MiG Pilot

by John Barron

  Were Belenko to remain alive and at liberty abroad, dangerous thoughts and precedents would arise in the minds of the people in general and other pilots in particular. If you cannot trust someone so perfect as Belenko, whom can you trust? Who is loyal? The question was reflected in a joke that spread through Moscow immediately after the British Broadcasting Corporation reported the sensational news of the escape: “Did you hear? From now on they are going to train only Politburo members to fly those planes.” And other pilots inevitably would ask themselves, “If Belenko can do it, why can’t I?” There were additional perils. Belenko was probably the most knowledgeable military man to flee since World War II, and the secrets and insights he could impart to the Americans would harm the Soviet Union. But worse, should he elect to speak out publicly, especially to the Soviet people, his words could be even more devastating than the loss of secrets.

  The whole situation could be retrieved if Belenko were enticed back or if the Japanese or Americans were intimidated, duped, or cajoled into delivering him. After appropriate treatment and conditioning in a KGB psychiatric ward, he could be paraded forth as proof of the perfidies of the West, a true Soviet hero who had slipped out of the snares of the Dark Forces and come home to the Mother Country to attest to their perfidies. His staged appearances, the lines he mouthed, would dramatize to all pilots and everybody else the futility of trying to get away.

  Thus, within an hour after Belenko and the MiG-25 had plowed off the runway in Hakodate, the Soviet Union initiated a massive, unprecedented campaign to recover him. In the Crisis Rooms of Washington the men who watched and participated in the intensifying international struggle that followed appreciated how great the stakes were.

  Steven Steiner, thirty-six, Yale ’63, Columbia Graduate School ’66, slept from noon to eight on Sunday, September 5. He missed a balmy, sunny afternoon and upon awakening regretted anew that he could not take his wife and three children for an outing on that delightful Labor Day weekend. But he had the duty as Senior Watch Officer at the State Department Operations Center beginning at 12:01 A.M. Monday, and his family, having been with him at diplomatic posts in Yugoslavia and Moscow, had adjusted to the inconvenient hours he sometimes had to work. Just the night before he had worked the same shift.

  Dressed in blue jeans, a sports shirt, and loafers, Steiner entered the Watch Center located in Room 7516 of the State Department at 11:15 P.M. and put his yogurt and diet cola in the refrigerator for later. He came early because he was required to read all the recent cables and be briefed about the world situation by the outgoing Senior Watch Officer before assuming responsibility for the Watch. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was traveling to Europe, and the Operations Center is the Secretary’s twenty-four-hour link to Washington. So he anticipated a heavy flow of messages and a busy night.

  Steiner noted in the log at 12:01 A.M. that he had taken over the Watch and made his second entry at 12:47, recording that the Watch team had obtained and cabled information concerning Africa requested by Kissinger’s entourage in Zurich.

  At 1:35 A.M. the special closed-circuit telephone rang in the Watch Center — a “NOIWON” (National Operations and Intelligence Watch Officers Network) alert signaling the entire U.S. crisis-management community that something extraordinary had occurred. As Steiner picked up his phone, other Watch Officers lifted similar emergency phones at the Situation Room in the White House, the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon, the Operations Centers at the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia, and the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Maryland. A male voice announced over the circuit: “The Defense Intelligence Agency is convening a NOIWON alert. On the basis of a preliminary report from the U.S. Fifth Air Force, we understand that a Soviet MiG-25 has landed at Hakodate in northern Japan….” The MiG had touched down at 12:50 A.M. Washington time. The circumstances of the flight and intent of the pilot had not yet been ascertained by American representatives in Japan. Two more alerts from the DIA at 1:49 and 2:06 added a few sparse details but failed to clarify whether the pilot had landed intentionally or of necessity. Meanwhile, the news ticker in the Watch Center typed out an Agence France-Presse dispatch reporting that the pilot had jumped from the aircraft and commenced firing a pistol. To Steiner, that sounded as though the Soviet pilot probably had lost his way or been forced down by mechanical trouble and was hostile to the West.

