The Swine Flu & Treason

Part 4: KAL Flight 007

John S. Torell

CHAPTER TEN

KOREAN AIR LINES FLIGHT 007

When an airplane crashes, the first thing the investigators should ask is, “Who was onboard that airplane?” On September 1, 1983 we were given the shocking news that the Soviet Union had shot down a South Korean airliner over the Sea of Japan and all 269 passengers on board were killed in the crash. The aircraft was a Boeing 747 with the flight number KAL 007. It quickly became obvious to me that the United States government was not demanding an investigation as U.S. government agencies began issuing conflicting reports and stonewalling any efforts to find out what really happened in the skies over the Sea of Japan. It was not until October 31, 1983, that we found out more about the shooting down of the airliner after a revealing story.^[1]

The most famous passenger on this flight was a democratic congressman named Larry McDonald from Georgia who had become the chairman of the John Birch Society shortly before the shooting down of the airliner. I have spoken about the John Birch Society since 1980 and how it is a phony organization set up by Robert Welch who was a high ranking Freemason. Not having a lot more information, I perceived that the John Birch Society was set up to trap good Americans who were against communism and wanted to protect America from the Soviet Union. Here were the things that bothered me:

1.      There was never any real action, just constant learning and writing letters to congressmen and senators with meager results.

2.      I felt that the people in this society were spinning their wheels, giving of their money, and more or less neutralized.

3.      The other thing that bothered me was that all questions about the State of Israel were considered taboo and that supporting the Zionist cause was the same as being a great American patriot.

Congressman McDonald had started a fierce campaign against President Reagan’s aid and trade with the Soviet Union. He also wanted to start investigations of the world banking groups in New York, London and Washington D.C. and had started a project to place information in the Congressional Records about the bankers and their Marxist agents in the United States. McDonald had also publicly attacked David Rockefeller (right) and the Trilateral Commission he founded and so the media had been turned loose on McDonald to smear him.

It was obvious after reading The Spotlight story that the shooting down of the airliner was not an accident; it was a highly calculated project which had been requested by the Reagan administration and carried out by the Soviets. What I did not know in 1983 was that the Rockefeller business group was a supporter of Robert Welch, and in 1963 the Rockefellers purchased the candy company that Robert (right) and his brother Jimmy owned for $10.8 million, when in reality it was only worth $200,000. This was a personal payoff for a job well done when Welch started the John Birch society in 1958.^[2]

McDonald had attacked the man that bankrolled the John Birch Society and he was also starting to touch the Zionist organizations in the world. Just like when Dag Hammarskjold, the Swedish United Nations Secretary was shot down over Congo in 1961, Larry McDonald was also taken out of circulation with 269 other men, women and children.

We knew that the plane had indeed been shot down by a Soviet fighter jet in 1983 but we didn’t know that the pilot was able to land the aircraft on the water not far from a Soviet port. Furthermore, all passengers and crew members which survived were taken prisoner by the Soviets.

WRITINGS FROM THE PAST

I am amazed at the information I was able to piece together when I read what I had written in The Dove magazine many years ago. Let’s look back and examine these writings, keeping in mind that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist when these reports were written and independent researchers were able to find records that had been held as “top secret” prior to it dissolution in December, 25, 1991.

WHAT WE KNEW IN 1992

In the Summer 1992 issue of The Dove we published an article by the late Antony C. Sutton who was a well known scholar and researcher with an impeccable record. We are reprinting the article here:

WHAT HAPPENED TO CONGRESSMAN LARRY MCDONALD?

“September 1st 1983 a Soviet fighter intercepted Korean Airlines Flight KAL 007 and shot it down. Reportedly Congressman McDonald and 268 fellow passengers died in the crash. This has a been widely accepted version. However early reports from the Far East suggested that KAL-007 made a soft landing on Soviet territory and all 269 on board survived. These early reports from Japan and Korea were buried in the official versions… much as Mr. Bush’s early support for the August 1991 Communist coup has been buried by an official version i.e. that Mr. Bush supported the Yeltsin government.

Now from several sources comes an amazing story:  that the KAL-007 flight indeed made a safe soft landing on Soviet territory and all 269 on board are today alive in Russian camps.  Although this information comes from excellent sources it has to be treated with skepticism:  confirmation is lacking at this point.

First the Toronto Saturday Sun (October 19, 1991) has an article by William Stevenson including the paragraph: “Western Intelligence agencies are now studying evidence from other sources that Flight 007 made a soft landing in shallow waters and all 269 persons on board were not killed.” More detailed evidence comes from Israel, from the well known researcher Avraham Shifrin, Director of the Research Center for Prison, Psychoprisons and Forced Labor Concentration Camps in the USSR.  Here is a summary of the Shifrin evidence:

1.      The KAL Boeing 747 did not descend out of control. It was partially damaged by Soviet rockets and made a controlled descent including a 180 degree turn to find a suitable landing site.

2.      The Boeing 747 landed in shallow water not far from Soviet port of Nevelsk and all passengers disembarked on emergency floats and were picked up by the Soviet Coast Guard. This scenario is backed by the following:

a.       Soviet air defense captain V.V. Rizhkov watched and photographed the slow descent until landing. Japanese radar also tracked this descent pattern (You may remember that this was reported and then denied).

b.      The plane was tracked for 12 minutes on radar ... not consistent with an uncontrolled descent.

c.       Black boxes transmit when the plane hits water ... according to Shifrin there was no transmission i.e. the plane never hit water.

d.      KAL 007 had radio link with Japan during descent.

e.       50 minutes after the attack the Captain of KAL 007 reported safe landing to Narita in Japan.

f.        Safe landing was reported to Tommy Toles, press agent for Congressman McDonald.

3.      KGB General Romanenko ordered all passengers and their luggage to be removed and taken to a Coast Guard base. (No baggage was ever found by search planes).

4.      Congressman McDonald and the pilots were sent to Moscow. Other passengers were sent to KGB camps. TASS reported officially that everyone had died. This came directly from Andropov, former KGB boss.

5.      The Shifrin investigation has been able to partially determine which camps the KAL-007 passengers have passed through. Larry McDonald has been traced to a KGB dacha outside Moscow.

6.      General Ogarkov, the chief of the Soviet General Staff supervised the investigation. Shifrins information comes in part from members of this investigation commission.

7.      Informants supplied Shifrin with the trade mark of the flight recorder ... HAMILTON AIDS.  This mark can only be seen after the flight recorder has been unsealed.

8.      Soviet engineers removed equipment from the KAL-007 sent to various Soviet plants.

9.      Divers reported neither bodies nor luggage in the plane. Alleged purpose of the cover-up was to generate an anti-US campaign. (Phoenix Letter can report another possible motive, see below).

10.  These actions were followed by a massive dis-information campaign.

This information has been sent to Congress. No action has been reported at time of writing. Phoenix Letter is following up for more information.

THE SOVIET MOTIVATION FOR THE SHOOT DOWN

The generally accepted motivation is the Soviet need for an incident to start an anti-American propaganda campaign. There is however another motive known up to this point only to Phoenix Letter, and close McDonald confidants.

