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But in the reddening skies over the southern coast of Sakhalin, a chain of events began unfolding that was far from normal. Japanese radar operators saw the blip of an unidentified plane close in rapidly on another blip they now knew represented the Korean airliner. The two symbols merged. The time was 2:25 p.m.
Then, at 2:26 p.m., the whirling tape recorders, probably at the Japanese Defense Agency's massive radar installation in the otherwise sleepy town of Wakkanai on Hokkaido's northern tip, caught the incriminating conversations between a single Soviet fighter pilot and his unemotional commander on the ground. As reported in the Japanese press, the key transmissions included:
Commander: Take aim at the target.
Pilot: Aim taken.
Commander: Fire.
Pilot: Fired.
Later, there were more Soviet transmissions:
Unidentified questioner: Where did it go?
The reply: We shot it down. Shultz curtly paraphrased these exchanges at his initial Washington press conference. Said he: "The Soviet pilot reported that he fired a missile and the target was destroyed."
Indeed it was. But Flight 007, in what must have been an interminable and terrifying descent for its travelers, seemed to die slowly. At 2:27 the crew tried, finally, to signal its distress. "Korean Air 007," began the voice. But only an unintelligible garble of sounds followed.
Three minutes later, radar showed that the airliner had fallen to 5,000 meters (16,400 ft.), halfway to the sea. Within another two minutes, a second Soviet plane showed up at the same site on radar screens. At 2:38 p.m., twelve minutes after being hit, Flight 007 dropped off the screens.
Near the island of Moneron, 30 miles off the Sakhalin coast, Japanese fishermen heard at least two thunderous noise from the sky above them. They reported seeing a fiery flash denoting what one called "some awful explosion." It was an explosion that would soon echo, in disbelieving protest, around the world.
At Kimpo Airport in Seoul, friends and families awaiting Flight 007 endured a roller-coaster of worry, falsely raised joy and final sorrow. They waited for five agonizing hours for some word of the missing plane's fate. Rumors filled the vacuum. The 747 had been hijacked. No, it had been forced to land on Soviet soil. Then official confirmation. A KAL spokesman said on the p.a. system that the airliner was safely down on Sakhalin. Everyone should leave telephone numbers and await word on the reunion. Cheers filled the terminal. Another 13 hours passed before the reality came from distant Washington. Shultz, his voice quavering as he fought to control his anger, revealed the worst.
In Atlanta, Kathryn McDonald stoically faced TV cameras to declare that her husband Lawrence, a staunchly conservative Democratic Congressman and national chairman of the ultraright John Birch Society, had been the victim of "an act of deliberate assassination." She charged that it was no accident that "the leading anti-Communist in the American Government" had been on a plane that was "forced into Soviet territory" and shot down. She linked her husband's "murder" with the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II, blaming both on the Soviets.