I am sending this to a few people, and you are among these few!Can you write about this and/or send this to the people you know, or even to others that you are connected with that might be prone to distribute to people they know and might care about Larry McDonald and the ideals he believed in and worked for? This is what I call “seeding”, Maybe for people who may not care about Larry, but would care about those 22 children under the age of 12 (now in the 40s and 50s) who were aboard KAL 007, or care about their own families or their own selves, or care about America? Could you spread this around?Bert SchlossbergDirector of the International Committee for the Rescue of KAL 007 Survivors www.rescue007.orgAdministrator of Facebook page, KAL 007 Families and FriendsDear people, it happens that in working on a puzzle, having found the correct piece of the puzzle, opens up the placement of other pieces that up until then, where unable to contribute to the greater picture.Some of you may find parts of this writing familiar having been printed before and sent out by me, but now stand out in greater perspective and importance in the understanding of this great and tragic story of the shooting down of KAL 007 and the abduction of the passengers and crew.Here then begins Part One the Saga.May God use this for the release of our people and loved ones.Note; this report is detailed in some sections – inviting further study by interested parties.Moneron IslandPART ONE“WE ARE DITCHING IN THE SEA”Here you will hear (so real the real life transcripts) the last recorded words of the crew of KAL 007 and to compare, the horrifying last words of the flight crews about to meet their death – as captured by the recovered Cockpit Voice Recorders installed in the cockpits. The first three of these flights record up to the last second of their flight. KAL 007’s crew, though, are far different, as they were met not by death but by life and hope – and they knew it!. KAL 007’s recording was also provided by the Cockpit Voice Recorder installed in their cockpit, but , in addition, captured by French Satellite.What normally would be expected and the great contrasting exceptionI. US Air Flight 427 September 8, 1994—Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Flight 427, for reasons still unknown, has turned over onto its back and in another 16 seconds will hit the ground.Copilot: Oh, sh-t. Captain: Hang on. What the h-ll is this? Cabin: [Sound of stick shaker vibrations indicating imminent stall; sound of altitude alert.] Captain: What the… Copilot: Oh… Captain: Oh God, Oh God..Approach: USAir. Captain: Four twenty-seven, emergency! Co-pilot: [Screams.] Captain: Pull. Copilot: Oh…Captain: Pull… pull… Copilot: God… Captain:[Screams.] Copilot: No…! End of tape. Occupants dead.Yukla 27 September 22, 1995—Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska Immediately upon takeoff, Yukla 27, an Air Force Boeing 707 configured as a radar E-3A, took several Canadian geese in engines one and two, disintegrating fan blades. All 24 aboard died in the ensuing crash.Cabin: Yukla Two Seven heavy’s [indicating large or wide-bodied plane] coming back around for an emergency return. Lower the nose. Lower the nose. Tower: Two Seven heavy, roger. Captain: Goin’ down. Copilot: Oh my God. Captain: Oh sh-t. Copilot: Okay, give it all you got, give it all you got. Two Seven heavy, emergency…Tower: Roll the crash [equipment] roll the crash—Copilot: [Over public address system] Crash [landing]! Captain: We’re going in. We’re going down! End of Tape.Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 529 August 21, 1995—Carrolton, Georgia 21 minutes into its flight, Flight 529’s left engine has fallen apart or exploded. Parts of the propeller blades are wedged against the wing and the front part of the cowling is destroyed. The captain and seven passengers will die. The copilot will survive with burns over 80% of his body.Captain. [To copilot] Help me. Help me hold it. Help me hold it. Help me hold it. Cabin: [Vibrating sound of the stick shaker starts warning of stall.] Copilot: Amy, I love you .Cabin: [Sound of grunting; sound of impact.] End of tape.