. You'd never seen the Secretary of
State be as frank in a statement in your memory -- they did that,
and the Korean jetliner responded to that and was ready to follow
instructions. Is that correct? In other words, that jetliner,
while he had made a mistake, was then willing to do anything he
could to rectify it.
GENERAL KEEGAN: No, I don't think that's the case. I
think this is the case of the Koreans in the cockpit realizing
the magnitude of their error. They had just previously reported
that they were at a position which in fact they were hundreds of
miles away from. So there was a very significant navigation
error. Due to equipment? It's hard to say, with the high
technology inertial nav equipment aboard those...
KING: It would have to be preprogrammed wrong, wouldn't
it? Almost?
GENERAL KEEGAN: I just don't know. There are so many
things that could have entered that, including some very James
Bondish calculations about options that might have gone [unintel-
ligible].
But in any case, the Korean pilots, suddenly becoming
aware that they were really in trouble and that they were really
under active interception by active Soviet fighters, obviously
did what they have done in other cases previously. They clammed
up, they avoided radio communications, they did everything in
their power to cover up the mistake, and turned to get the hell
out of there as fast as they could. And I think that was the
case today. They were evading, approaching the Sea of Japan,
over international waters.
And here is where the deliberate savagery and barbaric
behavior of the Soviets comes into play.
KING: They knew that plane was trying to leave.
GENERAL KEEGAN: After all of this time, and observing
and tracking for 2 1/2 hours, making visual identification,
absolutely no possibility of mistaking this for a reconnaissance
aircraft, none -- it had to be a commercial jetliner -- the
Soviets proceed, deliberately, on instructions and orders from
higher up, to shoot down and destroy that aircraft.
KING: Did Moscow -- do you have any doubt as to whether
Moscow ordered this?
GENERAL KEEGAN: None whatever.
KING: None at all.
GENERAL KEEGAN: I have none in my mind whatever.
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KING: Could it have been a berserko captain of the base
in the straits who said to the plane, "Shoot 'em down," acting
against Moscow's orders? I mean we're human. Could a human have
made that error, tragic error.
GENERAL KEEGAN: Probably in the Free World. But in the
Soviet case, with discipline being as brutal as it is, discipline
that they inflict upon their own people, I think it hardly likely
that some guy might have gone trigger-happy or slightly berserk
and acted on his own.
KING: The thought that there's a militant element in
the Politburo and a non-militant element, and in this particular
instance the militant element took sway, a right and a left
there.
GENERAL KEEGAN: In my judgment, that is blatant
nonsense. It is a product of some of the most wishful, erroneous
judgment-making that a certain number of people in this country
indulge themselves in traditionally and regularly, and have over
a great number of years. There are no hawks and there are no
doves in the Soviet Union. That myth just simply should have
been dispelled years ago. No one gets to the position of the
Politburo or the Central Committee of the State Defense Committee
unless they're tough, hard-bitten Communist ideologues who have
lived in the filth and have climbed to their high position by
other than climbing over the skeletons of their buddies and their
colleagues.
KING: But there could be disagreement, could there not?
GENERAL KEEGAN: No. Perennially, there are differences
in judgment, as there are in any great government, including our
own. And I think these judgments are reflected by those who
understand and watch these things. But these cannot in any way,
in my opinion, be represented as part of the hawk-dove establish-
ment. This just is pure, unadulterated nonsense. Differences of
opinion, yes. But the differences are over tactics, not over
ideology, not over objectives, not over long-range purposes. And
the differences over tactics would be, "Well, should we shoot
now, or should we bear in mind that we have an international
conference coming up?"
The Soviet tendency, in the main, in these situations is
to behave in a rigid, categorical sort of way, do it by the book.
If the book and the rules call for shoot-down, we've got a
violator, let's get him if we can.
KING: General, this may be hard to ask, but I guess
everybody thinks it, and maybe a few ask it. Did those people
know they were going down? Did they -- were they dead in the
air, or did they experience that 22 minutes or so?
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GENERAL KEEGAN: I don't have any doubt that the bulk of
them knew what was happening. I would guess that the majority of
them knew that they had been successfully fired on by a missile.
Probably, because of the size, the enormous size of this aircraft
and the structural integrity so characteristic of these wide-
bodied jets, I think a small air defense rocket might have done
some serious damage, killed maybe a dozen people, crippled maybe
another dozen or so. But I would guess that for 10 or 20
minutes, a lot of people knew they were about to die. And
intellectually, at least, there was pandemonium that reigned in
the minds of most of the passengers who survived that rocket.
KING: No loss of air pressure to have knocked them out?
GENERAL KEEGAN: If the hull was penetrated, which is
likely, unless the rockets were heat-seeking and attracted to the
engines, I think a breach of the hull was probably likely. And I
would say that there was a massive decompression, but that this
wouldn't kill people instantly. It would cripple them, it would
pin them down in their seats.
