- "The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies
is to create a one-world government combining supercapitalism and Communism
under the same tent, all under their control.... Do I mean conspiracy?
Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope,
generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent." -- Rep.
Larry McDonald
-
-
- Congressman Larry McDonald
-
-
-
- We were told KAL-007 had been shot down by the Soviet
Union in 1983. On that plane was Congressman Larry McDonald, the last
vocal opponent of the conspiracy in Congress, a man who was very effectively
exposing the symbiosis between anti-middle-class conspiracy capitalism
and anti-bourgeois police-state communism (watch the Crossfire interview
linked below).
-
 Avraham Shifrin
-
- Researching the Soviet Gulag, Shifrin, met oppositon
in Israel when he sought to make known his findings on KAL-007
- Avraham Shifrin, an émigré from the Soviet
Union who established the Research Centre for Soviet Prisons, Psych-prisons
and Forced-Labor Concentration Camps in Israel conducted research into
the downing of KAL 007. He encountered opposition to the public disclosure
of the results of his investigation. In 1991, he scheduled a press conference
to lay out the evidence for the survival of KAL 007 and those aboard and
their subsequent incarceration by the Soviets. The day before the conference
took place, persons claiming to be from the Research Centre office contacted
the various media representatives invited and stated that the press conference
had been cancelled. To Shifrin's total surprise, none of the correspondents
contacted came to the conference.
-
- "The time of greatest observable opposition to my
work was in the middle 1990's."
-
-
- "The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies
is to create a one-world government combining supercapitalism and Communism
under the same tent, all under their control.... Do I mean conspiracy?
Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope,
generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent." -- Rep.
Larry McDonald
-
-
- First see why they concluded they had to get rid of this
man:
-
- Listen to the McDonald speaking about the conspiracy
on the Sunday Morning political news program "Crossfire" with
journalist and CFR member Tom Braden and columnist and token humble-origins-conservative
columnist Pat Buchanan. No one watching this can walk away from it saying
the John Birch Society wasn't right on every point McDonald makes or that
at the time of this interview know one but the conspirators themselves
knew how exactly right he was.
-
- http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3100752722910819372&q=%
22larry+mcdonald%22&total=14&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
-
-
- http://www.savethemales.ca ( now Henry Makow.com )
-
- February 18, 2008
-
- Larry McDonald easily handles Buchanan and Braden in
his May 1983 Crossfire interview.. You can see why he had to be "accidented"
4 months later on KAL 007. McDonald had seen the connection between Wall
Street and the Communists and was openly expounding this critical nexus
in 1983.
-
- I always wondered what happened to The John Birch Society
(JBS). I was not a member but I had an older friend who shared her JBS
material with me back in the late 1950s until about 1963 when I entered
SMU as a freshman. I thought the JBS was an excellent organization with
true American goals. Their educational materials impressed me as very well
researched and written.
-
- According to JBS material I found on-line: In 1979, Gen.
Patton's cousin, Congressman Lawrence McDonald, founded the Western Goals
Foundation in Arlington, Virginia as a front for the JBS intelligence network.
McDonald directed the organization until his untimely death in the downing
of the Korean airliner, KAL 007 in 1983, the year he also succeeded Robert
Welch as JBS Chairman. Western Goals was discontinued in 1986 following
a power struggle for McDonald's position.http://www.watch.pair.com/jbs-cnp.html
-
- "The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies
is to create a one-world government combining supercapitalism and communism
under the same tent, all under their control. Do I mean conspiracy? Yes
I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations
old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent." --Congressman Larry
P. McDonald, 1976, (killed in the Korean Airlines 747 that was shot down
by the Soviets)
-
- "The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance
of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite,
unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert
almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date
complete files containing even the most personal information about the
citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieve/review by
the authorities." -- Zbigniew Brzezinski, CFR member, founding member
of the Trilateral Commission, National Security Advisor to five US presidents
-
- "There does exist, and has existed for a generation,
an institutional Anglophile network which opperates, to some extent, in
the way the radical Right believes the Communists act. In fact, this network,
which we may identify as the Round Table Groups(Lord Milner's crew), has
no aversion to cooperating with the communists, or any other groups, and
frequently does so. I know of the opperations of this network because I
have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years in the
early 1960s to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion
to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close
to it and to many of its instruments. I have objected, both in the past
and recently, to a few of its policies but in general my chief difference
of opinion is that it wishes to remain unknown, and I believe its role
in history is significant enough to be known." --Dr. Carroll Quigley,
author of " Tragedy and Hope "(1966), CFR member, professor and
mentor to Bill Clinton at Georgetown University
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carroll_Quigley
- http://forums.myspace.com/t/3777503.aspx?fuseaction=forums.viewthread
-
-
- Dick Eastman
- oldickeastman@q.com
-
- -----
-
- http://www.maebrussell.com/Mae%20Brussell%20Articl
es/Who%20Killed%20Larry%20McDonald.html
-
- From: bangla-vision@yahoogroups.com
- On Behalf Of Dick Eastman
- Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008
- Subject: [bangla-vision] Remember Congressman Larry McDonald
who was anti- CFR and anti-Trilateral Commission was shot down when KAL
007 veered off course and headed for North Korea
-
- "The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies
is to create a one-world government combining supercapitalism and Communism
under the same tent, all under their control.... Do I mean conspiracy?
Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope,
generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent." -- Congressman
Larry P. McDonald, 1976, killed in the S Korean Airlines 747 that was shot
down by the Soviets (or so the official story goes)
-
- "The John Birch Society has been proven to have
been right all along. The CFR and Trilateral Commission are organizations
working to dissolve the United States as a nation and to stand up a totalitarian
world government under the communist system of command and control."
-- Vicky Davis
-
- Remember Congressman Larry McDonald who was anti- CFR
and anti-Trilateral Commission who was shot down when KAL 007 veered off
course and headed for North Korea? McDonald was both a friend of Ronald
Reagan and the new elected leader of the John Birch Society. McDonald
was not a friend of Vice President Bush nor the globalists who had taken
over access to Reagan and were dictating the captured president's economic
and foreign policies.
-
- ----------------
-
- Held Lubyanka prison under instructions of David Rockefeller
friend and co-globalist Mikehail Gorbachev as a favor to CFR conspirators?
Read what follows.
-
-
-
- Gorbachev was on the Politburo during this time coinciding
with a three year period in which Soviet leaders Brezhnev, Andorpov and
Chernenko all died in rapid succession, raising Gorbachev to the position
of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in just
three years. Making Russia safe for the "Russian" Mafia and
and some Jewish economists from Harvard to begin transitioning Russia
through privatization of production and auctioning off of national resources
to the unsuspected advantages of freedom under globalist capitalism.
