The Passenger Plane Shot Down by the Russians

By Laszlo Solymar

The novel is set in the Soviet Union. It describes a well known episode in the Cold War when Soviet fighters shot down a Korean passenger plane on the 1st September 1983. The story is based on the official Soviet statements, issued on the 2nd, 3rd and 6th September. Only the third one admitted that their fighters had brought down the plane. Behind this succession of contradictory versions lies a debate. What went on behind the scenes?
The main character is Nikolai Taranenko in charge of the Electronics Laboratory of the Soviet Armed Forces. He is brilliant in his job, greatly respected by the authorities. After destroying the plane the Soviet leadership realised that it was a blunder. The KGB arrested Taranenko blaming him for the lack of a device that could have recognised the plane as being a passenger plane. But then Taranenko turns the tables

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: May 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524633714

Laszlo Solymar

Laszlo Solymar was born and educated in Hungary. In the aftermath of the Hungarian Revolution he escaped to England. He joined the University of Oxford in 1966 where he is now an Emeritus Professor. During his career he had Visiting Professorships at the Universities of Paris, Copenhagen, Osnabruck, Berlin, Madrid, Budapest and London.

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© 2016 Laszlo Solymar. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 05/11/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5246-3370-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-3371-4 (e)

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Contents

Characters in Alphabetic Order

Preface

Thursday 1 1st September, 1983. Raising the Alarm

Thursday 2 The First Report

Wednesday 1 The Imperialist Threat

Wednesday 2 The Armed Forces Electronics Laboratory

Wednesday 3 Marshall Razin goes to Moscow

Wednesday 4 The Doctor’s Visit

Wednesday 5 Andropov Reminisces

Thursday 3 Prigorov’s Vain Attempt

Thursday 4 Destruction of the Plane is Authorised

Thursday 5 Shooting Down the Plane. The Pilot’s Story

Wednesday 6 The Taranenkos at Home

Thursday 6 On the Geneva Negotiations

Thursday 7 Kolya’s Stories

Thursday 8 The First Communiqué. Natasha and Grovkin

Thursday 9 Tverski’s Call

Thursday 10 At Prigorov’s Dacha

Friday 1 The Second Communiqué

Friday 2 Natasha Remembers

Friday 3 On Infallibility

Friday 4 Dinner at the Taranenkos. Voice of America

Saturday 1 Andropov and Tverski

Saturday 2 Taranenko Interrogated

Saturday 3 After the Interrogation

Saturday 4 Degayev and the Local KGB

Saturday 5 Natasha and Vanya

Saturday 6 The Joint Committee

Sunday 1 Taranenko Arrested

Sunday 2 Meeting in the Crimea

Monday 1 Taranenko Released. What’s wrong with the Soviet Union?

Monday 2 Andropov and Gorbachev

Tuesday 1 The Declaration

Wednesday After the Decision. Who Did What

Epilogue

About the Author

TO GILLIAN FOR HELP

AND

TO ALL THE GRANDCHILDREN

Characters in Alphabetic Order

Andropov, General Secretary of the Communist Party. Clever, ruthless, well educated, intelligent completely in charge.

Cherniak, Colonel. KGB man in his middle forties. Quiet, humourless.

Degayev, Captain. KGB man in his early thirties. Handsome, arrogant.

Dolukhov, Natasha’s second husband.

Fedoseyev, General. First Deputy of the Minister of Defence in charge of technology.

Gorbachev, Politburo member. Knows that Soviet power is in decline. Perestroika in his mind.

Grovkin, Vladimir (diminutive Volodya) Deputy Head of the Tass Agency.

Kolintsev, Captain. Commander of radar units.

Kovalik, General. Anachronistic Stalinist in the Ministry of Defence.

Lobikov, Lieutenant-Colonel Responsible for getting the fighter planes up. Suspected of having played the black market while posted to Latvia

Makarov, Major. The pilot who shot down the plane.

Nataliya (diminutive Natasha). Beautiful, clever, 33 years old, has just divorced third husband, works for Tass, spent a year in Washington where her second husband was a diplomat.

Prigorov, General. Deputy Commander of the Far East Air Force, hero of the Second World War, intelligent, sensitive, politically minded, conscientious, relatively liberal.