I've been in a number of high-altitude decompressions,
and you always have a minute or two or three, or sometimes
longer.
KING: Will we ever have -- will anyone ever have the
black box that all planes have that keep the tape of the last 30
minutes?
GENERAL KEEGAN: I think it's likely. And you may be
certain that any allied ship that ventures into those waters
searching for such parts is going to be given an extremely
unfriendly reception by the Soviets.
KING: So we're never going to hear that.
GENERAL KEEGAN: I would guess we would probably not.
KING: Why is the Soviet Union acting as they are now?
Why aren't they saying, "We apologize for this grave error. They
had invaded our airspace. The pilot failed to respond. We
deeply regret the death of those people aboard. We our protect-
ing our space. We hope it never happens"? Why aren't they going
some conciliatory route?
GENERAL KEEGAN: They don't play that way. They're an
authoritarian, dictatorial regime, and they behave by the rules
of dictatorships. And since time immemorial, I don't think
[unintelligible] like yourself can name me a single dictatorship
that has behaved differently.
KING: They don't apologize, dictators.
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GENERAL KEEGAN: They don't apologize for what they're
doing. They justify what they're doing. And in their mind and
in their way of looking at things, yes, they have justification
for what they did, barbaric and uncivilized as it was.
KING: Now, that was still illegal -- forget the moral.
That was still illegal to shoot that plane down, even with laws
concerning airspace.
GENERAL KEEGAN: No, it was not.
KING: It was not illegal?
GENERAL KEEGAN: No, sir.
KING: They have a legal right to shoot that down?
GENERAL KEEGAN: In Soviet law they did.
KING: I'm talking about international law.
GENERAL KEEGAN: No. In international law, that
behavior was totally unwarranted and unjustified. I think that
case could be made before the World Court. It would be argued
very vigorously by the Soviets. But within the framework of
their own legal system, there is no question but what they did
was entirely legal, from their perspective.
KING: After the news headlines I'll ask Major Keegan
that which plagues all democracies: What does a democracy do to
retaliate? We've already heard of -- and I'm sure there'll be
others -- of the tragic threat on a Russian passenger plane
tonight forced to land in Montreal under threat. And I'm sure
there'll be others of this, which makes no sense just to kill
other innocent people. But what do we do?
KING: Before I take the first call, though, what does a
democracy do, beyond declaring war? What does it do?
GENERAL KEEGAN: Well, the one thing that a democracy
must strive to do is to take actions that have the support of the
populace at large, or certainly the legally appointed representa-
tive bodies such -- in this country is the Congress of the United
States.
KING: Punitive action, then.
GENERAL KEEGAN: That's always difficult to do. And one
has to be careful about the nature and the character of the
punitive action, lest it occasion more more harm against the
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innocent, innocent civilians, whomever and wherever they may be.
And therefore, I think, in this century of more lethal
weapons and very dangerous encounters, I think the United States
increasingly, and the democracies increasingly, have to look to
actions that are acceptable, that are of controlled punition,
that do not harm physically the lives of innocent people, and
that are designed specifically to let the Soviets be aware that
they're being judged and censured by the free people in such a
manner that doesn't invite further aggression and further
difficulty of this kind.
How do you do this?
KING: Yeah, how do you? Give me a sample.
GENERAL KEEGAN: Well, in my case, of course, I would
probably go further than quite a number of people. I look at
Soviet behavior as a continuum over 64 years in which their
behavior has been consistent, their violation of treaties has
been consistent, their delusion of the Free World, through the
use of diplomacy as a weapon, has been consistent, in which they
have cheated on all their treaties.
So, given that constant, which a lot of people in this
country don't accept, I think the only way the United States can
respond meaningfully is to be consistent over a long period of
patient time, with a clearly delineated and defined policy in
which we act softly and speak softly, but take increasingly
stringent actions of pressure.
What might some examples be? Well, number one, since
1934, when the protocols of recognition were signed -- I regret
to say this, but it's well documented -- it is the United States,
principally, which has financed the Soviet Union's industrial,
military growth. It is the United States, principally, that has
extended the high technology necessary for the Soviets to become
a modern industrial state. It is the United States, through its
provision of generous credits, sometimes grants, loans of its
technical people, its engineering people, its faculties from
great universities, and its agricultural produce, often at
bargain-basement prices, that have permitted the Soviets to solve
their domestic problems by receiving foreign aid from such as the
United States in a way that permits them to continue their
disparate investments, their over-defense, their over-investment
in military capability and technology. And I find that, very
simply, means that it is the United States that has been the
principal financial, industrial backer of the Soviet war-making
potential, which has increased exponentially every year of the
past 30 years. And I think that has to stop. Yet I think the
likelihood of that stopping in the evolving political climate of
the United States is zero.
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KING: Even with a tragedy like this.
GENERAL KEEGAN: Oh, yes. Even with a tragedy like
this.
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