Eagle, I don't want to form an alliance anymore.

Qian Bingyin reacted more calmly. The moment his gaze swept over the navigator, he finally discovered the error: the inertial navigation system's route mode indicator was off, and the plane was flying in magnetic heading mode.

He looked up at the window—but saw nothing but the exhaust plume of the fighter jet from before, a pitch-black night sky, a pitch-black sea—

No, what about the sea?

Shouldn't I be flying over the Pacific Ocean? What am I doing here?

PS: At that time, many passenger planes were not equipped with GPS systems. Historically, it was because this plane was shot down by the Soviet army that all planes were equipped with GPS systems.

There were a few faint points of light in the darkness below the window; those were lights on the ground.

“We veered off course,” Sun Donghui said, his voice trembling. “We flew into Soviet airspace.”

"Idiot! Turn on the radio! Do you want us shot down?!"

Sun Donghui quickly realized what was happening and switched to the emergency radio, finally hearing a response. First, a string of Russian was heard, then it switched to English with a heavy Russian accent:

"Korean Air zero zero seven, this is Soviet Air Defense. You have violated Soviet airspace. Follow my aircraft immediately. I repeat, follow my aircraft!"

Qian Bingyin glanced at the co-pilot beside him, who was pale with fright, and then at the flight engineer who was rushing over from the back of the cockpit to ask about the situation. He then picked up the radio receiver.

"Soviet Air Defense, this is Korean Air zero zero seven. We acknowledge. Navigation error. We will follow your aircraft. Request instructions for landing."

At 4:12 a.m., Korean Air Flight 007 landed safely at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky Civil Airport on the Kamchatka Peninsula, escorted by two Su-15 interceptors.

The moment the wheels touched the ground, Sun Donghui and Qian Bingyin breathed a sigh of relief. To this day, only the two of them know how close the 269 people on board had come to death.

Within minutes of the plane coming to a stop at the end of the runway, it was surrounded by military vehicles that surged from all sides.

KGB and military security personnel quickly boarded the plane to conduct inspections. All passengers were instructed to remain in their seats and were not allowed to leave. Passports were collected and verified one by one.

As Captain Chun Byung-in disembarked from the plane, he was immediately taken to an office in the airport terminal by two KGB officers for interrogation.

"Why did the aircraft veer off course? Were any non-standard flight instructions received? Was any unconventional equipment on board?"

"What are you implying? What are you trying to express? What are you trying to guide? What is your purpose in doing this? Who exactly ordered you to do this? Who is the organization behind you?"

Chun Byung-in gave the same answer to all questions: a navigation error, a pure technical mistake, and no one instructed him to fly into Soviet airspace.

He now fully understood that if the Soviets decided to launch missiles directly as they had done, he and everyone on board would now be a pile of debris on the Japanese seabed.

The KGB investigation lasted nearly a week. Technicians conducted a thorough inspection of the aircraft's navigation system, confirming that the inertial navigation system's route mode was indeed not activated—this was a human error, not an equipment malfunction, and certainly not a deliberate intrusion. No reconnaissance equipment or unconventional payloads were found on the aircraft.

A week later, the 269 passengers and crew members on board were arranged to fly to Japan on a Soviet civilian airliner Ilyushin Il-62, and then transfer there to return to Seoul.

After its navigation system was repaired, the Boeing 747 was also allowed to leave, and was supervised by a Soviet civil aviation navigator throughout its flight back to Seoul.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Unlike the overwhelming criticisms of the Soviet Union in the past, this incident has sparked great controversy internationally.

Reagan issued a strongly worded statement immediately after the incident, calling the Soviet Union's "threat of innocent civilian airliners and passengers with force" barbaric and unacceptable, and calling on the international community to condemn the Soviet Union. Hawkish members of the U.S. Congress demanded further sanctions against the Soviet Union and the suspension of the planned Geneva talks.

They have done this before, and this latest downing directly led to the suspension of the Geneva negotiations.

But this time, Reagan's inflammatory rhetoric was far less effective than his speech on the evil empire. The reason is simple—the plane wasn't shot down, and no one died. The 269 passengers who returned alive are themselves the biggest rebuttal to Reagan's narrative:

If the Soviet Union was truly an evil empire, then why did they choose restraint instead of firing directly when faced with an unidentified aircraft intruding into their airspace?