Razin, Marshall Commander of the Far East Air Force. Uncomplicated soldier, uninterested in international affairs. Follows always regulations. Fought in the Battle of Berlin in his younger days where he made good use of the ‘compliments of German women’.

Seryozha. Radar operator. Patriot. Gullible.

Taranenko, Nikolai (diminutive Kolya) Head of the Armed Forces Electronics Laboratory. Excellent in his profession. Decent, hardworking, logical, conceited.

Taranenkova, Yevgeniya (diminutive Zhenya). Architect by profession, Kolya’s wife

Taranenko, Anatoly (diminutive Tolya) and Olga (diminutive Olya). Children of Nikolai and Yevgeniya.

Taranenko, Maxim, retired General.

Tverski, Ivan (diminutive Vanya). Andropov’s Personal Assistant. Ambitious, clever, cynical, well educated, influential. Still very fond of divorced wife, Natasha.

Ustinov, Dmitry. Member of the Politburo, Minister of Defence. Well aware of the deficiencies of Soviet industry.

Preface

This novel is set in the Soviet Union and every character is a Soviet citizen. It concerns the struggle of the USSR against the West. It describes a well known episode in the Cold War when Soviet fighters shot down a Korean passenger plane on the 1st September 1983. It is not, however, a spy thriller. It has no twists and turns of plot. It is a political novel. We are, to put it in short-hand, in Arthur Koestler country rather than John Le Carre country.

When the Moscow show trials happened in the 1930’s, Koestler took the meagre facts that were released to the outside world – that some Old Bolsheviks, leading members of the Communist Party, had confessed to dreadful crimes against the state and had been executed in consequence - and imagined the motives and the psychology that led to the absurd accusations and the equally absurd confessions. He was not inventing a story; he was taking a story given to him, in outline, by contemporary history and inventing the thoughts and feelings that must fill the outline. I am doing the same.

The story is based on the official Soviet statements, issued on the 2nd, 3rd and 6th September, 1983. Behind this succession of versions (only the third one admitted that they had shot down the plane) must lie a debate. Who took part in this debate? What power-interests within the USSR were represented? What was at stake for each group?

All the characters have been invented with the exception of Andropov who was the General Secretary of the Communist Party at the time, and the two Politburo members, Ustinov and Gorbachev. By this time, Andropov was in a Moscow hospital. He ran the Soviet Union from there. In the novel he is ailing but on holiday in the Crimea, a more convenient venue than a hospital.

What we know are the official statements. It is true that in Yeltsin’s time some further details were released (e.g. what happened to the Black Box) but none of them threw any further light on the decision making process. I give some extracts from the official statements below.

2nd September published in Pravda

The Soviet Air Force made an attempt to help the intruding plane and guide it to the nearest airport. However the plane failed to respond to the signals and warnings of the Soviet fighters and continued its flight in the direction of the Sea of Japan.

3rd September issued in English by Tass

Soon after this the intruder plane left the limits of Soviet air space and continued its flight toward the Sea of Japan. For about ten minutes it was within the radar observation zone, after which it could be observed no more.

6th September published in Pravda

Since even after this, the intruder plane did not obey the demand to fly to a Soviet airfield and tried to evade pursuit, the interceptor-fighter plane of the anti-aircraft defences fulfilled the order of the command post to stop the flight.

Thursday 1

1st September, 1983. Raising the Alarm

S eryozha was a man of conscience. He never drank a drop of vodka while on duty. Not because he was unwilling to take the risk of being found out. No, Seryozha was not afraid of taking risks, as the other day when he stopped Korchak bullying the unfortunate Belyakov. Seryozha did not drink vodka because it was against regulations, and he knew very well that the regulations were right. Even a small amount of vodka impaired the efficient working of the brain. He remembered well Captain Raizman’s experiments at the Kozhedub Training School, the best of all Training Schools. The experiments were simple enough. Everyone had to add up columns of numbers before and after, that is after drinking no more than half a decilitre of vodka. The results were shattering, unbelievable, the mistake they made, all those in the class without exception. The demonstration convinced him, if convincing was needed at all, never to drink while in the service of his country.

