MiG Pilot: the Final Escape of Lt. Belenko

Actually, once Belenko put his request for asylum in writing, there was no question about American willingness to accept him. The Director of Central Intelligence in consultation with the Attorney General and the Commissioner of Immigration is empowered, without reference to immigration laws or any other laws, to admit up to 100 aliens to the United States annually. But in this case the decision was made instantly by President Ford himself.

He learned of Belenko's flight before breakfast. His national security adviser, lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft, recalls that the President at once comprehended the import of Belenko's flight, and was extremely interested.

What did appear in question that Labor Day morning was the outcome of the ferocious Soviet pressures to browbeat and intimidate the Japanese into surrendering Belenko and the MiG-25.

Promptly after Belenko landed, the Soviet Embassy in Tokyo announced that the Soviet Union possessed «an inviolable right to protect its military secrets.» The MiG-25 was a secret military aircraft. Therefore, the Japanese must return it immediately and permit no one to look at it. The embassy further declared, as if addressing some Soviet colony, that the granting of asylum to Belenko «could not be tolerated.» The Soviet government lodged repeated protests demanding the immediate return of Belenko and the plane. One was so brazenly and harshly worded that the Japanese characterized it as unparalleled in the history of diplomatic relations with the USSR.

Soviet aircraft swarmed around Japan in a deliberate and insulting display of power. At sea, Soviet naval vessels started seizing Japanese fishing craft and hauling their crews off to Soviet prisons. These blatant piratical depredations were meant to make the Japanese cower by showing them bow the Russians could disrupt the fishing industry on which their island economy heavily depends.

Meanwhile, the Russians tried to get at the plane directly. Late in the afternoon of the sixth, a Russian using a false name showed up at the Hakodate Airport administrator's office, identifying himself as «a crewman of a Soviet merchant ship being repaired at Hakodate harbor.» He said he had come to interview his compatriot Belenko. A Japanese official stonily turned him away.

The next afternoon three more Russians knocked at the airport administration office. Their spokesman introduced himself as the «Tass bureau chief in Tokyo» and his two companions as «Aeroflot engineers.»

«It's our job to ship the airplane out, but we understand that its landing gear is damaged,» he said earnestly. «We must have the parts to repair them and would like to ascertain how badly the gear is smashed. So we would like to go on out to the plane, look around, and take some photographs.»

Airport administrator Masao Kageoka smiled politely. «Well, the plane is now under control of the Japanese police, and it is beyond my authority to grant you access. By the way, I don't quite understand in which capacity you are here.»

«Oh,» said the «Tass» man, «I'm here as a civilian.»

This same indefatigable intelligence officer visited the regional headquarters of the Hokkaido police the next morning and announced that he was reporting for his «briefing» on the plane and pilot. The police said, «We can't give you any details. Get out!»

On Tuesday, September 7, the White House announced that President Ford himself had decided to grant Belenko asylum in the United States. «If he asks for asylum here, he will be welcome,» said Press Secretary Ron Nessen. Unfortunately, some misconstrued the phrasing to mean that Belenko had not yet asked for asylum.

But, as an official statement issued at the same time by the State Department made clear, there was no doubt about Belenko's desires: «The Japanese government notified us of the pilot's request for asylum, and they did it yesterday. We have informed the government of Japan that we are prepared to allow the pilot to come to the United States. We understand that is his desire. I believe the same comment or a comment to that effect was made this morning at the White House.»

The announcements in Washington coupled with indications emerging from a Japanese Cabinet meeting that Belenko was about to be transferred to the Americans, incited the Russians to new fury and desperation. Soviet Ambassador Dmitri Polyansky read to the Japanese Deputy Foreign Minister a statement, the crudity of which exceeded all bounds of conventional diplomatic propriety. The Russians declared that Belenko had made an emergency landing and accused the Japanese of lying about it, or «fabricating a story» to conceal the «physical violence and other unforgivable means» employed to kidnap him.