The Soviets used captured foreigners as "bargaining chips" for western political concessions, western recognition of satellite regimes, and return of apprehended espionage agents.
Not applicable in this case. By 1983, they'd gotten as much mileage as they could get from such moves. Also, it would entail a LOT of "LOO-CY, you got some 'SPLAININ' to do" on the part of the US, and a lot of of "Umm, well, um" on the part of the USSR. Note that captured foreigners used in such a manner were never declared dead PRIOR to their use as a bargaining chip.
The Soviets used captured foreigners for gaining (extorting) economic "credit" from the west.
Again, not applicable. They were reported as DEAD--explaining their sudden non-dead state would call into question any and all other cases involving the USSR and the declared death of foreigners.
Captured foreigners were used to supplement the slave labor work force for a failed economic approach - Communism.
OK, they get an extremely marginal economic gain in return for extreme risk should one of these folks escape.
Since the execution of KGB head Laventry Beria and his lieutenants - Colonel Kabulov, et al - in 1953, it had become clear that today's jailors and their supporters would be the jailed of tomorrow. Thus the fear of retribution diminished the practice of execution (as well as the most severe torments) among political prisoners.
But the fear of being found out as a liar would militate in FAVOR of executing foreign nationals already declared dead.
Glastnost, and the opening of the books of the KGB and the Soviet repressive state system in general, would place the perpetuators of the killings of KAL 007 passengers and crew at great risk. This danger would inhibit their execution.
Glasnost wasn't even a faint dream in 1983. If anything, it looked like the USSR was going to the worst excesses of Stalin and Beria.
And finally, a still Biblically oriented America, a society still formed by the Christian concept of mercy may find it difficult to understand the Soviet-period-formed mentality that captured peoples are not simply to be "let go" to return to their homes or necessarily killed. They must be punished or required as conquored peoples to work it off - for life. This "working" is not so much for economic benefit to the conqueror but because the conquered have it coming to them and it is for the vindication of the victoroius.
And, finally, you fail to note that these were foreigners KNOWN to have been captured by the USSR. They weren'd declared dead at the outset of their captivity.
Before speaking of KAL 007 specifically, let's look back and see what history teaches. In 1973, the US government released an official statement enunciating a policy that "There are no more prisoners in Southeast Asia. They are all dead." This put N. Vietnam in the same kind of predicament that you say the Soviets were in: The people were already declared dead, so why not kill them off rather than risk their escape? Yet, in 1979, Private Robert Garwood -- one of those unfortunate POWs declared "dead" -- returned alive! Furthermore, Pvt. Garwood having returned to the US, reported that he had seen other US servicemen in captivity in N. Vietnam -- servicement whom the Department of Defense had already declared "dead." Clearly, Communism does not follow the same logic as the rest of the Western world. [This example taken from "An Examination of U.S. Policy Toward POW/MIAs" by the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Republican Staff.]
Now, about KAL 007... First of all, let's deal with the statement "the Soviets would have nothing to gain by keeping them alive." Au contraire, perhaps they have much to gain. I do not know whether they have (yet) used the people as a bargaining chip, but one thing is for sure: The declaration by the media to the world that the passengers and crew of flight 007 were dead certainly would not preclude the possibility of them doing so if they wanted to. Even if the masses are fooled by the disinformation of their "death", as long as the US government knows that the Soviet government has the people alive, that's all the Soviets need to use them for their own ends. The rest of the world need never know, LOO-CY need never 'SPLAIN. And yes, there is good reason to believe that the US government did, indeed, have intimate knowledge of the incident at the time it happened -- much more than the media lets on. The threat of Russia exposing the fact that the US knew all along about the survival of the KAL 007 passengers and crew and covered it up might very well be enough to put Russia in a good negotiating position. Who knows what kinds of clandestine agreements are reached between the highest eschelons of the two governments, and are never reported in the media?
So I do not accept your claim that since the people have already been declared dead by their own countries, they will not have been kept alive.
Secondly, let's deal with the statement "they would have much to gain from 'destroying the evidence.'" Well, as I just mentioned, there is good reason to believe that the US already knew more at the outset than it's letting on. So killing off the people would not have prevented the US of learning of their survival. But, for whatever reason, it seems like the US is keeping Russia's secret. So why would they not have killed the people in the early '90s when the first allegations of the cover-up began being made, or even today with the current movement to re-open the case, threatening to spill Russia's secret? The answer lies in point 5 of posting #90. With the ever present threat of Glastnost and the opening of the books resulting in the truth about the survival of the KAL 007 people coming out, it would be far worse for the Russians to be found out as having executed the people so many years after the incident took place, than for them to be found out as having kept them as prisoners all these years. Indeed, when Sen. Jesse Helms wrote to Boris Yeltsin in his letter of December 10, 1991,
"The KAL-007 tragedy was one of the most tense incidents of the entire Cold War. However, now that relations between our two nations have improved substantially, I believe that it is time to resolve the mysteries surrounding this event. Clearing the air on this issue could help further to improve relations."
he implied that by providing the requested info, Yeltsin could make himself a "hero" of sorts -- The shining knight of the New Russia undoing the wrongs of the evil Communist regime that preceded his. Incidentally, in that same letter Helms demanded (among other things) to know the whereabouts of the survivors of flight 007 on the assumption that there are survivors; he does not ask if there are any.
The points in posting #90 were meant to illustrate the Soviet mentality of keeping most political prisoners -- not just the KAL 007 people -- alive. Perhaps only some of them apply directly to the KAL 007 incident. The important thing is that all these factors contribute to the forming of a MENTALITY -- the execution of political prisoners is to be limited. And a MENTALITY is something which is not easily made exception to. We would have to look to extenuating reasons for this MENTALITY to be set aside. In the absence of these reasons, we could not rule out their being kept alive.
[As for your rebuttal of point 6 in posting #90, I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. The Soviet mentality of making the captured peoples "pay" has nothing to do with putting on a show for the rest of the world who *knows* they have them. It's an attitude towards the captured peoples themselves, and for their own feeling of self-vindication.]