Finding Fault

AFTER MAJOR EVENTS, initial interpretations almost always give way to historical revisionism. Usually this process takes years or decades--as with historiographical flip-flopping over John F. Kennedy '40's administration. But in the aftermath of the downing of Korean Flight 007, the rapidity and force with which the left has turned on the official interpretations has served to obscure the entire issue even further.

As a number of press accounts, especially a Boston Globe piece on the unscrupulous KAL organization--have pointed out, the issue can be colored in many shades. However, the conclusions reached by some in the media have proven to be even more groundless than the initial hysteria that provoked them.

That the U.S. media could become so polarized over this issue underscores the only truly rational response: we just don't know what happened.

We do not know why the flight strayed--or purposely veered--over the Kamchatka Peninsula and Sakhalin Island. Any allegations concerning Korean or U.S. intentions are, at this time, completely unsubstantiated, even if the possibility exists that the flight was, indeed, on a spy mission.

We do not know if the KAL flight over top secret military installations would have served any purpose whatsoever. We also do not now or probably ever will know exactly how much U.S. intelligence knows about Russian military operations, and vice-versa.

Consequently, any argument that the U.S. and South Korea had anything to gain by passing over restricted air space in the dead of night can not be supported by the evidence we now have.

No matter how much Alexander Cockburn in the Village Voice and others like him believe in the absolute corruptability of our government, they still cannot by any stretch of the imagination twist evidence into a condemnation of this country's role in the affair.

The lesson of this now thoroughly irrelevant debate over the meaning of a small number of hazy facts is one that we didn't need KAL 007 to tell us.

The Russians are a threat to this country and to democratic interests world-wide and it doesn't take a hateful mind to realize that Russian actions since 1945 are not just a product of U.S. provoked paranoia. If liberals in this country would quit taking it upon themselves to defend the argument that the U.S. is the aggressor in the world arena, then the U.S. could begin to discuss the much more important issue of what posture it will take towards the Russians.

The issue of U.S.-Soviet relations is more fundamental than Vietnam, Nicaragua, Chile and all the other instances of U.S. ruthlessness or stupidity--take your pick. It is more important than the fact that the U.S. is as amoral as any country in the world save France.

And even with a conservative, gun-toting government in power, the United States is not nearly as big a threat as the Soviet Union. We will not make the world significantly safer by appeasing the Soviets. Certainly, though, a more rational and unified foreign policy than we have now would help.

Another lesson--perhaps an even more unexpected one--is how prone groups of Americans are to find fault with the U.S. government, no matter how flimsy or circumstantial the evidence. Recent polls published in weekly news magazines reveal that a large percentage of Americans doubt whether our government has revealed all it knows about the Korean flight. To doubt is healthy, of course, but to let doubting lead to instant and unsubstantiated condemnation is not.