Contents |
Unwrapping the Present
For a decade the mystery of the MiG-25 had kindled the
gravest of debates, doubts, and apprehensions in the West.
The existence of the plane, what was known and unknown
about it, had affected defense budgets, aircraft design and
production, strategic thinking, and high political decisions
of the United States.
On the basis of the best Western evaluations of Soviet
technology, the United States did not understand how the
Russians in the 1960s could produce a fighter capable of
flying at Mach 3.2 and carrying four heavy missiles to an
altitude of 80,000 feet — something not even the newest
U.S. fighters introduced in the 1970s could do.
Were the fundamental estimates of the level of Soviet
technology wrong? Had the Russians secretly achieved
momentous breakthroughs in metallurgy, engine, and airframe
design, perhaps even avionics, that endowed them
with a capacity to attain air superiority over the West? Was
the MiG-25 already the best interceptor in the world, as
Secretary Seamans said and doubtless believed? Did it already
give the Russians a measure of air superiority? If the
answers to such questions were affirmative, then the West
was in trouble from which it could extricate itself only
[170] through costly and urgent efforts, that large segments of
the public, disgusted by Vietnam and enamored with detente,
might not support. If the answers were negative or
largely so, then the United States could allocate resources
more efficiently and intelligently to counter real rather than
nonexistent threats. So one of the greatest gifts Belenko
brought was the opportunity to answer definitively these
long-standing questions.
To safeguard Belenko and talk to him securely, the CIA
established what appeared to be a medical laboratory in a
large office building. People could enter and leave the
building without arousing curiosity, no one from the general
public was likely to wander into the "laboratory," and
anyone approaching could be observed while walking down
a long corridor that led to the one entrance. There was,
however, a second, hidden exit. And in keeping with the
practice of compartmentation, very few people in the CIA
itself would know where he was working.
Belenko rose early and made breakfast in time to receive
his English tutor, Betsy, who came daily to the apartment
at seven. To him, she was a happy sight — stylishly dressed,
slender, bright, and eager to teach. They were the same
age, liked each other, and worked hard.
After traveling different routes from day to day and
periodically checking against surveillance, Belenko and his
escort, sometimes Nick, sometimes Gregg, arrived at the
office to begin interrogation and debriefings around nine-thirty.
No matter how lacking is the evidence to support
the conjecture, there always are those willing to speculate
that any Soviet defector is actually a controlled Soviet
agent dispatched to confuse and confound by purveying
false or deceptive information. In any case, prudence dictates
that counterintelligence specialists satisfy themselves
as to the authenticity and veracity of the defector. One
means of so doing is to ask a variety of questions, innocuous,
sensitive, arcane, to which the answers are already
known, and the initial interrogations of Belenko were
heavily laced with such test queries.
"By the way, how do the Russians remove snow from
the runways?"
"We use a kind of blower made from a discarded jet
[171] engine. If it doesn't succeed or if there is ice, the whole
regiment turns out with shovels and picks."
That was correct. So were all of Belenko's other answers,
and they corroborated the conclusions of Anna and Peter.
Not only was Belenko keenly intelligent, highly knowledgeable,
and ideologically motivated, but he was telling
the truth. And once the CIA certified him in its own
judgment as bona fide, the excitement of unraveling the
mystery of the dreaded MiG-25 began in earnest, in America
and Japan.
The Americans needed to ascertain first what the MiG-25
Belenko delivered represented. Was it an obsolescent
aircraft whose production had been discontinued? Were
more advanced models than he flew extant? Was the MiG-25
being superseded by a newer, higher-performance aircraft?
The Russians first flew a MiG-25 prototype in 1964 and
began assembly-line production in the late 1960s. After the
commanding general of the Soviet Air Defense Command
was killed in a MiG-25 crash in 1969, they halted production
for about a year but resumed it in 1970 or 1971.
Periodically they modified the aircraft, eliminated flaws,
and upgraded capabilities. Far from considering the plane
obsolete or relegating it to a reconnaissance role, the Russians
in 1976 regarded the MiG-25 as their best high-altitude
interceptor. And MiG-25s along with MiG-23s
were replacing all other aircraft assigned to the Air Defense
Command (MiG-17s, MiG-19s, SU-9s, SU-15s, and
YAK-28s).