-
-
-
-
- Schlossberg: We have.... Right after the shoot-down,
there was a Russian pastor held in a Soviet prison, and there were a whole
bunch of Westerners who came into that prison the same week as the shoot-down,
dressed in civilian clothes. After awhile they put on regular prison clothes.
This pastor came to the United States, and actually we got in touch with
him through a mission organization that had contact with this pastor in
Russia. He wanted to tell his story why he believed they were the KAL 007
people, the Westerners. I might say, the report that came in to Avraham
was that the passengers were taken off the plane by the patrol boats and
they were brought to Sakhalin and at Sakhalin they were separated into
groups. The children were brought over to the mainland and the children
were basically distributed for adoption. When contacted, the Russian pastor
refused to speak about the matter because he feared for the safety of his
family still in Russia.
-
- Larry McDonald has the most tracking. It's still not
on the level of hard evidence, but credible evidence, meaning it is something
that has got to be checked on by somebody who has the means to follow it
through. According to our reports, McDonald wound up in Lubyanka [KGB prison]
and was interrogated by Vladimir Kryuchkov, the head of the First Chief
Directorate of the KGB. He was taken to Lefortovo KGB prison, also in Moscow,
and then taken to Sukhanova, to a dascha [summer house], where he was interrogated
under drugs, and the report from there was that he no longer had an identity,
they robbed him of his ability to know who he was. Eventually he was taken
to Karaganda, which is a transit prison, in Kazakhstan. Of course at that
time, Kazakhstan was part of the Soviet Union. And that was the last tracking
of him, at a prison north of Karaganda, called Temir Tau.
-
- These reports are from people at the time in the Soviet
Union, but there are other reports that we received. These are reports
from people who are family members of the passengers, directed to us discreetly.
One woman got a phone call, and she recognized immediately the voice of
her husband who had been a passenger on the plane, and then the conversation
was cut off.... These are the types of things that we have. And it is still
going on, we're still getting information and contacts.
-
-
-
-
-
- Around May of 1983, approximately 4 months before being
shot down in KAL 007, Congressman Larry McDonald took on Pat Buchanan and
Council on Foreign Relations member, Tom Braden on Crossfire. They badgered
him about his new role as Chairman of the John Birch Society. He easily
handled them and answered questions concerning the Elite's Conspiracy for
a One World Government. Some things survive the test of time. It is interesting
to consider how many of the assertions; that were ridiculed 1983, have
since been proven to be accurate and amazingly perceptive.
-
- Congressman speaks the truth on "Crossfire:"
- http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3100752722910819372&q=%22la
rry+mcdonald%22&total=14&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
-
- As you watch, reflect on the present situation that we
now have. Consider NAFTA, NAU, WTO, FTAA, or such things as going to war
on UN resolutions.
-
- Ask yourself this: How many things that were ridiculed
1983, have now been admitted?
-
- Ask yourself this: How many things that were ridiculed
1983, have now revealed so clearly that they can no longer be denied?
-
- Congressman Larry McDonald, President of the John Birch
Society, was
- the target of the Soviet attack on Korean Airlines Flight
007.
-
- Propagandists will have you to believe that history's
greatest mass murderers just ACCIDENTALLY killed their most powerful enemy
in the world. The FIRST news reports said that the plane was forced to
land on Sakhalin.
-
- http://thenewamerican.com/node/392
-
- =====================================
-
- http://www.thenewamerican.com/history/world/270-kal-flight-007-remembered
-
- September 1, 2008
-
- KAL Flight 007 Remembered
- by Warren Mass
-
- It has been 25 years since Korean Airlines Flight 007,
carrying 269 passengers and crew, including Congressman Larry McDonald
of Georgia, was fired on by a Soviet fighter jet off the coast of Siberia.
At the time, McDonald was chairman of the John Birch Society (a subsidiary
of which publishes THE NEW AMERICAN).
-
- Although several speakers eulogized McDonald at a Washington,
D.C., memorial service 10 days following the September 1, 1983 attack,
the words most remembered by both this magazine's editor, Gary Benoit,
and this writer were delivered by the late Senator Jesse Helms, who passed
away on July 4. Senator Helms, along with Senator Steve Symms of Idaho
and Representative Carroll Hubbard, Jr. of Kentucky, were headed for the
same conference in Seoul, South Korea, as was Congressman McDonald, but
on a different plane (KAL 015). Both planes, flying on schedules just minutes
apart, stopped at Anchorage, Alaska, for refueling, and passengers from
each could deplane and stretch their legs. McDonald decided to stay onboard,
but Senator Helms opted to visit the terminal, where he mingled with passengers
from the doomed KAL 007. During the layover, Helms met two little girls
who were passengers on McDonald's plane, Noel Anne Grenfell, five, and
her sister Stacy Marie, three. The senator spoke about the encounter to
the 4,000 people gathered at the McDonald memorial service, and often again
in the years that followed:
-
- I'll never forget that night when that plane was just
beside ours at Anchorage airport with two little girls and their parents.
I taught them, among other things, to say I love you in deaf [sign] language,
and the last thing they did when they turned the corner was stick up their
little hands and tell me they loved me.
-
- Few who heard the story forgot it, and there was not
a dry eye in the house that sultry Washington afternoon.
-
- President Ronald Reagan made a strongly worded speech
on national television on September 5, 1983, during which he called the
attack a "crime against humanity" that had "absolutely no
justification, either legal or moral." He used the word "massacre"
six times to describe the attack against a civilian airliner, and boldly
proclaimed: "This attack was not just against ourselves or the Republic
of Korea. This was the Soviet Union against the world and the moral precepts
which guide human relations among people everywhere."
-
- But the actions of the Reagan administration fell far
short of the president's flamboyant rhetoric. Our government offered no
meaningful resistance to the Soviet harassment of U.S. search-and-rescue
efforts in the Sea of Japan as Soviet ships interfered with U.S. and Japanese
naval vessels and helicopters attempting to find and recover KAL 007 and
its black box.
-
- More meaningfully, Reagan failed to follow through on
his tough talk by employing any of the means possible to punish the Soviets,
such as trade sanctions. In fact, over time, his administration increased
trade with the Soviet Union. Already on September 1, 1984, the Associated
Press reported: "Secretary of State George Shultz says the Soviet
Union's shooting down of a South Korean airliner one year ago should not
preclude improvement of relations."
-
- That one or more Soviet fighter jets were responsible
for shooting down a civilian airliner and that one of the passengers on
that plane was a U.S. congressman and that the official U.S. response to
the incident was pathetically weak are easily established facts. However,
key details about exactly what happened to the plane and its passengers
clash with the official conclusion that the stricken airliner plummeted
into the sea killing all aboard.
-
- What Really Happened?
-
- Because the attack against KAL 007 took place just after
it had exited Soviet airspace and the plane went down in Soviet territory,
most of what we know comes from three sources: first, highly suspect early
reports from the Soviets; second, radio transmissions to and from the Soviet
fighter jets and their ground commanders (handed over by the Russian Federation
years later); and, third, transmissions from the airliner's flight crew
to Tokyo air traffic controllers. Radar tracking by Japanese stations also
provided key information.
