First came Sonia, with her full, cherry lips and her brown, limpid eyes.First came Sonia, with her full, cherry lips and her brown, limpid eyes.
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Posted on 09/13/2004 10:13:11 AM PDT by Calpernia
The lure of easy women almost made me a spy and traitor to my country
SEX, woman's most resistless weapon through the ages for the domination of the male, has proven one of the most successful and insidious devices in the secret arsenal of the Communists to recruit their unsavory army of spies, saboteurs and disruptionists in the grimly declared war on the United States and all decent mankind.
In the relentless effort of the Kremlin to turn the whole world into faceless slaves in order that "The International Soviet shall be the human race," as their official song, The Internationale, declares, there is no honor or conscience, and promiscuity is the rule, not the exception. The only vice the Reds frown, upon is drinking!
I know, because I was one of those witless persons who fell into the mantrap set by the modern Delilabs who follow the Party line. They stopped at nothing--absolutely nothing--in order to enlist their fellow Americans into the great conspiracy to subjugate, and later to liquidate, every human being who does not deify the unholy trinity of Marx, Lenin and Stalin.
First came Sonia, with her full, cherry lips and her brown, limpid eyes. She was a secretary, a graduate of a woman's college and as unscrupulous a little witch as ever shook her clenched fist at a passing flag of her country or stuck a pin into a patrolman's horse.
Next came Margie, a full-bosomed redhead, a new comer from England and an expert dress designer. She had made it her life work to lure men into Communism.
Then Mildred, a honey blonde with a Vassar degree. She was the gay and sophisticated type on the surface, but underneath she was deadly serious about her radical beliefs. She had a cozy apartment and seemingly plenty of money. She liked to discuss the social significance of Shakespeare over cocktails and make converts to the "cause."
Then Terry, Betty and several others whose names I have forgotten. And lastly, Gladys, a banker's daughter who had run away from home, landed in New York's Greenwich Village and become the most radical of all the Communist girls I met.
Talk about free love! This was really something. You tired of one, and there was always another at your beck and call. No Turk could boast a more variegated harem.
MY first experience with the Communist conspiracy work for the "triumph of Soviet power in the United States," began simply enough. It was during the days of Hitler, and the come-on had been a mammoth rally for "peace and democracy." No right-thinking citizen could have any objection to that.
The build-up for the meeting had been terrific. Madison Square Garden in New York was packed to the rafters with a throng attracted there by a star-studded cast of Broadway and Hollywood celebrities, high churchmen, civic leaders, scientists, musicians, doctors, educators, authors, musicians and sports celebrities. Each was to get up and do his stuff and then speak a little piece about how Hitler was plan- rung to enslave the world.
Oh, yes, there were one or two Communist leaders among the various political shades on the platform, looking quite insignificant and meek and greatly im pressed by all their betters. Of course no one could resent them being there, because they were for peace and democracy and militantly against Hitler, too.
What few suspected, however, was that these few grubby-looking little men were actually pulling the strings, and all the rest on the platform were merely their puppets.
It was while we were all filing out of the huge auditorium, that I first saw Sonia. The girl with the come-hither eyes was giving me a keen once-over. Perhaps it was because I looked too well dressed, with a fresh shirt and my suit pressed, that made her surmise that I was not a Comrade.
But the fact that I had attended the rally, drawn there by curiosity through pamphlets liberally scattered all over the campus and plastered on every bulletin board, evidently marked me as good raw material to be worked over.
As I elbowed my way through the crowd and started up Eighth Avenue, I glanced over my shoulder and saw her following me. In my time I'd followed girls, but I'd never had one follow me before. The idea gave me a chuckle as I stepped into the nearest beer joint. A few minutes later, Miss Thither-eyes stalked in, looked the crowd over and then stood up to the bar at my elbow.
"Like the rally?" she blurted, with no inhibitions. "Wasn't it wonderful?"
"Yeah, it was pretty good," I said nonchalantly. She didn't look like a tramp, but I aimed to play cagey. "Too many speeches and not enough vaudeville, though, like they advertised. Have a beer?"
"No thanks. Too bourgeois. I'll take a Pepsi."
WITH the ice broken, the going from there on was easy. Frankly, the girl amused me. I wanted to see if I could find out what made her tick.
As she sipped her soft drink, she kept pumping me about myself. When I told her I was a senior at Queens College, on Long Island, she waxed enthusiastic. Seems she had some friends there, especially a guy named Joe ---. I knew the name. He had a rep as being a leader of the radical fringe. He was a wild-eyed, unsavory fellow. I'd marked him as a nut.
