a deadly dance of dark suspicion
& dangerous curiosity
Copyright
2001, 2003, 2004
by
Richard Harris
(316) 685-3371 - rh1@iwichita.com
photos courtesy of the U.S. Department of Defense, generally
Excerpts previously published by Aero News Network (
www.aero-news.net
) and In Flight USA
The emergency landing of an American EP-3 Aries spyplane, in China,
March 31, 2001 (described at the end of this story) opened up the book
on a lot of historical "precedents," where America and other nations
lost or gathered aircraft and ships in the endless game of cat-and-mouse
that is a part of spying along foreign borders (and sometimes over
them). Here are a few key events and milestones in spycraft operations,
attacks on suspect craft, and seizures of aircraft, ships and crews,
which have kept the battle for information edgy, dangerous and dramatic:
1944:
U.S. B-29's confiscated by Russia. During World War II, in operations against Japan, some U.S.
Boeing
B-29 Superfortress bombers landed in Eastern Russia, after overflying Japan.
Though Russia was officially a U.S. ally in the war, Russia impounded
the B-29's, and -- though returning their crews -- refused to return the
aircraft.
Instead, Russian plane-maker Tupolev disassembled the
76,000-part B-29's -- the war's most advanced bomber -- and copied them,
to build a virtually-identical Russian bomber, the
Tu-4 (NATO code-named "
Bull").
It became the chief Soviet postwar bomber for nearly a decade. At the
same time, Boeing built an improved version of the B-29, the
B-50 Superfortress, with the resulting irony that each nation's greatest threat to the other -- in the
early postwar "Cold War" years -- was from nuclear bombers built from the
same original design: the
Boeing B-29.
Exacerbating the irony, in the mid-1950's the Soviets gave several
TU-4's to Communist China, where they continued to serve for many more
years -- as China's chief long-range, strategic heavy bomber.
1953-1954:
Korean War pilots shot down over China. During the Korean War,
an American
B-29 Superfortress bomber, with 14 American
servicemen aboard, was shot down when it apparently strayed over China's
border with North Korea. The servicemen were captured, and -- following
the Quemoy and Matsu crisis -- China announced plans to try them as
spies (with the implicit threat of execution), despite the fact that all
but two had been in uniform. All were given lengthy prison sentences.
This outraged the American public, already angry with China over its
support of North Korea -- with members of Congress and virtually the
entire Pentagon leadership calling for nuclear war against China. It was
the sixth time in a year that the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff and the
National Security Council had urged President Eisenhower to use nuclear
weapons. Eisenhower stood firm against all his advisers, and Washington
was eventually able to negotiate the airmen's release.
1960:
The U-2 Incident; Russia.
At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy were
over-flying the Soviet Union (Communist Russia and its border colonies)
-- frantically trying
to discern Soviet military developments.
At first the tightly-closed Communist nation was ill-equipped to combat
the flying spies. Soviet defenses were concentrated around its few
major cities, and its fighters had limited range, speed and altitude
capabilities. Still, many of the American spyplanes were intercepted
and shot down.
Generally speaking, neither government publicly
acknowledged these hot flashes of the Cold War, and the outside world
was largely unaware, as were most of the people in their own countries.
At first, the propellor-driven
Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers (re-labeled "
RB-29"
for "Reconnaissance") were used, mostly -- due to their long range,
high altitude, substantial speed, defensive armament, and enormous
payload (needed for the bulky cameras and electronics of early spy
flights).
But as the Soviets developed fast, well-armed jet fighters which could
shoot them down (and did), the RB-29's were gradually replaced by the
faster, higher-flying jet-powered
Boeing RB-47 Stratojet (shown at left), also a modified bomber.
The overflights quite unnerving to the Soviet Union -- a nation who had
recently lost one-tenth of its people to a surprise invasion by the
Nazis -- especially since American overflights were by planes derived
from, and visually identical to, U.S. nuclear strategic bombers. Soviet
defenses, particularly fighter development, evolved rapidly to counter
the U.S. intruders. In time, even the 600-mph Stratojets could not
outrun, nor outclimb, the latest Soviet fighters.
The U.S. government finally decided the solution was a "non-military"
reconnaissance plane, designed from the start for that purpose: the
Lockheed U-2
-- a high-flying reconnaissance plane stripped of all identification, and assigned to the CIA.
The long-winged U-2's, powered by a single jet engine, were designed to
fly over 60,000 feet up (12 miles high, on the edge of space; U-2
pilots wore pressurized suits like astronauts). Designed to fly higher
than any known jet fighter or anti-aircraft missile, they would fly over
Soviet territory with impunity. The U-2's soon became America's chief
resource for hard data on Soviet military developments.
