MiG Pilot: the Final Escape of Lt. Belenko

That was a good time. The girls were pretty, the fruit sweet, the farmers friendly. We had fun. I wish I could see Armavir just for one day, hear nothing but Russian just for a day.

In his sleep a terrible vision visited him. Vorontsov was smiling, beckoning, calling, and pulling him from the State Department conference room with an invisible chain wrapped around his waist. «It is time, Viktor Ivanovich. You are coming home. Come with me, Viktor Ivanovich.» He awakened shouting, «Nyet, nyet!»

That was a ridiculous dream. You drank too much of that cider. Take some aspirin, and go to sleep.

Reflecting on the nightmare in the morning and vaguely sensing its portent, Belenko undertook to exorcise the causes by assaying his experiences in rural America. You came out here looking for the worst, and what did you find? These farmers, they live better than almost anybody in Moscow or Leningrad. I'm not even sure that Politburo members can buy in Moscow everything you can buy out here in Sticksville. Why, a common laborer on this farm is better off than a Soviet fighter pilot. And you don't have to put up with all that shit, from the first day of school until the last day you breathe. These farmers, they don't listen to anything they don't want to. They just show the government or anybody else the big finger. They are not afraid. They are free people. They say all their guns are for hunting. But they would shoot anybody who tried to deport them or take away their freedom.

And the way they do things works. Look at the harvest! Did they bring in the Air Force and the Army and students and workers from two hundred fifty kilometers away and screw around for weeks and let a third of the crop rot because the machinery broke down and nobody knew or cared what he was doing?

Lied! It's worse than lying. The Party turned the truth upside down. It's the kolkhozniks who are the serfs. No wonder a farmer here produces ten times as much as a kolkhoznik! No wonder they have to buy from the Americans! Don't forget that. Don't forget what you've seen with your own eyes, here and there.

After this analysis and introspection Belenko concluded there was no more to learn on the farm, and he had already recognized an insuperable defect in his plan to obtain pilot's licenses while working on the farm. To fly commercially or even alone and to investigate the United States as thoroughly as he wished, he would have to improve his mastery of English markedly. So when the CIA summoned him to Washington to confer about some sensitive new matters, he decided to leave permanently and immerse himself wholly in language study.

Fred flew Belenko to the airport of a city some 150 miles distant. «Remember, you always have a home.»

From a list compiled by Peter, Belenko chose a commercial institute specializing in teaching foreigners seeking high proficiency in English. Peter suggested that before departing, he ought to buy a car, gave him some automotive magazines, and took him to several dealers. You can buy a car in this country as easily as a loaf of bread! Everybody wants to sell me a car! They don't care whether I can pay for it now or not. Just give them a few hundred dollars, and they give you a car. How can they trust people like that?

Driving alone in his new medium-sized sedan, Belenko experienced both another form of freedom and bewilderment as he headed into the South on multilane interstate highways. It's just as Father Peter and Anna said. You don't have to ask anybody permission to go anywhere. With a car and a map, you can drive anywhere day or night, and always you can find fuel and food. How can they afford to let everybody just get up and go anywhere he pleases whenever he wants? What keeps order in this country?

Sunday at the institute was intellectual fun. Most of the students, drawn from all parts of the Middle East, Asia, and South America, were as serious as the demanding instructors who proceeded on the thesis that the secret of mastering a foreign language is sheer hard work. The students had to listen, drill, recite, and converse eight hours daily, take exams after regular classes, and do homework at night. As his command of English grew under this regimen so did his power to indulge his fondness of reading. Periodically he brought home from the public library armloads of books, particularly the works of George Orwell, Arthur Koestler, and Milovan Djilas, which refined his understanding and hardened his hatred of Soviet communism.