"You really must look up Joe," she gushed. "Tell him Sonia sent you."
When she'd finished her drink she said, "Let's get out of this dump. It's early yet, so why not come down to my place in the Village? I think you and I have a lot in common."
That was OK by me. We took a subway to the Village and repaired to Sonia's fourth floor walk-up in a remodeled tenement building on Thompson Street. They were nice diggings, not too arty. It was plain to see that Sonia was the intellectual type.
Book cases lined two walls, and the volumes were deep ones--philosophy, history, social science, travel. As I made myself at home, she brewed tea in a samovar and served it in glasses, with lemon, Russian style.
We talked and drank tea and drew each other out. I learned that her father was a retired business man; Sonia was ashamed that he was so rich.
"He lives on blood money," she remarked bitterly. "He bled the proletariat--sweated them to death in a knit goods factory." That led her into a tirade on "bosses" and from there she went on to the "comes the revolution" theme I be came fascinated as she tipped her mitt more and more, telling me how the Comrades were planning to turn the United States into a perfect Utopia.
This paradise, following a workers' revolt, was going to afford riches to all. Key men were ready, she said, to take over the government, religion would be obliterated, the school system would be changed to teach only the "truth."
"It sounds wonderful," I said, half convinced by her earnestness. I didn't realize then that she was talking treason, that she placed herself and her comrades in a category of actual, open war against life as the majority of Americans want it. I did not sense that the girl was power-hungry and was grabbing at all the opportunities that Communism offers the unscrupulous.
"But it seems to me that you are promising more than you can deliver," I argued. "More money for less work, security against poverty all sounds fine, but can you deliver?"
"Can we deliver! Certainly! Remember, for every Party member there are ten others ready, willing and able to do the Party's work. By our ability to infiltrate government agencies, civil affairs, churches, schools and women's clubs, we are molding a new way of life.
"The real center of our power is within the professional classes. Our strength depends on the support of teachers, preachers, actors, writers, editors, business men, union officials, doctors, lawyers and even millionaires...
"Oh, we're going a long way and--and I want you to help us. You're respectable, American-born and will give us the front we need. Just don't think poor people join the Party because it's a 'working class movement--it isn't at all! Promise me you'll see Joe and let him convince you that you mustn't remain a reactionary all your life!"
"Sure, I'll look him up," I promised, getting up to go. "It was an interesting evening, and I'll be seeing you, I guess."
"Don't go--" Sonia said winsomely. She came across the room and twined her arms around my neck, pulling my lips down to hers for a kiss that actually made me giddy. "I think we can make the evening more interesting--if you like," she said.
I LOOKED up Joe--on Monday morning, and he was effusive. "I'd sure like to have you working with us," he said, pumping my hand. "Sonia had me on the phone and told me all about you. We have a pretty active little cell here on the campus, and you'd fit right in. You don't have to carry a card if you don't want to. You can be a fellow traveler if you like."
"A what?"
"I mean, you can sympathize with the Party and serve the Party's purpose without actually becoming a member. In many respects you'd be more vital to us. You can serve as a hook with which the party reaches out for funds and respectability, and the wedge we can drive between people who oppose us. You can join front groups devoted to idealistic activities. We've captured a lot of them by using just such people as you to put across resolutions and vote right."
"Let me think it over," I said. "But if I join you, I want to be honest about it and carry a card."
"Fine! Fine!" gushed Joe. "When you make up your mind, contact me and I'll arrange to get you into an indoctrination group."
Sonia phoned that night, and I went down to the Village where she used all her wiles to coax me to take the fatal step. I succumbed to her allures, and before I knew it, I was entangled not only by her wantonness but by her persuasiveness.
The next day I told Joe that I was completely sold on the Party and all it stood for, little realizing that I was to have the baseness of Benedict Arnold, that I was going to traitorously serve Soviet Russia in a criminal conspiracy to wreck and ruin the United States, and act as a tool for spies and saboteurs in the defense industries of the nation.
The indoctrination course was held in a room in a shabby building off Union Square, close to Communist Party headquarters at 35 East 12th Street. There were seven of us in the class, including three women. Our instructor was a newspaperman, or so he said, who worked on a trade journal.
Of Russian origin, he stressed all the struggles--which he pronounced "stwuggles" the people all over the world were having in order to gain social and economic justice. He preached pie in the sky, and it was easy to see how the Red brand of "idealism" would ap peal to the underdog.
