TARGET IS DESTROYED

Rating:
Summary: Readable, and right on
Review: Hersh's book is an excellent primer on the U.S. intelligence community. (In fact, I recently read it for an intelligence class at American University taught by the genial and wise Professor John Macartney.) Hersh, through hundreds of interviews with people involved with the U.S. response to the KAL007 shootdown, pieces together a workable theory about why the Soviets would shoot down the plane. And most of his thesis was redeemed when the Russians finally handed over the black box from the plane after the collapse of the U.S.S.R. The book presents complex ideas clearly, and no matter what else you think of Hersh's writing or his politics, you will find this book valuable.

Rating:
Summary: A Total Waste Of Time
Review: Pure drivel, by one of America's foremost so-called investigative journalists, this guy couldn't track an elephant with a nosebleed. Read Michel Brun's Incident At Sakhalin instead of this mass-hyped garbage.
People such as this author (James Oberg, for example, is a similar government-sponsored/endorsed public relations fixer who has also flung his dung extensively on this matter) need to be kept a very close eye on, because they are the ones who are primarily responsible for the public's acceptance of the blatant and transparent lies and falsehoods that have plagued the political life of this country now for several decades - and will ultimately destroy it if left unchecked.

Rating:
Summary: A Total Waste Of Time
Review: This book brings it all home. Those disbelievers have their necks screwed on backwards. Wake up! This is how WAR is fought! This is WHY wars are fought! This is WHAT really happens in the light of day! and the darkness of moonless nights. Errors are made, therefore tragedy. Those who are educated must see that our countries are groomed towards certain destinies controlled by those who are evil and those who are not so evil, but trained to respond in the best way possible. Very well written.

Rating:
Summary: Who knew what, when about the Korean airliner shootdown:
Review: This is a book about the selective use - and misuse - of intelligence information.

On Sept. 1 1983, a Soviet fighter pilot was ordered to shoot down Korean Airlines Flight 007, even though the pilot argued with his superiors and repeatedly identified the plane as a civilian plane. Breaking with usual intelligence policies, the Reagan administration released the recorded conversation between the fighter pilot and ground control to news media and the world.

This breach was made for political reasons. The impression this was intended to create was that it was standard Soviet policy to shoot down civilian airliners. This jeopardized our future intelligence-gathering capabilities, because it gave away to the Soviets just how sophisticated our intelligence-gathering was, and the extent to which Norway was providing us with info.

Many U.S. intelligence officers were dismayed by the way this was done, because the Reagan administration also withheld all information about the intense U.S. military activity that was being conducted in the area with reconfigured civilian aircraft. For the past several years, the U.S. had been routinely flying specially-configured Boeing 707s equipped with electronic communications surveillance equipment over the Barents sea and other areas that KAL flew over. In fact, a Cobra Ball surveillance plane was in the air to the south of the KAL flight path the same day. George Schultz made sure Cobra Ball was safely in its hangar before they made any announcements about the shootdown of a civilian plane.

The U.S. had also performed massive military maneuvers with three carriers and 23,000 personnell just off Soviet Far Eastern waters six months earlier (in March of 1983), and six U.S. fighter jets overflew Soviet airspace during these exercises. While officially the U.S. claimed the overflight by the six fighters was a mistake, this was widely believed among the U.S. intelligence community to be a deliberate provocation by the U.S. military.

Soviets often put civilian markings on military transports, and given all the increased U.S. military and surveillance activity just off Soviet territorial waters in 1981-83, it becomes far more plausible that the commanding Soviet officers on the ground suspected that Americans had done the same thing with one of our electronic surveillance planes.

The U.S. and Canada shared intelligence information, and the Reagan administration was very unhappy with Canada because Prime Minister Trudeau (based on the same intelligence information provided to the U.S.) said he was sure the Soviets made a tragic mistake, and believed they were shooting down a U.S. intelligence plane that, like the six fighters earlier that year, was testing their defenses and their response times.

Want to know more? You'll have to read the book.

Rating:
Summary: Who knew what, when about the Korean airliner shootdown:
Review: This is a publicity exercise orchestrated by the CIA who, having found a tame and gullible author, have spoon-fed him only the lies they want to. US radar capability is not mentioned once! A reader could be forgiven in believing that the USA relies totally on radio intercepts for the primary defence of the nation! Yet this author was awarded a Pullitzer Prize for a previous work. If the Pullitzer people read this book they might ask for their prize back. The whole world has a right to answers to this myster. We don't need rubbish like this.

Rating:
Summary: A Bit of Cold War History
Review: Wow, some of the things that took place in the cold war were catastrophes. The difference between this incident and the American shoot down of the Iranian plane is that this was done on purpose it would seam. I think if you would read more about this era you would find that the USSR did finally discipline the Commanders that made this mistake, but in typical Soviet style they did it in secret thus eliminating any public good will they may have gained. I think the biggest error made by the Regan administration is that they did not immediately release the tape, which one could argue that the gathering of the information may have lead to the 007 shoot down. The book is an enjoyable read that moves fast.