"The Target Is Destroyed"

By Seymour H. Hersch

Random House; 282 pp.; $17.95

THE DOWNING of KAL 007 has generated a number of conspiracy theories, suggesting that the plane was spying for the U.S., intentionally misrouted by the CIA, or a KGB plot to kill conservative Congressman Larry MacDonald. At least five books have appeared supporting such inventions on very scanty evidence.

Finally, New York Times reporter Seymour Hersch has taken a fairly balanced view of the incident, basing his conclusions on extensive interviews with U.S., Japanese, and even Soviet officials involved. He concludes that the event was caused largely by misunderstanding, miscalculation and stupidity.

Explaining the plane's navigational system in great detail, Hersch shows how the pilot could have drifted over Soviet territory accidentally if only a few small mistakes happened at the wrong times. Flying at night on auto-pilot, the plane was lost mostly because of the crew's laziness and trust in their equipment. Probably confused by the jet's similarity to U.S. spy planes, the Siberian commander decided to play it safe and bring down the unknown plane.

ON THESE INNOCENT conclusions, Hersch constructs a harsh criticism of the way politicians manipulated the crisis by blatantly misusing the American intelligence network for their own advantage. Despite the expert opinion of a team of Air Force intelligence officers that the KAL Boeing jet and a U.S. RC-135 spy plane would be virtually indistinguishable at night, Defense Secretary Weinberger decided himself that the Soviet pilots knew it was a commercial flight.

This book is best, though, in the detail with which Hersch describes operations of the U.S. intelligence network. All over the Far East, men in super-secret listening posts are eavesdropping on Soviet fighter communications, radar signals, and even the radio chatter of Russian soldiers.

Over the Pacific, U.S. spy planes fly under radar coverage, then reappear close to the Soviet border and turn away at the last moment, listening to the Soviet radar responses.

Despite the amount of data we receive, though, the ultimate effectiveness of it is determined by the men who must decide whether the Russian words "the target is destroyed" refer to a downed jetliner or are part of a routine drill. And even when the correct decision is made at this level, its accurate interpretation by the political leaders is far from certain.

The raw intelligence provided a fairly accurate view of what happened over Siberia, but the U.S. leaders ignored or distorted the facts in their enthusiasm to condemn the Soviet Union and promote themselves. Hersch describes the horrified intelligence experts watching Reagan on television make absurd claims based on their reports.