AFTER six weekly indoctrination meetings, I was officially admitted to the Party and assigned to a specific unit. My job was to agitate on the campus, bringing up all sorts of controversial issues In classes, attending student meetings and offering resolutions for adoption that fitted Into the Party line.
Reading the Daily Worker and the magazine New Masses gave me my "leads." The Worker was my Bible. I had to accept every word in it as gospel truth, no matter if the New York Times had an entirely different version of the same thing.
The Times and all other capitalist newspapers I was told to regard as "fascist, warmongering" sheets. The truth came only from Moscow, and the "line" came down to us through Party agents returning from frequent trips to Europe.
I didn't realize it then, but I had become an obedient instrument of the Party--a robot. I had to obey the Party in all things, or disappear into silence, oblivion and perhaps death.
But the fact that I suddenly had no honor or conscience didn't seem to bother me. I was convinced I was working on every conceivable battlefront of the human mind. I had no time for frivolities--only Party work. Even any relaxation with the girls was in the category of improving my mind with dialectical discussions.
Came graduation, and the long Summer. It had all been arranged that I was to get a job with the New York City Department of Welfare--a rich field in which to plant my insidious seeds of treason. Before going to work, however, it was suggested that I spend a month at Camp, in the Berkshires.
This was a beautiful spot, on a small lake, with boating, hiking, riding and all the other pastimes of a swank resort. It cost the Coimmies $100,000, but it must have been well worth it, as the camp was always filled with labor leaders, Federal and State jobholders, teachers, ministers, students, writers and others who came to mingle with the party big shots.
ON arrival at the camp late one afternoon I was assigned to a small cabin. When I lugged my suitcase over from the office I was not at all surprised to see that the place already had another occupant. Dresses were neatly hung in the closet, and other feminine accessories were scattered about.
I was curious to see who had been assigned me as a "Party wife." I had not long to wait before a buxom redhead casually sauntered In, sat on the edge of her cot and regarded me with a strange expression which plainly said, "Well, look at what Uncle Joe sent me!"
At last she said, in a clipped British accent, "I'm Margie." I introduced myself and she said, "I know--I expected you on an earlier train. You're all that they told me you were--plus. I hope your dancing is as good as your looks. We're having quite a party tonight down in the recreation hall."
Thereupon, she unashamedly took off her playsuit, stood primping in her undies before the mirror, and donned a cotton dress for dinner and the dance. She was a looker, and I could not help but stare at her in frank admiration. This, I told myself, was a dish. And she was!
There must have been at least 500 people in the big mess hall that night. Considering that the cost of room and board was only $17 a week, the food was better than average. But even at that price, the poorer comrades could not afford the luxury of a camp vacation. Certainly there were none of the Great Unwashed there.
After dinner, there were various games of chance on the front porch. The prizes were Communist books. Even during times of fun, they never let you forget there were serious things that had to be studied, digested and preached to the unbelievers.
There was a great air, too, of expectancy before the dance. William Z. Foster, head of the Communist Party of the United States was expected in the course of one of his ceaseless tours of the State. When his motorcade of three cars ar rived, bedlam broke loose. Even though he was a minor cog in the international conspiracy, he was hailed as almost a demi-god.
The dance that night was a gay affair. There were some visiting Russian dignitaries with Foster's party, and the glee club first staged a concert of revolutionary songs.
My dancing must have been pretty fair, because that night Margie complimented me on it, and even showed slight traces of jealousy over the way some of the other girls snatched me away for a whirl around the floor. From the way Margie ragged me, you'd think we'd been married a dozen years instead of just starting a brief Bolshevik honeymoon!
SHORTLY after the camp idyll, a strange thing happened. Humankind's then arch enemy, Hitler suddenly signed a pact of friendship with the man the Reds regarded as mankind's only savior. The Hitler-Stalin pact had its stunning effect. Suddenly all our propaganda against Hitler had to be destroyed, and we were left waiting for a full three days before we could get the new Party line. While heretofore we had all been hell-bent trying to get the world to fight Hitler, and thus speed the revolution, we now had orders to beat the drums for the dictator, who now was Stalin's bosom buddy. The pact, of course, gave Hitler the green light to start the war.
But he was also our ally! We had to help him. Like turning on and off a faucet, we now gushed admiration instead of bitter hate against the man. And here is where the close associations the Comrades had formed at the camp be came profitable. Union leaders, especially those in the maritime and aviation industries, were perfectly geared to coordinate strikes. The seaman coined the expression "The Yanks are not Coming!" and refused to transport war material to Britain. Badly needed planes, guns and tanks were sabotaged.
