MiG Pilot: the Final Escape of Lt. Belenko

To fly seventy minutes, the maximum time it can stay aloft without refueling, a MiG-25 needs fourteen tons of jet fuel and one-half ton of alcohol for braking and electronic systems. So wherever MiG-25s were based, huge quantities of alcohol were stored, and in the Soviet Air Force the plane was popularly known as the Flying Restaurant. And officers from surrounding bases — Air Force, Army, political officers — seized on any pretext to visit Chuguyevka and fill their bottles.

According to a story circulated at Chuguyevka, a group of Air Force wives, distraught over their husbands' habitual drunkenness, staked a protest at a design bureau in Moscow, appealing to it to design aircraft that would not use alcohol. Supposedly a representative of the bureau told the ladies, «Go screw yourselves. If we want, we will fuel our planes with cognac.»

In April 1976 Belenko's squadron commander asked him to take a truck and pick up a shipment of office supplies from a railroad freight terminal thirty miles north of Vladivostok, paper and office supplies being essential to the functioning of the squadron. It was a task that should have been performed by the deputy squadron commander, but he never stayed sober enough to be trusted with the truck.

The morning was bright, the dirt road empty and not yet dusty, and forests through which he drove were awesome in their natural, unspoiled beauty. They reminded him of man's capacity to despoil nature and himself and of delicious hours in other forests.

Starting back, Belenko saw a frail, ragged figure walking along the road, and the man looked so forlorn he decided to give him a lift. The hitchhiker, who had few teeth, gaunt eyes, sparse hair, and a sallow, unhealthy complexion, looked to be in his sixties. He explained that he worked at the freight terminal and walked or hitchhiked daily to and from his hut eight miles down the road.

«How long have you been here?»

«Almost twenty-five years. After the war I spent ten years in the camps, and ever since, I've worked around here, doing whatever I could find. I am not allowed to go back to the Ukraine, although I miss my home very much. I have relatives, but it is too expensive for them to visit me. You know how life is. The first years were very hard for me because it is so cold here. The Ukraine is warm and sunny, you know, and there are flowers and fruit. I wish I could see it once more before I die. But I guess I won't, I have no passport.» *

«How old are you?»

«Forty-seven.»

«Are you married?»

«Oh, yes. She spent eight years in the camps. She's also from the Ukraine. Her relatives were exiled. They've all died now, and there's just the two of us. We thought about children, but we were afraid we couldn't take care of them. It's not easy to get a good job if you're an exile. You know how life is.»

«What did you do? Did you kill someone?»

«No, I gave bread to the men from the forest.» **

What can he do, that poor man, to our country? Look at him. He hardly has any teeth; he won't live much longer. What kind of enemy is he? What kind of criminal? Whatever he did, ten years are punishment enough. Why not let him go back to his home and die? Why be so hateful? What kind of freedom do we have here?

Belenko was sent to a training center near Moscow for a few weeks' intensive study of the MiG-25, and when he returned in Mid-June, a state of emergency existed in Chuguyevka. A dysentery epidemic had disabled fully 40 percent of the regiment, two soldiers had committed suicide, at least twenty had deserted, there had been more hunger strikes, and the enlisted men now were verging on open mutiny. Fuel shortages had prevented pilots from flying as much as they needed to master their new aircraft. American reconnaissance planes, SR-71s, were prowling off the coast, staying just outside Soviet airspace but photographing terrain hundreds of miles inland with side-angle cameras. They taunted and toyed with the MiG-25s sent up to intercept them, scooping up to altitudes the Soviet planes could not reach, and circling leisurely above them or dashing off at speeds the Russians could not match. Moscow was incensed, and Commandant Shevsov lived in terror of an investigation. Already they had been notified that the regional political officer was flying in next week to lecture all officers of the regiment.

Shevsov announced that a pilot from each squadron would have to speak at the scheduled assembly, present an assessment of the regiment's problems, and propose solutions. He instructed his political officer to pick those likely to create the most favorable impression. The regimental political officer was not from the political directorate of the armed forces; rather, he was a pilot who in the frenzied formation of the regiment just happened to be saddled with the job. He thought as a pilot, and he was the only popular political officer Belenko ever knew. When asked, Belenko told him bluntly and in detail what he thought was wrong and what should be done.