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Soviet Top-Secret Memos

 

Yuri Andropov, General Secretary of the Soviet Union
Dmitri Ustinov, Defense Minister
Victor Chebrikov, KGB head

For the first time in English!

In 1992, Russian president Boris Yeltsin disclosed five top-secret memos dating from late 1983, within weeks of the downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007.  These memos were published in the Soviet news magazine, Izvestia #228, October 16, 1992, shortly after being made public.  They are highly significant in showing the attitude of the Soviet leadership towards the US, the UN, its International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and this flight.

The reference to photographing radar screens in the second and third memos corroborates the testimony of "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."  (Pg.42, Rescue 007:  The Untold Story of KAL 007 and Its Survivors, Bert Schlossberg, Xlibris 2000)

Another interesting fact from these memos is an acknowledgement, contrary to public statements, that the Soviet interceptors made no attempt to contact KAL 007 on the international emergency radio frequency nor did they fire tracers or warning shots.  The final memo, to Soviet Premier Yuri Andropov, by Defence Minister Dmitri Ustinov and KGB Head Victor Chebrikov, confirms that the Soviets intentionally deceived the US and Japan as to the fact that they had retrieved the Black Boxes from KAL Flight 007 and that they had decided consciously to keep them secret from the rest of the world.

You will find these memos fascinating, particularly as a follow-up to the The Great Russian Ruse.  Here are original sources giving a glimpse behind the curtain, a sense of the minds behind the ruse.

 

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Last modified: March 10, 2009

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