The MiG-25 Belenko landed in Hakodate had rolled out
of the factory in February 1976, and the date of manufacture
could be deciphered from the serial number
stamped on the fuselage. The plane thus was one of the
latest models and embodied the highest technology then
in production. It was the plane on which the Russians intended
to rely as a mainstay of their air defenses for years
to come.
Meanwhile, dozens of American aeronautical, electronic,
and metallurgical experts from the United States and elsewhere
joined the Japanese in scientific exploration of the
plane itself. The initial, critical task was to ferret out the
[172] explosive charges planted to destroy sensitive parts of the
plane the Russians were determined no foreigner should
ever see — the radar, fire control system, electronic countermeasures,
computer, automatic pilot. With difficulty, the
Americans located and removed the explosives — "something
of a cross between a cherry bomb and a stick of
dynamite." Then the Japanese and Americans painstakingly
removed the wings, horizontal tail fins, afterburners, and
pylons and loaded them, together with the fuselage, into
a giant U.S. Air Force Galaxy C-5A cargo plane. Some of
the Japanese technicians lettered and strung on the fuselage
a large banner saying, "Sayonara, people of Hakodate.
Sorry for the trouble."
Soviet fighters still prowled the skies around Hakodate,
and fearful that they might interfere, the Japanese cloaked
the C-5A within a formation of missile-firing F-104s and
F-4s while it transported the MiG to Hyakuri Air Base
sixty miles north of Tokyo on September 25. There, in a
large hangar guarded by Japanese soldiers, the real unwrapping
of the "present for the Dark Forces" began.
Some of the Americans had devoted much of their careers
to dissecting captured or stolen Soviet equipment, and they,
along with their Japanese colleagues, approached the
hangar much in the spirit of eager archaeologists allowed
temporary entry into a forbidden tomb full of rare and
glittering riches which might be surveyed but not kept.
They had to analyze swiftly and urgently, yet carefully
and thoroughly, so the labor was divided among teams
which focused day and night upon separate sections or
components.
As the entire MiG was disassembled and the engines,
radar, computer, automatic pilot, fire control, electronic
countermeasure, hydraulic, communications, and other
systems were put on blocks and stands for mechanical,
electronic, metallurgical, and photographic analysis, the
specialists experienced a succession of surprises and shocks.
My God! Look what this thing is made of! Why, the
dumb bastards don't have transistors; they're still using
vacuum tubes! These engines are monsters! Maybe the
Sovs have a separate refinery for each plane! Jesus! See
these rivet heads sticking out, and look at that welding!
[173] They did it by hand! Hell, the pilot can't see a thing unless
it's practically in front of him! This contraption isn't an
airplane; it's a rocket! Hey, see what they've done here!
How clever! They were able to use aluminum! Why didn't
we ever think of that? How ingenious! It's brilliant!
The data Belenko supplied in response to the first quick
queries also seemed surprising and, at first, contradictory.
What is the maximum speed of the MiG-25?
You cannot safely exceed Mach 2.8, but actually we
were forbidden to exceed Mach 2.5. You see, at high
speeds the engines have a very strong tendency to accelerate
out of control, and if they go above Mach 2.8, they
will overheat and burn up.
But we have tracked the MiG-25 at Mach 3.2.
Yes, and every time it has flown that fast the engines
have been completely ruined and had to be replaced and
the pilot was lucky to land in one piece. (That fitted with
intelligence the Americans had. They knew that the MiG-25
clocked over Israel at Mach 3.2 in 1973 had landed
back in Egypt with its engines totally wrecked. They did
not understand that the wreckage was inevitable rather
than a freakish occurrence.)
What is your combat radius?
At best, 300 kilometers [186 miles].
You're joking!
I am not. If you use afterburners and maneuver for
intercept, you can stay up between twenty-two and twenty-seven
minutes at the most. Make one pass, and that's it.
We thought the range was 2,000 kilometers [1,240
miles].
