Dan, in political pecking orders (where decisions are made by decree or done ‘independently’), people in Congress tend to be expendable. Rarely is a prez considered expendable. You could say that Lincoln, McKinley and Garfield were declared (by someone) to be expendable. JFK is another matter.
I won’t guess about Reagan. The government is infatuated with the lone nut theory, and is in bed with MANY groups (legal or otherwise). It’s enough to make some folks paranoid. Much food for much thought, eh?

Larry McDonald was a good friend who was murdered by the Russian Communists, most likely on orders from American and International Communists who control the Establishment. He did know the risks that were inherent in opposing the Insiders. It was a topic of conversation more than a few times. But Larry, Robert Welch, and other friends at risk for the same reasons, would not surrender to the enemies of freedom. Newbies and ancient survivors in the battle for freedom have an obligation to carry the banner forward with unwavering dedication.

Being born into a world of pre-existent laws of changing technology and social order, we are progressively subject to them through the requirements of education. If we learn, “Thou Shalt Not” in regard to some action, and we arbitrarily determine that the prohibition “Thou Shalt Not” is a violation of our fundamental freedom or right to choose based on the idea that “Christ died once for all, the just for the unjust,” we are in for a rude awakening and an unpleasant surprise if we apply that principle in situations where others do not believe in it or accept it as a modus operandi or a basis for legislation governing the actions of men.
The human mind probably can not comprehend the concept of the immutability of God, His laws and His enforcement of those laws with respect to the human exercise of a “right to choose.” So, if we attempt to apply some consistency of thought based in secular humanism with regard to law, a justification for violating the law is more probable than a reason for obeying it.
To suppose a justification for violating Russian Law (air space, territory or national property) by a commercial airliner is not only preposterous, it is blatantly absurd. The fact that there was already a reconnaissance aircraft operating in the area of the Kamchatka Peninsula at the same time as flight KAL 007 renders such speculation even more invalid. Roemer’s book substantiates the only plausible reason for the tragedy of the flight and that is that the navigation systems were incorrectly programmed in Anchorage and the consistent off-route progression of the flight took it on a route which violated airspace which was known to be prohibited to foreign aircraft. If law changes with authority, law will always be in doubt. If law, and obedience to it, offers security, it is true from a human perspective that violation of the law affects security. Paradoxically, in our objection to control, we limit the scope of security. Unless the Russians found intelligence gathering equipment on board KAL 007, something they have never asserted or stated, they have to know that the flight was a commercial aviation flight and not a reconnaissance flight. Conditioned response, obedience training, reward and punishment a la Pavlov or Mazlov know no borders and are not limited to Russians. Accidents happen in spite of laws, not because of them and the preponderance of evidence supports a justification for law. The question is how inconsistent people are in either knowing, obeying, enforcing or violating the law.

Nothing much surprises me. The airliner didn’t respond to clear signals to land, and so it was shot down. What do you think would happen if an airliner from Mexico “strayed” over Los Alamos, N.M.’s nuclear research center? I can tell you: there would be pieces of airliner and passengers raining out of the sky.

I was a passenger aboard the same flight (KAL 007)the night before the incident and feel very fortunate that I wasn’t a day later.
As to whether or not the plane “landed somewhere in Russia” I think that it is pretty clear that it did not. It was hit and fell to the sea as I see it.
Like the Kennedy assassination, someone knows the truth but we are not likely to know all of it because if the truth were told it would just be another story to add to the mix. I saw a TV special on the issue and that inidcated that the Korean Pilots (not CIA) did not complete all of their departure procedures correctly and consequently did not know their exact flight path – to go back a set their instruments at the flight origin (Anchorage, AK) would not be acceptable to KAL (lose of time, scheule and fuel). They carried on not paying sufficient attention to their jobs. This was early in the morning, the Russians had been following the flight, did not want to be the one to awaken any superior and so put off any action (accept to scramble an interceptor)until the plane was nearly out of their sector. Fearing that they needed to do something or face action in the morning from their superiors, the order was given to fire on the plane before it got away. Remember that the Russians had been tracking a US military plane in the hours preceeding this event that was flying data gathering passes up to and away from Russian air space to determine russian radar bases and capabilities.
This, or course, is just a story but I am nieve enough to believe it. What makes little sense to me is that the Russian pilot could have easily caught up with the commerial air liner to identify it and perhaps change what happened. The Russians eventually apologised and I believe even paid families of the victoms. I think that this story should have been better developed.
By the way, I believe that the shooting down of the Iranian passenger plane was a huge US Military screwup (a Air bus jet liner should never have been confused with an Iranian F-15 and the Commercial Air Bus was in Iranian airspace and not that money makes up for the loss of life but one added fact in this discussion should be that the US (us tax payers) ended up paying $213,000 per passenger to the families of the victoms.

in response to Garry’s ‘comment’ you are in error, if you will remember when autopsies were performed on the ‘passengers on flight 655 they were already deceased! a demented trick from the Iranians to stage an attack on a US warship

Sounds like ala LBJ… collateral damage to innocents to take out the individual they want out of the picture… in this case, US Rep. Larry McDonald, and Captain Will Rogers III in each incident. We are all nothing but pawns in the game of espionage. When communist bloc members and muslim countries combine forces, then democracies such as the US and Israel, suffer.

What I recall of the incident was that they were off-course, over a sensitive military installation and were supposedly spying. Cold war paranoia.

“Captain Will Rogers III is one of the terrorists on the list of Iran’s Parliament (Majlis). He is responsible for the mass killing of 290 Iranian, Emirati, Indian, Pakistani, Serbian and Italian civilians onboard Iran Air Flight 655 which was savagely shot down by the USS Vincennes Destroyer on July 3, 1988 over the Strait of Hormuz. Not only didn’t the US government ever apologize to Iran for this clear act of terror, it also awarded all the crew of Vincennes the Combat Action Ribbons and granted Lustig, the air-warfare coordinator, the Navy Commendation Medal, which is often given for acts of heroism or meritorious service.”
Reader’s Comment-”Another similar incident comes to my mind for which I blame the USA too:
Sep 1, 1983: Korean Airlines flight shot down by Soviet Union after repeated warnings were ignored when the flight detoured for no apparent reason over some Soviet military facilities. Later revealed the pilot of the doomed flight was a CIA operative; from that you can imagine what happened.
My heart goes out to the innocent dead of the both flights.”

“Justice denied for one is justice denied for all.” Martin Luther King.