Seryozha was capable of being fully alert for long hours. No blip however small escaped his attention. He knew of course that those turning up suddenly in the middle of the screen were likely to have been caused by some electronic quirk, and usually fizzled out in a few seconds. The blips he liked looked small and insignificant at the edge of the screen but gathered force and confidence with time, until they built up into veritable green monsters ready to step out of the pages of a fairy tale.

The particular blip that caught Seryozha’s eyes in the early hours of the first day of the month of September, 1983 immediately looked robust. It was round with a small protuberation at one end, like the bosom of a well-developed woman. It might have been a Soviet M-55 or an American RC-135, or something else of course, but the first two were the most likely. Seryozha always laid a private bet on the identity of the plane, and more often than not, he turned out to be right. He had made no guesses as yet, whether it was friend or foe. Unfortunately there was an alarmingly high number of aircraft around the Kamchatka peninsula, both friends and foes. Actually more foes than friends. The Americans were constantly threatening the security of Mother Russia. This plane was at a distance of about 400 km coming 52 degrees from the North, a good 1300 kilometres away from the nearest American base. Thirteen hundred kilometres away! What was their business to fly so close to Soviet Air Space? Imperialist aggression, what else? Why were there more American planes in the vicinity of the Soviet border than Russian ones? Because the imperialists had been spending millions and millions on armament, and they had to use up the old ones before they could demand new ones. If their aim was to frighten and intimidate the heroic defenders of the Soviet borders, they were utterly mistaken. The Glorious Defence Forces of the great Soviet Union were always ready to foil even the wickedest designs of the imperialist camp.

It was just about time for the coded message to arrive. Friend or foe? He would find out in a second or two. An RC-135 was his guess. So there won’t be any message. And indeed there was no movement on the decoder. Foe it must be unless the decoder is out of action as it was most of last Thursday, or unless the M55’s transmitter lost power again. In situations like this, one could not afford to make mistakes. They were costly in every sense of the word. ‘Do you know how much effort goes into producing a modern aircraft,’ Captain Raizman asked at the School, and Seryozha always gave the correct answer. Ten thousand of our heroic workers must work, each single one of them, one hundred and twenty days to produce a modern aircraft. Of course, Captain Raizman explained, one should not take the figures literally. One was not supposed to imagine all ten thousand heroic workers busying themselves around the body of a single aircraft. No, one had to consider the value of all components that went into the building of the aircraft. And the value of a product, according to the teachings of Marx and Engels, depends on the socially necessary amount of work that has gone into it. And when one does all the calculations it transpires, said Captain Raizman, that it takes one hundred and twenty days work of ten thousand of our heroic workers to produce a modern aircraft.

So this friend or foe identification was not a trifling matter. One could not risk shooting down one’s own aircraft. And it had very nearly happened once. Fortunately, the missile did not explode. And there were a number of cases when the Sukhoys went up to intercept our own aircraft. Some pilots were just crazy. Dmitry Petrovich, for example, talked of it as if it were a great joke when his Antonov arrived in the company of three Sukhoys.

The spot on the screen came nearer and became fatter, and there was still no sign of a ‘friend’ message on the decoder. Judging from the speed of the aircraft there were about two more minutes to wait and then he had to press the ‘report foe’ button. The regulations were quite unambiguous: when an unidentified plane was within 300 kilometres of SAS (the regulation said of course Soviet Air Space but everybody used SAS) the area Commander of the radar unit, Captain Kolintsev had to be alerted.

The twenty kilometre limit for the SAS was a bit ridiculous. It meant that according to international law, that is according to the law of the imperialist powers, it was legitimate for an American aircraft to fly within 20 kilometre of the Soviet border. And the Americans made most of it. They intruded into the 300 kilometre security zone several times every single day, and often flew quite close to the SAS. Premeditated imperialist provocation always made Seryozha’s blood boil. He would have shot them down there and then.

90 seconds to go. Perhaps it was an Antonov after all. Pretty big and coming straight towards base. Friend or Foe? No positive identification. Just to be on the safe side Seryozha checked the decoder again. It worked fine with the locally generated code, so the chances were a faulty transmitter on the Antonov, or another American provocation. 60 seconds to go. Seryozha’s eyes were now fixed upon the slowly moving green spot, creeping nearer and nearer and nearer. It’s up to the Commander now. Seryozha pressed the button.