Some months before KAL-007 was shot down this Editor had lunch in San Jose, California with Larry McDonald. The lunch was at the request of Congressman McDonald and our discussion centered on Soviet ambitions and Western “aid to the Soviets” policy. (We had met from time to time over the previous ten years because of this Editor’s intricate knowledge of Soviet technology and its dependence on the West).

The Congressman told us in confidence (we are now breaking the confidence as assistance to determine if Shifrin is correct) that he had obtained access to some extraordinary files in West Germany. These files would identify Soviet infiltration of Western governments. Andropov was former head of the KGB and would know the significance of these files. This was dynamite information and we indicated to Larry that our research in State Department files had suggested certain prominent Westerners as “in-place” Soviet agents of influence. We cited some names and told Larry that we had never publicized any hint that we had this information from files that were apparently at Larry’s disposal. 

Soviet motive?  To stop release of these West German files.

We urged you to obtain a full transcript of the Shifrin information and write your Congressman. We have no intention of dropping these leads. When we have more information it will be reported in Phoenix Letter. Finally we do NOT trust Congress in this affair.

In January Senate hearings on MIA’s (with former KGB General Kalugin) Bonesman Sub Committee Chairman Kerry openly stated that some topics were not to be discussed… reason?  Because they were “under investigation.”

The United States government… if the Shifrin report is accurate… has some explaining to do to the American people. With all the billions we spend on intelligence how is it that we didn’t know the fate of KAL-007? Or was the real story deliberately suppressed to conceal the existence of files which would implicate Western Statesmen?

Some of our key suspects (as we mentioned to Larry McDonald) were Bonesman. Would contemporary Bonesman (Bush, Kerry, Borel) protect former, now deceased, Bonesman?

CAN THE SHIFRIN CHARGES BE SUPPORTED INDEPENDENTLY?

Independent confirmation, if the Shifrin charges are true, would surely have surfaced in the January Senate Hearings by the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA’s when it interviewed Major Oleg Kalugin formerly Director of KGB Directorate 6, i.e. foreign counter intelligence. We listened to these hearings and noted that no Senator asked questions on the KAL-007 episode, although according to Shifrin, the KAL-007 operation was entirely a KGB operation. Although General Kalugin was apparently forthright he volunteered nothing, except the point that his former KGB colleagues would likely conceal any activities that “would damage Russia today” and that many still had loyalty to the Soviet regime. Kalugin indicated that no prison camps operated today but that his activity was operational and not political i.e. that there were areas of which he was not aware.

In conclusion we should note:

(1)     The Chairman of the Senate Select Committee is Senator John Kerry, a Bonesman .. , and the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Intelligence is another Bonesman ... Senator Boren of Oklahoma.

(2)     The Intelligence functions of the Senate are controlled by Bonesman ... and President Bush (Bonesman Bush) is himself a former Director of Central Intelligence Agency.

(3)     We have reservations about General Kalugin. Is Kalugin a representative of hard liners ...touring the United States to spread a dis-information net” If this is the case expect no information on KAL-007 from Kalugin.

We have no proof that Kalugin is anything but what he claims to be... a former KGB General who “saw the light.” On the other hand intelligence is the practice of assessing capabilities and intentions and our intelligence should at least explore the possibility that Kalugin is part of a long term plan by the hard liners to restore a Stalinist command economy.

DANGEROUS WORLD AHEAD

The early 21st century will be dangerous... some key factors in the coming global equation:

1.      Spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons is fast with few international controls. Chemical and biological weapons technology is moving ahead very rapidly, well within the capability of even smaller Third World nations.

2.      Western intelligence has concentrated too much on technical acquisition and insufficiently on human intelligence and analysis. Certain weapons i.e. biological weapons require only minor space and equipment to develop. Western intelligence made incorrect assessments in both Soviet and Iraqi cases. Even more difficult to penetrate weapons activities of fundamentalist regimes, as Iran and Libya.

3.      Previously unknown Russian cities now emerging, secret military cities for design and construction of nuclear and other arms. The size of this complex dwarfed the US establishment. No fewer than 14 reactors operating simultaneously producing plutonium and tritium for nuclear bombs. Almost one million Russian scientists and their families lived in these secret cities. Now what? You can be sure that Libyan, Syrian, Iraqi and North Korean governments are sifting through the personnel lists looking for the 2-3,000 key Russians who can design and fabricate nuclear bombs.

4.      The rise of Islamic fundamentalism. Potential enemies include Iran, Iraq, Libya and any country with a strong fundamentalist Islamic core with links to Iran i.e. for example, Algeria. Islamic fundamentalists do not think like Russian communists. Communists thought history was on their side and acted conservatively. Islamic fundamentalists with their “jihad” (Holy War) concept are far more dangerous and irrational. We repeat previous observations: we should be prepared for random nuclear hits on heartland America... those who have recommended civil defense in the past are more relevant than ever.

5.      Western intelligence was not so hot when the Soviets were active. They will find it much more difficult to penetrate fundamentalism. We may have to depend on Israeli intelligence more than is wise.

6.      In Latin America “Shining Path” terrorist danger, financed by drug cartels, U.S. forces operating in Peru and Bolivia. This can extend with casualties.

7.      Watch India and Pakistan, both developing nuclear weapons, with age old enemies, armed to the teeth.

8.      Japanese are an enigma. If they attempt to translate economic success and power into political power, watch out for trouble. On the other side of the equation, Japanese have become westernized, no longer hold rigidly to old traditions.

9.      We don’t believe that Chinese communists are reforming (their Ambassador in Washington is pushing the line that political reform will come after economic changes, we doubt it) China still leaning heavily on Tibet. When old guard dies, the system may collapse or not.

END OF ARTICLE

MY PERSONAL INVESTIGATION IN 1993

In 1993 I wanted to know why Congressman McDonald flew to South Korea and here is what I found out. That year marked the 30^th anniversary of the United States-Korea mutual defense treaty and South Korean President Chun DoHwan had invited a number of American senators and congressmen to attend the ceremony marking this anniversary. Among them invited was former President Richard Nixon, who declined due to poor health. But the following senators and congressman did go: Senator Steven Symms of Idaho (R), Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina (R) and Congressman Carroll Hubbard, Jr. (D) of Kentucky. These three men boarded Korean Airlines flight KAL 015 in Los Angeles, which ran 20 minutes behind flight 007 that originated in New York. Both flights called for a stopover at Anchorage International Airport in Alaska where the planes were to be refueled. KAL 007 arrived in Anchorage 20 minutes before KAL 015. Congressman McDonald never left his plane because he was asleep. When Symms, Hubbard and Helms landed and walked into the airport, they asked for their friend and were told that he was asleep and did not meet that night. KAL 007 took off 20 minutes ahead of KAL 015.

KAL 007 and KAL 015 were both supposed to fly the same route but KAL 007 went off course and only KAL 015 arrived safely in South Korea. Both flights had left the United States on August 31, 1983 but only one airplane landed safely in Seoul, Korea on September 1, 1983. Waiting at the Seoul airport was Dr. James Lucier, who was Jesse Helms top political aid and a personal friend of Larry McDonald. He and others had flown in as an advance party to prepare everything for the senators and congressman.