Pilot Francis Gary Powers, on the longest U-2 overflight mission ever,
was to fly a zig-zagging course across the entire Soviet Union, south to
north. The key object was to photograph suspected new Soviet
intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM's), capable of striking the
U.S. He took off May 1, 1960 -- "May Day" -- the international holiday
of Communists. About one-third of the way through his twisting,
3,788-mile Turkey-to-Norway overflight, an explosion (whether an engine
failure or a Soviet missile was never known outside the USSR) blew the
U-2 out of the sky. Powers successfully parachuted to Soviet soil, and
was promptly captured.
 |
| Khrushchev views U-2 wreckage |
The Soviets displayed the captured plane to the world, while the U.S.
lamely claimed it was only a weather-research plane that had strayed off
course -- way off course. Eventually President Eisenhower admitted the
obvious, and defended his actions as "necessary." Though pilot Powers
was treated civilly by his Russian captors, he was tried as a spy (with
the implicit risk of a death sentence) in a public show trial. The
incident gave Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschchev a chance to humiliate
President Eisenhower just before their Paris summit meeting, and greatly
embarrassed the Eisenhower administration at home -- while Ike's vice
president, Richard Nixon, was running for President. Nixon was narrowly
defeated by his opponent, Senator John F. Kennedy.
(Russia, a few years later, traded the imprisoned Powers to the U.S. for
a captured Russian spy, Rudolf Abel. Powers returned to mixed
appreciation, with many damning him for having confessed the obvious at
his trial, and many others damning him for not having chosen suicide
over capture. The CIA discharged him, but secretly funded his
employment at Lockheed, as a U-2 test pilot, until he published a book
about his experiences. After years of difficulty finding work, Powers
became a prominent Los Angeles newscaster/pilot, and died in 1977 when
his newscopter crashed.)
1962:
U-2 shot down; Cuban Missile Crisis.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis -- when the Soviet Union attempted to
place nuclear-tipped, intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Cuba,
just off American shores -- the U-2 was again used to discern Soviet
developments. One of the two U.S. Air Force
U-2 pilots who first
photographed proof of the missiles deployment -- Major Rudolf Anderson,
Jr. -- was shot down during one of his overflights by a Soviet
missile.
The event heightened tensions, as each side faced the other with an
arsenal of nuclear weapons poised to annihilate millions of each others'
men, women and children. Some cabinet members and belligerent military
leaders, particularly U.S. Air Force chief of staff Gen. Curtiss LeMay,
urged war -- and with the loss of Anderson, the military's demands for
attack grew passionate. Kennedy held
his ground, and settled the matter with a naval blockade of Cuba, until
the missiles were withdrawn, peacefully.
The president's brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, wrote in his
memoirs that the President "talked a lot about Major Anderson, and how
it is always the brave and best who die. The politicians and officials
sit at home pontificating about great principles, and issues, make
decisions, and dine with their wives and families, while the brave and
the young die."
The day Soviet Premier Khruschchev ordered the withdrawal of Soviet
missiles from Cuba, as the cabinet members departed the oval office, his
brother looked back and saw President Kennedy sitting down at his desk
to write a private letter to Major
Anderson's widow.
1967:
Israel attacks U.S.S. Liberty in 6-Day War. Egypt, Syria and Jordan
began massing troops along the borders with Israel, in an apparent move
to invade the Zionist nation, and return it to the Palestinians.
Israel decided to strike first. In an apparent attempt to conceal its
initiation of hostilities, Israel
targeted the
U.S.S. Liberty, an American spy ship loitering in international waters between Israel and Egypt.
The
Liberty,
was among the first targets of a wave of Israeli fighters and bombers
attacking Arab targets, signaling the outbreak of the Six-Day War
-- in which Israel seized control of Gaza and the West Bank of the
Jordan River.
Several crewmen were killed and injured, in a series of sea and air
attacks lasting over an hour -- despite repeated radio calls from the
ship to the attackers and others. Israel lamely argued that the U.S.
ship was mistaken for an enemy vessel.
The Liberty eventually limped back to port in Malta, listing to
starboard from a hole blasted by a torpedo (see close-up picture) and
punctured throughout with holes from Israeli cannon and
machine-gun fire.
1968:
The U.S.S. Pueblo; North Korea. North Korean gunboats harassed, then attacked and seized the American spy ship,
U.S.S. Pueblo,
whose captain, Cmdr. Lloyd Bucher, claimed he'd been sailing outside
the 12-mile territorial limit (which evidence later supported); the
North Koreans claimed otherwise.
For over an hour, the crew frantically tried -- unsuccessfully -- to
destroy its classified documents and equipment (using axes and
hand-grenades, seriously injuring themselves in the process), while
radioing for American help that never came.
The 82 surviving crewmembers were held captive, paraded in front of
international media (as shown at left, Bucher standing), interrogated
and beaten until "confessions" were extracted by North Korean
authorities. They were eventually released, exactly 11 months later,
Dec. 23, 1968.
1969:
EC-121 spy plane shot down by North Korea. Over international waters in the Sea of Japan, near the North Korean coast, an unarmed U.S. Navy
Lockheed EC-121 Warning Star spyplane (shown at right; a modified Lockheed
Constellation
4-prop airliner) was shot down by North Korean fighters, 90 miles
southeast of North Korea -- closer, actually, to American ally South
Korea.
The April 14 incident killed all 31 servicemen aboard. This incident,
along with the preceding Pueblo incident, led to a series of
Congressional investigations of U.S. surveillance practices.
