REPORT OF THE - Archives - Syracuse University

who had access to the cable felt they could not justify having seen it while others had not,
in that the information was unclassified and relevant to the U.S. community in Moscow.
The Acting Deputy Chief of Mission in Moscow during December 1988 later testified
before the Commission: "Basically, the situation we were faced with there was that ...
whoever the Communications Officer had distributed the cable to, had information that
was in the cable ... so the choices we had were either to simply leave that .. situation
continue to exist ... or to make a decision to provide the information more broadly."
These concerns were raised at a regular meeting of the senior Embassy staff on either
December 12 or 13. The staff reached a tentative decision that an administrative notice on
the threat information should be posted. The dissemination of such a notice was the
Embassy's broadest distribution system. Informed of the staff's recommendation, the U.S.
Ambassador concurred.
Because Embassy security personnel did not have on hand a 1987 State Department cable
which supposedly provided guidance concerning dissemination of FAA bulletin
information, and because the FAA bulletin itself was unclear in that regard, the Embassy
sent a cable marked "action" to the FAA. That cable, dated December 13, 1988, told the
FAA: "Post plans to issue an internal administrative notice warning employees of the
threat."
The Embassy officer responsible for sending the cable to FAA explained to the
Commission that he "wanted FAA to be aware that we were intending to make a
dissemination of their bulletin ...(so) they could respond to us, and either say, 'Don't
disseminate it; disseminate it with the following caveats.' " The FAA never responded (a
"procedural error," according to the testimony of the FAA's Director of Civil Aviation
Security).
The Embassy posted the administrative notice on the morning of December 14. The
notice was distributed in a manner so as to receive the broadest distribution possible
within the American community in Moscow and was intended to reach contract
employees such as painters and chauffeurs, as well as U.S. journalists, business people
and students in Moscow.
351-88
A D M I N I S T R A T I V E N O T I C E
American Embassy, MOSCOW
December 13, 1988
TO : All Embassy Employees
SUBJECT: Threat to Civil Aviation
Post has been notified by the Federal Aviation Administration that on December 5, 1988,
an unidentified individual telephoned a U.S. diplomatic facility in Europe and stated that
sometime within the next two weeks there would be a bombing attempt against a Pan
American aircraft flying from Frankfurt to the United States.
The FAA reports that the reliability of the information cannot be assessed at this point,
but the appropriate police authorities have been notified and are pursuing the matter. Pan
Am has also been notified.
In view of the lack of confirmation of this information, post leaves to the discretion of
individual travelers any decisions on altering personal travel plans or changing to another
American carrier. This does not absolve the traveler from flying an American carrier.