Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site rabbit.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!rabbit!wolit
From: wolit@rabbit.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.aviation
Subject: What KAL007 could learn
Message-ID: <1924@rabbit.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 13-Sep-83 13:45:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: rabbit.1924
Posted: Tue Sep 13 13:45:52 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 13-Sep-83 22:21:11 EDT
Organization: Bell Labs, Murray Hill
Lines: 27

I'm surprised rabbit!jj couldn't figure out that there's a whole lot of 
intelligence that could be garnered by a civilian airliner "accidentally" 
overflying the USSR that couldn't be gotten from satellites and military 
recon planes.  Satellites are really only good for photo recon -- they
could tell us where the Soviet radar sites, air bases, etc., are, how
many, and what kind of planes they have at each base, and other useful
info like that.  Military planes (like the RC-135 that both sides
admit was in the area of KAL007) can tell you what frequencies the
Soviets use for radar and communication, what kinds of codes and
encryption, and counter- and counter-counter-measures they use, and a
little about how their air defense is organized.  But you can't send a
military aircraft across their borders -- at least not too often or too
deeply -- without risking an international incident.  And without
sending a plane into their airspace, you lack vital information about
how closely they watch each section of their borders, how long it
takes them to scramble interceptors, how many and what type they send
up, how well controlled they are (i.e., how long it takes them to find
you), what kind of search pattern they use -- in short, all of the
absolutely essential operational intelligence you need to know is you
want to have any confidence in your defense planning.  We will
probably never know for certain whether KAL007 was on such a mission
-- it's not the kind of information that either side gives out -- but
it WAS in Soviet airspace, it WAS in the vicinity of that RC-135
earlier, its radios WERE working (it communicated with Japanese air
traffic controllers after crossing the border of the USSR), and
there's too much of this circumstantial evidence to allow me to rule
out that possibility just because Reagan says it's all coincidence.