Belenko laughed. That's ridiculous. Theoretically, if you
don't use afterburners, don't maneuver, and stay at the best
altitude, you can fly 1,200 kilometers [744 miles] in a
straight line. But in practice, when we were ferrying the
plane from base to base, we never tried to fly more than
900 kilometers [558 miles] without refueling. Check it out
for yourself. I took off from Chuguyevka with full tanks
and barely made it to Japan. You can calculate roughly
how far I flew and how much fuel was left when I landed.
(The point was convincing. Although Belenko expended
fuel excessively during the minutes while at sea level, he
[174] used afterburners only briefly and otherwise did everything
possible to conserve. Even so, of the 14 tons of fuel with
which he began, his flight of less than 500 miles consumed
all but 52.5 gallons.)
What is your maximum operational altitude?
That depends. If you carry only two missiles, you can
reach 24,000 meters [78,740 feet] for a minute or two.
With four missiles, 21,000 meters [68,900 feet] is the
maximum.
What is the maximum altitude of your missiles?
They will not work above 27,000 meters [88,580 feet].
Then you cannot intercept the SR-71 [the most modern
U.S. reconnaissance plane]!
True; for all sorts of reasons. First of all, the SR-71 flies
too high and too fast. The MiG-25 cannot reach it or catch
it. Secondly, as I told you, the missiles are useless above
27,000 meters, and as you know, the SR-71 cruises much
higher. But even if we could reach it, our missiles lack the
velocity to overtake the SR-71 if they are fired in a tail
chase. And if they are fired head-on, their guidance systems
cannot adjust quickly enough to the high closing
speed.
What about your radar?
It's a very good radar. Jam-proof. But it cannot distinguish
targets below 500 meters [1,640 feet] because of
ground clutter.
A MiG-25 cannot intercept a target approaching below
500 meters then?
It cannot.
Maneuvering. Tell us about maneuvering. How many Gs
can you take in a turn?
If the tanks are full, there is so much weight in the wings
that they will rip off if you try more than 2.2 Gs. Even if
you're almost out of fuel, anything above 5 Gs is dangerous.
The Americans were stunned. Why, you can't turn inside
even an F-4!
You can't turn inside anything. It's not designed to
dogfight.
Partially because the leaks to the press emanated from
sources that had concentrated on individual facets of the
aircraft rather than on the plane as a whole, published
[175] reports about what was being discovered in Japan were confusing
and also contradictory.
A Japanese investigator was quoted: "The comparison
of the fire control system of the F-4EJ and the MiG-25 is
like that of a miniaturized, modern, precision audio kit
and a large old-fashioned electric Gramophone."
Newsweek reported:
The Japanese experts who gave the plane a preliminary once-over were astonished to find the body and wings covered with spots of brownish rust. Clearly, the MiG wasn't made of the strong lightweight titanium used in U.S. interceptors. But what was it made of? The Japanese pulled out a magnet, and a loud "thunk" confirmed their suspicions: The Foxbat was plated with old-fashioned steel.
That was just the beginning.... The welding and riveting were sloppy. It appeared that the plane would be difficult to control in a tight turn, and that at top speed its missiles could be torn from the wings.
Representative Robert Carr wrote a lengthy article suggesting
that the Pentagon had deceived the American
people by purposely and grossly exaggerating the might
of the MiG-25:
In fact, as a fighter, the Foxbat is barely equal to our 15-year-old McDonnell F-4 Phantom and it is hopelessly outclassed by our new generation McDonnell F-15 and General Dynamics F-16. Either of our two newer Air Force fighters can outclimb, outaccelerate, out-turn, out-see, out-hide and out-shoot the Foxbat by margins so wide that our expected kill-ratio advantage is almost incalculable. No U.S. F-15 or F-16 pilot need fear the Foxbat unless he is asleep, out-numbered or an utter boob.
Yet some American experts examining the MiG-25 were
described as awed by what they saw. One said aspects of
the plane were "brilliantly engineered." Another commented,
"We thought it was a damned good plane, and
[176] that's what it turned out to be. We're belittling it because
it's unsophisticated or because it rusts. In fact, it can fly
higher, faster, and with a bigger payload than any plane
in the world." Another: "The MiG-25 does the job well,
at less than it would cost the U.S. to build an equivalent
plane." And another: "It is apparent that Soviet designers
are efficient cost managers who use only as much quality
as is needed to solve a problem. They seem to ask why go
to the expense of developing something new when we have
something proven and cheaper on the shelf. They could
come over here and teach us something in the way of cost-conscious
management and design."
