Flashback: President Reagan's Address to the Nation on the Soviet Attack on KAL 007

[TaftFan]

This was the flight Rep. Larry McDonald was on.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VA4W1wDMAk

[Brian4Liberty]

And for a reverse perspective, find Reagan's comments after the US shot down a civilian aircraft with almost 300 people on board.

Reagan: "It was an understandable accident".

[Danke]

"But within the last few years, additional taped evidence has become public that makes clear that I was given only selective information - some of the pilots' words and none of the comments of the ground controllers. Those full conversations reveal that the Russians believed the intruder aircraft was an American RC-135 reconnaissance plane, many of which flew routine missions in the area. The tapes, which are compiled in the final report of the International Civil Aviation Organization's investigation of the incident released in 1993 told me what I did not hear.

The tapes, the content of which U.S. government officials were aware of at the time of the shootdown, show that Osipovich could not identify the plane, and that he fired warning cannons and tipped his wings, an international signal to force the plane to land. All this failed to get the crew's attention. The controller said, "The target is military. As soon as it has violated state borders, destroy it. Arm your weapons . . . The target has violated the state border. Destroy the target."

Former U.S. officials involved in the coverup, who insist on anonymity, have told me that monitoring data was intentionally withheld from our U.N. tape. Beyond the propaganda value, the U.S. did not wish to tip the Soviets to the sophistication of its intelligence along the Soviet border. "Although untrue and unfair," one former State Department official told me, "it intimidated the Russians, and probably helped to prevent future such incidents and saved lives. We gave them a beating."

[phill4paul]

"But within the last few years, additional taped evidence has become public that makes clear that I was given only selective information - some of the pilots' words and none of the comments of the ground controllers. Those full conversations reveal that the Russians believed the intruder aircraft was an American RC-135 reconnaissance plane, many of which flew routine missions in the area. The tapes, which are compiled in the final report of the International Civil Aviation Organization's investigation of the incident released in 1993 told me what I did not hear.

The tapes, the content of which U.S. government officials were aware of at the time of the shootdown, show that Osipovich could not identify the plane, and that he fired warning cannons and tipped his wings, an international signal to force the plane to land. All this failed to get the crew's attention. The controller said, "The target is military. As soon as it has violated state borders, destroy it. Arm your weapons . . . The target has violated the state border. Destroy the target."

Former U.S. officials involved in the coverup, who insist on anonymity, have told me that monitoring data was intentionally withheld from our U.N. tape. Beyond the propaganda value, the U.S. did not wish to tip the Soviets to the sophistication of its intelligence along the Soviet border. "Although untrue and unfair," one former State Department official told me, "it intimidated the Russians, and probably helped to prevent future such incidents and saved lives. We gave them a beating."

Allow me to assist: http://www.alvinsnyder.com/the_truth_about_korean_airlines_flight_007_8994.ht m


Alvin Snyder is a former director of television for the U.S. Information Agency and author of "Warriors of Disinformation: American Propaganda, Soviet Lies and the Winning of the Cold War" (Arcade Publishing).

[XNavyNuke]

Reagan: "It was an understandable accident".

And some people have a hard time with the comma usage in the Second Amendment.

The whole quote in the interest of context.


I won't minimize the tragedy; we all know that it was a tragedy. But we're talking about an incident in which a plane on radar was observed coming in the direction of a ship in combat and the plane began lowering its altitude. So I think that it was an understandable accident, to think that they were under attack from that plane.

So, it seems to me that the "understandable accident" would apply to the crew in Vincennes' CIC. The phrase "...we all know that it was a tragedy" would seem to apply to the act of the shoot down. What the hell, we have all kinds of grammar correctors around here so we can parse it all day long.

Caveat: I'm admittedly biased because Vincennes was our plane guard in 1988.

XNN