Sonia, Margie and I were ordered to Washington to picket the White House. We delighted in branding President Roosevelt a war monger. We were determined that this country should not enter the war under any circumstances.
Our propaganda mills were running full blast, labor was disrupted all across the nation, when suddenly Hitler turned against Stalin in history's most famous double-cross. All at once the Party line changed again, and it was now our bounded duty to hurry the country into war as quickly as possible to save poor Russia!
At the same time, the Party was pushing reliable comrades into the Government where they could influence foreign policy. In the Army and Navy, the Comrades preached revolution, proselytizing the nation's fighting men. In Government, we preached peace and democracy as the aim of victory. After the war, all we needed was a bang-up depression then--wham!--comes the revolution. We were all ecstatic over the prospects for a Soviet America, ruled by our Party.
THINGS didn't work out the way we had them blue-printed, though. While the Communist International had managed to shape pretty much of the post-war world to their liking, with easy pickings everywhere among the ruins and desolation of Europe and Asia, the bang of the Iron Curtain slamming down did more than anything to disillusion the West concerning the Soviet Utopias set up in Poland, Western Germany, Yugoslavia. Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Albania, Manchuria, China and North Korea.
Now the tide began to turn, and we found ourselves extremely unpopular. There were too many stories about spies in and out of the Government, about thefts of highly secret documents from under the very noses of the people in the hush-hush departments of State, Army, Navy and Commerce. Like a thousand others, I, too, began to search my own soul at these revelations of duplicity. I knew I was just a cog in a machine, not an in dependent thinker of my own. I received orders and followed them out to the letter, never questioning.
IT was not long ago, when I was wrestling with the very soul the Soviets say I haven't got, when a call came in from Gladys, a titian--haired cookie who was the real fire-brand of my special unit.
"I'm lonesome," she said. "Come over."
When I arrived at her address I found her alone, dressed in a revealing negligee and moodily listening to the news of the latest crisis in Asia.
"Darling Comrade!" she greeted me. "You're just what the doctor ordered. I'm so depressed over this Korean mess. Why--why did Washington have to step in like that?''
"It'll blow over in a month,'' I tried to assure her, casting about for a seat. "The Korean Communists are well-trained, well-equipped and wilt have the South Korean fascists swimming in the sea before anyone can stop them!"
"Perhaps...but don't you see this intervention by the Wall Street war mongers is liable to upset the whole timetable--?"
"I don't know about the time table," I said.
"Why, Formosa, Japan, the Philippines, the Indies..what we were talking about the other night. Or weren't you at the meeting?"
"No; I was out on some Party work--"
"Come over and sit with me on the settee and I'll tell you about it then."
She reached up and doused one of the table lamps beside the sofa and made a place for me beside her. The room was in a dim glow, the war news had given way to soft Viennese music. The setting and the girl were all one could desire.
In a matter-of-fact tone, Gladys gave me a fill-in on the Soviet schemes for Asia. All the while she was wriggling closer. I could feel her tautness. Suddenly she relaxed, and pulled my face toward hers. "I have plans for you," she whispered, her breath coming hot. "Real secret, too."
While we were in each other's arms, Gladys whispered, "The Party has a job for you. You're going to go to work in the Navy Yard. It's urgent that we have certain information."
"But I know nothing about ships, or ship building," I protested.
"The job has been specially created. You'll be in the drafting office. We will need copies of all the plans."
"You mean I'm to--to--be a spy?"
"Of course! There's no danger you'll be caught and--remember, Russia must win this struggle. It's now or never!"
I thought it over for a long moment as Gladys snuggled closer and playfully began to nibble at my ear.
All at once I was on my feet. "I won't do it!" I said. "To hell with the Party!"
"But Comrade, darling--!"
"I said No! There s been too much spying. too much double-crossing. I won't betray my country and my people. Despite all its faults, the United States is my country. Why should I want to destroy it? I've been a fool! It's time I woke up--and you, too. Gladys."
Her face was vivid with rage. "They'll get you for this, you rat!" she snarled.
Maybe they will. Come the revolution--God forbid!--I'll be among the first to be taken into the cellar with a tommy gun at my back. As it is, I am in hiding, far from my old haunts. I dare not take a decent job because the Comrades will blackmail me, smear me, get me tossed out. But a better day is coming. and it won't be thanks to the Reds, either.