Chunk DoHwan	Richard Nixon	Steven Symms	Jesse Helms	James Lucier	Carroll Hubbard, Jr.

When the news flashed at the airport in Seoul that KAL 007 had been shot down, the Korean airline officials told the waiting crowd that the plane had been able to make a safe landing on Soviet territory. Dr. Lucier told me that he heard this with his own ears in a telephone conversation. A few hours later the officials changed the information and informed the waiting relatives and friends that the plane had crashed and there were no survivors.[3]

 Is it a coincidence that the three top aides to Jesse Helms were approached in November 1990 by Avraham Shifrin, in May 1991 were sent to Israel to interview Shifrin, then reported back to Senator Helms and it was only a short time later they were fired? Jesse Helms had surgery and when he returned to office, he not only received a 33^rd degree of freemasonry but his personality had changed and he voted favorably on liberal bills which he previously opposed. He voted for homosexual and lesbian candidates and is more or less became the “darling” of the Clinton administration.

On September 15, 1993 I decided to try and contact Senator Helms’ office to see if they would confirm that Avraham Shifrin existed and that Senator Helms had been contacted by him. I also wanted to confirm if Dr. James Lucier, David Sullivan and Victor Fedei had been working as political aides to Senator Helms.  

The switchboard operator in Senator Helms’ office transferred me to a staff woman, and when I stated my question, I was transferred to Nancy Rav who works in the senator’s foreign relations department. She was very polite and pleasant and confirmed that the three men had indeed worked for the senator but their employment had been terminated. When I asked if they had been investigating Flight 007, she told me that she would have to discuss it with the staff director and call me back.

My next telephone call was placed to Avraham Shifrin in Jerusalem. He was polite and spoke very good English and confirmed that everything he had written in his report was accurate and that he was very sad the American government showed no interest in helping its own citizens who were on board KAL 007 but were very hostile to any investigation. When I asked him if he thought that these 269 passengers could still be alive and kept somewhere in Russia, he stated that it was a great possibility. Then I questioned him if the Russians would kill them so there wouldn’t be a living witness if investigations got too close to the truth. He told me that the communists were not so brave today in murdering people. Then he made a chilling statement that I will never forget, “The KGB and the CIA are the same. They are working together very closely.”

After talking with him for ten minutes, I can tell you that Shifrin is an intelligent person, well composed, shows great compassion for human life, and expressed no hatred for the communist leaders; rather, he wanted to expose their evil deeds and have them change their behavior. He is not a demagogue nor is he seeking publicity. I found him to be very kind but deeply sorrowful over the people that are still in prison camps in Russia today. 

Nancy Rav called me back the following day and confirmed that James Lucier, David Sullivan and Victor Fedei had investigated KAL 007, traveled to Jerusalem and met with Mr. Shifrin as representatives for Senator Helms. She also told me that Fedei was now dead. (He died of a heart attack in August of 1993 at the age of 79.) I then asked her if there were any records concerning this investigation. She told me that all files had been destroyed and nothing was left. I noticed that once Nancy told me this, she suddenly began to change from being very polite to hostile. I asked about the surgery of Senator Helms after she had given me information where Lucier and Sullivan were living when she told me that the information could not be used for any written articles and abruptly terminated the telephone call.

The next person I talked with was David Sullivan. He confirmed that he had worked with Senator Helms and had been to Israel and met with Shifrin but declined to answer further questions. When I asked if he had been told not to talk about this subject, he told me no with great fear in his voice and ended the telephone conversation.

My next call was placed to Dr. James Lucier who was friendly but cautious since he didn’t know who I was. He confirmed that he had been to Israel and met with Shifrin and read the report which we reprinted in The Dove.[4] He said the events describing their involvement with Senator Helms’ office were correct and that restrictions had been put on David Sullivan when they had started the investigation and they had run into an even bigger problem: American P.O.W.’s held in the Soviet Union.

My understanding of the information given me by Lucier indicated that if the fate of the passengers of KAL 007 became known, it would also reveal that a number of American P.O.W.’s are still alive in the Soviet Union. This would be devastating news for the American government and the investigation wasn’t crushed by the Soviets, but by our own government. Lucier told me that he thought highly of Avraham Shifrin and didn’t believe he was a lunatic but a careful researcher with connections deep into the old Soviet Union. He also told me that the Mossad didn’t like Shifrin. My understanding of this is that the Mossad is used by the CIA and KGB to curtail Shifrin and make it difficult for him to operate. Lucier made a strong statement that the airplane did not explode in the air but descended safely to the surface. When I reminded him that Boris Yeltsin had visited South Korea in 1993 and presented the black boxes from the airplane to which Lucier laughed and said, “Yes, but the tapes were removed.”

He then proceeded to tell me that were some people whom Shifrin could not disclose for fear of their safety, who had access to Boris Yeltsin and pressed him to release the passengers of KAL 007 on several occasions. But Yeltsin refused because he was not in a position to do so.  In my long conversation with James Lucier, there were many other things revealed that would not be productive to share publicly but greatly confirmed my conclusions on this matter. One thing I will share is Lucier confirmed that Senator Jesse Helms had been a long time Freemason; he worked through and earned the degrees in Freemasonry and his 33rd degree was not honorary but one that was earned. Anyone familiar with Freemasonry knows this means that the senator has accepted Lucifer as God. Lucier also confirmed that he and his two friends had been fired for political reasons. It is very clear to me that James Lucier and David Sullivan know much more than they are willing to share with the American public. How long will these two men be allowed to live? The CIA has killed for less than this in the past.

America is governed by thieves, thugs and liars who will sell anyone to the Devil including their own mothers if they can gain power or wealth. What can you do? First, pray that God will reveal that which has been hidden. Write your senator and congressman. Show this article to your local media. Talk to your pastor and speak about it in your church. If thousands of small fires can be lit, a firestorm can sweep this nation and burn out the dross. The worst you can do is to accept the truth and do nothing. This is what most Americans have done for the last 100 years and that is the reason why we have so many financial, political and moral problems.

THE SHIFRIN REPORT

President Reagan’s legacy became tarnished by the Iran/Contra scandal. The shooting down of KAL 007 destroyed what was left of Reagan’s legacy and makes him guilty of murder since his administration gave the order to liquidate McDonald and cover up the murder. We are reprinting the report by Avraham Shifrin since it is a damning indictment of the Reagan administration.

RESEARCH CENTRE FOR PRISONS, PSYCHPRISONS AND FORCED LABOR CONCENTRATION CAMPS OF THE USSR

P.O. Box 23678 • Ramot, 91235 Jerusalem, Israel. Telephone 02-869208

ANALYSIS OF THE TOP SECRET CODEWORDED CIA REPORT on the subject of the mysterious disappearance of the South Korean Boeing 747 (Flight 007), its crew and passengers after its 1983 shooting down near the shores of Island Sakhalin by A. Shifrin, Executive Director and E. Shifrin, Secretary

I. A BRIEF HISTORY:

Since 1989, our Research Centre for Soviet prisons and concentration camps has been conducting an independent investigation concerning the fate of the crew and passengers of the ill-fated flight KAL 007 which disappeared after September 1, 1983. In 1990, we established, through our underground channels in the USSR, that Korean Boeing 747 (Flight KAL 007) did not crash into the sea after it had been hit by two Soviet rockets, but rather had water landed safely in shallow waters in the vicinity of Island Moneron, not far from Sakhalin. At the same time, we received information that the passengers (United States Congressman Lawrence P. McDonald among them) as well as the crew were removed from on board the plane by the Soviet coastal guard and transferred to the mainland.