  But at 4:30 A.M. the NOIWON bell rang a fourth time, and the voice speaking from the Pentagon was excited. The Soviet pilot, Viktor I. Belenko, had told representatives of the Japanese Foreign Ministry that he had flown the MiG purposely to Japan and desired political asylum in the United States.

  At the National Military Command Center someone shouted, “Goddamn! We’ve got a Foxbat [NATO designation of the MiG-25] and the pilot to boot. Goddamn!”

  With this the situation became all the more serious and urgent, especially so because of one of the most shameful incidents of pusillanimity in American history. On November 23, 1970 Seaman Simas Kudirka jumped from a Soviet fishing ship onto a U.S. Coast Guard cutter while the two ships were tied up alongside one another in American territorial waters off Martha’s Vineyard. Ashore in Boston, a Coast Guard rear admiral, acting in what he presumed to be the spirit of detente, ordered officers on the cutter to hand the defector back to the Russians. Contrary to U.S. naval political traditions, the American officers allowed six Russians to board the cutter, beat the defector and drag him back to the Soviet ship.

  As a consequence of this disgrace, the U.S. government adopted measures to ensure that no bona fide Soviet defector ever again would be turned away or that, if he were, those responsible would have their professional heads chopped off. Precise instructions were promulgated to be followed from the moment it appeared that a foreign national was seeking political asylum. These included a stringent requirement that all American officials who might be concerned be swiftly notified and that a formal, permanent record of everyone involved be maintained.

  Accordingly, Steiner and his Watch team successively and rapidly telephoned at their homes and awakened an aide to State Department Counselor Helmut Sonnenfeldt, Director of Press Relations Frederick Brown, and officials in the Bureau of East Asian Affairs, the Soviet and Japanese Desks, the Humanitarian Affairs Bureau, the Visa Office, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. A full report was cabled to Kissinger. Then Steiner on his own initiative telephoned the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo because from his service in Moscow, he recognized the gravity and potential danger involved. Please emphasize to our Japanese friends, he said, that the physical safety of the pilot is paramount. Probably they already realize that. But it cannot be stressed too much. Protect the pilot. Be sure he is free to make his own decision.

  By 6:00 A.M. the Watch Center was crowded with men and women called out of their sleep to study the messages flooding in from the Embassy, the Pentagon, the CIA, the Fifth Air Force in Japan, and the wire services. On a typically active night, the Watch Officer’s log entries noting major events might fill one page; Steiner’s had filled four. Having had no time for his yogurt and cola, he drove home through calm, treelined streets, tired and pleased: pleased that he and the Watch team had done their duty, pleased that people in other agencies had done their duty, that the system had worked exactly as it was supposed to work.

  In Paris, reporters accosted Kissinger and peppered him with questions about the fate of Belenko. “The United States will probably grant asylum,” he said. “If we do not, you may assume I have been overruled.”

  Actually, once Belenko put his request for asylum in writing, there was no question about American willingness to accept him. The Director of Central Intelligence in consultation with the Attorney General and the Commissioner of Immigration is empowered, without reference to immigration laws or any other laws, to admit up to 100 aliens to the United States annually. But in this case the decision was made instantly by President Ford himself.

  He learned of Belenko’s f
light before breakfast. His national security adviser, lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft, recalls that the President at once comprehended the import of Belenko’s flight, and was extremely interested.

  What did appear in question that Labor Day morning was the outcome of the ferocious Soviet pressures to browbeat and intimidate the Japanese into surrendering Belenko and the MiG-25.

  Promptly after Belenko landed, the Soviet Embassy in Tokyo announced that the Soviet Union possessed “an inviolable right to protect its military secrets.” The MiG-25 was a secret military aircraft. Therefore, the Japanese must return it immediately and permit no one to look at it. The embassy further declared, as if addressing some Soviet colony, that the granting of asylum to Belenko “could not be tolerated.” The Soviet government lodged repeated protests demanding the immediate return of Belenko and the plane. One was so brazenly and harshly worded that the Japanese characterized it as unparalleled in the history of diplomatic relations with the USSR.