The reactions of Western European countries are particularly intriguing.

The French Foreign Ministry issued a statement expressing concern over the Soviet interception of the civilian aircraft, while acknowledging that "the Soviet approach demonstrated a degree of restraint."

The West German magazine Der Spiegel published a cover story titled "Calm in the Cold War: Lessons from the Kamchatka Incident."

The article concludes that the Soviet Union's performance in this matter "contrasts with the image of the Soviet Union portrayed by the Reagan administration in recent months."

The British Labour government's reaction was the most nuanced. In his statement to the House of Commons, Prime Minister Ford criticized both the excessive militarization of Soviet airspace control and Korean Air's serious navigational errors, without placing all the blame on the Soviet Union.

This greatly displeased Washington, but for Moscow it was another sign of widening rifts within NATO.

Slava saw the reactions on television from his hotel room in Geneva, and it was the happiest he had been in months.

At least for everyone on that plane, he was a hero.

Slava stood up, walked to the window, glanced at Lake Geneva, then drew the curtains, sat back down at the table, and opened the folder containing the negotiation preparation materials.

On this Swiss night, in a quiet corner of a world shrouded in the nuclear shadow of two superpowers, a negotiation that could change the course of the future is beginning.

Chapter 34 The purpose of diplomacy is to survive into the next century.

September 20, Palais des Nations, Geneva.

Seven or eight people sat on each side of the negotiating table, with water, pencils, and earphones placed in the middle.

This marks the first time in 80 years that the two superpowers have begun negotiations on joint arms reductions. Any glimmer of peace is extremely precious at a time when military friction between the two countries continues to escalate.

Outside the window, the blue waters of Lake Geneva and the snow-capped peaks of the Alps stretch out in the distance. Sunlight spills onto the oak table, casting warm golden dapples of light, making the room seem more suited to hosting a piano recital than discussing the fate of thousands of nuclear warheads.

The chief U.S. negotiator was Paul Nietzsche. This once-legendary hawk of the Pentagon—now a compromiser—sat on the west side of the table. He was seventy-six years old, with a neatly trimmed head of white hair, wearing a light blue shirt under a dark gray suit jacket, and no tie.

He had been involved in the formulation of nuclear weapons policy since the Truman era, but as the Cold War progressed and the negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union on intermediate-range nuclear forces reached a stalemate, he gradually shifted from a hawk to a dove.

Yuri Kvičinsky, the Soviet chief negotiator, sat on the east side of the table; he was much younger than Nietzsche.

Privately, Kvečínsky and Nietzsche shared a strange understanding. Through years of repeated clashes, they had developed a professional respect that transcended ideological opposition.

They both knew that the other side genuinely wanted to reach an agreement and wasn't just going through the motions; it was just that their respective political backers wouldn't allow them to make concessions that the other side could accept.

The "Walk in the Woods" of 1982 was born out of this shared sense of frustration—two people, bound by their respective governments, tried to find a way out of the system, only to discover that the way out did exist, but neither of them could leave once they returned.

The cause was that the Soviet Union began deploying SS-20 intermediate-range missiles in the 1970s. In response, NATO made a two-track decision in 1979: on the one hand, to deploy 572 intermediate-range missiles in Western Europe, and on the other hand, to push for negotiations with the Soviet Union on intermediate-range nuclear forces.

After Reagan took office in 1981, he proposed the zero-option plan: the United States was prepared to cancel the deployment of all Pershing II and cruise missiles on the condition that the Soviet Union dismantle all of its missiles.

The Soviet Union could not possibly agree to this! Because the Soviet Union would need to dismantle the more than 1100 warheads that had already been deployed, while the United States would only need to abandon a deployment plan that had not yet been completed.

The Soviet plan also required the inclusion of independent British and French nuclear forces in the calculations, which was an absolute no-go zone for the United States.

Many believe that some within the Reagan administration designed the zero option from the outset as a plan the Soviet Union would inevitably reject, ensuring that negotiations would fail and deployments could proceed. The State Department initially favored a more flexible stance, but at the insistence of Defense Secretary Weinberger, the zero option became the only viable option for the United States.

Negotiations began in the fall of 1981 and proceeded at a standstill for a full year.

On July 16, 1982, U.S. negotiator Paul Nietzsche invited Soviet representative Yuri Kwitsinsky to leave the negotiating table and meet privately on a forest path in the Jura Mountains near Geneva.

