MiG Pilot: the Final Escape of Lt. Belenko

Belenko was conscious of no emotions: no sense of triumph, no relief at being alive. There was no tune for emotion, just as there had been no time in the air.

Get out! Protect the aircraft! Find the Americans! Act! Now!

He ripped off his oxygen mask, unharnessed the parachute, slid back the canopy, and climbed out on the whig. The plane had come to rest near a highway, cars were pulling over, and motorists hopping out with their cameras. Schooled for years in secrecy, drilled to understand that a MiG-25 represented one of the most important state secrets, Belenko impulsively reacted as if he still were in the Soviet Union.

You may not do that! This aircraft is absolutely secret! The taking of pictures is strictly forbidden! Stop!

Unable to communicate by words, he whipped out his pistol and fired into the air. In Japan the possession or discharge of firearms is a grave, almost unheard-of-crime, and had he detonated a small bomb, the effects on the onlookers would not have been more traumatic. They immediately lowered their cameras; some took out the film and tossed it on the ground before him.

A procession of three cars drove slowly down the runway and halted prudently out of pistol range. Two men got out and approached warily, holding high a white flag. They kept pointing and gesturing toward the pistol until he put it back in the holster. Only then did one of the Japanese come close enough to talk. Belenko jumped off the wing to meet him.

«Do you speak English?»

«Nyet.»

The Japanese waved to his companion, a very elderly little man, who walked forward and addressed Belenko in pidgin Russian. «Pistoly, pleezy.» Belenko handed him the pistol. «And knify, too.» He surrendered the knife protrading from a flap pocket of his flight suit. «Follow us, pleezy. Do not wolly.»

Near pandemonium reigned in the airport terminal as crowds of people strained and shoved to see, to try to touch this exotic being who so suddenly and unexpectedly had landed in their midst from another world. When Belenko entered, a Japanese stood by the door, holding a handsome aircraft manual open to a page displaying a drawing of a MiG-25. Grinning and nodding his head rapidly, he held out the manual before Belenko, as if to ask, «Am I right?»

Yes, nodded Belenko. The man put down the manual, grinned more broadly, and clapped.

Within ten minutes after Belenko landed, the Japanese had summoned an official who spoke Russian superbly. Although he introduced himself as a representative of the Japanese Foreign Office, Belenko suspected that he was an intelligence officer. In the office of the airport manager Belenko gave him the note he so laboriously had attempted to write in English precisely for an occasion such as this.

«Who wrote this?» the Japanese official asked.

«I did.»

«Good! Now, tell me how it happened. Did you lose your way?»

«No, I did not. I flew here on purpose. I am asking political asylum in the United States. Conceal the aircraft, and place guards around it at once. Call the Americans immediately.»

As soon as the official translated, the other Japanese started cheering, and some danced about the office. «All right! All right!» the official shouted.

«Would you mind writing down in your own words again just what you have told me?»

«I will do that gladly.»

«Follow us,» they said, and Belenko did so, pulling his jacket over his head to avoid being photographed by the newsmen who had flocked to the scene. Through a narrow corridor they hurried outside to a waiting car, which sped them along back streets to the rear entrance of a hotel.

An interpreter and two security men stayed with Belenko inside the hotel room while two sentries stood guard outside the door. They presented him with new underwear, a kimono, and shoes, packed away all the clothes he wore, and suggested he take a shower.

They must think I smell bad. That's right, everything smells so clean here.

A dinner of eight different dishes — meat, fish, poultry, vegetables, and rice — was served in the room. All the tastes were new to Belenko, and all delicious. «I heard you have very good beer in Japan,» he said hopefully.

«Thank you, but in the present circumstances, we cannot allow you any alcohol.» Although the Japanese did not tell him, the Russians were already accusing them of drugging a lost Soviet pilot, and they were fearful of lending the remotest substance to the allegations.

Another representative of the Japanese Foreign Office, a poised, confident, and well-dressed man in his thirties, visited the room about 9:00 P.M. In fluent Russian he asked Belenko to repeat the details and purpose of his flight. Having done so, Belenko instructed, «Take my parachute and clothes, and drop them in the sea to make them think there was a crash.»