-
- As mentioned earlier, KAL 007 was one of two Korean Airlines
planes en route to Seoul, Korea, after both stopped at Anchorage for refueling.
The aircraft's flight plan called for it to fly southwest from Anchorage
to Japan, flying over the Pacific east of the Soviet Kamchatka Peninsula
and Kuril Islands, then across the Sea of Japan to South Korea. The flight's
designated corridor, Romeo 20, passed just 1712 miles from Soviet airspace
off the Kamchatka coast. However, for reasons still unexplained, the plane
gradually, but steadily, deviated from its planned course until it crossed
the Kamchatka Peninsula, home to the Soviet's Far East Fleet Inter-Continental
Ballistic Nuclear Submarine Base. The timing for straying into this area
could not have been worse. It was but a few short hours before the time
that Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, Soviet Chief of General Staff, had set for
the test firing of the SS-25, an illegal (according to SALT II agreements)
mobile Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). The Kamchatka Peninsula
was the designated target area for the missile. Though the incursion sent
Soviet air defenses on high alert and fighters were scrambled, the situation
calmed down as KAL 007 crossed the peninsula and reentered international
airspace over the Sea of Okhotsk.
-
- Continuing on a southwestward course, KAL 007 reentered
Soviet airspace over Sakhalin Island, and fighters were scrambled with
orders to "destroy the target." An exchange of communications
between General Valeri Kamensky, the Commander of the Soviet Far East District
Air Defense Forces, and his subordinate, General Anatoli Kornukov, commander
of Sokol Air Base, revealed a difference of opinion about how much verification
was required before destroying the aircraft. A monitored radio transmission
recorded Kamensky as stating: "We must find out, maybe it is some
civilian craft or God knows who." General Kornukov defiantly replied:
"What civilian? [It] has flown over Kamchatka! It [came] from the
ocean without identification. I am giving the order to attack if it crosses
the State border."
-
- An article in the New York Times of December 9, 1996,
quoted Major Gennadi Osipovich, the pilot of the SU-15 Interceptor that
fired on the plane: "From the flashing lights and the configuration
of the windows, he recognized the aircraft as a civilian type of plane....
'I saw two rows of windows and knew that this was a Boeing,' he said. 'I
knew this was a civilian plane. But for me this meant nothing. It is easy
to turn a civilian type of plane into one for military use.' "
-
- During one exchange, General Kornukov expressed frustration
with the amount of time Major Osipovich was taking to get into attack position:
"Oh, [obscenities] how long does it take him to get into attack position,
he is already getting out into neutral waters. Engage afterburner immediately.
Bring in the MiG 23 as well.... While you are wasting time it will fly
right out [of Soviet airspace]."
-
- Major Osipovich reported starkly at one point in the
transcript: "The target is destroyed."
-
- As it happened, however, Osipovich was wrong; the "target"
had not been destroyed. Subsequent radio transmissions from KAL 007 indicated
that while the crew had problems in controlling the altitude of the plane
(it had climbed on its own) and that the cabin had depressurized, First
Officer Son had reported to the plane's Captain Chun: "Engines normal,
sir." Captain Chun then turned off the plane's autopilot and took
manual control of the plane, stabilizing it at 35,000 feet, its original
altitude. He also contacted controllers at Tokyo, requested that they "give
instructions," and reported he was "descending to one zero thousand
[10,000 feet]."
-
- According to the transcripts, there was no further transmission
from KAL 007, a factor that has been widely interpreted (or misinterpreted)
to mean that the airliner either exploded or crashed into the sea at that
point. But the plane was tracked on radar for more than 10 minutes after
the last recorded transcript, and was picked up on radar flying at 16,424
feet four minutes after the attack. Eight minutes later, radar showed that
the plane was still at 1,000 feet, indicating that the rate of descent
had slowed - not what one would expect if the plane had plummeted into
the sea as claimed. The pilot's request for "instructions" also
indicates that he still had control over the aircraft, or else such a request
would have been pointless.
-
- When Soviet General Kornukov was informed that the plane
had changed course to the north he was incredulous: "Well, I understand
[that the plane turned north], I do not understand the result, why is the
target flying? Missiles were fired. Why is the target flying? [obscenities]
Well, what is happening?" Of course, the fact that the plane changed
direction suggests not only that the pilot was able to steer the aircraft
but that he was going to attempt an emergency landing.
-
- Kornukov then ordered that a MIG 23 be brought in to
finish the job. However, due to KAL 007's descent and heavy cloud cover,
they could not locate the plane. The Soviet interceptors, low on fuel,
returned to their base without having sighted the plane. The Soviets' radar
told them, however, that the plane had descended to 16,424 feet and was
flying a spiral pattern over Moneron Island, in the Tartar Strait 24 miles
west of Sakhalin Island.
-
- Finally, 12 minutes after the attack, KAL 007 disappeared
from radar, after dipping below the 1,000-foot level near Moneron Island.
The Soviets immediately dispatched squadrons of KGB Border Guard boats,
rescue helicopters, and even civilian trawlers to Moneron Island.
-
- In the United States, the news broadcasts the evening
of the disappearance of KAL 007 reported that the missing aircraft had
landed safely on Sakhalin Island. But by the following morning those initial
reports were forgotten, and the news was that the plane had been destroyed.
-
- Putting the Pieces Together
-
- For several reasons (not the least of which was that
he had been invited by Rep. McDonald to travel with him on KAL 007 and
that he also had that touching encounter with the two little girls from
the plane), Senator Jesse Helms always took a strong interest in the mysterious
fate of this airliner. During the two-year period following the tragedy,
Helms proposed eight specific sanctions against the Soviets to punish them
for that heinous act, but both Congress and the Reagan White House worked
to defeat those sanctions. In 1991, Senator Helms, as Minority Leader of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, issued a report that noted: "KAL
007 probably ditched successfully, there may have been survivors, the Soviets
have been lying massively, and diplomatic efforts need to be made to return
the possible survivors."
-
- On December 10, 1991, just five days after Senator Helms
had written to President Boris Yeltsin of the newly established Russian
Soviet Federated Socialist Republic concerning the whereabouts of U.S.
servicemen who were POWs or MIAs, he sent a second letter to Yeltsin concerning
KAL 007. Helms wrote: "One of the greatest tragedies of the Cold War
was the shoot-down of the Korean Airlines flight KAL-007 by the Armed Forces
of what was then the Soviet Union on September 1, 1983.... The KAL-007
tragedy was one of the most tense incidences of the entire Cold War. However,
now that relations between our two nations have improved substantially,
I believe that it is time to resolve the mysteries surrounding this event."