What was the truth? Were all the furor and alarm over
the years wholly unjustified? Was the MiG-25 a "clinker,"
a "turkey," a flying "Potemkin village"? Had the Pentagon,
together with its allies in the aviation industry, conjured up
a phony threat to extract money from Congress, as Representative
Carr implied? Did not the gift from Belenko
reassuringly prove anew the superiority of the West? If so,
how had the Russians nonetheless produced an aircraft
whose recorded performance exceeded in several ways that
of our very best?
The data collected in Japan, then analyzed by the Foreign
Technology Division of the Air Force at Dayton,
Ohio, and the reports of the ongoing interrogation of Belenko
all were flowing into the office of Major General
George J. Keegan, Jr., then chief of Air Force Intelligence.
As the information was collated to form a single mosaic,
clear and definitive answers emerged.
They showed that the West had been badly mistaken in
its perceptions of the capability, purpose, menace, and implications
of the MiG-25. The misconceptions occurred because
the West evaluated the MiG in Western terms and
thereby adopted false premises, which only the arrival of
Belenko corrected.
Because the MiG-25 had been clocked and tracked flying
at Mach 3.2 at 80,000 feet, the West assumed that the recordings
reflected the plane's actual operational altitude
and speed. Because, employing Western methods, the design
and manufacture of an aircraft with the capabilities
imputed to the MiG-25 would require an extremely high
[177] level of technology, the West feared the Russians had attained
such a level. Because modern Western aircraft are
designed to perform multiple missions — to intercept, dogfight,
bomb — the West assumed that the MiG-25 functioned
as a fighter as well as an interceptor.
But Belenko explained and his plane proved that the
MiG-25 was not a fighter, not an air superiority aircraft
designed to duel with other fighters. Against Western fighters,
it would be, as Representative Carr claimed, virtually
helpless. But the Russians never intended it to tangle with
hostile fighters.
Once the false premises were rectified and the true origin
and mission of the MiG-25 understood, then scientific detective
work gradually unveiled a picture not so comforting
or reassuring.
By 1960 the Russians had seen coming at them over the
horizon a fearsome new threat in the B-70, which the
United States was planning as the world's fastest and highest
flying bomber. To counter the B-70, they had to build
rather quickly an interceptor of unprecedented capabilities,
one able to achieve Mach 3 at 80,000 feet. The problem
was formidable, and the Russians were too poor, materially
and technologically, to adopt an American approach in
trying to solve it.
They lagged in metallurgy and particularly the exploitation
of titanium, which although extremely expensive and
hard to work with, is very light, strong, and heat-resistant.
And the Americans deemed titanium or some more exotic
metal essential to a high-altitude supersonic aircraft. The
Russians lagged even more woefully in the technology of
transistors, semiconductors, and integrated circuitry, the
tininess, lightness, and reliability of which the Americans
also considered essential. The only air-to-air missiles the
Russians could count on in the foreseeable future would be
big, heavy, and short-range.
The Russians lacked the time and resources to develop
all the new technology Western designers and engineers
doubtless would have thought necessary for the type of
interceptor required. So, having no other choice, the Russians
elected to make do with what they had. They decided
to use, instead of titanium, heavy steel alloy; instead of
[178] transistors, vacuum tubes; instead of sophisticated new
missiles, those that were available.
This meant that their aircraft would be extraordinarily
heavy and could be propelled only by an engine of extraordinary
power. But again, they could not afford the many
years and billions that design and production of a new
engine would demand. So they looked around for something
already on hand.
Some years before, the gifted Soviet designer Sergei
Tumansky had perfected an engine to power an experimental
high-altitude drone or cruise missile. Because of
Soviet metallurgical difficulties, he had had to build a big,
rugged steel engine, which gulped fuel ravenously. Yet the
engine over the years had proved itself highly effective and
reliable at altitudes of up to 80,000 feet. Therefore, the
Russians decided to create their new interceptor by constructing
an airframe around two of these powerful Tumansky
engines.
