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Soviet Defector Depicts Grim Life at MIG‐25 Base

Soviet Defector Depicts Grim Life at MIG‐25 Base
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January 13, 1977, Page 1Buy Reprints
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WASHINGTON, Jan. 12—When Viktor I. Belenko, the former Soviet Air Forel lieutenant, recently visited the enlisted men's mess on a United States aircraft carrier, he expressed astonishment at the huge portions of food served “free and at all times” to the sailors.

The Soviet defector, who flew his MIG25 to Japan last Sept. 6, found it an almost unbelievable contrast to the grim life of enlisted men at his former air base near Sakharovka in Far Eastern Siberia.

As a MIG pilot, he ate his breakfasts on base under supervision of a flight surgeon concerned with nutrition, while his wife, Lyudmila, subsisted largely on a diet of potatoes occasionally supplemented by fish Or meat in their small apartment.

The debriefing of Mr. Belenko has given United States intelligence officers an unsual picture of the life of a Soviet fighter pilot, characterized by what one official celled “brutal discipline, distrust, extraordinary concern with safety and spartan hiring conditions.”

;Since arriving in the United States Sept. 9,‐ Mr. Belenko has undergone almost conti.nuous sessions of interrogation, psychiatric examination and observation by the Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency and the Air Force.

In addition to his visit to the aircraft carrier, he has also spent time at Langley Air Force Base near Newport News, Va., and taken a brief fishing vacation in the Appalachian Mountains.

He has begun to stlidy English and other subjects at the college level and has proved a “quick study” and “highly competitive,” according to officials attending him.

In addition to the treasure of information provided by the MIG‐25, a hig‐performance craft designated Foxbat by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the 29‐year‐old pilot has proved to be “a gold mine of technical, tactical and operational information” about the Soviet Air Force, an intelligence officer said.

The American officials are not certain when the pilot began to think about defecting, but they know a seed was planted a little over a year ago when he encountered a foreigner who told him that a“a MIG‐25 would be worth a lot of money in the United States.”

A Typical Week Is Depicted

At the time, the Soviet flier was on leave, on his way to his MIG‐25 assignment in the Soviet Far East, having completed a tour as instructor on the older MIG‐17. His request for transfer led to questioning by his unit's political commissar, who asked why he wanted to leave the “plush assignment and soft life” of a flying instructor to become a pilot on active duty in a frontier area.

Before being approved for the Far Eastern post, the pilot was interviewed by Air Marshal Pavel F. Batitsky, commander of Air Defense Forces. Re was assigned to the air base at Sakharovka, 160 miles northeast of Vladivostok. The base was known officially as Sandagou until 1972, when Russian names were given to Chinese‐sounding place names in the Soviet Far East.

A typical week at the base began on a Monday morning when the pilot would be told he was to fly on Tuesday. He would spend the day drafting alternative flight plans. Then he would be given a cockpit checkout by his flight chief and a safety examination, and would meet with his squadron commander and regimental commander. Each officer had to certify the pilot's fitness and ability to fly.

On Tuesday morning the safety instructor would fly the intended route himself to check weather and then give another test on safety procedures. Finally the pilot received a preflight medical examination, including questions relating to psychological fitness, and he would be off.

“If anything went wrong, everyone who certified him would get the ax,” an intelligence officer said.

Mr. Belenko was baffled, his hosts said, when he encountered comparatively easygoing American military procedures on the aircraft carrier and at Langley air base.

He was astonished to find the carrier crew handling landings and takeoffs “without ever being given an order and without anyone shouting at them,” he was quoted as having said, adding: “I've never seen men work with such proficiency and coordination.”

He repeatedly asked how much a portion of food cost. He sometimes took two heaping platters and consumed them as if to see whether he was being duped.

Restaurateur Picked Up the Tab

On one of the tours his three Russianspeaking hosts took him to Nick's Seafood Pavilion in Yorktown, Va., a wellknown Greek restaurant. When the owner picked up the $75 tab, the pilot sprang to his feet, saying: “This is impossible. In Russia nobody gives anybody anything for nothing.”

At Langley he was astonished to find a simulated flight trainer being manned by two sergeants. He was said to have told his interrogators that in the Soviet Air Force such a device would be supervised by “two colonels and a civilian with a Ph.D.”

He was impressed by the informality of off‐duty relations between American enlisted men and officers, recalling that in his own service there had been “no fraternization.”

Seeing the relatively lavish enlisted men's facilities at Langley, he remarked that the enlisted men at the Far Eastern base were quartered behind barbed wire in barracks with 50 to 60 to a room, going for months without contact with their families outside the base.

He told his interrogators that sergeants and enlisted men of his regiment often committed suicide—“as many as five a month”—and that the desertion rate was high. He said he had witnessed the shooting of a sergeant who was captured after having deserted.

Infractions of discipline were punished with docking of pay, arrest and “brutal treatment,” he told his hosts. He asked to see the brig on the American carrier and was surprised to find that sailors behind bars were not fed. bread and water and did not sleep on boards.

