Back to the USSR and a New Cold War?

Accuracy In Media ^ | April 9, 2004

[Tailgunner Joe]

In late January, while the U.S. continued to be focused on developments in Iraq, the Russian military launched the largest exercise of its strategic nuclear forces since 1982. Russian generals said the exercise was not intended as "saber rattling" against the U.S. or NATO. But they did admit the strategic exercise's main theme was "averting power pressure on the Russian Federation." And one senior Russian General Staff official told reporters that the exercise was held in response to developments in U.S. national security policy.

Colonel-General Yuri Baluyevsky said that the Russian General Staff is worried about U.S. plans to develop low-yield nuclear weapons and ballistic missile defenses. He claimed that the General Staff fears that, when combined with a new emphasis on preemption in U.S. strategic policy, these developments could "lower the threshold of nuclear weapons use." Media reports from Moscow indicated that the exercise would feature live launches of Russian strategic missiles and mock attacks by strategic bombers.

The 1982 Soviet General Staff strategic forces exercise was the largest-ever test of Moscow's nuclear command and control system. It also came in the midst of a huge Soviet intelligence operation codenamed "R'yan." According to classified KGB materials given to the West by Soviet defector Vasili Mitrokhin, "R'yan" was intended to collect intelligence on the Reagan administration's purported plans to launch a nuclear first strike against the former Soviet Union. That exercise also featured live launches by land- and sea-based strategic ballistic missiles and strategic air operations.

This time around, Russian announcements of the exercise went almost unnoticed or were buried in the U.S. media. Consumed by controversies over Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and the President's military records, the import and implications of the Russian exercise have gone practically unnoticed.

The media finally took notice of the exercise after two attempted missile launches by the navy failed. A story about the failures appeared back on page 20 of the Washington Post. But a launch of a land-based ICBM was said to be successful. President Vladimir Putin, a former Soviet KGB officer, used the exercise to announce Russian plans to develop a new generation of strategic weapons, including hypersonic vehicles and maneuvering warheads. Both would be intended to defeat U.S. ballistic missile defenses, although Pentagon spokesmen said that U.S. defenses are not intended to thwart a Russian missile attack. Most reports characterized Putin's statements as mere campaign rhetoric in advance of the March presidential election, which he was heavily favored to win.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Paul J. Redmond spent 30 years in the CIA's Directorate of Operations fighting the Soviet intelligence services. In his last position, he was the senior advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence on counterintelligence matters. Redmond is credited by many with the unmasking of CIA mole Aldrich Ames, a claim that Redmond denies.

Moral High Ground?

In a recent book review, Redmond thinks the West is lucky to have come into possession of Mitrokhin's treasures. He writes that Mitrokhin tried to defect to the CIA twice, but was turned away both times. He writes that the head of CIA's Soviet operations told him that "The KGB is dead," and "We must maintain the high moral ground." The Cold War was declared over in the early 1990s and the CIA had stopped trying to recruit East Bloc intelligence officers.

That's ironic, since it is known that during the 1990s, the Russians had more intelligence officers operating in the United States than ever before. Travel restrictions on diplomatic personnel had been eased; so Russian spies were freer to move around at the same time that the FBI was cutting back its counterintelligence capabilities. Redmond has reported that during this period the Defense Department's intelligence agency issued "no escort" badges to Russian military intelligence officers that allowed these spies to roam the Pentagon hallways unhindered by "burdensome" security restrictions.

Mitrokhin's files also revealed the stunning successes of the KGB's operations collecting the secrets of U.S. defense industries. The combination of poor security at U.S. defense labs and contractors and the susceptibility of U.S. scientists to overtures from their counterparts in the Soviet Union enabled the Soviets to save billions of rubles and years of man-effort in their own defense industries. The Sword and the Shield is most valuable for its description of KGB operations that relied on top Soviet scientists for access to U.S. defense technology secrets.

Mitrokhin also used his files to write a paper on the KGB in Afghanistan that was published by the Cold War History Project. Mitrokhin wrote the paper in the late 1980s and considered it the first in a book series he wanted to call In the Footsteps of Filth. Like The Sword and the Shield, Mitrokhin's manuscript provides some very embarrassing details about the interactions between American politicians and the Soviet leadership, with the KGB often acting as a go-between. For example, Mitrokhin discusses overtures made by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) to the Soviets for the purpose of enhancing and advancing Kennedy's political career. This information was conveyed to the Soviet leadership via KGB reports.

Soviet Collaborator

Herbert Romerstein, a former staff member of the House Intelligence Committee, says the evidence shows that Kennedy, a key supporter of Senator John Kerry's presidential bid, was a "collaborationist" who "aided the KGB for his own purposes."