They realized that weight and fuel consumption would
preclude the aircraft they were conceiving from maneuvering
agilely as a fighter and from staying up very long.
The plane could be expected only to climb at tremendous
speed, like a rocket, fire missiles during one pass at the
target, and then land. And that is all the Russians originally
expected and designed the MiG-25 to do.
For all their ingenuity in making use of old technology,
the Russians recognized they could not avoid innovating
some new technology. Old-fashioned vacuum tubes could
not accommodate to the sudden and extreme changes in
temperature occurring as the plane skyrocketed from the
ground to the subfreezing upper air. No pilot, however
able, could in the brief time allowed and at the speeds
entailed make an intercept without elaborate guidance from
the ground. The airborne radar needed to lock onto the
target in the final stage of intercept would have to be invulnerable
to jamming.
While the Russians urgently concentrated on creating the
new interceptor, American aerial strategy and planning
suddenly and radically changed. For four years U-2 reconnaissance
planes had flown over the Soviet Union with
impunity, collecting enormous masses of military, scientific
[179] and economic intelligence through photography and electronics,
and mapping the country so that it could be bombarded
precisely in the event of war. Soviet fighters strained
upward, vainly trying to shoot at the U-2 sailing above
60,000 feet, and each time fell back downward in futility.
The Russians also had begun to fire surface-to-air missiles,
but their guidance systems were not yet effective enough.
On May 1, 1960, the Russians fired a barrage of missiles
at a U-2 piloted by Francis Gary Powers. As Belenko was
told and as a reliable source affirmed to the United States,
some of the missiles hit and destroyed at least one MiG
pursuing Powers. But one also hit and downed the U-2.
This celebrated incident, coupled with estimates of the
future capabilities of surface-to-air missiles, forced a reappraisal
of American strategy. Ultimately the Americans
concluded that missiles eventually would be so lethal that
Soviet air defenses could not be penetrated by high-altitude
bombers. Penetration would have to be effected at very
low rather than very high altitudes. Therefore, the United
States canceled the B-70 bomber.
However, the Russians, whether because of simple bureaucratic
inertia, apprehensions that the Americans might
reverse themselves, or for occult reasons of their own, proceeded
to build the new interceptor. And their decision
compounded the mystery of the MiG-25. For to the West,
it did not seem logical that they would resort to enormous
cost and effort to solve complex technological problems
solely to guard against a threat that had been withdrawn.
Years later, in Japan, the more closely and analytically
the Americans and Japanese studied the MiG-25, the more
clearly they saw how the Russians had overcome the basic
and subsidiary problems at comparatively little cost. They,
of course, had saved billions in research and development
costs by duplicating the dependable old Tumansky engines
and relying on steel rather than on titanium. But on those
surfaces subject to intense friction and consequent heat,
they had affixed strips of titanium. In areas not subject to
friction or heat, they had saved more money and some
weight by using plain aluminum — something then unthinkable
in the West. The rivet heads, it turned out, protruded
only in sections where the airflow would not cause any
[180] parasitic drag. The rivets, which seemed to reflect crudity
of engineering, actually subtracted nothing from aerodynamic
performance while they strengthened the plane.
The Russians had brilliantly engineered new vacuum
tubes, elevated outmoded technology to a new apex of excellence.
They had integrated a superb automatic pilot and
a good on-board computer through digital communications
to a ground control system that guided the plane to the
exact point of intercept. The pilot had merely to take off,
turn on the automatic pilot, and await instructions to fire.
Belenko reported that the MiG-25 radar had been described
to him as jamproof, and examination confirmed the
report. The radar was the most powerful ever installed in
any interceptor or fighter, so powerful that it could "burn
through" distractive jamming signals transmitted by attacking
bombers. The limited range of the radar was irrelevant,
for it was needed only to present ground controllers with a
magnified image of the target during the last stages of
intercept. The search radars that detected and tracked the
target at long range were part of the ground control system.