- Senator Helms attached a list of questions to his letter,
some of which indicated that he believed that the passengers had survived
the crash or landing. These included:
-
- 1. From Soviet reports of the incident, please provide:
-
- a) A list of the names of any living passengers and crew
members from the airplane;
-
- b) A list of missing passengers and crew;
-
- c) A list of dead passengers and crew;
-
- d) A list and explanation of what happened to the bodies
of any dead passengers and crew;
- Helms also asked: "Please provide detailed information
on the fate of U.S. Congressman Larry McDonald."
- Finally, pressing the point even more bluntly, Helms
asked:
-
- 1. How many KAL-007 family members and crew are being
held in Soviet camps?
-
- 2. Please provide a detailed list of the camps containing
live passengers and crew, together with a map showing their location.
-
- Why did Senator Helms choose this particular time to
make this request of Yeltsin? For one thing, the old Soviet Union was in
the process of reinventing itself as the Russian Federation and other republics.
This was seen as a period of "thaw" in U.S.-Russian relations
and Senator Helms thought that Yeltsin might be more cooperative than his
predecessors. However, he had also received information that led him to
question not only the details of the attack, but the post-attack fate of
the passengers and crew.
- A major source of that information had been Avraham Shifrin,
a former major in the Soviet army and criminal investigator in the Krasnador
area of the Crimea, who was employed at the Soviet Ministry of Weapons
before becoming a slave-labor prisoner. Shifrin is best known for his 1980
book The First Guidebook to Prisons and Concentration Camps of the Soviet
Union. Shifrin, who passed away in 1998, immigrated to Israel, where he
established the Research Centre for Prisons, Psych-Prisons, and Forced
Labor Concentration Camps of the USSR. His contacts included not only former
prisoners inside and outside the Soviet Union but even officials within
the Soviet government. As he explained during an interview when on an extensive
speaking tour in the United States sponsored by the John Birch Society
in 1983-84, "Because I was the chief legal adviser in the [Soviet]
Ministry of War Equipment, I have many contacts. When I was in prison,
my friends became important in the war industry."
-
- In 1991, Shifrin issued a press release saying his investigation
into the fate of the KAL 007 passengers indicated that many, including
Larry McDonald, were secretly kidnapped and held by the Soviet Union.
- THE NEW AMERICAN recently contacted a former associate
of Shifrin in Israel, Bert Schlossberg (the author of Rescue 007: The Untold
Story of KAL 007 and Its Survivors), to find out what he had learned about
Flight 007. Schlossberg immigrated to Israel about 20 years ago and settled
in a small community north of Jerusalem just opposite the hill where Avraham
Shifrin worked. He got to know Shifrin quite well and became privy to the
information that was coming to him, mainly by people who had left the Soviet
Union. He became director of an organization formed in 2001, the International
Committee for the Rescue of KAL 007 Survivors, Inc., whose mission is "to
uncover and disseminate the truth about the KAL 007 incident and to effect
the rescue and return home of its survivors." When we reached Schlossberg
in Jerusalem by phone, he was so eager to share his knowledge of KAL Flight
007 with us that we have space for only a small part of that interview:
-
- THE NEW AMERICAN: You are the son-in-law of one of the
passengers of Korean Air Lines Flight 007. Was your interest in discovering
the truth about the incident at first mainly a personal one?
-
- Bert Schlossberg: My wife's father and cousin, Alfredo
Cruz and Edith Cruz, were passengers on the plane. All the years since
it happened, until I met Avraham Shifrin, I had accepted, pretty much like
everybody else did, that they were all dead. The hardest thing was to accept
that they were alive, or might be alive and in a bad situation. I asked
for some kind of evidence. He put me in touch with a former military man,
an immigrant to Israel that had worked at the radar station just opposite
Sakhalin Island, across the Tartar Straits on the Siberian eastern coast.
He worked in an underground headquarters (HQ 1848). It was a radar installation.
And he told me the story of what they had seen on their radar scopes. They
had tracked KAL 007 before it was hit and after it was hit and they said
that it descended very gradually to a point that was 1,000 feet above the
surface of the sea and then disappeared from their radar scope because
of the curvature of the Earth. Because the original announcement that it
disappeared from the radar screen, everybody assumed that was because it
exploded but he said "no" it was not that - it was because they
couldn't track it. That began my quest - as did the work of Avraham Shifrin,
whose work was conveyed to Jesse Helms, and to the Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations. And Jesse said the CIA could verify the materials and
they did verify the most important part of what Avraham Shifrin was receiving
- that the plane had landed and landed on the water.
-
- TNA: What resulted from Shifrin's report to Senator Helms?
-
- Schlossberg: Because the report was positive, and because
it indicated that there was a probability of survivors, that encouraged
Jesse Helms to write to Boris Yeltsin. We've got a letter (under "Documents")
on our website from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Minority Staff
Director under Helms, Rear Admiral Bud Nance, confirming that Jesse Helms
wrote that letter on December 10, 1991 to Boris Yeltsin because of the
information coming from Israel. [Note: THE NEW AMERICAN has reviewed the
letter to Avraham Shifrin from Rear Admiral Nance, which said, in part:
"The letter [to Boris Yeltsin] inquiring about the fate of KAL-007
is a direct result of your information."]
-
- TNA: Did Senator Helms' letter to Yeltsin produce any
tangible results?
-
- Schlossberg: Boris Yeltsin came forth with the real-time
Russian military communications, during shoot-down, after shoot-down....
The work of the International Committee for the Rescue of KAL 007 Survivors
is based mainly or largely on these Russian military communications....
And basically, the picture that the committee was able to get from the
tapes and coordinate with the military documents, was that the plane was
rocketed, and the two missiles were set off by the interceptor pilot, Gennadi
Osipovich, one rocket was a heat-seeking missile and it missed.... The
pilot said he took off the left wing, well the plane can't fly without
a left wing. But what the cockpit voice recorder shows - you see it on
the transcript - the co-pilot [of KAL 007] reported twice back after the
fact, "All engines normal, Sir." Plus the broadcast was made
on a high-frequency radio and the high-frequency radio [antenna] was on
the tip of the left wing - so that left wing was intact. The plane could
be flown. The plane rose - because the crossover cable of the elevator
was destroyed - then Captain Chun got control, took it out of auto-pilot
and began to descend and level out at 5,000 meters.... This was not on
the [black box] tape that the Russians returned and that's probably the
reason why they did not return the whole tape, just a minute and 44 seconds
of it.
-
- Helms also asked in that letter for the locations of
the camps where the passengers were kept, he asked for the fate of Larry
McDonald, he asked for all the Russian military communications, the radio
tracks, etc., and Yeltsin would reply to everything except about the passengers.
-
- TNA: Some reports have come out about sightings of Flight
007 passengers from people in prison camps. Have you received similar information?