(The Black Box, Malcom MacPherson (ed.) Quill William Morrow, New York: 1998)In great contrast, here are the last recorded words spoken by the crew of KAL 007 captured by KAL 007’s flight Deck mike and stored in its “Black Box”:18:27:20: “Now… We have to set this.18:27:23: speed18:27:26: Stand by, stand by, stand by, stand by… set!”This great contrast should alert us to the difference in outcome of KAL 007’s saga from the outcome of what has come about in the “death throes” of airliners that have come to us through the Black Boxes of the “normal” destruction undergone by passenger plans—————————————————————————The “Missing Mayday”And concerning the French satellite, as communicated to us:KAL 007’s Missing “Mayday” – or was it not missing? This posting contains excerpts from detailed communications sent to the Committee from Patrick Bryant, a certificated commercial fixed wing, commercial helicopter, and commercial glider pilot, now a private investigator, and at the time of the shootdown, a Master Control Engineer for ABC in Los Angeles.While later working in the broadcasting field with CNN, Mr. Bryant was also an Assistant Chief Engineer for three radio stations and an antenna design technician, where he gained extensive experience with radio transmitters and associated radio frequency systems. He knows whereof he speaks.The Background of the “May Day” transmission.From the time of the shootdown, until 1992, when Boris Yeltsin handed over to the International Civil Aviation Agency the long sought after tapes from KAL 007’s Black Box, the world only “knew” that KAL 007 suffered a catastrophic explosion which incapacitated the flight crew, if not instantly causing death or unconsciousness.This assessment, despite the unexplained 12 minute post-attack flight of KAL 007, almost immediately wrote off any hope that there might be survivors from the explosion itself, or that the aircraft could have made a safe enough ditching to think survivors possible.When Boris Yeltsin had finally released the long concealed Black Box tapes in 1992 and published by ICAO in 1993, showing that the flight crew was conscious and functioning, and that the passenger plane had come under control, successfully pulling out of a dive and now flying at a level altitude of 5,000 meters only to begin a spiral descent over Moneron Island, the time had long passed to do anything about it. In the intervening 10 years, whatever media or scholarly articles that concerned itself with KAL 007 (and there were so few!), held to the original understanding – All were dead or incapacitated. And that was supported by one glaring fact – if it were otherwise, there would have been a “mayday” call transmission from KAL 007 – according to international convention three times over the international distress frequency of 121.5 MHz. This would be followed by a quick description of the nature of the emergency.But there was no such mayday call.Or was there, indeed, a mayday call?I have chosen to excerpt Mr. Bryant’s messages rather than to summarize, that we may hear in his own words and evaluate for ourselves. Foremost in my mind, is also to encourage others who may have learned something, even from many years ago, to send the information into the Committee, as Patrick Bryant has done, where it may be evaluated to see if the “puzzle”, piece by piece, can finally be completed.From Mr. Bryant –“Nowhere in any of the research on KAL 007 have I seen reference to a “mayday” that was broadcast some time after the missile attack. In that broadcast, a crew member (presumably the captain) states that he intends to ditch the aircraft. The transmission was made on 121.5 MHz (the international distress frequency)..“I was working as an engineer in Master Control at ABC-TV in Los Angeles when the feed came in from France. It was briefly reported and played by ABC, and then never reported again. It is not unusual for the media to withhold information when told that airing it would jeopardize lives (in fact, the ABC News Policy stated so explicitly), and my guess is that ABC was told to “knock it off” for the sake of the safety of those on board KAL 007. Under those circumstances, ABC would have complied.”If that fact could ever be brought to light, it would put in place a critical missing piece of the puzzle, demonstrating that crew’s intention to ditch and that the aircraft was definitely under control.“On the day of the attack, while the press and public only knew the status of KAL 007 as “missing”, KABC-TV in Los Angeles aired only once a report as a ‘cut-in’ (bulletin) that I recall went like this:’ABC News has obtained a copy of a distress call from the missing Korean airliner. The radio message was intercepted by a French satellite. (Recording was then played):‘ Mayday, mayday mayday. KAL Flight 007 is leaving 10,000 feet. We are ditching in the sea.’ …”The transmission to which I refer stated the flight was “leaving” (descending out of) a much lower altitude (my recollection was 10,000 feet), and that the flight was ditching in the sea. …“Patrick Bryant“Former Studio/Field and Master Control Engineer for ABC Los Angeles.We need ask where was KAL 007 at the time of the transmission? Correlating with the Russian military telecom transcripts handed over by Yeltsin, and the previously published information from personnel at radar unit 1845 at Komsomolsk-na-Amure, as well as the radar station at ‘Edinka on the coast near Soviet Gavan – both on the Siberian Maritime opposite Monoron and Sakhalin Islands, we now know the answer to that question. KAL 007 had just come to the end of it’s level flight at altitude 16,424 feet and IT WAS THEN SPIRALING OVER MONERON ISLAND IN SOVIET TERRITORIAL WATERS, and had not yet reached the last point of Soviet radar tracking- 1,000 feet (“point zero”), below which Soviet radar could not track) above the surface of the Tatar Straits off Moneron Island. The world was told that the reason KAL 007 went off the screen was because it was completely blown up b-y one of the Russian missiles that were launched in its direction. Russia personnel deployed at Unit 1845, though, informed me*** that the reason it disappeared from the Radar screen was that their line-of-sight radar, because of the curvature of the earth, could not capture below 1,000 feet altitude because of the curvature of the earth. ‘Edinka radar, located on the Siberian Maritime coast across the Tatar Strait from Sakhalin, as well as other line-of-sight radar stations, likewise could not get below the 1,000 ft. “Point O”.Now we know from the transmission received and aired by ABC that the purpose of the spiral was indeed, as we could only conjecture prior to this information, to seek a place near enough to a land mass to ditch at sea!This intention to water ditch is supported by KAL 007’s post attack flight path which took a turn to the north from its 240 degrees (Sout West) recorded previous path. That turn to the north took it directly over Moneron Island (3 1/2 miles x 4 1/2 miles), the only land mass in the whole Tatar Strait, which would make it the only location that could provide the stricken passenger plane safe harbor for water ditching. KAL 007 began its slow spiral descent. If it had not made that turn, it would have gone south of Moneron and its safer-for-ditching land mass. That turn to the north points to the intention of the pilots as does their call captured French satellite, “we are ditching in the sea”..Moneron IslandIs there evidence of the survival and abduction of passengers and crew? The answer is yes!Here is the recently come to my attention evidence of passenger survivors. These come from Sakhalin Island, 41 nautical miles across the West Sakhalin Current of the Tatar Strait from where KAL 007 came down to the waters.KAL 007 PASSENGERS TAKEN ALIVE TO SAKHALIN:The two recent finds!FIRST EVIDENCEMost Recently, a calling card, showing no water damage or stains or any other signs – which would have indicated that the card had come ashore through the waters- has come into the hands of an informant from the port city of Nevelsk on Sakhalin Island. This is the card of So J. Son, a passenger of KAL 007, shot down by the Soviets on Sept 1, 1983, in the waters of the Tatar Strait near Moneron Island. Moneron is 41 nautical miles from Nevelsk. So J. It has recently been identified by So J Son’s astounded family. She is listed on the manifest of Flight 007 as “Sohn So-Ja (showing that the transcriber was an American transcribing phonetically) Mrs. Korea, seat 22J”. J, Sitting to the right of her, was most probably a member of her family, “Sohn Young-Ja, Korea, seat 22K”. The card shows Mrs. So J. Son to have been the Executive Designer with the Young Jin Trading Co. Further, though a firm called Young Jin Trading can still be located in Seoul Korea, the address on the card and the phone number are obsolete and the district of Sung Dong-Ku no longer exists.They have long been gone. The card is at least 40 years old!How, then, could this card of a KAL 007 passenger, with no sign of having been in water, ever have gotten to the city of Nevelsk? What other way can we think imaginable or probable, other than being brought to Nevelsk by boat or by rescue helicopters – we know were ordered to Moneron Island by the Soviets within minutes of KAL 007 having started its spiral descent around Moneron?Let us first consider “by plane or helicopter”To KAL 007’s true position, Moneron Island itself, there were, indeed, at least two Soviet rescue operations sent out within minutes of KAL 007’s downing. These missions are documented in the Russian ground-to-ground telecommunications transcripts, and in view of the specificity of KAL 007’s location, and the smallness of the island (3 1//2 by 4 1/2 miles) there is no reason to doubt their success. The first mission involved rescue helicopters, border guards and the KGB, and was ordered at 6:47 A.M., just 21 minutes after missile impact and nine minutes after KAL 007 had reached point zero altitude, point zero being 1,000 feet altitude, when it went below radar—not when it landed or impacted!Lt. Col. Novoseletski, Acting Chief of Staff, Fighter Division, Smirnykh Air Force Base, Sakhalin: (6:47 A.M.) You don’t have the sunrise there yet?Lt. Col. Titovnin, Flight