European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - September 22, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes monday september 22,1986 columns William Buckley a scrum Amend backers need read no further this is directed o american conservatives disturbed by recent developments political fiscal and psychological concerning ski and prospective arrangements Al the next Summit  who wish for disarmament even if unilateral for the suspension or the Star wars Enterprise and for continued Reliance on Mutual assured destruction need not read on indeed Are urge not to do so. The existing treaty abm touches ambiguously on what signatories can andean t do under the restrictive interpretation there Are things the United state swill want one Day soon to do testing primarily which arc forbidden to us so Long As we agree to the restrictive interpretation. There has been talk of president Reagan s Oft ring to prolong the abm treaty for 7 i years a hypothesis that brings great distress to pro ski advocates who believe the Ell Cim of such postponement would be mortal to ski research and testing. These folks consistently have urged Ine preside in to repeal the abm treaty altogether to be Don with it pure and simple. The Good news received from a High source is that Reagan has in min to redefine the abm treaty in such a Way As absolutely to remove any obstacles to going full Speed ahead with research an testing and Only after that such is made Clear agree to the 7 / year ban on deploy ment. The thinking behind this decision rests substantially on several assumptions. One of them is that although the soviet Union is cheating on the abm treaty in fact it is observing certain restraints thai in is in our interests they should continue 10 observe. A Secondis that certain stages of the soviet strategic defense system arc Well advanced cd rain others in arrears a third is that we can t reach the deploy ment stage in any event in less than seven years. There is a grand objective Tom Wicker this is to come up with an arrange ment the terms of which would prohibit deployment until a period before which we would not in any event be Able to deploy in All three stages. What Are these stages roughly speak ing. No. 1 is to hit the enemy missile As itis fired before it reaches the atmosphere. No. 2 is to hit it while in route to its objective. No. 3 is to hit Ilas it comes Down for the kill. The soviet Union and the United slates Are advanced to differ ent Levels in developing weapons appropriate to the several stages. The grand idea is that at the end of the 7 i years the United states will reveal to inc soviet Union exactly what its technology has arrived at and invite the soviet Union o do the same thing but Only in Exchange for the reduction of All nuclear offensive arsenals right to the threshold level that is to the Point where soviet weapons no longer present a in cat to the survival of the United states or ours to the soviet Union maintaining Only enough atomic weapons to Cope with threats from other countries. A Subtle but dangerous pressure is being scr cd on the Reagan administration not so much by enemies of the space shield program As by ils  they Are saying is Why nol concentrate on stage no. 3, and use that technology in order to protect our own missiles the trouble with that Tine of thinking is thai in has the effect of simply returning us to a kind of Post abm mentality in which whatever we achieved i safety for our offensive missiles we would sacrifice the larger design which is to seek safely for our people and therefore to Edge away from Mutual assured destruction. Ii will prove important in our Deal Ings with the soviet Union to deprive it in the Posl Reagan Era of the Means to stall . Deployment of its ski to which end. Firm Dales will be set beyond which deployment becomes automatic. What is of course critical Here is that any rem5atomics Concession by the soviet Union to nuclear disarmament should be conclusive and binding. A future president ought not to be Able to succumb to soviet propitiation Al anything less than threshold level in Exchange for delaying ski deployment or whatever. If the soviet Union were Tomor Row to reduce its nuclear Arsenal by 70 percent in would make very Little differ ence to the danger in which . Citizens now live it is Only if the reduction goes to the threshold we Are talking about perhaps 90 percent 95 percent Hal Siruc nuclear disarmament is under Way. So a grand plan. Its Success depends on the language and the Force behind the language wrested in negotiations with the soviet Union. A u bowl Pooh Book Sheds new Light on Downing of flight 007 in 1984 and 1985,1 wrote several columns raising questions about the Reagan administration s insistence Hal on the night of aug. 3-sep. I 1983, korean air tines right 007 accidentally entered the soviet Union s airspace and was deliberately shot Down by soviet air Defyn semen who knew it was a civilian air liner. Now the experienced investigator Seymour Here has established in a new Book that . Intelligence information never sufficiently supported that charge when the raw reports were properly evaluated they disclosed instead that an inept soviet air defense Force had confused flight 007 with a . Military plane also operating Hal night and did not know a civilian air Craft was being destroyed. The Reagan administration nevertheless blared to the world this unsubstantiated charge that in soon knew was untrue and never has retracted or corrected it relishing instead is greatest propaganda Vic  the russians insisted thai the United slates had sent right 007 Over the soviet Union for espionage purposes. That charge was never made in any of my articles because As harsh now affirms there was no evidence to support in. The primary Points of inquiry 1 raised were Hud . Listening posts in the North Pacific known the Mliner was off course in time to warn in if nol Why inv Hou ill experienced pilots making a routine flight dangerously near soviet airspace get so far off course and remain unaware of it for about five hours in the target is destroyed harsh who first disclosed the Cia scandals in the 1970s answers the first question. Though various posts picked up indications that flight 007 was off course he writes and others tracked unusual soviet air defense activities neither . Nor japanese electronic sentries put two and to together in time to realize the danger or warn right oots Crew. The . Intelligence performance was less than outstanding harsh believes. Bui he found no indication of a decision to gain intelligence information on soviet air defences rather than warn flight 007 of its plight. On the question of How the Airliner got and remained so far off course Hersh seems much less convincing he presents Only a speculative Pilot error Sce Nario devised by Harold Ewing an airline Pilot Long experienced on the North Pacific routes the Ewing scenario begins with the flight Engineer making a Finger error of 10 degrees Longitude i entering data into one of the Boeing 707 s three Iner Tia navigation system units. When the Engineer entered Correct information in a second unit and a Light warned of the inconsistency he resolved the problem. By turning off the warning Light and leaving the error  the incorrectly loaded unit was the Captain s. At Takeoff the error put him 300 Miles to the East of his actual position. He then compounded the error first by slightly changing his flight plan without telling the rest of the Crew second by entering More incorrect coordinates into his ins unit. Even Ewing who de Vised this scenario acknowledges the need for a Lea of Faith Al this  Bui if indeed one of the most experienced of korean air lines captains committed these Erron on top of his flight Engineer s mistakes the Workings of the ins would have carried 007 Over Sakhalin Island to be shot Down if that is none of these mistakes were discovered Over the Neil five hours by Crew or navigating devices. That leads to another Broad Assumption thai Captain Chun after changing his night plan passed most of the night in the first class Cabin not on Ihen ight deck. All this seems rather like Murphy s Law if anything can go wrong in will carried to extremes. Ewing insisted to harsh Hal such Crew errors happen frequently if Fiat s True transoceanic Light May have been Deal a severe blow in his Book. I find it a less Trian satisfying explanation of o07 s ill failed journey life and truth cannot always be satisfying. If As Hersh far More conclusively argues flight 007 was nol on a spy Mission this scenario leap of Faith and All May be As Good an explanation of its fateful course As we ii Ever have that s not Good enough � silence All conspiracy theorists but probably nothing Ever will be. 1c Huw Yuk tint