-
- Schlossberg: We have.... Right after the shoot-down,
there was a Russian pastor who was in a Soviet prison, and there were a
whole bunch of Westerners who came into that prison the same week as the
shoot-down, dressed in civilian clothes. After awhile they put on regular
prison clothes. This pastor came to the United States, and actually we
got in touch with him through a mission organization that had contact with
this pastor in Russia. He wanted to tell his story why he believed they
were the KAL 007 people, the Westerners. I might say, the report that came
in to Avraham was that the passengers were taken off the plane by the patrol
boats and they were brought to Sakhalin and at Sakhalin they were separated
into groups. The children were brought over to the mainland and the children
were basically distributed for adoption. When contacted, the Russian pastor
refused to speak about the matter because he feared for the safety of his
family still in Russia.
-
- Larry McDonald has the most tracking. It's still not
on the level of hard evidence, but credible evidence, meaning it is something
that has got to be checked on by somebody who has the means to follow it
through. According to our reports, McDonald wound up in Lubyanka [KGB prison]
and was interrogated by Vladimir Kryuchkov, the head of the First Chief
Directorate of the KGB. He was taken to Lefortovo KGB prison, also in Moscow,
and then taken to Sukhanova, to a dascha [summer house], where he was interrogated
under drugs, and the report from there was that he no longer had an identity,
they robbed him of his ability to know who he was. Eventually he was taken
to Karaganda, which is a transit prison, in Kazakhstan. Of course at that
time, Kazakhstan was part of the Soviet Union. And that was the last tracking
of him, at a prison north of Karaganda, called Temir Tau.
-
- These reports are from people at the time in the Soviet
Union, but there are other reports that we received. These are reports
from people who are family members of the passengers, directed to us discreetly.
One woman got a phone call, and she recognized immediately the voice of
her husband who had been a passenger on the plane, and then the conversation
was cut off.... These are the types of things that we have. And it is still
going on, we're still getting information and contacts.
-
- TNA: In recent years there has been a great deal of reporting
about the new Russia and how it is not like the old Soviet Union. Do you
think a lot of this is a myth - that if the Russian Federation truly were
as democratic and as free as they're pretending to be that these prisons
would be open and that they'd voluntarily be releasing these people on
their own?
-
- Schlossberg: The KGB may not be there under the same
name, but other people operate the same way. Avraham Shifrin made this
comment to me: "Of course they're there, of course, the KGB still
exists, forget about the name. What you do look at is the benefit, they're
on the benefit role, the same people that were on the KGB are under a new
name getting the same benefits, the same personnel."
- Seeking Resolution
-
- Such reports of KAL Flight 007 passengers still being
held in Russia are, of course, disturbing. But given the amount of intelligence
that is available from the Russian government and our own, we do not presently
have the means to confirm them. Neither, however, do we have any reason
to dismiss them, and as long as the possibility remains that any passengers
have survived, no means should be spared to account for their whereabouts.
-
- The late Robert W. Lee researched KAL 007 extensively
for TNA.
-
- =====================================================
-
-
-
- http://www.rescue007.org/faq.htm
-
-
- What do we know about the final minutes of KAL 007's
flight and how do we know it?
-
- Records exist covering the flight of KAL 007 for a total
of twelve minutes after it was attacked. At the time of the attack, the
plane was cruising at an altitude of about 35,000 feet. Immediately upon
impact, the nose pitched up and the plane rose to an altitude of 38,250
feet. Capt. Chun was able to turn off the autopilot and regain control
of the aircraft bringing it back down to the cruising altitude of about
35,000 feet. This took 1 minute and 13 seconds (see Question 5 in this
FAQ). Three minutes after being hit, the plane was at 30,000 feet (Republican
Staff Study/"CIA Report", pg. 45, based on Japanese Self Defense
Force radar, Wakkanai, Hokkaido, Japan). The Captain then began a rapid
emergency descent to 16,400 feet (reported as 5000 meters in the ICAO 1993
report) where passengers and crew could breathe without assistance. This
descent lasted for two minutes. There is some uncertainty about the progress
of KAL 007's descent for the next four minutes. One source indicates that
the plane descended slowly to 5,000 ft., then began circling and descending
more slowly to 1,000 ft over the final three minutes before disappearing.
Other sources indicate that Capt. Chun leveled the aircraft's flight at
16,400 ft. and flew for at least four minutes of level flight before beginning
a spiral descent that lasted until the plane went off the Soviet radar
screens. During the four-minute period, the plane was heading from Sakhalin
to Moneron Island.
-
- Though not all sources cover the full twelve minutes,
they all agree in presenting the composite picture that KAL 007 flew for
twelve minutes from the moment of attack until it disappeared from the
radar screens and that the speed of descent decreased (rather than increasing)
which, along with the flight pattern, demonstrates that the aircraft was
under control for the entire period. It finally circled Moneron, the only
landmass, a tiny island, in the entire Tatar Strait; the only place a water
ditching could be effected with the greatest possibility of survival once
Sakhalin had been left behind.
-
- We believe that KAL 007 did, indeed, level off at 5000
meters (16,400 ft.) and did maintain level flight until it had reached
Moneron Island where it descended in a wide spiral.
-
- The various pertinent sources are quoted below (all times
given are Greenwich Mean Time-Zulu. Missile detonation occurred at 18:26:02.):
-
- "After this fast, 5 minute spiral descent, but still
consistent with standard flight procedure in the circumstances, KAL-007
then remained airborne for at least about 7 more minutes, en route to a
location in Soviet territorial waters between Moneron Island and Sakhalin
Island. KAL-007 was thus airborne for a total post-attack flight time of
at least 12 minutes. Moreover, KAL-007's altitude after a total of 9 minutes
of flight was about 5,000 feet.
-
- "The original U.S. special intelligence raw data,
as publicly reported in the U.S. statement to the United Nations Security
Council on September 1, 1983 by U.S. Ambassador Charles Lichenstein, stated:
'At 1830 hours [after 4 minutes], the Korean aircraft was reported by radar
at an altitude of 5,000 meters...
-
- "Moreover, also on September 1, Secretary of State
George Shultz also stated more fully: 'At 1826 hours the Soviet pilot reported
that he fired a missile and the target was destroyed. At 1830 hours [or
4 minutes later] the Korean aircraft was reported by radar 5,000 meters
[16,400 feet]. At 1838 hours [12 minutes after being hit] the Korean plane
disappeared from the radar screen.'"
-
- Republican Staff Study/"CIA Report", pg. 43
(quoted exact, including bracketed comments and underlining) (Note: the
statement of 18:30 hours was later corrected to 18:31 hours.)
- Concerning KAL 007's ability to level out at 5000 meters
and maintain a level flight of 4 to 5 minutes, from transcripts included
with the 1993 ICAO Report Information Paper No. 1, pg. 134-135:
- Gen. Kornukov (18:32): Tell the 23 [MiG]... afterburner.
Open fire, destroy the target, then land at home base.
