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From: mjl@ritcv.UUCP (Mike Lutz)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: USSR reportedly shoots down Korean Commercial Airliner.
Message-ID: <499@ritcv.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 3-Sep-83 12:08:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: ritcv.499
Posted: Sat Sep  3 12:08:54 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 4-Sep-83 04:18:43 EDT
References: ihuxw.467
Lines: 23

As for the USSR shooting down the KAL flight to get Rep. Macdonald: I think
this is the most unlikely alternative.  Until he was killed, 99.999% of the
persons in the U.S. didn't even know his name, much less his association with
the John Birch Society.  The most immediate effect of his killing was to make
him (and his causes) very prominent, something the Kremlin would be loathe to
do.  Even the attempt on the Pope's life was handled through third party ter-
rorists, and more people know who the Pope is than knew Rep. Macdonald.

I am also suspicious of the alternate conspiracy theory, namely that the KAL
plane was a modern Lusitania, carrying out spy missions under the guise of
travel.  As was pointed on on Washington Week in Review last night, the spy
satellites monitoring Sakhelin(sp?) would be in an infinitely better position
to ferret out what's happening than would any instruments in a civilian plane;
what is more, the Soviets know this.  Think about it: would the KCIA or the
U.S. CIA put sophisticated surveillance gear on such a plane -- there is a
very good chance that it would be captured were the plane forced to land.

So with right-wing and left-wing theories discarded, what is the answer?  I
don't know.  I can only guess that it was a case of sloppy flying by the KAL
crew intersecting with the paranoia so prevalent at the highest levels of the
USSR's government.  Just stupid, barbarous, and incomprehensible.

Mike Lutz {allegra,seismo}!rochester!ritcv!mjl