Upon receiving a more or less complete picture of what had happened near the shores of Sakhalin on September 1, 1983, we established contact with United States Senator Jesse Helms and informed him generally of the results of our investigation.

Senator Helms established contact with us in November 1990, but it took him until May 1991 to come to the decision that he required more detailed information. In early May 1991, his three top aides (Dr. J. Lucier, Mr. D. Sullivan, and Mr. V. Fedei) received access to all details of our investigation, debriefed our witnesses who had arrived from the USSR, registered their testimonies, and were completely convinced that there were compelling reasons for insisting that Korean Boeing 747, Flight KAL 007 had not crashed and that its passengers were alive and safe after the water landing.

Sending the results of our investigation to Senator Helms through his aides, we asked him to conduct an open Senate hearing, as well as a thorough investigation at the U.S. administration level of the incident that resulted in the kidnapping of 269 persons from KAL 007 (among them 63 U.S. citizens).

It seemed high time that such an investigation be initiated, especially as there had not been an investigation of this case whatsoever, not even the routine investigation that usually takes place after an air accident - all this in spite of the fact that the obvious results of this accident were decidedly different from the results of all other known air accidents. Senator Helms and his aides agreed with our evaluation of the material and with our suggestions concerning further avenues of action. Following this, it took a very long time to hear from Senator Helms and his people again. All of our questions either remain unanswered or the answer was that a special report for the President was being prepared on the basis of our discoveries and we were asked to wait with patience.

In June 1991, we were informed by Mr. D. Sullivan, one of the Senator’s three aides, that our investigative materials had been given to the CIA and to the Pentagon for evaluation and that the response was that, indeed, our information had proved authentic.  During our preliminary negotiations with Senator Helms and his staff, apparently, there had been a leak of information at an early stage and as a result of which, it had been decided in Moscow to counter our inevitable exposures even prior to our going public with them. For this purpose, in December 1990, an article was published by Izvestia newspaper. An article in a key newspaper on a subject that had been dead and forgotten for seven years seemed more than strange.  The article stated that, although the USSR had had the right to shoot down the Korean airliner, it was high time now to give the world “additional information”. The rationale given was that, if the USSR had taken the hard decision to admit the crime committed against the Polish people in Katyn, then this incident with KAL 007 could also be disclosed.

It was further stated in the article that the complete fuselage of the Boeing 747 was intact on the bottom of the sea and that “the Soviet divers climbed all over it from top to bottom” (while up until then, and even later on, the Soviets claimed that the plane had crashed and had totally disintegrated into small pieces). The article further stated, “We have condemned 269 passengers to death and haven’t even apologized before their families”.

In 1991, Izvestia started publishing a series of 25 articles based on what they claimed to be an “independent investigation” undertaken by the newspaper. The articles proved invaluable, as, along with bold lies and misinformation, they gave a great number of facts which had previously been kept secret - as well as eyewitness testimonies completely contradicting the official Soviet version.  Among other things, it was stated that the Soviets had removed the “black boxes” from KAL 007 (a fact that we had known of and had informed Senator Helms as far back as 11 November 1990). But even this sensational admission did not result in any demand on the part of the United States or any other interested government that the USSR return the black boxes to Korea to enable it to understand just what had happened within the last 30 minutes of the flight and in what manner the plane had landed. It was obvious that the Soviets had no intention of volunteering the return of the black boxes and/or their tapes, because they knew better than anyone else that there was nothing in those tapes that would support their crash versions.

In the meanwhile, we continued our investigation via our underground contacts inside the USSR and we continued receiving new and conclusive proofs to the effect that KAL 007 had safely landed on water, and that the passengers had been rescued and removed to secret concentration camps, as the KGB needed Congressman McDonald for questioning on the subject of United States defense. We knew that, at one point, he was being held in the central KGB prison (Lubyanka) in Moscow.

As for the free world, it continued to keep silence. Everybody seemed to have forgotten the innocent people who had been thrown into Soviet camps and prisons.

Therefore, by midsummer of 1991, seeing complete lack of action on the part of the United States Senate and Administration, we decided to go public. On July 11, 1991, we announced a press conference in Jerusalem at which we intended to offer to newsmen a detailed press release of our investigation and findings. We thought that this sensational news would attract the attention of the world to the fate of the kidnapped people and that decent people throughout the world would demand from their governments, action in behalf of the victims in order to secure their release. But our press conference in Israel was deliberately thwarted by unknown persons. An hour prior to the planned time of the press conference, calls were made to all the newspapers, news agencies, radio and TS stations, to all those that had received our invitation and all were informed that the press conference had been canceled. As a result, no one was in attendance. At our consequent attempts to publicize our information, newsmen would take our interview and press release, promise an immediate publication of our story, but then, would publish nothing. Among the many similar stories, the one concerning Washington Post is very characteristic. An editor, Mrs. Elizabeth (Lally) Weymouth, came to us at the recommendation of Senator Helms. She held a three hour interview with us, received our materials, and promised her own detailed article on the subject with a special investigation as to why there was such utter lack of response on the American side ... but published nothing! 

Then, in the autumn of 1992, there appeared in the world media a sensational declaration made by Mr. Sonn Se IL, head of the opposition of the Parliament of South Korea, concerning a top secret CIA report that he had somehow obtained and which contained sufficient proof of a safe water landing of KAL 007 on September 1, 1983 near Island Sakhalin with the subsequent removal of all surviving passengers and crew to the Soviet Gulags. Along with this information, many newspapers carried pictures of the first page of the report as attestation of its actual existence. Through Mr. Sonn Se IL, we too managed to obtain a copy of the report. After studying the 78- page material, we present our conclusions:

The document is not dated; but, from the references made in the report, only to the first part of the Izvestia series and to our own materials, it is clear that the document was compiled in June of 1991, i.e., right after the results of our investigation of the KAL 007 mystery were handed over to the CIA by the staff. 

The most stunning discovery of the document for us was the admission of the facts that the CIA knew as early as September 1983 that KAL 007 had not crashed but had landed on shallow waters near Island Moneron; and that most of the people on board were rescued and transferred to the Soviet camps on the mainland. This conclusion, supported by their own special intelligence and by the hard facts at their disposal was drawn by the CIA immediately after the tragedy. Yet, they kept it secret and did not bother lifting a finger for the sake of saving the kidnapped United States Congressman Larry McDonald, along with the 12 other 268 persons on board the plane-among whom were 63 U.S. citizens and 23 children.