-
- Lt. Col. Gerasimenko (acting commander, 41st Fighter
Regiment, viewing radar): Roger
-
- Kornukov: Altitude... What is the altitude of our fighter
and the altitude of the target?
-
- Quickly. The altitude of the target and the altitude
of the fighter!
-
- ...
-
- Why don't you say anything? Gerasimenko!
-
- ...
-
- Gerasimenko (18:33): Gerasimenko. Altitude of target
is 5,000.
-
- Kornukov: 5,000 already?
-
- Gerasimenko (18:34): Affirmative, turning left, right,
apparently it is descending.
- "The last plotted radar position of the target was
18:35 hours at 5,000 meters." (ICAO 1993, pg. 53, para. 2.15.8)
- Concerning the location of KAL 007's descent, precisely
over the island of Moneron, from transcripts included with the 1993 ICAO
Report:
- Gen. Kornukov (18:36): ...you know the range, where
the target is. It is over Moneron...
- (ICAO, 1993, Information Paper No. 1, pg. 136.)
-
- Lt. Col. Novoseletsky (commander, Smirykh Air Force Base)
(18:39):
- So, the task. They say it has violated the State border
again now?
-
- Flight Controller Titovnin: Well, it is the area of
Moneron, of course, over our territory.
-
- Lt. Col. Novosletsky: Get it! Get it! Go ahead, bring
in the MiG 23
- (ICAO, 1993, Information Paper No. 1, pg. 90.)
-
- Gen. Strogov (18:55): What ships do we have near Moneron
Island, if [they are] civilians, sent (sic.) [them] there immediately
- (ICAO, 1993, Information Paper No. 1, pg. 96.)
- "The geographic coordinates, showing where KAL-007
was hit, where it then went, and where it disappeared from Soviet radars,
are known from special intelligence with a fair degree of precision, and
these points have been plotted on U.S. Intelligence maps. For example,
at 9 minutes after being hit, and at an altitude of 5,000 feet, KAL-007's
last tracked location, it was located approximately at co-ordinates 4617N-14115E.
The special intelligence showing Soviet radar tracks indicate a flight
path from Sakhalin Island toward Moneron Island, approaching from the North
headed toward the south, and a ditching or crash site probably inside Soviet
territorial waters, reportedly 2.6 kilometers North of Moneron Island,
according to the June, 1991 NSA re-analysis." [This location would
allow for the final 3 minutes to be spent circling around Moneron.] Republican
Staff Study/"CIA Report", pg. 46-47 (Note: "special intelligence"
refers to electronic intercepts.)
-
- --------------------
- Did KAL 007 land on Sakhalin or on the water off Moneron?
-
- Among those who are convinced that KAL 007 landed safely
and that the passengers were rescued and luggage removed, there are two
theories as to where the plane landed. Both theories and locations have
a measure of support. We believe that the plane ditched on the water off
the tiny island of Moneron but will present the pros and cons of each position.
The final result, in either case, is the same as far as we are concerned-the
passengers and crew were taken captive and were not killed in the destruction
of the plane.
-
- Sakhalin
- It has been pointed out that the earliest reports of
politically controversial events are often the most accurate. These are
the reports that become public before those who have a vested interest
in a specific viewpoint have the chance to begin efforts to control or
"spin" the reportage. The very first reports about the downing
of KAL 007 all stated that the plane landed on the large Soviet island
of Sakhalin, home to several military and commercial airfields. These reports
are amply documented in three articleswritten by Robert W. Lee for The
New American magazine. He has a copy of a tape recording of FAA spokesman,
Duty Officer Orville Brockman, notifying Congressman Larry McDonald's press
aide Tommy Toles that the plane was tracked to a landing on Sakhalin by
Japanese Self-Defense Force radar. Those who have listened to this tape
also comment on the tone as being very matter-of-fact which lends credence
to the idea that the spokesman believed his report to be true and was simply
passing on factual information rather than participating in any false reporting.
Other accounts include an article in the New York Times of September 1,
1983-the first article on the shootdown by that paper-stating that early
reports said the plane was forced down and landed on Sakhalin and that
all aboard were believed to be safe, and the very first UPI wire story,
dateline Seoul, Sept. 1, 1983 giving much the same information. These reports
came, according to the article, from Korean Foreign Ministry officials
based on US CIA reports to them. The President of Korean Airlines also
traveled to Japan on his way to Sakhalin to meet the passengers and crew,
apparently believing them to be alive. On the other hand, Fred Smith,
Congressman McDonald's administrative assistant, doubted these first reports
and went to the Pentagon for verification.
- There he learned that the plane had been shot down. (From
personal correspondence with the authors.)
-
- It is also logical that the pilot of a stricken aircraft,
especially if he continued to have a measure of control over it, would
look for the nearest and best place to land. This would certainly be a
regular runway rather than the open sea under cloudy skies in the dark.
-
- The problem with this view is that there is no other
evidence to support it and some of the early reporters later recanted;
whereas, there is considerable evidence from a variety of sources to support
the contention that the plane landed on the water off Moneron. None of
the reports of a landing on Sakhalin specify an airfield or designate any
specific landing site. It is conceivable that "Sakhalin" may
have been used to refer to the general area of the large island and that
it was passed along as being more precise than it really was meant to be.
-
- Moneron
-
-
 Here he was given special treatment
but was not allowed to communicate with anyone. In the summer of 1990,
he was taken to the transportation prison in Karaganda. Here, as an unknown
prisoner whose file is sealed by the KGB, he remained. As of 1995, all
efforts to obtain additional information from the Karaganda prison have
failed. The congressman's present location is unknown-it may be there
or he may have been moved since then.
-
- Child Passengers
- Efforts to track down the children of KAL 007 have been
very difficult. Many of the youngest ones were probably adopted into local
families. Some information was obtained about two young Caucasian sisters,
we believe they were the Grenfell children, Stacey and Noelle, ages 3 and
5, of Rochester, NY. It appears that they were placed in an orphanage
in Vladivostok until 1990. The older child, at about 12, was sent to Medical
School 3, a type of vocational high school, associated with the city hospital
in Khabarovsk for training. The girl in question, whom we think is Noelle,
graduated from there three years later then was taken elsewhere and her
file removed from the school and hospital. At this point, her trail was
lost. This information came from the director of the school.
-
- A Female Passenger
- Sources provided information on one young Oriental woman
who was set to work felling timber in the area of Tynda, Siberia. Prior
to 1985, she lost her left arm below the elbow in a work accident.
- Subsequently, she was sent across the vast Siberian landmass
to the extremely isolated village of Nakhodka on the Tazovskaya Guba (Inlet)
above the Arctic Circle where she remained until sometime in the late summer
of 1991 or 1992. By this time, she was married and had several children.
This village consists of some 20-30 houses occupied by local fishermen
and a few Russian exiles. The villagers live in sub-human conditions with
almost no contact with the outside world. Winter lasts for most of the
year and half the year is spent in Arctic darkness. The conditions are
so gruesome that the villagers-few of whom speak Russian-care for nothing
but survival and vodka.