controller, Fighter Division Combat Control Center: No, it will be in about thirty minutes.Novoseletski: Prepare whatever helicopters there are. Rescue helicopters.Titovnin: Rescue?Novoseletski: Yes. And there will probably be a task set for the area where the target was lost.Titovnin: Roger. Is this to be done through your SAR [Search and Rescue]?Novoseletski: Eh?Titovnin: Assign the task to Chaika through your SAR, Comrade Colonel, Khomutovo [Civilian and military airport at Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk City in southern Sakhalin] does not come under us and neither does Novoaleksandrovska. We have nothing here.Novoseletski: Very well.Titovnin: Novoaleksandrovska must be brought to readiness and Khomutovo. The border guards and KGB are at Khomutovo.Khomutovo [Civilian and military airport at Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk City in southern Sakhalin“Chaika” is the call sign of the Far East Military District (FEMD) Air Force Command Post. Consequently, this first documented rescue mission could only be effected by order of the FEMD, which was second in jurisdiction to the Soviet Far East Military Theatre of Operations. Neither the shooting down nor the rescue of Flight 007 was, therefore, of local decision. Apparently, neither Smirnykh Air Force Base in central Sakhalin (under the Tactical Air Command and where the MiG23 ordered to guarantee destruction of KAL 007 was based) and Sokol Air Force base in southern Sakhalin (under the Air Defense Command where Osipovich and his SU-15 were based) had any available rescue helicopters. Therefore, the jurisdictional step up to the Far East Military District Air Force was required to bring the out-of-jurisdiction Khomutova Air Base into action. Khomutova was the civilian and military airbase at Yuzhno (Southern) Sakhalinsk City.PART TWOLet’s now consider “by boat” as the means that the card and its carrier, Mrs. So J. Son, might have arrived at the Sakhalin port city of Nevelsk.Firstly, we need to note that ships and boats, as well as rescue helicopters, had indeed been ordered to Moneron: This mission involved the civilian ships in the vicinity of Moneron as well as the Border Guard patrol boats and ships commanded by KGB General Romanenko*. It was ordered at 6:55 A.M., just 29 minutes after missile impact and 17 minutes after KAL 007 had reached point zero, 1,000 feet altitude.Gen. Strogov, General, Deputy Commander, Far East Military District: (6:54 A.M.) Hello… Hello, Titovnin… You s… [obscenities] I’ll lock you up in the guard house. Why don’t you pick up the phone?Titovnin: Comrade General, everyone was busy here.Strogov: You have nothing there to be busy with. Busy! What kind of nonsense is that? So, where is Kornukov (General Anatoli Kornukov, Commander Sokol Air Force Base, Sakhalin)?General Anatoli Kornukov, Commander of Sokol Air Base, directly under General Valeri Kamenski, Commander of Air Defense of the Far East Military District.
1814 Gen Kornukov to Gen. Kamenski: “Comrade General, Kamenski, Good morning. I am reporting the situation. Target 60-65 (KAL 007) is over Terpenie Bay [East Coast of Sakhalin] tracking 240, 30 kilometers from the State Border. The fighter from Sokol is 6 kilometers away. Locked on, orders were given to arm weapons. The target is not responding to identify. He cannot identify it visually because it is still dark, but he is still locked on.”Gen. Kamenski: “We must find out, maybe it is some civilian craft or God knows who.” Kornukov: “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.”
Titovnin: Kornukov is here.Strogov: Put him on the phone.Titovnin: One minute. He is reporting to Kamenski (General, Commander, Far East Military District Air Force), Comrade General.Here is clear evidence that the shoot-down of KAL 007 and the rescue of its passengers were not decisions made by local commanders but emanated from high echelons of the Soviet military.Strogov: (18:55) So, what you need to do now. Contact these … [obscenities], these sailors, these, what do you … [obscenities]?Titovnin: Border guards?Strogov: Huh?Titovnin: Border guards?Strogov: Well, the civilian sailors.Titovnin: Understood.Strogov: Moneron Island. The border guards. What ships do we now have near Moneron Island, if they are civilians, send [them] there immediately.This is General Ivan Moseivich Tretyak, Commander of the Soviet Far East Military District and superior officer to General Strogov. General Tretyak himself was under General Govrov, Commanding Officer of the Soviet Far East Theatre and the final Military stamp of approval for the shoot down of KAL 007. The shoot down, rescue and abduction of KAL 007 and its 269 passengers and crew were under the orders of Soviet Far East High Command and had not come not by way of some trigger happy junior officer.