Nietzsche himself was a very interesting figure. He was a veteran hawk within the American defense establishment, yet by 1982, this lifelong hawk had come to believe that nuclear weapons should be completely eliminated. His overstepping of authority to negotiate privately with Soviet adversaries demonstrated his despair with the official position.

Reagan went a bit too far.

That day, the two men reached an informal compromise on that forest trail: the Soviet Union would reduce its SS-20 missiles from 243 to 75, while also dismantling the SS-4 and SS-5; the SS-20s deployed east of the Urals would remain unchanged. The US would have 75 launchers, all for land-based cruise missiles—the Pershing II ballistic missile would be completely excluded and not deployed.

Nietzsche returned to Washington with the proposal. After interagency discussions, the proposal was submitted directly to the National Security Council meeting.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff had consistently supported this plan, and Reagan expressed a positive inclination when he first received a briefing. Defense Secretary Weinberger at the time merely noted the Chiefs of Staff's support.

However, a turning point came when Richard Pearl, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Defense Policy, happened to be out of Washington on business. Upon learning the news, he immediately called Weinberg and requested another meeting. A second meeting was held, and this time Weinberg, fully armed by Pearl, fiercely criticized the plan. Reagan finally stated:

“Fine, I don’t support it anymore. Paul, go tell the Soviets that I’m a strongman and I won’t accept this.”

Between the two meetings, there was a large interdepartmental meeting. It was at that meeting that Pearl uttered his famous insult to Nietzsche:

"Paul, your problem is that you're a hopeless problem solver!"

It was this statement that completely ousted Paul from the hawks.

The core reason for the US refusal lay with the Pershing II. The US knew that the Pershing II was the weapon that truly terrified the Soviet Union in the entire deployment plan—it could strike Soviet territory from West Germany in less than 10 minutes. The fact that Soviet criticism of the Pershing II was far more intense than that of the cruise missiles precisely proves that the Pershing II was the real trump card in the negotiations!

For Pearl and the hawks, abandoning Pershing II was tantamount to handing over their most valuable bargaining chip at the negotiating table. Pearl also insisted that the zero option should be the only option, with no way out! He cited the lesson of the Carter administration's hasty withdrawal of the SALT II proposal in 1977, arguing that once a willingness to back down was shown, the Soviet Union would press further.

After Nietzsche returned to Geneva, he never mentioned the "Walking in the Woods" project again, nor did Kwiczinski—it was thus stillborn.

But now another opportunity has arisen.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

The offers from both sides in the negotiations are almost the same as a year ago: the US insists on zero-for-zero—the Soviet Union to withdraw all SS-20s, and the US to cancel all Pershing II and cruise missile deployments; the Soviet Union, on the other hand, demands that the independent nuclear forces of Britain and France be included in the calculation, and that after deducting the number of Britain and France, the Soviet Union can retain an SS-20 force equivalent to the total number of NATO.

The gap between these two positions is large enough to dock an aircraft carrier, and everyone knows that the final agreement—if it can be reached—will be somewhere in between these two extremes.

But whoever gives in first will be at a disadvantage in the subsequent bargaining, so both sides are waiting for the other to blink first.

Slava did not sit at the front of the negotiating table; that was the battlefield for seasoned diplomats.

The aim of diplomacy is to ensure a nation survives into the next century; the aim of politics is to ensure it survives until next Friday.

In terms of status and power, Slava was the one in the negotiating team most likely to reach the highest levels of authority. Kvečinsky had even worried that Slava might interfere in his negotiations, but Slava directly stated:

"Yuri, feel free to talk. My greatest strength as a leader is that I don't give orders to experts. Go ahead and do it. I'll back you up. Our goal is the same—to jointly reduce nuclear arms."

"If anything goes wrong, I'll take the blame. I'll handle the pressure from Moscow. I trust you to get things done."

Kveczynski was overjoyed; who wouldn't like such a good leader?

Slava's role then became that of a strategic advisor at the Soviet delegation's residence in the rear. His actual job was to review the day's negotiation progress with Kvechinsky's deputies in the hotel suite every night, analyze the American representatives' wording, and formulate the Soviet response strategy for the next day.

This job sounds important, but in practice he found that his main contribution was making tea.