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Thursday 2

The First Report

‘I then played Queen-h2,’ said Captain Kolintsev and moved his queen. He analysed the game he played during the week-end in the Air Force Chess Tournament.

‘Not a bad move,’ commented Alekhin, his Second-in-Command.

‘Quite a good move, in fact,’ the Commander seemed to be perfectly satisfied, ‘why, what would you have played?’

According to the regulations they should have devoted all their attention to the radar screen in the corner of the room, but that would have been obviously silly, a complete waste of time. Discounting the station at Trovets, where they were still waiting for a reconditioned electric motor, there were eleven further stations operating along his 400 km coastline. Enemy planes approaching would be reported in succession by eleven men.

‘What about Knight-h4?’ That is equally good,’ Alekhin ventured an opinion, convinced that he was the better chess player of the two. His confidence may have stemmed from his name. Although he was not a descendent of one of the greatest players in the history of the game he thought that the name itself would strike fear in the opponent’s heart. In this he was mistaken. He never got beyond the first 128 in the Air Force championship.

‘Ein Ross am Rande ist eine Schande,’ said Kolintsev.

‘Why do you babble in some foreign language, what is it in plain Russian?’ Alekhin had neither the inclination nor the ability to study a foreign language. He did actually study English in his secondary school days, he had to, it was a compulsory subject, but he was always at the bottom of the class.

‘As you know I’ve been around a lot in the People’s Democracies of Eastern Europe. This little ditty - it rhymes quite well, doesn’t it - means that it is a shame to have a knight at the edge of the board. By the way, this is in German.’

‘You don’t think we should learn playing chess from the Germans, do you?

‘Don’t underestimate the Germans,’ said Kolintsev, ‘the East Germans are our most reliable comrades in the People’s Democracies of Eastern Europe.’

‘Germans, Germans,’ said Alekhin, ’they are all alike.’

‘As I said before, don’t underestimate the Germans. They laid the foundations of Socialism. What do you think was the nationality of Marx and Engels? Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels? Hm? And what about Feuerbach? Hm? And Hegel?’

The only intellectual exercise Alekhin was reasonably good at was chess. It was not only foreign languages he was unable to learn, he even had to sit his Marxism-Leninism exam two or three times before he passed. He got into the officer corps thanks to his military prowess. And physical fitness. Nobody could beat him at the obstacle race. He kept silent. He had no intention to discuss dielectric (or was it dialectic?) materialism with his immediate superior.

The brief silence was interrupted by the buzzer. They both leapt to the radar screen. Unidentified aircraft was approaching the Soviet Air Space, that was clear. The reports from the various stations came in one by one. Here it was, the first emergency of the day at 5.05 a.m.

It was now their duty to alert Lieutenant-Colonel Lobikov. The Colonel was an odd man. Judging from his age, must have been forty at least, he should have had plenty of flying experience and should have been, like his predecessor Colonel Grimkin, keen to get his fighters up in the air. Rumour had it that Lobikov was a pen pusher suspected to play the local black market in luxurious Latvia.

Grimkin, his predecessor was quite different, keen to bring down an American plane, big or small, fighter or reconnaissance, any plane as long as it was American and came close enough. To his chagrin none of his attempts were fully successful. In two cases he was close to success. He let the heat seeking missiles loose. Unfortunately the F24s knew how to get rid of heat seeking missiles, so nothing happened, no American plane was brought down. Did Grimkin receive praise? A small medal perhaps for vigilance? No, he was told off. The Ministry of Defence moves in mysterious ways, that’s all, Kolintsev could say when Grimkin poured out his heart. Anyway, Grimkin has gone, and Lobikov needs to be alerted.