”
“He gave the order. Hello, hello, hello.”
“Yes, yes.”
“Ivan Moseivich gave the order, Tretyak.”
“Roger, roger.”
“Weapons were used at his order.”But these missions to Moneron were ordered after KAL 007 had descended to the waters, – though a very short number of minutes afterward. But there is clear evidence that ships were dispatched by the Soviets even prior to that, while both ship and land position radars were tracking KAL 007 to its ANTICIPATED site of its set-down. That is, they were sent to the site that the trajectory of the plane was shown on radar to be its set down or impact site:That this Soviet naval rescue mission had been ordered even before KAL007 had reached the surface of the waters off Moneron is attested by the following – taken from the Izvestia testimony of a Soviet Naval Specialist who had been involved in the rescue mission:“When we learned that the aircraft had been attacked, and that weapons had been used, we began to analyse when it might possibly come down. Ships were ordered to the anticipated [emphasis added] area. Several ships headed there at once at full speed…”.In fact, KAL 007 had been tracked by Soviet radar from numbers of installations and these trackings which extended from prior to attack, through the attack phase, and on into KAL 007’s descent onto the waters off Moneron were the basis why ships could be sent to the precise site of the set down even before the set-down.* The number of radar station that tracked KAL 007 in the Soviet Territories of Sakhalin and Moneron Islands were numerous and included naval ships in the Tatar Strait, radar station 1845 on Siberian Maritime at Komsomolsk-na Amur, the radar station at ‘Edinsk, designated as Air Defense unit 2212 PT6, radar stations at Sakhalinsk itself, and various Soviet naval vessels then in the Tatar Strait,But is there any evidence that passengers and crew, including Mrs. So J.Son, could have been taken off the aircraft before it sunk, or had been sunk by the Soviets? The answer is Yes in the form of electronic intercepts by the U.S. of Soviet air controllers at the time of the shootdown: According to the 1991 Republican Staff Study of the members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chaired by Senator Jesse Helms, (”CIA” Report, “sensitive special intelligence”) the following was revealed:About four hours after the shoot-down, Soviet Air Defense command posts reported that Soviet pilots were saying that a civilian passenger plane had been shot down instead of a U.S. RC-135 reconnaissance plane, and that they (the command posts) were expressing regret, both that they had not downed the RC-135 and that now the Americans would accuse them of killing Americans.The Study asks how, while flying overhead, could Soviet pilots conclude that Americans were among the passengers? They might conclude from seeing the aircraft’s distinctive hump as the plane floated on the water that it was a passenger plane that was shot down, as in 1983 there were no military versions of the Boeing 747. And they might have seen the distinctive bird emblem on the tail of the aircraft—the symbol in use then by Korean Air Lines—but this would not indicate the nationalities of the passengers. The Study would conclude that the only way Soviet pilots could know that Americans had been killed is if they had heard that information on their radios during the time the rescue was actually taking place.“ Thus the only way that Soviet pilots could possibly have known that the nationality of some of the KAL 007 passengers as Americans, from the air, would have been from possible emergency radio communications which U. S. Intelligence did not intercept, from either the stricken airliner ditched at sea, or from its life rafts, or from Soviet rescue boats.” (Republican Staff Study/”CIA” Report, pg. 47)Further, two related reports emanating from the Israel Research Centre for Prisons, Psyche Prisons, and Forced Labor Concentration Camps of the U.S.S.R, headed by Avraham Shifrin, reported, based on eye witness informant information, that KAL 007 had been viewed on the water by fishermen off Moneron Island. People were standing on the wings, much like the passengers of the “Miracle on the Hudson” with hand luggage with them. And the Research 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.Port of Nevelsk, Sakhalin Island. Photo was taken in 1983, the year of the shoot down of KAL 007And what could have been experienced by the Port of Nevelsk, Sakhalin Island, the day that So J.Son was taken by “rescue” boat to its shore? This report has just come in from an informant who 35 years previous, on September 1, was in the office building facing the port who recounts the unusual activity within the building. If it took place in this building, it is reasonable to assume the same activity took place in all the buildings facing the port and having a view of the waters beyond. It is this that the informant witnessed. The KGB