-
- The villagers of Nakhodka thought that the woman was
of indigenous Nenets origin because of her Oriental features. She did
not mix with and was generally unknown to them. They were aware that she
had been removed by men in authority. This may have been because the KGB
had become aware of efforts by Avraham Shifrin and his Research Institute
to locate the woman. He had tried to get his people to this village a
year earlier, before she was moved, but promised funding to support the
effort did not come through. By the time he was able to raise the necessary
funds and recruit volunteers for this very dangerous mission, the woman
was gone.
-
- An important point to note is that, even when prisoners
were released for whatever reason, they were often sent to isolated villages
such as Nakhodka. While apparently having freedom of movement, there was
no escape from the pervasive KGB scrutiny. The Soviet KGB used local informants
to control residents of such villages. The informants were in turn controlled
by threats to the safety of family members who were taken into custody
for just this purpose-to serve as "leverage." The KGB would
select trusted members of the community to be their informants. They would
then test them by having someone utter anti-Soviet remarks in their presence.
When an informant did not report such a remark to his KGB "handler",
he would be informed that members of his family would be deprived of food.
If it happened again, they would be shot.
- Shifrin considered the ingenuity of the KGB to be both
"diabolical and 100 per cent effective."
-
- Even though the name has changed, the KGB is still as
pervasive and powerful as ever, even though it may keep a lower profile.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was with the KGB before entering into
politics.
- Moneron Island
-
- In regards to a water landing off Moneron, there are
a variety of sources, both official and unofficial, that supports this.
We consider it highly unlikely that they would (or could) conspire to present
a common false message.
-
- CIA/NSA sources as reported in the Republican Staff Study/"CIA
Report": There are several "special intelligence" or NSA
reports included in this study referring to radar tracking of the flight
and the behavior of Soviet Air Force planes.
-
- These reports include the information that KAL 007 descended
from an altitude of over 30,000 feet to 1,000 feet in a period of twelve
minutes in a constantly decelerating rate of speed. When the plane went
off Soviet radars it was dropping at an average rate of 22.2 feet per second.
-
- The following excerpt relates to the flight path:
- The geographic coordinates, showing where KAL-007 was
hit, where it then went, and where it disappeared from Soviet radars, are
known from special intelligence with a fair degree of precision, and these
points have been potted on U.S. Intelligence maps. For example, at 9 minutes
after being hit, and at an altitude of 5,000 feet, KAL-007's last tracked
location, it was located approximately at co-ordinates 4617N-14115E. The
special intelligence showing radar tracks indicates a flight path from
Sakhalin Island toward Moneron Island, approaching from the North headed
toward the South, and a ditching or crash site probably inside Soviet territorial
waters, reportedly 2.6 kilometers North of Moneron Island, according to
the June, 1991 NSA re-analysis. (Republican Staff Study/"CIA Report"
ppg. 46-47)
-
- The following excerpt relates to the location of the
site:
- According to special intelligence, one of Pilot Osipovich's
wingmen reported abut 15 minutes after KAL-007 disappeared from Soviet
radar that he was making "reference point circles." This fact
suggests that this interceptor was circling over the probable ditching
site or crash site of KAL-007, so that Soviet air defense radars could
more precisely locate the point.
-
- Soviet interceptors circled Moneron Island, according
to special intelligence... (Republican Staff Study/"CIA Report",
pg. 54)
-
- Soviet transcripts in the ICAO report: The transcripts
of Soviet ground communications appended to the 1993 ICAO report and presented
by Schlossberg in Chapter Three of Rescue 007, "Lost Over Moneron",
make it abundantly clear that the Soviet military authorities knew the
plane had gone off radar over Moneron after turning around the island.
Within minutes of the plane disappearing from their screens two different
rescue operations were ordered. Smirnykh Air Base Fighter Division Acting
Chief of Staff Lt. Col. Novoseletski called for rescue helicopters to be
sent to the area and Deputy Commander of the Far East Military District
Gen. Strogov called for all ships in the vicinity of Moneron to be sent
to the island immediately, both Border Guard and civilian ships.
-
- Eye witnesses as reported in the Republican Staff Study
/"CIA Report": There are two significant reports recorded in
the Republican Staff Study. The first, on page 47, states simply that Japanese
fisherman in the area testified that KAL 007 circled Moneron Island. The
second report is quoted here in full:
-
- The recent émigrés provide new information
that KAL-007 actually ditched successfully in Soviet territorial waters
between Moneron Island and Sakhalin Island, and reportedly that many passengers,
including Congressman Larry McDonald, may have survived. The ditched plane
was reportedly recovered largely intact by KGB Border Guard boats under
the command of KGB General Romanenkov, and it was stripped of all its surviving
passengers and their luggage. The émigrés also report that
a Soviet helicopter pilot saw KAL-007 in one piece on the surface of the
ocean. It was then towed to Soviet territorial waters near Moneron, and
deliberately sunk in shallow waters inside Soviet territorial limits.
-
- But General Romanenko [sic] reportedly did not know what
to do with the survivors and their luggage, and he forgot to retrieve the
black boxes. He was reportedly disciplined by Ogarkov, relieved, and sent
to the Gulag himself, because he made mistakes and knew too much. (Republican
Staff Study/"CIA Report", pg 75)
- Russian émigré report to Bert Schlossberg-from
Rescue 007:
- The morning of August 9, 1991, Exie and I entered the
crowded lobby of the Jerusalem Hilton. We had come to meet Reuben V., a
former map maker assigned to Soviet Air Defense battery-Military unit 1845.
This was the radar unit that, according to Shifrin, had tracked KAL 007
to a safe water landing...
-
- Reuben, in such ways, conveyed to us the following story:
On September 1, 1983, his commanding officer, while yet a lieutenant on
night duty serving at Military Unit 1845 located on Soviet Gavan (the east
coast of Russia across from Sakhalin Island), had photographed his radar
screen which had been following the flight of KAL 007 for several minutes
prior to its being shot down. After missile impact, the radar had continued
tracking the jumbo jet for over 12 minutes-until it had descended to Point
Zero [1,000 ft.-the lowest level radar could track]. The name of Reuben's
superior officer was Ryzhkov. Ryzhkov and the whole of Military Unit 1845
were part of the underground staff headquarters located at Komsomolsk-na-amure.
-
- Ryzhkov told Reuben he was certain that KAL 007 had landed
safely. Nor was his the only radar station that had followed the flight
of the stricken passenger plane to point zero. Another of these was the
radar station at Yedinka, designated as Air Defense unit 2212 PT6. Reuben
drew a map of Soviet Gavan on hotel stationary and placed Yedinka southwest
of unit 1845 and on the coast. Ryzhkov told Reuben that he had used three
rolls of film, each containing 36 exposures, in photographing his radar
screen. (Independent confirmation that the radar screen was photographed
has been received recently in the Soviet Top Secret Memos published here
for the first time in English. See Memo number four.) These rolls, the
lieutenant said, were later confiscated by the KGB. All personnel at Unit
1845 as well as at the other radar stations were commanded to maintain
silence concerning the tracking of KAL 007. Everyone understood that the
penalty for disobeying this order would be death or exile.
