MiG Pilot: the Final Escape of Lt. Belenko

The fighter base, he judged, artfully combined the authentically representative with the seductively phony embroidered to impress selected visitors like him. He was invited to inspect the fighters, F-4s, F-106s, and then one of the two he had been taught most to dread, the F-15. «Go ahead, sit in the cockpit,» Gregg said. «But if you fly away with one of these, they'll have my ass.» No question: the fighters were real enough, just as they had been described in the Soviet Union. Some attributes did surprise him. The electronic, fire control, armament, navigational, and certain other systems were much more sophisticated than he had been told, and the exterior surfaces of all the U.S. planes were smoother than those of the MiG-25. Essentially, though, they were what he expected: marvelous machines, but known machines.

The clubs for enlisted personnel, noncommissioned officers, and officers, with their various rooms for dining, dancing, drinking, reading, pool, Ping-Pong, cards, and chess; the athletic fields, gymnasiums, swimming pools, tennis courts; the theater — they might be real.

«How can you afford to spend so much on people rather than weapons?»

«How can we afford not to?» responded the fighter-base commander, a colonel, who was escorting them. «The best weapons in the world are no good unless you have people willing and able to man them.»

That's right, absolutely right. That's what I was trying to tell the Party.

The base commander told Belenko that the Air Force wished to give him an American flight suit as a memento of the visit. Never had he admired any apparel so much. Although made of synthetics, it was silken and flexible in feel, light, yet warm. «You make a fine-looking American pilot,» Gregg said, as Belenko looked at himself in the dark green suit before a mirror.

«Let me show you something,» said an officer, who flicked a cigarette lighter and touched the flame to the flight suit.

«Don't do that!» shouted Belenko, shoving the officer away.

«No, just trust me. It's fireproof. If it burns, we'll give you a new one.» The officer held the flame to a sleeve, and Belenko saw that the suit was, indeed, impervious to fire.

Belenko then asked to meet a typical sergeant, whom he questioned about his work and standard of living. Believing none of the straightforward answers, Belenko announced he would like to visit the sergeant's quarters. Easy enough, said the commander. He lives only a few blocks away. Come on, we'll go in my car. Obviously, this was a put-on. Can you imagine a colonel actually driving people around, including one of his own sergeants, like a common chauffeur?

The sergeant lived on base in a two-story stucco house with a screened front porch, small yard, and attached garage. Belenko asked how a sergeant could have such a large house, and the commander told him the size of the house allotted depended on the size of the family to occupy it. Oh, that's absurd. And look at that car [a 1976 Impala]! They want me to think a sergeant owns a car like that. Why, it's better than the colonel's car.

Upon looking at a major's house, which was nicer but not that much nicer, Belenko gave up. I've seen the show. Why put them to more trouble?

That evening some officers took Belenko and Gregg to a good dinner at a civilian restaurant near the base. Belenko felt that the conversation, pilots talking to pilots, was genuine and stimulating. But when the host attempted to pay the check, the whole scheme was exposed to him. The proprietor, a Greek immigrant, refused to take money, and the meal cost well over $100. Gregg translated. «He says he owes this country more than he can ever repay, but as a token repayment he is giving us dinner. I think he's guessed or someone has told him who you are.»

Sometimes, though, Belenko saw significance in the mundane, and some of his observations began to engender doubts about his doubts. On successive Sundays, Peter took him to the zoo in Washington's Rock Creek Park and the King's Dominion Amusement Park north of Richmond. The zoo, situated in lovely woods, maintains a large collection of exotic animals. The amusement park is a wholesome place offering many ingenious rides and delights for children and teenagers. Yet at both the zoo and park he was most impressed by the people.

Most, in his opinion, were from the «working class.» Try as he would, he could not honestly discern in their appearance or behavior any manifestations of the fear, anxiety, or privation which he from childhood on had been assured prevailed among the majority of Americans. Families and couples strolled about as if, for the moment anyway, they were carefree and having a good time. Among them were many black people. They were dressed just as well as the white people, were equally attentive to their children, and, so far as he could tell, seemed to have no qualms about mingling with the white people.