1976:
Stolen MiG-25 lands in Japan:
A Soviet military pilot defected to the West, fleeing to Japan in his
MiG-25 fighter jet. The Mach-3 jet (NATO designation "
Foxbat")
was a mystery craft to the Western powers, particularly the U.S., who
were eager to
examine the latest, "most advanced" Soviet fighter. The Defense
Department had long used the mystery of the MiG-25 as a "boogeyman" to
scare the government into funding advanced U.S. weaponry.
On September 6, Russian pilot, Lt. Viktor Belenko, landed his MiG-25
fighter (NATO designation "Foxbat" shown below) at an airfield near
Hakodate, on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido, and asked for asylum,
and it was temporarily granted. The Soviet government furiously
demanded the prompt return of their stolen plane, and the pilot who took
it. And when Japan refused, the Russian Navy, in retaliation, captured
Japanese fishing boats and imprisoned their
crews, while Soviet military craft menaced Japanese military craft over
international waters.
The condescending bluster and arrogant challenges of the Soviets only
insulted the Japanese -- who dug their heels in more forcefully, and
welcomed U.S. requests to examine the aircraft. Then-
U.S.-Defense-Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld (who, ironically, is now again
the Secretary of Defense) admitted "we
wanted the plane. We wanted metal samples; to fly it, take it apart,
then fly it again." He got his wish. The Japanese government allowed
the U.S. to disassemble the plane, stuff it in a giant C-5A Galaxy
transport, and fly it to a
Japanese airbase near Tokyo for a thorough disassembly and inspection.
Two months later, it was shipped back to the Russians in pieces.
What was expected to be an intelligence bonanza turned into an
embarrassment for the U.S. Defense Department. The MiG's crude, bulky,
stainless-steel construction, poor aerodynamic qualities, limited
weapons capacity, short range and utterly
archaic electronics discredited Defense Department paranoia over the new
aircraft, and over Soviet military technology, generally.
The pilot, Lt. Belenko defected to the United States, and spent months
answering questions for the Defense Department and the CIA.
1970's-1980's:
U.S. submarines in Soviet waters. In a
super-secret program (most famously labeled "HOLYSTONE"), U.S.
submarines spied on the Soviet Union, by sailing submerged into Soviet
waters, and sometimes even up Soviet rivers -- even tapping Soviet
undersea cables. The program "surfaced" during the "Year of
Intelligence" (1975), among the many revelations (first made by reporter
Seymour Hersh) about U.S. intellegence operations run amok (many of
them subverting U.S. law) which ultimately sparked Congressional
investigations.
The intruder-submarines story broke with Seymour Hersh's front page
articles in the New York Times, May 25, 1975 and July 6, 1975, including
the revelation that one of the subs had actually collided with a Soviet
surface ship March 31, 1971. But the Navy kept rolling the dice,
intruding into Soviet waters -- until the discovery of the Walker family
spy ring, inside the U.S. Navy, which had tipped off the Soviets about
key details of this and many other U.S. naval spy operations. That
disaster reportedly brought the program to a screeching halt.
|
Korean Air Lines
Boeing 747
Boeing
EC-135 / RC-135
spyplane
|
1983:
South Korean 747 airliner shot down by Soviet fighters.
On September 1, Korean Air Lines Flight 007, a
Boeing 747 with
over 200 people aboard, was blasted out of the sky in the night, killing
all aboard (including an American Congressman) after straying into
Soviet Airspace near the Kamchatka Peninsula, a Soviet territory on the
eastern edge of Russia, which served as a key Soviet miitary testing
ground.
The peninsula had regularly been stalked by American spy planes, including
RC-135 (modified Boeing
707
airliners) surveillance aircraft, particularly during recent sensitive
Soviet missile tests. Soviet authorities claimed that the trespassing
South Korean 747 airliner had been mistaken, in the murky skies, for an
American RC-135 spy plane.
The incident fueled cold war tensions, and rattled the Soviet military
establishment, severely discrediting it, and setting the stage for later
shakeups and marginalizing of Soviet military
leadership which would help bring about the weakening of Soviet
Communism.
1992:
U.S. EC-130 attacked by Peru. in April, a U.S.
Lockheed
EC-130 spyplane, a modified
C-130 Hercules
4-prop transport, purportedly engaged in a drug-war mission, was
attacked by Peruvian fighter aircraft over waters near Peru, killing one
crewman and injuring
others. The plane landed safely in a field in northern Peru, near the
border with Ecuador. The crew was returned to the U.S.
Peru claimed that the U.S. plane was 300 miles off its
officially-claimed course when attacked. At the time (as often) there
were heightened military tensions between Peru and Ecuador, who had been
in territorial battles over sea rights. Further, the Peruvian
government, in a leadership crisis, had just suspended its constitution.
__________________________
2001:
EP-3 spyplane forced down in China: March 31, 2001, an American
EP-3 electronic-sensing spyplane (a modified U.S. Navy
P-3 Orion, which, in turn, was a modified Lockheed
Electra turboprop airliner) was patrolling off the coast of China, in international airspace over
the South China Sea.
The airline will start thrice weekly flights between Cebu and Busuanga, and between Tacloban and Legazpi on October 4, using an ATR 72-500 aircraft.