  Soviet aircraft swarmed around Japan in a deliberate and insulting display of power. At sea, Soviet naval vessels started seizing Japanese fishing craft and hauling their crews off to Soviet prisons. These blatant piratical depredations were meant to make the Japanese cower by showing them bow the Russians could disrupt the fishing industry on which their island economy heavily depends.

  Meanwhile, the Russians tried to get at the plane directly. Late in the afternoon of the sixth, a Russian using a false name showed up at the Hakodate Airport administrator’s office, identifying himself as “a crewman of a Soviet merchant ship being repaired at Hakodate harbor.” He said he had come to interview his compatriot Belenko. A Japanese official stonily turned him away.

  The next afternoon three more Russians knocked at the airport administration office. Their spokesman introduced himself as the “Tass bureau chief in Tokyo” and his two companions as “Aeroflot engineers.”

  “It’s our job to ship the airplane out, but we understand that its landing gear is damaged,” he said earnestly. “We must have the parts to repair them and would like to ascertain how badly the gear is smashed. So we would like to go on out to the plane, look around, and take some photographs.”

  Airport administrator Masao Kageoka smiled politely. “Well, the plane is now under control of the Japanese police, and it is beyond my authority to grant you access. By the way, I don’t quite understand in which capacity you are here.”

  “Oh,” said the “Tass” man, “I’m here as a civilian.”

  This same indefatigable intelligence officer visited the regional headquarters of the Hokkaido police the next morning and announced that he was reporting for his “briefing” on the plane and pilot. The police said, “We can’t give you any details. Get out!”

  On Tuesday, September 7, the White House announced that President Ford himself had decided to grant Belenko asylum in the United States. “If he asks for asylum here, he will be welcome,” said Press Secretary Ron Nessen. Unfortunately, some misconstrued the phrasing to mean that Belenko had not yet asked for asylum.

  But, as an official statement issued at the same time by the State Department made clear, there was no doubt about Belenko’s desires: “The Japanese government notified us of the pilot’s request for asylum, and they did it yesterday. We have informed the government of Japan that we are prepared to allow the pilot to come to the United States. We understand that is his desire. I believe the same comment or a comment to that effect was made this morning at the White House.”

  The announcements in Washington coupled with indications emerging from a Japanese Cabinet meeting that Belenko was about to be transferred to the Americans, incited the Russians to new fury and desperation. Soviet Ambassador Dmitri Polyansky read to the Japanese Deputy Foreign Minister a statement, the crudity of which exceeded all bounds of conventional diplomatic propriety. The Russians declared that Belenko had made an emergency landing and accused the Japanese of lying about it, or “fabricating a story” to conceal the “physical violence and other unforgivable means” employed to kidnap him.

  After the confrontation between Belenko and the KGB officer, Soviet Embassy spokesman Aleksandr Shishaev denounced the meeting as “a farce, a shame on the Japanese government.” He claimed that “it was impossible for him [Belenko] to answer questions. He was under the influence of narcotics. He sat there like a dummy.”

  With the departure of Belenko for the United States, the Soviet pressures on Japan did not abate; they merely were refocused on recovery of the MiG-25 before the Americans could study it. Surveillance flights by Soviet fighters and seizure of Japanese fishing craft and their crews at sea continued. Moscow threatened economic retaliation and hinted at all sorts of dire, though unspecified, consequences unless the Japanese bowed at once.

  A flurry of secret messages about the MiG-25 bounced back and forth between Tokyo and Washington, many handled through General Scowcroft, who coordinated and mediated between the Defense and State departments. The Pentagon wanted to bring the plane to the United States, test it, fly it, keep it. “Absolutely,” remembers Donald Rumsfeld, then Secretary of Defense. “We wanted the plane. We wanted metal samples; to fly it, take it apart, then fly it again.”

