MiG Pilot: the Final Escape of Lt. Belenko

There are other Soviet pilots who, presented with the opportunity, would flee with their aircraft, and the Soviet armed forces in general are quite vulnerable to subversion by Western intelligence services. But were the Soviet Union attacked, most Russian pilots would fight ardently and to the best of their ability to defend not communism necessarily but their Mother Country, to which they are spiritually bound, however ill it may have served them. In his opinion, the large majority of Soviet pilots, if ordered, actually would ram hostile aircraft. With luck they might eject and survive as heroes; without it they would die as heroes, and their families would not suffer. Should they disobey an order to ram, they would be imprisoned and their families would suffer grievously.

Among enlisted personnel supporting flight operations, Belenko considers the American advantage overwhelming. The conditions of life and servitude of Soviet enlisted men are so brutal that they can barely be compelled to perform adequately in peacetime. He questions whether they could be coerced to perform adequately in the chaos and adversity of wartime. In his estimation, American enlisted personnel are incomparably better treated, trained, and motivated and probably would discharge their duties even more zealously and efficiently in wartime than in peacetime.

Finally, Belenko observes that the American air forces benefit from rapid dissemination and adaptation of new technological and tactical data. In the Soviet Union, because of a tradition of secrecy and the effects of the political bureaucracy within the military, communication of new information, much less its exploitation, is slow and difficult.

As for aircraft, Belenko's wide exposure to fighters in the United States has only confirmed what he was told in the Soviet Union. The F-14, F-15, and F-16, along with their missile, radar, and fire-control systems, are appreciably better than their Soviet counterparts, although the United States has not of its own choice developed an interceptor that can match the MiG-25 at the highest altitude.

Before his flight, Belenko was told, accurately, it would seem, that the Soviet Union planned a new version of the MiG-25 with two seats, a look-down radar, more effective missiles, and improved engines that would not accelerate out of control. He doubts, though, that any modifications can overcome the congenital limitations of weight, fuel consumption, range, and maneuverability that doom the MiG-25 to inferiority at heights below 60,000 feet.

Some of the most significant revelations from Belenko have been and probably will be kept secret indefinitely, for to disclose them would only assist the Russians in repairing the cracks and crevices he pointed out. And while telling the United States much that it did not know, he was able sometimes to show how it had seriously misinterpreted what it did know. «We asked him to look at an elaborate analysis of something our cameras detected by chance when there was an abnormal opening in clouds that normally covered a particular region. Learned men had spent vast amounts of time trying to figure out what it was and concluded that it was something quite sinister,» an Air Force officer said. «Viktor took one look at it and convincingly explained why what we thought was so ominous was in fact comically innocuous.»

Upon completion of the formal debriefings of Belenko, which lasted roughly five months, General Keegan commented: «The value of what he gave us, what he showed us is so great that it can never be measured in dollars. The people of the United States and the West owe him an everlasting debt. He grew up in a brutal, bestial society. In the military, he lived, despite his elite status, in a moral junkyard. Yet he came out of it as one of the most outstanding young studs, one of the most honest, courageous, selfreliant young men I have ever known of. I would love to have him as a pilot in the U.S. Air Force or Navy.»

Other Americans who came to know Belenko felt much the same way. But his future was far from secure. He had yet to confront the greatest crisis of his life.

CHAPTER VIII: The Final Escape

The CIA and Air Force did their best to steel Belenko against one danger that was foreseeable.

No matter how knowledgeable, perspicacious, intelligent, and helpful an escapee from the Soviet Union may be, there inevitably arrives a time when his special knowledge is exhausted. The initial, intense drama that binds interrogated and interrogators together personally and intellectually in a common cause sooner or later must end. The Americans who have been daily or frequent companions, who have formed for the Russian a kind of spiritual lifeline in a bewilderingly strange society must disperse and depart for other duties. And the Russian must begin a new life which only he can finally forge.