physically wrong with Peter. If he exerted himself even slightly, he could barely breathe.
That afternoon and evening Belenko experienced another transcendent spiritual upheaval as he read
Jogging around the grounds early in the morning, Belenko saw a little red convertible roar up the driveway at an imprudent speed and screech to a stop.
Out stepped a voluptuous, lithe young woman, whose beguiling brown eyes and windblown auburn hair made her look wild and mischievous to him. Anna, as she called herself, spoke Russian melodiously and with the fluency of a native, but she was from the Midwest, having mastered the language in school and during travels in the Soviet Union. Her command of the contemporary vernacular, her seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of his homeland, and the skill with which she put him at ease, persuaded Belenko that she worked closely with the important Russians who had taken refuge in the United States.
Because she continuously studied the Soviet Union from perspectives denied him, Anna was able to fascinate and enlighten Belenko with facts and vistas he had not heard or seen before. Her revelations concerning the dissident movement and
And her demonstrable understanding of the Soviet Union persuaded him that she might also understand him. She was the first person to whom he could release the accumulated and repressed thoughts, anger, hatred that had driven him away. Once the flow began, it swelled into a torrent, and Anna, who had indicated she would leave at noon, stayed the day to listen.
In listening to Belenko during these first days, the overriding purpose of Peter, Anna and other CIA officers was to assess bun as a human being and, accordingly, to propose any modifications in standard resettlement procedures likely to help him adjust and adapt Luckily for both Belenko and the United States, they did understand him well. And their analysis and recommendations were to permanently and felicitously shape the behavior of the government toward him. Despite the simultaneous clamor from various segments of the intelligence community for an opportunity to question bun, the CIA restricted his debriefings to an absolute limit of four hours a day. It allocated his first two working hours, when he would be freshest, to tutoring in English, the one tool most indispensable to his new life. Afternoons and evenings were reserved for reading, study, and excursions planned to show him American life. Save for a few installations, he would be shown anything in the country he asked to see, however inconvenient the showing. And on weekends he would fly, actually take the controls, soar, zoom, dive, roll.
The value of the MiG-25 alone was so immense as to defy calculation in monetary terms, and the CIA fully intended to guarantee Belenko a secure and affluent future. But pending his final resettlement, there would be no mention of money or compensation unless he broached the subject.
These decisions reflected several basic conclusions about Belenko. He craved freedom and independence, although his concept of freedom was far from crystallized in his mind. Presently, flying symbolized freedom to nun, and he had to fly. Otherwise, he would feel himself imprisoned, and the consequent frustrations might erupt in the form of aberrant behavior. While he unavoidably would be dependent during his work with the government and initial orientation to the United States, his social integration must begin at once so he could see that he was progressing toward ultimate independence and self-reliance. His motivation was purely ideological, and he would be affronted unless his contributions were accepted in the same spirit he offered them. Any suggestion that he had fled for materialistic reasons, that he had come to sell the MiG-25 and his information, would cheapen Americans in his eyes and confirm the worst the Party said about them. He must be treated as neither merchant nor ward but as a teammate. Finally, he would believe nothing which he could not see, then comprehend through his own thought processes. One should and must tell him the truth, show him the truth. But in the end, he would have to discover the truth for himself.
Belenko was incredulous when Peter and Anna generally outlined the program charted for him without, of course, explaining much of the rationale behind it The stated willingness of the Americans to let him fly, much less so soon, impressed and touched him. It all sounded so logical, so sensible, so generous, so good.
Sure that he was asking the impossible, Belenko said he most wanted to tour a U.S. Air Force fighter base and go aboard an aircraft carrier. Peter acted as if the requests were routine and reasonable. The visit to an air base posed no problem; the Air Force should be able to arrange it within a couple of weeks. As for the carrier, he would have to ascertain from the Navy when one would be close enough ashore for them to fly out. It would just be a question of when.
An emergency or problem of surpassing urgency delayed the beginning of the announced regimen. In the note Belenko drafted in English back in Chuguyevka after he decided to flee, he intended to say, “Contact a representative of the American intelligence service. Conceal and guard the aircraft. Do not allow anyone near it” What he actually wrote in the language he never had studied or heard spoken was: “Quickly call representative American intelligence service. Airplane camouflage. Nobody not allowed to approach.” When the Japanese translated the message from English into their own language, the meaning that emerged was: “…Aircraft booby- trapped. Do not touch it”
Gingerly peering into the cockpit, the Japanese were further alarmed by the red buttons labeled in Russian “Danger.” Apprehensions heightened when they and their American collaborators surmised that the safety catches which would prevent the buttons from doing whatever they were supposed to do were missing. If someone accidentally touched something, would the priceless MiG-25 blow up? Until definitive answers were forthcoming, examination of the plane could not begin, and only Belenko could supply the answers.
So on his third day in America, Air Force officers brought to the mansion huge photographs of the MiG-25 cockpit blown up to its actual size, with resolution so fine that you could see every instrument and inch of the cockpit just as clearly as if you were sitting in it The leader of the group was a tall, powerfully built colonel with searching dark eyes and the weathered face of a lumberjack. The colonel, introduced as Gregg, shocked Belenko when he spoke. Peter spoke Russian well, Anna spoke it flawlessly, but this colonel spoke Russian as if he had been born and lived all his life in Russia.
Gregg welcomed Belenko, cordially but not extravagantly, rather as if he were greeting a highly recommended young officer reporting to his squadron. There was important work to do, and he wanted to get on with it. They set up the panels of photographs in the library, creating an eerily accurate three-dimensional illusion of the cockpit, and placed against the wall photographs displaying various sections, actual size.
Belenko explained what he understood to be the purpose of each button marked “Danger.” He could not explain why the safety pins had been removed; they were supposed to be there. A drunken mistake? Malice by someone in the regiment? Orders? He honestly did not know. But together, he and Gregg figured out where to insert replacement pins, which Japanese and American technicians would have to fabricate.
“Okay, now show me how to start the engines.”
“Why not wait until we have it over here? I can show you everything then and teach your pilots how to fly it.”
“I’m afraid we’re not going to be able to fly it. It looks as if we’ll have to give it back in a month or so.”
“What! Are you stupid?” Belenko was incredulous, enraged, betrayed. “Give it backl Do you think that if an