  Some in the State Department, however, were skittish, fearing that retention of the MiG would strain detente and complicate other relations with the Russians. And the State Department was reluctant to pressure the Japanese, who initially were inclined to manage disposition of the plane in a manner that would spare the Soviet Union as much embarrassment as possible.

  Out of all the bureaucratic wrangling, a compromise emerged. How long would scientists, engineers, and technicians require to extract all data desired by disassembling and studying the plane on the ground? A minimum of thirty days, the Pentagon said.

  The Japanese promptly pledged to make the MiG-25 available at least that long, provided American specialists wore civilian clothes and acted as consultants working under their supervision.

  In their threats, insolence, and condescension, the Russians had gone too far and provoked the Japanese government, with widespread support of the citizenry, into a posture of defiance. The Japanese now started subtly taunting the Russians. Rejecting all Soviet protests and charges, the government expressed surprise that the Soviet Union had yet to apologize for violating Japanese airspace. Said Foreign Minister Kiichi Miyazawa: “I realize the Soviet Union is the kind of nation that gets bogged down in red tape in making declarations, but at the very least, the Soviet Union has a duty to control the actions of its uniformed military men. It’s like landing in a neighbor’s garden and not even bothering to say ‘Boo.’”

  As for all the strident Soviet demands that the MiG-25 be given back, another Foreign Ministry official said, “The Soviet Union should first explain what it thinks of the incident. It is no way for anyone to try to take back something he has thrown, even though inadvertently, into the yard of his neighbor.”

  What then will happen to the plane? Well, the Japanese solemnly explained, that is a complicated issue. There are precedents for returning it and precedents for keeping it. We will just have to see. But for the time being, we will have to retain it as “evidence” while our investigation of the whole matter continues.

  The Los Angeles Times summed up the situation in a brief editorial:

  The trouble with the Soviet authorities is that they just won’t listen. There they are, kicking, screaming and all but turning blue in the face while they demand the immediate return of their highly sophisticated and very secret MiG-25 jet fighter, flown to Japan by a defecting Russian pilot. And there’s the Japanese foreign minister, trying calmly, and with impeccable legal logic, to explain that the plane can’t be returned now because it’s evidence in a crime, the crime being the violation of Japanese airspace by said Russian pilot, whose punishment — and let no one say he didn’t ask for it — is likely to be a one-way ticket to the United States.

  Material evidence in a crime such as this plainly
deserves the most careful going-over, perhaps even by experts from several countries. After all, who knows what that pilot could have been surreptitiously carrying? Perhaps a little caviar hidden among the plane’s electronic countermeasures? Maybe a liter of vodka secreted somewhere in the airframe? A hot balalaika or two cached in the turbojet engines? The only way to find out is to take the plane apart piece by piece, as the cops did with the smuggler’s car in “The French Connection.”

  The interests of the law must, of course, be served. It all seems very sensible and straightforward to us. Why the Russians can’t understand is a puzzle.

  With the revelation that American “consultants” were en route to assist in the Japanese “investigation,” the Russians realized they had no chance now of preventing examination and exploitation of the MiG-25. So they redirected their propaganda toward the Soviet people and their pressures toward the United States.

  Tass on September 14 initiated the Soviet efforts to represent Belenko as a hero and patriot abducted and spirited away against his will by the Dark Forces with the connivance of the devious and unscrupulous Japanese. According to Tass, Belenko during a routine training flight strayed off course, ran out of fuel, and made a forced landing at Hakodate. (An unidentified Soviet source attempted to lend credence to this version by telling Western newsmen that Belenko maintained radio contact with his base up until his landing.) Tass asserted that Japanese police clamped a hood over Belenko’s head, dragged him away by his arms, shoved him into a car, and hid him in isolation, refusing Soviet pleas to see him.

  On the very day following the landing of the Soviet aircraft in Japan, an official representative of the White House announced that President Ford had decided to grant asylum to the Soviet pilot. The same White House representative was forced to acknowledge that the American authorities did not even know whether the pilot had sought asylum in the U.S.