-
- "Why would anyone tell you all this?" I asked
him. "Especially in light of the penalties?"
-
- "He was drunk," Reuben told us. "And he
was bitter. They had humiliated him-he had been passed over for promotion
while others involved in the incident went up a grade. And when he inquired
of the KGB why this was so, they told him that it was because he had failed
to load the camera. But Ryzhkov knew better." (Rescue 007 ppg. 42-44)
- Japanese radar showing KAL 007 to have flown past and
west of Sakhalin as reported in the ICAO report:
-
- At 23:30 hours [UTC or Greenwich Mean Time] JMSA [Japanese
Maritime Safety Agency] received information from JDA [Japanese Defense
Agency] that an aircraft had been observed on radar about 100 NM northeast
of Wakkanai, moving in a southwesterly direction. This contact was last
observed by the JDA Wakkanai radar surveillance station at 18:29 hours.
Following receipt of the above information, JMSA dispatched two patrol
vessels to the area west of Sakhalin Island and prepared two aircraft for
take-off at Wakkanai Airport. Between 06:10 and 14:30 hours, JMSA dispatched
eight additional patrol vessels to the waters west of Sakhalin Island.
(ICAO 1993 paragraph 1.11.5, pg. 17)
-
- While this does not point directly to Moneron, it clearly
shows a flight in that direction beyond Sakhalin and a search effort in
the waters between Sakhalin and Moneron or even waters west of Moneron
itself.
- Izvestia articles: The Izvestia articles contain mutually
contradictory material and testimony and, as such, are considered reliable
only to the extent that they agree with other sources. That being said,
there is a reference to KAL 007 circling twice around Moneron before descending
to (as thought by the author) a crash landing.
- The main problem with a water landing off of Moneron
is the extreme difficulty of accomplishing such a feat. Yet, airline pilots
do receive training for this eventuality and procedures for ditching passenger
aircraft are provided on all airlines. While reports of airliners ditching
at sea are rare, it has happened with passengers, in all cases, surviving.
(See Aircraft Ditchings for further information.) Additionally, KAL 007
pilot Chun Byung-In, a colonel in the Korean Air Force, was a seasoned
veteran, highly skilled in flying large aircraft. Because of his skill,
he had seen service as pilot on the Korean presidential aircraft flying
Korea's president to the US in 1982. If landing the Boeing 747 on the sea
could be done, Captain Chun could have done it.
-
- At the time of landing, it was dark and there was full
cloud cover at 2,000 meters.
-
- In addition to this, we have received a second hand report
that a US Air Force service man stationed near Wakkanai, Japan at the time
of the shoot down, stated that the area in question is visible from the
hills near there. He claims that no rescue operations were observed. However,
there is a problem with this in that Moneron is about 45 nautical miles
from Wakkanai (54 statute miles, 86 kilometers). The nearby islands of
Rebun and Rishiri have peaks over 1,700 meters (over 5,000 feet) high but
the peak on Hokkaido nearest to Wakkanai is about 15 miles inland and only
reaches 427 meters (Planet Earth Macmillan World Atlas). We do not know
where the US observation posts, referred to by the Airman, are located
but, if they are on Hokkaido near Wakkanai, they would not be high enough
to see to Moneron. As of this writing, we have not been able to determine
if there are hills near Wakkanai that are high enough for this observation.
If anyone reading this knows about this, please convey the information
to us.
-
- In addition to the difficulty of landing, the plane would
have to remain afloat long enough for passengers and baggage to be removed.
Baggage in the cargo hold could not be removed while the plane was afloat.
We believe that all baggage was removed. This could be accomplished by
divers after the plane sank by opening the cargo doors under water. Another
possibility is that this particular plane was outfitted with a special
cargo container on the main deck so that the below-deck area could be used
for other purposes. Korean Airlines did this with at least sixteen of their
aircraft. We are unable to determine whether or not this particular plane
was so equipped.
-
-
- ===============
-
- What happened to the surviving passengers and crew after
they were captured by the Soviets?
-
- Our knowledge of the whereabouts of members of passengers
and crew of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, shot down on August 31, 1983,
is based primarily on information received by the Research Centre for Prisons,
Psychprisons and Forced Labor Concentration Camps of the USSR. This research
center was established by the late Avraham Shifrin, an Israeli who had,
himself, spent time in the Soviet prison camp system. As a major in the
Red Army and prosecutor for the Krasnodar Region, northeast of the Crimea,
he was responsible for sending many to the Gulags. After he himself was
convicted on charges of spying for the US and Israel, he was sentenced
to ten years on the harshest of prisons; then seven years of exile in Kazakhstan.
Mr. Shifrin maintained an extensive network of contacts within the Soviet
Union and its successor states. Much of the information that we have was
obtained at great personal risk by his contacts.
-
- The Centre's investigations in 1989 to 1991 determined
that the passengers and crew of KAL 007 were taken, upon rescue, to the
KGB Coast Guard base on Sakhalin. Within a few days (by September 4, 1983),
everyone was taken to the KGB base at Sovetskaja Gavan on the Siberian
mainland opposite Sakhalin, roughly 600 miles north of Vladivostok. Here
the men, women and children were divided into separate groups. The men
and women were taken by train to Tynda on the Baikal-Amur Railway about
800 miles inland where at least some were put to forced labor. The male
adults were, at some point, distributed to a number of different camps
throughout Siberia some of which were camps that also held American POWs
and other foreign prisoners. These camps are identified as camps for foreigners
by their total isolation and the lack of villages around them.
-
- Normally, when prisoners are released from prison camps
they are required to continue living in exile near the prison. Their families
join them and villages grow up around the camps. Foreign prisoners are
not released; there are no villages around their prisons.
-
- Congressman Lawrence P. McDonald, Democrat, 7th District,
Georgia, was separated from the rest of the passengers and taken by special
air transport to Moscow on or about Sept. 8, 1983. A special KGB guard
unit was brought from Khabarovsk to accompany him. The KGB had a fleet
of special aircraft, the 910xx series that was used exclusively for transporting
high profile prisoners, VIPs, and others requiring the strictest security.
These were used for even very short trips rather than using overland transportation.
-
- The child passengers were kept in Sovetskaja Gavan in
a specially established isolated temporary orphanage until the end of October.
-
- They were then gradually transferred to various orphanages
in Vladivostok, Omsk and Barnaul, both near Novosibirsk, and Kazakhstan
based on their racial identity. The intent was to assimilate them into
the predominant racial populations in these areas.
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