The USSR had undoubtedly committed a dreadful crime by downing a civilian aircraft and kidnapping innocent citizens.  But the United States has covered up and supported this crime by hushing it up, by silently accepting the Soviet “crash theory” and thus betraying the crew and passengers of KAL 007 and, among them, the U.S. citizens. Furthermore, having known since 1983 what had really occurred with Flight KAL 007, the CIA and the United States Administration have never confirmed our findings and they have done nothing to help us in our efforts to reopen the case in order to try to save the people who have been languishing at the hands of their killers without any hope for tomorrow. For these long months since publishing the results of our investigation, we have been standing alone against all those who mock the very idea that KAL 007 could have survived. Indeed, the State Department already in the summer of 1992, i.e., a year after the CIA issued its report, answered the inquiry of one U.S. newspaper concerning the government’s attitude towards our findings, thusly, “We trust Yeltsin rather than Shifrin.”

 II. THE CIA REPORT REVELATIONS:

Let us see what exactly was known to the CIA since September 1983 and whether the State Department had any reason whatsoever to trust Gorbachev and Yeltsin.

 1. From the very beginning, the CIA had received accounts from the Japanese Self Defense Force radar located at Wakanai on the tip of the Japanese Island of Liokkaido, as well as from a Soviet radar-both of which tracked the KAL 007 flight path for at least 12 minutes after the attack-through the gradual descent from 35,000 feet to the “zero” point. 

2. The CIA knew of the last radio transmission of KAL 007’s pilot to Tokyo within the first three minutes after the attack reporting his intention to descend to 10,000.

3. The CIA knew that during those 12 minutes the average rate of descent was decelerating rather than accelerating which showed, as the report states, that “KAL 007 was not in a plummet or a crash dive,” i.e., that it was “under some degree of control by the pilots.” Very simple mathematical calculations showed that the plane made a rapid descent from its original altitude of 35,000 feet to the intended 16.400 feet within the first 5 minutes after the attack, i.e., it was dropping at an average rate of 61.6 feet per second. During the next 4 minutes of descent from 16.400 feet to 5,000 feet, the average rate of descent was 47.9 feet per second. And, finally, during the last 3 minutes (out of 12 radar tracked minutes of post attack flight) the average rate of descent was 22.2 feet per second.  The unavoidable conclusion is that the plane was descending at a decelerating average rate, which is absolutely inconsistent with the idea that the plane was uncontrollably plummeting into the sea. It was known from aviation specialists that the regular rapid descent procedure for Boeing 747 from the altitude of 35,000 feet would be about 15 minutes, while an uncontrolled crash dive would have only taken about 2 minutes.

4. The CIA knew, from intercepted communications of Soviet pilots who were reported by special intelligence to be making “reference point circles”, that within 4 hours after the attack, the Soviet search and rescue operations were underway and the Soviets knew that they had downed a civilian Boeing 747 passenger airliner, carrying some American passengers. The CIA knew very well that all this could not have been known to the Soviets at such an early point had the plane in fact crashed into the sea at an unknown location.  A logical question is being asked in the report: How could the Soviet pilots identify the nationality of the passengers of the "crashed" plane which the Soviets believed to be an American military RC-135? The answer to this question is given right away. The Soviet rescue boats were sending radio communications while removing people from either the stricken airliner ditched at sea or from its life rafts and that those by the Soviet pilots.

5. The CIA special intelligence information showed that right after the plane disappeared from the radar screens, the Soviet military command sent to the supposed crash site 8 rescue boats of the coastal guard.

6. The CIA knew that for some reason or another, Mr. Andropov, then Head of the USSR, was especially interested in the movements of flight KAL 007 since the time it left Anchorage.

7. Eyewitness testimony obtained from the Japanese fishermen showed that the plane did not crash but ditched.

8. It was quite clear to the CIA from the very first days that the Soviets were engaged in a gigantic deception and cover-up operation. The CIA knew exactly where the Soviets were conducting their search and rescue operations while, at the same time, deceiving the United States and Japanese searchers with regards to the supposed crash site by officially supplying the wrong coordinates and by placing decoy “pingers” on the sea bottom in very deep international waters almost 600 miles removed from where the plane in fact went down. The report enumerates as many as 16 Soviet deliberate misinformation actions conducted by Marshal Ogarkov in order to cover up the fact that a rescue operation was being conducted retrieving the survivors, the “black boxes,” and other electronic equipments from the plane.

9. The dearth of remains of either the aircraft itself or of the human bodies was startling from the very beginning. Even if, in 1983, there had been no identical type of air accident to compare it to, in 1985 and in 1987 such possibilities occurred; Boeing 747s had exploded over the ocean killing everybody on board and the remains had sunk to the depth of a few thousand feet. In spite of this, in both cases, the black boxes were recovered within a few days, as well as thousands of items of luggage and wreckage as well as very many bodies. This comparison served as another circumstantial proof that KAL 007 had successfully ditched rather than crashed, and that the passengers had been removed from the plane. This assumption was supported by Izvestia which published the statements of the Soviet divers who had examined an intact fuselage and found neither bodies nor luggage in it. All of the above shows that the United States Administration had no reason whatsoever to trust the Soviet’s groundless declarations concerning the “catastrophic” crash in which everybody on board had been killed. On the contrary, the Administration had all reasons to believe that the massive Soviet cover-up operation was designed to conceal the opposite fact-a successful ditching of the plane and rescue of at least some, and probably the majority, of the passengers. Now it can all be seen in the report of the CIA. Therefore, the fact that in the summer of 1992, the State Department preferred to trust Yeltsin rather than the results of our investigation, after it had already been supported by the CIA report (albeit without any public pronouncements), shows only that the United States Department chose to trust the Soviets. Why?

III. THE REACTION OF THE CIA AND THE UNITED STATES ADMINISTRATION TO THE KAL 007 INCIDENT:

This part of the report relates not only to the CIA’s failure to analyze fully the available evidence of Soviet cover-up and deception measures but it testifies also to the fact that influenced by higher levels, for decades had complied with all Soviet lies and deceptions, being unwilling to collect and analyze any facts that would disclose those lies. The report says:  “The reason that U.S. Intelligence failed to consider or understand its own evidence of Soviet deception over KAL 007 is that the U.S. Intelligence had throughout the period 1969-1983 also been consistently refusing to report and analyze scrupulously the continually growing evidence of Soviet deception and violations in regard to arms control treaties. There was endemic ‘with-holding’ and suppression of evidence and analysis of Soviet arms control deception and violations, within U.S. Intelligence and especially within CIA. There was simply a mindset within U.S. Intelligence throughout the 1970’s and up to 1983 that the Soviets were incapable of massive deception on anything important and that they certainly did not negotiate deceptively or cheat on arms control treaties.”

