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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, SEPTEMBER 9, 1983
PAGE 9
ON THE WORLD SCENE
THE KOREAN AIRLINER TRAGEDY AND ITS LINK
TO A UNITED EUROPE: "WE' RE ALL THE SAME, RIGHT?"
After five days of implicit denials, the Soviet government has acknowledged
that one of its Far East-based fighter planes shot down a South Korean air
liner last Thursday morning resulting in the deaths of 269 passengers and
crew. Authorities in Moscow, however, insisted that its anti-aircraft de
fense command operated within its prescribed role of defending Soviet air
space against all unauthorized aircraft.
At the same time, the cornered Kremlin, trying to mount a counter-attack
against mounting worldwide criticism, stepped up its harsh criticism of
President Reagan, who had denounced the barbarous act on a nationwide tele
vised address Monday evening. A report circulated by the Soviet Union's
TASS news agency called Mr. Reagan "ignorant" and said his speech amounted
to a "torrent of rude abuses and slander" imbued with "pathological anti
communism."
According to all logical accounts of the disaster the unarmed Korean Air
Lines plane had wandered off course, drifting over Soviet territory north
of Japan, an area which contains strategic Soviet naval and air bases, such
as those at Vladivostok and Sovetskaya-Gaven, main facilities for the 820
ships of the Soviet Pacific Fleet. Soviet officials from Foreign Minister
Andrei Gromyko on down justified their country's action by claiming that
the airliner, in addition to its normal functions, was collecting intelli
gence information for the United States C.I.A.
Reflecting the paramount--indeed paranoic--concern for secure borders, the
official Communist Party daily, PRAVDA, announced coldly:
"We will not
allow our borders to be violated, and we know how to defend them. Let no
one have any doubts on this. Any provocation must and will be duly re
pulsed. Otherwise things might go too far: Today they are sending planes
into our territory, tomorrow missiles could follow."
What is likely to be the short- and long-term impact of the grim disaster?
Short-term, very little. President Reagan's hands appear pretty well tied.
For example, the new five-year grain deal with Moscow, inked only six days
prior to the incident, will go on, embarrassingly. Mr. Reagan's TV address
was tough--but that's about all. Said one editorial writer: "He did no more
than pelt the swaggering offender with the adjectives of pious outrage.
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Said another: "Adjectives break no bones."
The fact is, the detente-based policy of the late 1960s and 1970s to so
"enmesh" the Soviet Union in the affairs of the West that its policies would
be "moderated" has once again been shown for what it is--a failure. The
U.S.S.R. will always put two principles ahead of any advantageous links to
the West: (1) national defense and maintaining territorial integrity, and
(2) the attempt to spread its political influence around the world wherever
possible, searching out opportunities where they present themselves. This
justifies the validity and "historical imperative" of Marxism. It will
always probe Western weaknesses, avoiding strength. The threats of embar
goes and technology cut-offs do not alter the pre-eminence of these two
factors.