Kolintsev pressed the ‘Alarm’ button and took the ‘phone at the same time. He was old-fashioned enough not to rely completely on buttons only, the human touch was still very important, he thought. ‘Sorry, Colonel, to wake you up, this is Captain Kolintsev speaking. I’m afraid the bastards are at it again. Yes, we have an unidentified plane on our hands. I think it is an RC-135. Yes, quite possibly…Yes, it might turn back before reaching the SAS. Yes, Colonel…Yes, you want me to do it… Yes, of course, I am going to alert Far Eastern Fighter Command…Yes.

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Wednesday 1

The Imperialist Threat

T he Lecture Room was full. Every seat was occupied. The ‘end of month’ lecture was usually given by some well-known authority in the Defence community. On one occasion the previous year it was Marshall Ustinov, the Minister of Defence himself, who gave the lecture. He talked for over an hour about the battle of Kursk, the greatest tank battle ever fought in history, in which the Germans were comprehensively defeated. More often the lecturer came from the Moscow Military Academy whose job was to analyse and evaluate the threat from the Imperialist Countries.

Three men were sitting on the rostrum; Colonel Zaslawski who usually introduced the lecturer, General Prigorov, Deputy Head of the Far Eastern Command and Major Fadeyev who was instrumental in starting this series of lectures many years ago. He used to be the guardian of accuracy. Any lecturer quoting the wrong historical date or the wrong statistics was immediately interrupted and corrected. Nowadays he rarely interfered with anything although he sometimes showed his displeasure by raising his eyebrows or shaking his head.

At exactly 9:00 a.m. Zaslawski stood up, waited for the murmur to subside and started his introduction:

‘Comrades, today’s lecturer needs no introduction. You all know him. He is not only the Deputy Head of the Far Eastern Command but also a theoretician who has conducted many studies on matters military, particularly on the dangers we are facing from the Imperialist Powers. This lecture was to be given by Major General Ryzhakov of the Moscow Military Academy but alas he has suddenly been taken ill. We accepted General Prigorov’s kind offer to deliver the lecture himself. The title of the lecture remains the same: Aggression under the Reagan Administration.’ Zaslawski raised his voice ‘General Prigorov!’ There was some polite applause.

Prigorov remained seated. He was a pale man with a high forehead, piercing eyes and thick, grey hair. His legs, though short, carried his slim body with dignity. Unfortunately, and this became obvious when he had to give a lecture, he was about the same height whether sitting or standing. Whenever he had a chance, meaning that nobody of higher rank was around, he remained seated.

Prigorov had that ingrained habit of surveying his audience before a lecture. His gaze usually rested on the younger officers. What were they thinking? He would have liked to know. Duty, comradeship, women, vodka? The most precious thing they have, and they know nothing about it is security. Security from the Security apparatus! There are no longer arbitrary arrests. How different it was in his days. Graduated from the Academy in 1937, ominous times. The whole teaching staff disappeared from one moment to the next. And a fair proportion of the cadets too. Luckily, nobody cast any suspicion on him. As a young man he looked insignificant. He had a brilliant brain locked up in a diminutive body. ‘It’s quite likely,’ Prigorov often thought that ‘that insignificant look saved my life.’

He looked round once more, took a sip from the glass of water in front of him and began to talk. ‘Comrades, we live in dangerous times. The last 20 months have been particularly difficult. We now have a Republican, Ronald Reagan, as the President of the United States. Not that there is much difference between a Democrat and a Republican once they become Presidents. Kennedy was a so-called Democrat’ Prigorov put the emphasis on ‘so-called’, looked round the lecture room and continued, ‘we all know of his aggressions in Cuba, first the "Bay of the Pigs’’ adventure, a disaster as complete as they ever had, and then the threat of nuclear annihilation. So Democrats are no better than Republicans. Nevertheless, Mr. Reagan is worse than any of them.’

Prigorov then went on to describe aggressions committed by Reagan in Central America, the Caribbean Islands and in Lebanon confirming that no part of the world is ever safe from American assault. He then turned to the latest threat: ‘The stupidest thing Reagan is doing is to militarize space. It is not only stupid but ridiculous as well. Even in the West Reagan’s efforts are branded as Star Wars, that means Science Fiction. The sole purpose of that initiative is to frighten us. If that’s what they want they should think again! NOBODY CAN FRIGHTEN US! NOBODY! WE WANT PEACE BUT WE CAN DEFEND OURSELVES