Belenko also stated that despite the disarray, drunkenness,
and mutinous atmosphere rife in his regiment, the
MiG-25 had been remarkably free of maintenance problems.
The reason was that the plane had been designed with
the objective of ease and simplicity of maintenance. A
mechanic, with modest skills and training, could quickly
check critical systems by inserting plugs from test trucks
on the runway. All the components most likely to require
maintenance were contained in a huge rack situated behind
the cockpit. By turning a hydraulic valve, a mechanic could
cause the rack to rise out of the plane, and by turning
smaller valves, he could cause any separate component to
rise out of the box for repair or maintenance.
While the Americans and Japanese methodically denuded
the MiG-25 of its secrets, the Russians, posturing,
threatening, begging, kept screaming for return of their
precious plane. Finally, on November 12 — sixty-seven days
after its loss — they got it back — in pieces. A procession of
eight Japanese tractor-trailer trucks with solemn and ceremonious
insult delivered the crates to dockside at the port
of Hitachi, where the Soviet freighter Taigonos waited
[181] with a crew augmented by technicians and KGB officers.
The freighter tarried until the Russians inventoried all the
parts, making sure that the Dark Forces and their unscrupulous
Japanese confederates had kept none. Some
2,000 Japanese police patrolled the dock and many merrily
waved as the freighter sailed on November 15.
The Japanese subsequently billed the Soviet Union
$40,000 for "damage to ground facilities and transportation
charges." The Russians retaliated with a $10 million bill
for "unfriendly handling." Neither bill, it is believed, was
ever paid.
But the Americans and Japanese gladly would have paid
many times $10 million for the aircraft Belenko delivered
gratis. General Keegan concluded:
The MiG-25 had been perceived as an aircraft of awesome potential calling for rapid development on the most urgent national basis of a true air-superiority fighter by the United States.
Belenko has settled, once and for all, the debate about the MiG-25. He has shown us, much to our surprise, that it was not a fighter, that we have nothing to fear from it as a fighter. But at the same time, the aircraft carries with it many sobering lessons for us.
It reflects genius in resources management and magnificent usage of existing resources and primitive ingenuity. By brilliant marriage of ancient and new technology, the Russians developed in a relatively short time and at relatively little cost an aircraft satisfying performance requirements that could not have been achieved in the West except at exorbitant cost.
The fact that the threat the MiG-25 was designed to meet — a high-altitude bomber — never materialized does not mean that their efforts were wasted. The existence of the MiG-25 and our presumptions about it strongly influenced a national political decision not to overfly the Soviet Union with the SR-71 or with reconnaissance drones. Through the MiG-25, the Russians caused us to deny ourselves for years vast amounts of intelligence which could be gathered by no means other than overflights.
[182] The MiG-25 today remains the best tactical reconnaissance aircraft in the world. It can overfly most areas on the periphery of the Soviet bloc with impunity because we have not in most areas deployed the weapons capable of hitting a plane traveling at its speed and altitude. Sure, the SR-71 would be a better tactical reconnaissance plane if modified for tactical reconnaissance. But to my latest and best knowledge, we have not done that.
In sum, the MiG-25 reminded us that the Russians will go to any ends to meet their military requirements and that despite technological deficiencies they usually do meet them. Were we to apply the lessons apparent in the MiG-25, we could save untold billions of dollars in the development of future weapons systems and develop them far faster than we customarily have.
But Belenko had much more to give than just the MiG-25
and his knowledge of it. Through his eyes the Americans
were able to look deeply and searchingly inside the Soviet
Air Force and see its strengths and vulnerabilities as never
before. In Belenko himself they were able to study the
mentality, capacity, and outlook of a Soviet pilot. During
the interrogations he increasingly impressed all who worked
with him, whether from the military or CIA, by the honesty
and the accuracy with which he recounted what he
had seen and heard. All that he reported which could be
subjected to independent verification proved to be true.
And the Americans came to trust him so much that they
allowed him to enter and experiment in a combat simulator
unknown to most of their own pilots.