came into the building and then proceeded hanging black curtains on all the windows, preventing them from looking out and seeing port and the bay. What activity was being concealed? It is not hard to understand that it would be the small fleet of KGB patrol boats, as well as the larger KGB vessels, with the civilian trawlers requisitioned for the purpose, all carrying KAL 007’s passengers and crew and docking at the harbor.Finally, we need to ask how actually the card had dropped from So J. Son’s person. Did it come inadvertently out of her pocket or bag as she made her way or was assisted or forced up onto the dock? Was she jostled among the crowd of KGB guards and other passengers and the card with other articles came down scattered (and then taken by a resident 35 years later to wind up in the hands of the informer? Or did she intentionally drop it in the hopes that it become a mute but effective clarion some day, as it has now, to her plight? And what of the others with her, 269 passengers and crew members of KAL 007, including Congressman Larry McDonald and 22 children under the age of 12 years? What could they have dropped?** On Monday, September 26, 1983, a delegation of seven Japanese and American officials arriving aboard the Japanese patrol boat Tsugaru, met a six-man Soviet delegation at the port of Nevelsk on Sakhalin Island. KGB Major General A. I. Romanenko, the Commander of the Sakhalin and Kuril Islands frontier guard, headed the Soviet delegation.* KGB General Romanenko handed over to the Americans and Japanese, among other things, single and paired footwear. With footwear that the Japanese also retrieved, the total came to 213 men’s, women’s and children’s dress shoes, sandals, and sports shoes. The Soviets said that all that they had retrieved, they had found floating in the water or washed up on the shores of Sakhalin and Moneron islands.Family members of KAL 007 passengers would later state that these shoes were actually worn by their loved ones for the flight on that fateful night. Sonia Munder had no difficulty recognizing the sneakers of her children, one of Christian, age 14 and one of Lisi, age 17, by the intricate way her children laced them. (Sonia confirmed that her children were wearing these shoes when they boarded the flight).Another mother says, “I recognized them just like that. You see, there are all kinds of inconspicuous marks which strangers do not notice. This is how I recognized them. My daughter loved to wear them.”And yet, another mother (and maybe it takes a mother!), Nan Oldham identified her son, John’s, sneakers from a photo in Life magazine of 55 of the 213 shoes—apparently, a random array on display those first days at Chitose Air Force Base in Japan.“We saw photos of his shoes in a magazine,” says Nan, “We followed up through KAL and a few weeks later, a package arrived. His shoes were inside: size 11 sneakers with cream white paint.” John Oldham had taken his seat in row 31 of KAL 007 wearing those cream white paint splattered sneakers. He had just come from painting his suburban Washington, D.C., family home.From an examination of the shoes in the photo of Life magazine, pairing the sets and counting them with the single shoes, and relating them to the whole, it turns out that the total amount of shoes retrieved account for 198 of the 269 people of KAL 007 – or almost 74% of the total.ImplicationsThe Soviets retrieved the shoes of some portion of this 74% of the flight’s passengers, yet claimed not to have found one single body, not one person. This adds great weight to the question “Where are the bodies?” Either the shoes were on the bodies and removed by the Soviets (or the Japanese), or they were removed by the wearers and retrieved by the Soviets (or Japanese). Why were these shoes loose? Were they taken off in preparation for the landing or were they simply removed during the course of the flight?In either case, the one great question remains.Is it really possible for so many shoes to be found and not one single person found to wear them? And if we should negate that the shoes were taken off in preparation for a ditching – that there was no time to do so, or the aircraft was in an exploded and too disintegrated condition to do so, then another question arises – If the non appearance of bodies is explained by their flesh being eaten by crabs, and, contrary to expert opinion, bones eaten by sea creatures, is it really credible, that not one of the 213 items of footwear had a foot, or a toe or a toe bone within it?The Fate of Gen RomanenkoNote – Gen. Romanenko would meet a bad end due (according to the Republican Staff Report) to his handling of KAL 007 matters. The Republican Staff Study reports that he was probably sent to the Gulag himself. The Israeli Research Centre for Prisons, Psych-Prisons, and Forced Labor Concentration Camps of the USSR, resting on informant information reported, independently and prior to the Staff Study, that Romanenko’s name no longer appears in KGB computers. (Once in, a person is noted as reassigned, deceased, retired, etc., but never deleted. It is as if Gen. Romanenko never existed). And finally, Hans Ephraimson-Abt, the head of the US families of the victims association, reports that while he was in East Germany at the Soviet embassy, he was informed by embassy officials that Gen. Romanenko, whom he had come to inquire about (he had not!), had committed suicide. Of course, each in its own time could have been true.