The report presents an example of a CIA analyst who had indeed written about Soviet cheating on arms control--after which, he had been fired. All the evidence he had collected was suppressed by the CIA and no other analyst after that dared “to even entertain the hypothesis that the Soviet military was capable of serious deception projects or arms control cheating.” All this was happening during a period when numerous émigrés from the USSR, who had previously worked in various fields of the Soviet military industry and army, as well as dozens of defectors from the KGB, had testified to the fact that deception and cheating were constantly used at all Soviet levels as their main weapon in their dealing with the democratic West. Many Soviet people had risked their freedom and lives (and some had indeed been killed) for the sake of warning the USA and other democratic countries that they were being deceived by the Soviets-while the U.S. officials responsible for security and the well being of their country did not dare to believe their testimonies out of fear of being fired.  For the above reason, the CIA and the State Department initially accepted and subsequently maintained the Soviet declaration that KAL 007 had crashed killing everybody on board. All the consequent evidence to the contrary, such highly sensitive special intelligence information of the CIA, eyewitness testimonies, and hard facts received from radar, complete lack of bodies and luggage and the black boxes, as well as the startling dearth of debris (most of which were unidentifiable) -all these were simply ignored and at no time thoroughly assembled, assessed and properly analyzed. Even the very obvious Soviet cover-up and “maskirovka” measures (the CIA report calls them “Ogarkov’s 16 lies”) were never analyzed as what they were intended to conceal. The report admits: “CIA’s own biases and myopia against perceiving Soviet deception caused the CIA to fail to understand the significance of their own evidence. Thus CIA was fooled too.”

Only after Izvestia had published in 1991 a great number of facts showing Soviet lies (the recovery in 1983 of the “black boxes”, false geographic coordinates provided by the Soviet military at the time of the search, decoy “pingers,” etc,) did the CIA realize how they had been cheated, as the report states.

Another category of disclosures from the report testifies to the inoperativeness and incompetence of the United States intelligence and of the higher levels. The report notes, for example, that the President did not know fully what had happened to KAL 007 until 20 hours after the incident, The first information containing raw intelligence was received in Washington only four hours after the attack, That first message was abruptly cancelled and when it was reissued an half an hour later, there were changes in the raw intelligence as compared to the original version, Changes in the original raw material continued to be made as late as eleven days after the incident, Regarding one change made a month and a half after the incident, special attention must be paid, as this specific change might have played a very important role in the whole story. On September 3, 1983, the report reveals that the National Security Agency issued a supposedly “conclusive” intelligence report which contained what this present CIA report calls a case of a typographical error or careless intelligence reporting; it was written there that the altitude of KAL 007 four minutes after the attack was 500 meters while in fact, the radar reportings indicated that the real altitude at that point was 5,000 meters, The difference of one zero, but… had the plane really been at 500 meters after four minutes of dropping, it would have meant that the average rate of descent was close to that of an uncontrolled dive-which contradicted the firmly established fact that the plane was aloft for an additional eight minutes following the initial four minutes of deliberately rapid descent. In fact, this “500 meters” altitude after four minutes was later reported to be erroneous, but this was done a full month and a half later. This shows, as the report admits, that “U.S.  Intelligence did not realize the significance of this piece of evidence or the significance of their mistakes.” It does become obvious that the U.S. Intelligence did not even make an attempt to analyze their own evidence. The report further admits that, “U.S. Intelligence had strong evidence of Soviet military deception in September 1983 but failed to understand the significance of the deceptive military cover story.” 

As for especially collecting facts  concerning the incident, this was only begun a month and a half later, and it was only then discovered that all United States search efforts had been conducted in the wrong area, due to the fact that the supposed KAL 007 wreckage site was determined on the basis of deceptive information supplied by the Soviets, It took the U.S. Intelligence as long as until October 14,1983 to offer their own estimate of the geographic coordinates based on the Soviet radar tracking data in conjunction with the Japanese Defense Force Wakanai radar tracking data. In connection with this, the report states: “This is an almost incredible failure of U.S. Intelligence to have critical information available in a timely way at a right place where it is needed.” Furthermore, the report admits that there were no attempts to use any U.S. reconnaissance satellite imagery or aerial imagery or remote underwater sonar and therefore, it is no wonder that no data was registered to indicate the sound of the ditching or crash or possibly subsequent underwater demolition of KAL 007.

The State Department did not conduct any investigation of the incident whatsoever…  All measures that could have led to possibly finding the wreckage or collecting some information as to what had actually happened were prohibited by the State Department. The radar dates of the Wakani (Hokaido) radar station were ordered to be destroyed as needless. The State Department was of the opinion that the incident ought not spoil USA-USSR relations. The report notes that the United States Navy could have planted intelligent sensors inside Soviet territorial waters, but was forbidden to do so, because “the State Department was afraid of offending the Soviets.” Intelligence information on the incident was classified and hushed up by highly placed CIA and NSA officials, the report states. Despite all the intelligence information already available, Secretary Schultz made an absolutely groundless announcement that KAL 007 had catastrophically crashed killing everybody on board -- though there was no proof to that effect whatsoever and there was much proof to the contrary.

The report positively admits that the investigation of the KAL 007 incident by the CIA had been a complete failure and acceptance of the Soviet version that KAL 007 had crashed was in error.

As for more recent discussion of this matter with Soviet “perestoika” leaders, the report notes that M. Gorbachev had been fully aware of what really had happened from the very beginning as, in September 1983, he was a new member of the Soviet Politburo and as well, a personal prodigy of Yuri Andropov who had been grooming him for the top leadership post. It is obvious, therefore, that Gorbachev had taken part in all the Politburo sessions at which the KAL 007 incident was discussed in all its dreadful and secret details. “Thus Gorbachev’s role in the Soviet political leadership in 1983 means that he bears responsibility for the Soviet lies and deception on KAL 007,” the report states. 

IV. COMPARISON OF THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE DATA WITH THE RESULTS OF THE INVESTIGATION CONDUCTED BY OUR RESEARCH CENTRE:

 1. In early 1990, we received from the USSR information dated September 1983 which was based on a protocol signed by the Soviet divers which was a part of a secret report issued by the special secret state investigation commission chaired by General V. Varennikov. According to this information, the intact fuselage of Boeing 747 (KAL 007) was examined on the bottom of the sea by Soviet divers who retrieved two “black boxes” and who found that there were no bodies and no luggage in the aircraft.  This information was later supported by Izvestia and has now been confirmed by the CIA report.

2. We later received information based on testimony of some members of the State Investigation Commission who had been present on the Soviet ship from which the divers had descended to retrieve the black boxes. We received detailed information concerning a special system of rubber bags designed in ERAT Institute in Lubertsy near Moscow for the purpose of retrieving the black boxes together with the surrounding water. From the same source, we later received the names of the specialists in Lubertsy who had been assigned the job of deciphering the tapes from the black boxes.  This information has now been confirmed by the CIA report.

3. Our sources in the USSR informed us that the inner lid of one of the black boxes bore the trademark “Hamilton Aids”. As early as in 1990, we found a way to inquire through Boeing company and did receive confirmation of this information. This fact, too, has been confirmed by the CIA report.

4. We received from the USSR and published in our press release of 1991 detailed information based on eyewitness testimony of some Soviet Air Defense officers (e.g., Captain Ryzkov from the radar station located on the mainland Zaviet  Iliycha Settlement), as well as from some persons from the entourage of Marshal Ogarkov and Gen. Varennikov. Information also came to us from fishermen from Nevelsk (Sakhalin) who witnessed the successful ditching of KAL 007 on the night of September 1, 1983 near Moneron Island. These fishermen also saw the rescue of the people from the plane.  Marshal Ogarkov’s and General Varennikov’s people heard about this from the primary source-General Romanenko, who had been personally responsible for rescuing the passengers and unloading their luggage from the plane. The CIA report completely confirms our information about the military locations in the area and even calls our information “precise.” The report also states that the CIA had the U.S. Intelligence information and testimonies of some Japanese fishermen who had confirmed the successful ditching of KAL 007 near Moneran.

