Brun, a pilot and aeronautical engineer, presents here the result of a decade's research into the 1983 destruction of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 when it was shot down by Soviet fighters over the Sea of Japan. He describes the tragedy as part of a clandestine U.S. operation to test Soviet air defense capabilities. Flight 007 was a Trojan horse whose destruction occurred in the context of near-simultaneous violations of Soviet air space by American planes, resulting in a sharp clash between the superpowers' aircraft. When the gamble that a civilian airliner would be safe did not pay off, the U.S. embarked on a comprehensive cover-up that endures to the present, according to the author. Brun's conclusions overlook the difficulties of concealing this kind of deception for any length of time. They also fail to take into account the elements of fog and the friction on both sides that most probably are the real roots of the 007 catastrophe. This provocative title is ultimately unconvincing.

The Cold War still holds many mysteries; the downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 in September 1983 is one of its major puzzles. For Brun, a multilingual pilot and "aeronautical investigator," it became a personal obsession. His technically detailed, sometimes disjointed argument is that a major air battle took place near the Soviet island of Sakhalin, ending with the destruction not only of the airliner but also "ten or so (U.S.) aircraft," all "the result of a U.S. clandestine operation that had gone dreadfully wrong." Brun's case is built around conflicting newspaper accounts; published transcripts of cockpit communications; voice analysis; maps; other Soviet, Japanese, and U.S. evidence; and a junkyard of ocean debris, some of which the author collected himself. Although Brun's claim startles, his choppy style distracts. For larger collections.