The career diplomats from Moscow all knew the ins and outs of negotiation better than he did, and he was completely ignorant of the technical details of arms control treaties—things like yield, launcher counting rules, and verification standards for the number of deployable warheads...

He couldn't understand that bird language at all.

But that's okay, because Andropov didn't put him here to count the number of warheads.

"Your job is to ensure that the negotiations don't fall apart because of internal sabotage in Moscow. Leave the external affairs to Kvečinsky, and you keep an eye on things inside."

Yes, there were also divisions within the Soviet delegation. The majority of the delegation sent by Andropov consisted of reformists or at least those positive about the negotiations, but it also included two or three observers from the Ministry of Defense and the Military-Industrial Committee.

These people were nominally technical advisors, but in reality, they were conservatives' spies and brakes planted in the delegation. Their job was to ensure that the negotiations did not go too far in a direction that would "harm national security interests."

Slava was responsible for ensuring that these people didn't hold back.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

The event that truly changed the pace of the negotiations occurred on September 26.

That day was the fourth week of negotiations. The two sides had been going back and forth for nearly half a month on the two core issues of reducing the number of SS20s and the deployment scale of Pershing II, and there was still a considerable gap between them and reaching a framework agreement.

The Soviet Union was willing to reduce the number of SS-20 missiles in the European part from the current 240 to less than 100, but insisted that missiles east of the Urals be unrestricted. The United States, on the other hand, demanded a global quota and a much lower number.

Kvečinsky privately told his deputies, “At the current pace, it will take us at least three to four more weeks to get close to a range that is barely acceptable to both sides—provided that Moscow doesn’t call a halt in the middle.”

There are indeed people in Moscow trying to stop it.

Conservative supporters within the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff exerted pressure on Andropov through various channels, citing seemingly valid reasons:

Afghanistan is still at war; the Soviet Union's prestige in the Arab world has plummeted after being humiliated by Israel in the Middle East; Nicaragua and Cuba in Central America need increasing aid; and pro-Soviet regimes in Africa are retreating step by step in the face of US-backed insurgents...

In this global context, proactively reducing nuclear armaments is tantamount to sending a signal to the world that the Soviet Union is retreating!

This signal will be interpreted by NATO as weakness, and they will then increase pressure wherever possible!

Andropov was not without his doubts. He reportedly remained silent for a long time at a Politburo meeting in mid-September, and he had his doubts several times, but in the end he chose to believe.

Then a major event occurred on September 26th.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

The Serpukhov Early Warning Center outside Moscow.

Just after midnight Moscow time on September 26, the duty officer for the Oko satellite early warning system, which monitors the launch of U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles, was Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov.

Besides him, there were a dozen other operators in the duty room, each sitting in front of their own terminal monitoring the data transmitted back from the satellite. The screens displayed thermal images of the North American continent—occasionally, white bright spots flickered on the green background. These bright spots were city lights and thermal radiation from industrial areas, which were normally stationary and harmless.

At 12:14 AM, a terminal suddenly emitted a sharp alarm—a bright spot on the screen located in Montana, USA, rapidly increased in brightness, and the system automatically displayed a line of large red text:

Ballistic missile launch detected!

Petrov straightened up from his chair and rushed to the terminal: the system showed that a missile launch had been detected from the location of an intercontinental ballistic missile silo in the central United States!

"Check the signal strength immediately! Quickly!" he shouted.

Twenty seconds later, the second alarm sounded.

A second missile launch was detected in the same area.

Then came the third, the fourth, the fifth...

Everyone in the duty room stood up, some of their faces were as white as the bright spots on the screen!

If it were true that five intercontinental ballistic missiles were launched simultaneously from the central United States toward the Soviet Union, then Moscow and other major Soviet cities would be reduced to radioactive ruins in about twenty-five minutes!

"Lieutenant Colonel, we must report this immediately! We must launch a nuclear counterattack!"

Petrov's hand was only centimeters from the reporting button. Pressing that button meant transmitting the information to the command chain of the Soviet strategic nuclear forces, from where final decision-making was just a few steps away—if the Politburo determined it was a genuine attack, the Soviet retaliatory procedures would be initiated within minutes!

Thousands of nuclear warheads launched simultaneously from underground silos and nuclear submarines would turn the Northern Hemisphere into a wasteland within thirty minutes.

His hand stopped above the button.