Comments on Family Relationships

The pilot was amazed by American films of the interior of his MIG‐25, including the flight computer, the anti‐jamming radar and the circuitry that can distinguish friend from foe. “He had never been allowed to see much of the interior of the plane,” an intelligence official said.

On leaving the Langley base, he told a companion: “If my regiment could see five minutes of what I saw today there would be a revolution.”

The son of a factory worker and a farmer, Mr. Belenko was a member of the Young Pioneers, the Komsomol and DOSAAF, a paramilitary training organization, before being accepted for training as a mechanic. Through night school he obtained acceptance for pilot training.

He has told his hosts that he detests his wife and is cool toward his mother, and said his 3‐year‐old son. Dmitri, had been weaned away from him before his defection.

He had flown only 30 hours in the MIG25 at the time of his defection, mainly because the plane is normally flown automatically by ground control except on takeoff or landing and does not require extensive flight time for the pilot.

He was indignant that Japan returned his plane to the Soviet Union on Nov. 12, after less than two months of study by American and Japanese specialists. United States military men said they could have spent two years examining the craft for knowledge about Soviet design. Mr. Belenko reported that an improved version of the MIG‐25 was being fitted with improved radar, more powerful engines, better electronic guidance and a Gatling type of machine gun.

His hosts believe they will need at least one more year of talks with him to extract all the knowledge at his command.

“I didn't realize I knew so much,” he recently told an interrogator. to Chinese‐sounding place names in the Soviet Far East.

A typical week at the base began on a Monday morning when the pilot would be told he was to fly on Tuesday. He would spend the day drafting alternative flight plans. Then he would be given a cockpit checkout by his flight chief and a safety examination, and would meet with his squadron commander and regimental commander. Each officer had to certify the pilot's fitness and ability to fly.

On Tuesday morning the safety instructor would fly the intended route himself to check weather and then give another test on safety procedures. Finally the pilot received a preflight medical examination, including questions relating to psychological fitness, and he would be off.

“If anything went wrong, everyone who certified him would get the ax,” an intelligence officer said.

Mr. Belenko was baffled, his hosts said, when he encountered comparatively easygoing American military procedures on the aircraft carrier and at Langley air base.

He was astonished to find the carrier crew handling landings and takeoffs “without ever being given an order and without anyone shouting at them,” he was quoted as having said, adding: “I've never seen men work with such proficiency and coordination.”

He repeatedly asked how much a portion of food cost. He sometimes took two heaping platters and consumed them as if to see whether he was being duped.

Restaurateur Picked Up the Tab

On one of the tours his three Russianspeaking hosts took him to Nick's Seafood Pavilion in Yorktown, Va., a wellknown Greek restaurant. When the owner picked up the $75 tab, the pilot sprang to his feet, saying: “This is impossible. In Russia nobody gives anybody anything for nothing.”

At Langley he was astonished to find a simulated flight trainer being manned by two sergeants. He was said to have told his interrogators that in the Soviet Air Force such a device would be supervised by “two colonels and a civilian with a Ph.D.”

He was impressed by the informality of off‐duty relations between American enlisted men and officers, recalling that in his own service there had been “no fraternization.”

Seeing the relatively lavish enlisted men's facilities at Langley, he remarked that the enlisted men at the Far Eastern base were quartered behind barbed wire in barracks with 50 to 60 to a room, going for months without contact with their families outside the base.

He told his interrogators that sergeants and enlisted men of his regiment often committed suicide—“as many as five month”—and that the desertion rate was high. He said he had witnessed the shooting of a sergeant who was captured after having deserted.

Infractions of discipline were punished with docking of pay, arrest and “brutal treatment,” he told his hosts. He asked to see the brig on the American carrier and was surprised to find that sailors behind bars were not fed. bread and water and did not sleep on boards.

Comments on Family Relationships

The pilot was amazed by American films of the interior of his MIG‐25, including the flight computer, the anti‐jamming radar and the circuitry that can distinguish friend from foe. “He had never been allowed to see much of the interior of the plane,” an intelligence official said.

On leaving the Langley base, he told. a companion: “If my regiment could see five minutes of what I saw today there would be a revolution.”

The son of a factory worker and farmer, Mr. Belenko was a member of the Young Pioneers, the Komsomol and DOSAAF, a paramilitary training organization, before being accepted for training as a mechanic. Through night school he obtained acceptance for pilot training.

He has told his hosts that he detests his wife and is cool toward his mother, and said his 3‐year‐old son. Dmitri, had been weaned away from him before his defection.

He had flown only 30 hours in the MIG25 at the time of his defection, mainly because the plane is normally flown automatically by ground control except on takeoff or landing and does not require extensive flight time for the pilot.

He was indignant that Japan returned his plane to the Soviet Union on Nov. 12, after less than two months of study by American and Japanese specialists. United States military men said they could have spent two years examining the craft for knowledge about Soviet design. Mr. Belenko reported that an improved version of the MIG‐25 was being fitted with improved radar, more powerful engines, better electronic guidance and a Gatling type of machine gun.

His hosts believe they will need at least one more year of talks with him to extract all the knowledge at his command.

“I didn't realize I knew so much,” he recently told an interrogator.

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