It was a space-age creation born of incredible U.S. advances
in computer and microcircuitry technology. Three
fighter cockpits each were encased in a huge sphere onto
whose interior cameras projected startlingly realistic images
of sky, earth, horizon, and moving clouds. The images
combined with a pressure suit to duplicate the sensations
and stresses of flight with such verisimilitude that on occasion
experienced pilots had become airsick. Each cockpit
could be programmed to emulate the characteristics and
performance of a given plane in a given situation.
[183] Accompanied by Gregg, Belenko was told that first he
would "fly" a MiG-17. He put on the G-suit, strapped
himself into the cockpit, and the sphere closed. Suddenly
he was transported not only into the skies but back to the
Soviet Union. The stick and controls moved; the whole
cockpit seemed to tilt and turn just as the MiG-17s he had
long flown in the Caucasus had. Now he saw two other
MiG-17s, "flown" by American pilots in the other cockpits,
joining him in formation. I cannot believe it! It is as
if I have just taken off from Armavir!
Successively the simulator was reprogrammed so that
Belenko experienced flight in a MiG-21, a MiG-23, and
finally his own MiG-25. He had astonished the Americans
by the exactitude of Soviet knowledge of the F-4, F-14,
F-15, and F-16. Now he realized that they already possessed
equal knowledge of all the Soviet aircraft — except
the MiG-25. The feel and performance of the MiG-25
they simulated were remarkably close to reality, but they
had programmed it as if it could fly at Mach 3.2.
After a day of orienting himself to both American fighters
and the MiGs, Belenko "flew" in combat agaist U.S.
pilots and planes. In a MiG-17 and a MiG-21, he shot
down F-4s at lower altitudes but was bested by them at
higher altitudes. Another exercise pitted Belenko and an
American in two MiG-23s, the best Soviet fighter, against
an American in the F-15, the best U.S. fighter. At the outset
the MiG-23s were given the advantage of higher altitude
behind the F-15. At the signal "Go!" they dived
toward it at Mach 2.3 to fire their missiles. Suddenly the
F-15 disappeared, and Belenko yelled into the microphone
to his wingman. "Hey, where is he?" Then a flash in the
cockpit signaled that he had been blown up by a missile.
Within forty seconds the F-15 had climbed, circled, and
destroyed both MiG-23s.
In a MiG-25 Belenko took off against an F-15. Before
they reached 50,000 feet, the F-15 shot him down four
times, but at about 60,000 feet the MiG-25 accelerated
upward and out of range of the F-15.
The combat exercises, each one of which cost $10,000,
according to information given Belenko, spanned three
days. The results were complex, required lengthy computer
[184] analysis, and remain highly classified. But this much can
be said: While the F-15 demonstrated its clear superiority
over the MiGs, Belenko as a pilot demonstrated himself to
be fully the equal of the American fliers against whom he
competed.
In time, Belenko visited dozens of U.S. air bases and
talked with hundreds of American pilots. As an instructor,
a MiG-17, SU-15, and MiG-25 pilot, he had seen dozens
of Soviet air bases and spoken with hundreds of Russian
fliers. In light of this unique background, he was asked to
attempt a comparative appraisal of American and Soviet
personnel and aircraft.
He judged that in terms of natural, individual ability the
fliers of both nations are about the same. The Russians have
tried to adopt American methods of selecting air cadets
through psychomotor testing, and a young Russian has an
enormous incentive to retain flight proficiency and thereby
the enormous privileges which set him apart and far above
the citizenry. In contrast with an American pilot, who may
begin flight training after studying literature or sociology
in a university, Soviet pilots spend years studying aviation
and thus have much more theoretical knowledge. They also
are generally in better physical condition because they must
continuously exercise to pass a rigorous calisthenics test
each year. The professional readiness of Soviet pilots probably
is deleteriously affected by inordinate amounts of time
wasted in political indoctrination, diversion of energies to
essentially political duties in overseeing subordinates, and
periodic assignments to nonmilitary tasks, such as harvesting
or, as at Chuguyevka, road building.
However, Belenko believes that the main reasons the
Americans may enjoy an advantage in pilot performance is
that they fly more, both during and after training, and they
have inherited a wealth of combat experience unavailable
to their Soviet counterparts.
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 [185]
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
[186] 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.