** From the 1991 minority staff of Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Study (page 76):“The new emigres also state that several Soviet air defense radar sites on the Soviet mainland opposite Sakhalin simultaneously tracked the gradual descent of KAL 007 and that these radars were able to pinpoint exactly where KAL-007 had successfully ditched at sea near Moneron. The emigres give precise identification of the local air defense commanders, precise locations, and the precise nomenclature of the types of radars involved, all of which seem consistent with existing U.S. Intelligence information.“For example, then-lieutenant Valery Vladimirovich Ryzhkov was the duty officer the night KAL-007 went down at Radio Technical Brigade 1845 at the town of Zavet Ilyicha on the mainland coast. He personally tracked KAL-007 in its controlled descent to the water, and he was in communication with at least three other air defense radar sites [ie. town of ‘Edinka, designated as Air Defense unit 2212 PT6, at maritime coast {B.S.}] and several Soviet KGB Border Guard boats in the Tatar Strait which also tracked KAL007 in its controlled descent… This new emigre information is also consistent with Izvestiya, which states that: ‘The coordinates of the region where the aircraft was shot down were known by the anti-aircraft defense.’ Moreover, the emigres also report that Soviet small boats were immediately on the scene of KAL-007’s ditching, which is also consistent with U.S. Intelligence information.SECOND EVIDENCE: An item of evidence of passenger presence at Nevelsk, previously unreported and now identified:“WE HAVE JUST RECEIVED A CONFIRMATION THAT THIS RENTAL CAR CARD FOUND AT NEVELSK BELONGS TO A PASSENGER OF KAL 007… “Jun-seon Yu, the son of Kabil Yu (seat 11 B), just called…and confirmed that the rental car card belonged to his father who was the Vice-President of the Korean branch of Ingersol Rand. He frequently traveled back and forth to the States. Mr. Jun-seon Yu is now 49 years old, he was 13 at the time.”This item appears to be plastic encased, while the first item appears to be of calling card type of card board slightly creased with all four edges slightly frayed and has no sign of water damage. The card is covered in plastic, but the back of the card, the strip where Kabil Yu has signed his name is not covered with plastic. His name appears totally unsmudged as does the strip with no sign of having been marred, or stained by water – as it would have been if it had surged its way through the 41 miles of the West Sakhalin current to reach Nevelsk.Note ***Statements by Reuben V.Over many cups of coffee, Reuben struggled with us in Hebrew, English and hand gestures, demonstrating and illustrating on hotel stationary over and over again, attempting to show us the angle of KAL 007’s descent at different altitudes as it gradually came down (and here, Reuben’s hand was almost flat palm down a few inches from the top of our coffee table) to an altitude Reuben called “Point Zero.” We were later to learn that “Point Zero” is about 1,000 feet above the surface of sea and is the point under which Soviet line-of-sight radar was ineffective due to the curvature of the earth. 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 Gavin (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. 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 (Soviet Gavan reference?). 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 Edinke, designated as Air Defense unit 2212 PT6. Reuben drew a map of Soviet Gavin on hotel stationary and placed Edinke northeast of unit 1845. Ryzhkov told Reuben that he had used three rolls of film, each containing 36 exposures, in photographing his radar screen. 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 Reuben. “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.”All this was told to Reuben when he served under Ryzhkov—sometime during 1987—1989, after Ryzhkov had finally received a promotion, being made captain and commander of the same Unit 1845.* KAL 007 was also tracked by Soviet ships and boats who knew where it would come down, before it had done so, enabling them to speed to the “anticipated” set down site, to arrive possibly at the same time that KAL 007, in fact, did set down in its water ditching. This tracking, according to the report of the Soviet seaman specialist, enabled his ship and others to “anticipate” the set down site.