5. Our investigation has established and the Soviet newspaper Izvestia later confirmed that the Korean Boeing had been photographed from a Soviet plane while it was still afloat after the ditching. The CIA report confirms the fact of the filming as received through their own intelligence but says that the film was made not from a plane but rather from a Soviet helicopter which observed the aircraft being towed away to deeper waters and sunk.

6. Information later received from our sources indicates that the passengers and crew members were transported to special secret Soviet camps, while the children were separated from their parents and placed in various orphanages. All this had been done at the initial stage under the direct command of General Romanenko. Following this action, according to our information, General Romanenko was promoted and transferred to East Berlin as a Soviet military attache - where he unexpectedly “committed suicide.”

This was confirmed as late as September 1992 by the Soviet newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda. According to our sources, all information concerning General Romanenko has been erased from the personnel computer of the KGB: he seems to have never existed at all. The CIA report differs from our information on this point. They confirm that Gen. Romanenko has disappeared but believed that he has been placed in one of the Soviet camps by the KGB.

7. We have, as a result of our investigation, some information concerning specific camps, prisons, and orphanages where the plane people had been initially sent. The CIA does not give such information in its report.

8. In conclusion, the CIA report states, and thus completely supporting our conclusions, that on the basis of the evidence from Izvestia, from the recent Soviet émigrés, and from special intelligence strongly suggests that KAL 007 successfully ditched at sea,  - “there may have been survivors, and that the Soviets have been engaged in massive lying and a major deception on this entire incident from the very start.” The report also admits that “diplomatic efforts need to be made to return the possible survivors.”

V. CONCLUDING REMARKS:

There are some facts concerning this incident that had been known all along, some of them confirmed by Izvestia, that for some reason or another, have not been noted by the CIA report but which we find quite important to point out.

1. On the morning of September 1, 1983, Mr. C.K. Suh, Manager of the American Regional Office of Korean Air Lines in Los Angeles called Mr. Tommy Toles, Congressman McDonald’s press aide, a few hours after the attack and informed him that he had just received an answer from Korean Air Lines in Seoul and that “the information I got from them is that U. S. Embassy in Korea informed the Korean  Government, Minister of Foreign Affairs… that the plane has landed in Sakhalin.” Besides, Mr. Tommy Toles received information from Mr. Orville Brockman from the Federal Aviation Administration headquarters in Washington that ran as follows: “We have just received information from our FAA representative, Mr. Dennis Wilhelm in Tokyo, as follows: He has been advised by the Japanese Civil Aviation Bureau headquarters, Air Traffic Division, Mr. Takano… who is his counterpart in Japanese aviation as follows: Japanese Self Defense Force confirms that the Hokaido radar followed Air Korea to a landing in Soviet territory on the island of Sakhalinska ... and it is confirmed by the manifest that Congressman McDonald is on board.”

2. Ninety minutes after ditching at sea, the Captain of KAL 007, Chun Bue In, radioed Narita Airport in Japan and confirmed the fact of ditching.

3. American Navy rescue ships in the Pacific, immediately upon hearing of an emergency with KAL 007, headed toward the supposed crash site. But a few hours later, for entirely unclear reasons, they were stopped and returned by orders from Secretary Schultz. 

4. The State Department stopped the investigation begun by James Michaelangelo in Anchorage who tried to find out why KAL 007 had gone off course. This was done under the pretext that the entire investigation was being handled by the State Department itself. But such investigation has never taken place.

5. A while after the incident, a military radio station on Sakhalin started broadcasting the very same musical pieces that were known to have been on board for entertaining the passengers. This information came from Izvestia. 

6. Soviet divers who retrieved the black boxes paid attention to the fact that the seat belts of the passenger seats were unfastened and life saving vests were absent. This is another circumstantial and objective proof that the passengers left the plane after it had ditched.

7. Izvestia also quotes from a KBG officer who states that he had to participate in sorting out the passengers’ luggage on a Soviet ship, Soviet reporter Illesh even saw his photographs of those passengers’ effects and heard him say: “Later, we had to destroy those artifacts, all kinds of trifles like what people usually have on international flights.” The reporter adds: “Considering the circumstances and his profession, he could not say more.”

These additional facts again support what has already been confirmed by eyewitnesses:  KAL 007 successfully ditched at sea near Moneron Island, its passengers were rescued by the Soviet coast guard and transferred to Soviet camps and prisons, because the KGB had in mind the thorough questioning of Congressman McDonald with no intention of releasing him-which also meant that no other passenger could be released. They were, therefore, all ruthlessly pronounced dead. 

In publishing this analysis of the CIA report objectively supporting the results of our investigation and suggesting that the KAL 007 passengers might still be alive, we are once again appealing to all democratic governments, to the United Nations, to all the organizations and individuals who have not been sucked by indifference, to demand from the Soviet liars and killers: 

• To return to their families the people they have kidnapped.

• To return the children who have grown up as orphans - there were 23 of them!

• To return U.S. Congressman Larry McDonald.

END OF REPORT

WHAT WE KNOW NOW  

As of 2010 more facts are now available to the public and can be found on the Internet on a number of web sites.

Eight days after the shoot down on September 1, 1983, human remains started to appear on the north shore of the Japanese island Hokkaido, which is located 30 miles south of Sakhalin. It was determined that these body parts had been carried from Soviet waters by sea current.  The human remains included body parts and two partial torsos. Nothing could be identified.

It is interesting that no suitcases ever showed up, which would be normal after a crash over water, but newspapers, seats, books, paper cups, blouses, an identity card and a business card were all recovered. In the cargo hold of an airplane there would be suitcases, packing boxes, and a number of other cargo contents; nothing ever showed up on Soviet or Japanese beaches.

As American and Japanese ships and planes started to search for the wreckage, the Soviets gave a false location where the wreckage could be found and no information was gathered by the Americans or the Japanese authorities.

On September 26, 1983, a delegation of seven Japanese and American officials arrived aboard the Japanese patrol boat at the sea port of Nevelsk on the Sakhalin Island where they met with a six-man Soviet delegation. KGB Major General A. I. Romenenko, who was also the commander of the Sakhalin and Kuril islands, headed the Soviet delegation. The Soviets handed over single and paired footwear like men’s, women’s and children’s dress shoes, sandals and sport shoes. Romenenko told the American-Japanese delegation that the shoes had washed up on the shores of the Sakhalin and Moneron islands. ^[5] Family members of the people who were lost on the aircraft later identified these shoes and told investigators that these were the shoes people wore when they boarded the airplane in the United States.

