September 3, 1983

The reported downing of a Korean commercial airliner by the Soviet Union has disrupted a modest and tentative mending course in Soviet-American relations. Expressions of public outrage in the United States and Western Europe indicate that the incident has tarred the peaceloving image that Moscow had been working hard to project. Instead, there seems to be a new sense of insecurity about Soviet intentions and unpredictability, although officials here assert that this appears an isolated incident and that there is no evidence of a developing military crisis. The airliner incident could hardly have come at a worse moment for Soviet efforts to generate support for the Western antinuclear movement and the campaign to halt American missile deployments in Western Europe this year. This fact alone makes any Soviet motivation for the incident inexplicable and has contributed to the general atmosphere of unease.

Transcript of Shultz remarks, page 4. WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 - Secretary of State George P. Shultz accused the Soviet Union today of continuing to ''cover up the facts'' of the apparent shooting down of a South Korean airliner. Rejecting the latest Soviet statement on the loss of the Korean Air Lines 747, in which 269 people died, Mr. Shultz said, ''The world is waiting for the Soviet Union to tell the truth.'' In Moscow, the official press agency, Tass, distributed a statement asserting that the Korean Air Lines plane was carrying out a ''preplanned act'' for ''special intelligence aims'' in crossing into Soviet airspace. Tass also said a Soviet plane had fired tracer shells to warn the plane, but did not admit it had shot the plane down.

Members of the United Nations denounced the Soviet Union today for ''murder'' and ''massacre'' as the Security Council began debating the destruction of a South Korean airliner that the United States says was shot down by a Soviet fighter. Canada's delegate, Gerard Pelletier, charged that the shooting down of a ''civilian, unarmed, easily identifiable passenger aircraft by the Soviet Union is nothing short of murder.'' He urged an inquiry by Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar with the International Civil Aviation Organization and called on Moscow to compensate the families of the 269 victims. Outrage Voiced Worldwide The Australian deputy delegate, Louis Lance E. Joseph, described the incident as ''barbarous.'' It was, he said, ''quite simply a massacre in the sky.'' No country, he said, ''can be justified in shooting down an unarmed civilian aircraft serving no military purpose.''

Nine days ago, on a Thursday afternoon, Terence Cardinal Cooke sent for Bishop Joseph T. O'Keefe, the vicar general of the New York Archdiocese. ''I went to see the Cardinal thinking he only wanted to see me about some reassignments for priests,'' Bishop O'Keefe recalled. ''I had all the papers with me. I never expected him to tell me he was dying.''

Heavy fighting erupted today in eastern Chad as 3,000 Libyan-backed insurgents attacked a Government outpost, Chadian officials said. But the Government said its troops repulsed the attackers, inflicting heavy losses. The fighting, for control of the oasis of Oum Chalouba, more than 400 miles northeast of here, marked the first major outbreak of hostilities since French troops began arriving in Chad, a former French colony, on Aug. 11. A French spokesman said no French air or ground forces were involved in the fighting. The nearest French contingent to Oum Chalouba was said to be at Arada, about 60 miles to the south.