Air disaster

Press, 27 September 1983, Page 16

Air disaster

Sir,—M. Creel’s defence of the Soviet Union, in spite of damning evidence amazes new correspondents to “The Press.” Douglas Hyde, a former communist, saw this allegiance as a religion. Indeed

one could say that M. Creel accepts every Soviet statement as infallible. What now, when a spokesman has dubbed the pilot who shot down a civilian plane in peace-time as “trigger-happy”? Will he be quite pleased about this mindless cold-blooded robot, because he is a Soviet pilot?—Yours, etc., V. H. ANDERSON. September 23, 1983. Sir,—lt is not “critical reports of the Soviet Union” that I am not prepared to believe, as S. J. Hansen claims, but lying reports. A reading of the article, “Reagan got the jet issue right,” by Robert Chesshyre (“The Press,” September 22) may sow some doubt in S. J. Hansen’s mind that the Soviet explanation of the downing of the South Korean airliner is a falsehood. In a cynically sardonic vein Chesshyre points out President Reagan’s “grim satisfaction” at the way the airliner incident has changed the political mood in the United States in his favour in this sentence: “In this new political mood Reagan can now hope to get both funding for the MX missile through Congress, and achieve more of his large defence build-up than had earlier seemed possible.” But was the incident so opportunely fortuitous? That the airliner was part of a spying mission gains greater credibility every day.—Yours, etc., M. CREEL. September 24, 1983.