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian newspaper, Izvestia, published some interviews with former Soviet Union military personnel who had been involved in the Russian salvage operation. According to these reports, the aircraft had been located three days after the shoot down at a depth of 570 feet near Moneron Island. The divers expected to find the bodies of the passengers, since nothing had been found floating to the surface but all they found was demolished wreckage broken into small pieces. A submersible craft named, Tinro II, commanded by Captain Mikhail Igorevich, gave the following report: “Found aircraft pieces, wing spars, pieces of aircraft skin, wiring and clothing, but no people.” His impression was that the aircraft had been dragged by a ship to this location, rather than having crashed here.  It was also revealed that Soviet trawlers had been in the area and used their big nets to drag the bottom.

Also in 1991, in an interview with Izvestia, Major Gennadi Osipovich, who was the pilot of the Su-15 interceptor that shot down the Korean airliner shared his version of the downing. He remembered telling ground controller that contrary to official Soviet statements at the time, there were blinking lights which should have alerted them to the fact that this was a civilian airliner. He also stated that he recognized it was so when he made visual contact with the Korean airliner and that it was a civilian Boeing because of the double rows of windows. He tried to get the pilots attention by firing bullets to no avail and soon realized that they had just flown over the Sakhalin Island and in a few minutes the airliner would be out from Soviet air space. He was then given the order to destroy the target. Having expended some 243 rounds, he opted to use a missile to down the plane. The missile destroyed one of the engines but the airliner did not explode and started a controlled descent. Osipovich was told to lie about certain details like the fact that the plane did not have any blinking running lights, no strobe lights, that he had only used tracer bullets to try to get the attention of the airliner and that he had been in radio contact with them.

On June 17, 1992, President Boris Yeltsin made a statement that efforts were made to locate Soviet-era documents relating to KAL 007. He mentioned a memorandum from the KGB to the Central Committee of the Communist Party had been located and that this document stated that the shoot down had occurred. On September 11, 1992, Yeltsin officially acknowledged the existence of the black boxes and promised the South Korean government would be given a transcript of the flight recorder contents as found in the KGB files.

President Yeltsin invited U.S. State Department officials and a delegation of surviving families to meet with him at Moscow in October of 1992. During a state ceremony at St. Cathrine’s Hall in the Kremlin, the KAL family delegation was handed a portfolio containing partial transcripts of the KAL 007 cockpit voice recorder translated into Russian and documents of the Politburo pertaining to the tragedy.[6] In November that year Yeltsin also gave the empty casings of the two black boxes from the airliner to the Korean President Roh Tae-Woo.^[7]

Also in 1992 President Boris Yeltsin released five top-secret memos dating back to the time of the downing of KAL 007. The memos contained Soviet communication from KGB Chief Viktor Chebrikov (1923-199) and Defense Minister Dmitry Ustinov (1908-1984) to the Soviet Premier Yuri Andropov (1914-1984) that indicated that they knew the location of KAL 007’s wreckage while they were simulating a search mission and at the same time harassing the U.S. Navy.

Viktor Chebrikov	Dmitry Ustinov	Yuri Andropov

One of the memos claimed that the black boxes had been found 50 days after the downing and the decision had been made to keep it a secret. The third memo states that the analysis of the black box tapes showed no evidence of the Soviet fighter plane trying to contact KAL 007 via radio nor any indication that the Korean crew was aware of warning shots had been fired.

In December 1992, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) voted to re-open the investigation of KAL 007 since new information had been released by the Russian government. On January 8, 1993, the Russian government handed over the tapes from the black boxes to the ICAO in Paris, France. The investigating committee was also given recordings of ground to air communication of the Soviet military at the time of the downing. The recordings were transcribed by the French aviation security department, under the watchful eyes of representatives from Japan, the Russian Federation, South Korea and the United States.

Analysis from the black box recordings showed that both tapes stopped recording one minute and 44 seconds after the missile hit the airliner but investigators also found that both recordings had been spliced at four different locations which indicated that they had been tampered with and no longer held any real value; thus, they could not tell what happened to the airliner after the missile attack.

In January 1996, Hans Ephraimson-Abt claimed that the South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan had accepted $4 million from Korean Air in order to give the airline government protection during future investigations.

CONCLUSION

The Soviet Union dissolved in 1991 and Yeltsin tried to release documents about the downing of KAL 007 but the truth is still not coming forth and someone is stonewalling this murderous act even though the Soviet Union is gone. It is ironic that the Russian Federation (the new Russian government) held an official enquiry in 1993 and issued a decree that absolved the Soviet hierarchy of blame, determining the incident was a case of mistaken identity. The three major players in the downing were Premier Yuri Andropov, Defense Minister Dmitry Ustinov and KGB Director Viktor Chebrikov have all died. President Ronald Reagan is also dead and so is some of his inner circle. After all, dead men do not talk!

All the evidence points out that KAL 007 was able to descend and land on the water close to the shore. Soviet radar followed the plane and so did airborne Soviet fighters. The Korean airliner landed just as the U.S. Airways Flight 1549 was able to land on the Hudson River in New York in January of 2009. It sank after the landing but not before the passengers were safely taken off the plane. It must have been the same way for KAL 007. Additionally, Flight 1549 was raised from the water intact and taken away on a barge so that the plane could be examined and the luggage retrieved. It was not broken into many pieces.

If we compare KAL 007 with Air France 447 en route from Brazil to France on June 1, 2009 when it crashed in the Atlantic Ocean, the airliner carried 216 passengers and a crew of 12. Six days after the crash the first debris and bodies were recovered. Even though the crash site was some 9,800 feet under water, more than 400 pieces of the aircraft floated up to the surface, including 51 bodies. Wreckage of KAL 007 was found at a depth of about 570 feet and not one body, suitcase or piece of the aircraft floated ashore.

I believe that the Soviets got the people off the plane and moved the plane to land where they took off all cargo, including people’s suitcases. The black boxes were removed and then the plane was towed out to sea where it was destroyed by explosion, which would scatter it into small pieces. The passengers were forced to give up their shoes along with other items, which were taken out to sea and dropped off. The Soviets knew that in time they would float to Japanese beaches.

According to secret reports leaked by intelligence operations, Congressman Larry McDonald was taken to Moscow along with the cockpit crew. Most likely some of the passengers were killed, their bodies cut up and they were also tossed into the water in order to deceive the U.S. Navy that the airliner had exploded in the mid-air and crashed into the sea.

The majority of the passengers and the crew were taken to gulags where they endured a miserable existence until the Soviet Union was about to collapse when they were executed and buried. Larry McDonald was most likely tortured to find out what secrets he knew and killed together with the cockpit crew. It is possible that the Soviets had pity on the small children and placed them in state orphanages.

Does this sound like fantasy? Can it possibly be true? Let me remind you of the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, whom the Soviets snagged after World War II and imprisoned for some ten years before they finally killed him.^[8]

Interestingly, “Korean Air Lines” changed its name to “Korean Air” seven months later in March of 1984 with a radical change in logo and colors painted on their aircraft.

President Ronald Reagan has been projected as a great man that was instrumental in the destruction of the Soviet Union. In reality he was just another political actor, who served as a figurehead for a shadow government and gave his consent to the murder of Larry McDonald and all the people who were on board that airplane. Ronald Reagan was not a great man but he was a great actor.

“When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.” (Proverbs 29:2)

Volume 17, 2010