Read this and tell me what you think of my whacky theory from that thread this morning.
Do you know about the Big Apple Oriental tours?
http://news.google.com/news?q=big+apple+oriental+tours&hl=en&ned=us&ie=ISO-8859-1
First came Sonia, with her full, cherry lips and her brown, limpid eyes.First came Sonia, with her full, cherry lips and her brown, limpid eyes.
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Tag: Oh...am I supposed to read the article???
Nah.
bump
This is a long read. Please mark to come back to if you can't spend the time now.
I see a lot of parallels to our current state of being. I'm really thinking radical islam was a built up false flag to what is mentioned above.
Read this, if you have questions, post them. I would love to interact on this topic. I have a lot more data to add if needed.
Thanks for the ping!
If you will note in this post, "Red Brigades scratch a star
in/on the door". that fits in with a report last night about things painted on the wall, maybe in our thread on the latest Iraq kidnappings.......which used the description of
"horror Brigades" which is a very good google search.
G o o g l e's cache of
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Anarchists set to take over
Italy.
From: matthew X
Subject: Anarchists set to take over Italy.
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 12:05:48 -0800
."..chronic unemployment, disillusionment with mainstream politics and a
backlash against globalisation are providing fodder for new terrorist
groups, such as the "Black Bloc" anarchists who hijacked protests at the G8
meeting in Genoa last year..."
From
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,4003655%255E2703,00.html
Murdoch craporado media.
Red Brigades return to Italy
By Natasha Bita
March 23, 2002
A STAR scratched into the peeling paintwork of a Bologna door signalled the
resurgence of political terrorism in Italy this week.
The crude calling-card of the Red Brigades, the extreme-left terrorists who
assassinated hundreds of politicians, judges, journalists and police
officers in the 1970s and '80s, marks the spot where an Italian government
adviser was gunned down outside his apartment on Tuesday.
A group calling itself the Red Brigades for the Construction of the
Fighting Communists emailed a 26-page diatribe to police yesterday claiming
responsibility for the execution of Marco Biagi, an economist who drew up
divisive labour-market reforms being pushed by the conservative Berlusconi
Government.
Ballistics experts concluded that Biagi a close friend of European
Commission president and former Italian prime minister Romano Prodi was
shot with the same pistol used to assassinate Massimo D'Antona, an adviser
to Italy's former left-wing government, three years ago.
Newspapers harked back to the giorni di piombo, or "days of lead" when left
and right-wing extremists waged war with kidnappings, assassinations and
bombings.
The Corriere della Sera newspaper announced "the return of terrorism" and
published a photo gallery of the victims of "30 years of bloodshed", noting
that 420 people had died and 1200 had been injured in terror attacks since
1969.
Of the 360 fatal attacks, 280 were attributed to the extreme left, 27 to
neo-fascists and 26 to international terrorists. The Red Brigades took
responsibility for the 1978 kidnapping and murder of former prime minister
Aldo Moro. In 1980 a bomb killed 85 at the Bologna train station, although
the culprits were never found.
The Red Brigades, a Marxist-Leninist group that grew from the student
protests of the 1960s, went underground after most of its leaders were
arrested in France and Italy in the 1980s.
The group splintered into the Communist Combatant Party and the Union of
Combatant Communists in 1984.
But 18 years later, chronic unemployment, disillusionment with mainstream
politics and a backlash against globalisation are providing fodder for new
terrorist groups, such as the "Black Bloc" anarchists who hijacked protests
at the G8 meeting in Genoa last year.
Italy's secret service, in its six-monthly report to parliament last week,
warned of terrorist attacks in response to government policies such as the
proposal to make it easier for companies to sack workers.
The report warned potential targets were politicians, unionists or business
figures "who are most committed to economic, social and labour reforms,
especially those who play a crucial role as experts or consultants".
Biagi, who was shot dead as he arrived home on his bicycle, had complained
to police about death threats and requested an armed escort.
Ironically, his bodyguards were removed after the September 11 terrorist
attack on the World Trade Centre because the Government wanted to put more
secret service agents on the streets.
Italian politicians are the most heavily guarded in Europe, with 6000
bodyguards at a cost of $1 billion a year.
Biagi's widow, angry that the Government had refused her family's request
for protection, spurned the offer of a state funeral in favour of a private
family service in Bologna today.
Up to 80,000 people marched in Bologna on Wednesday to mourn Biagi's death
and protest against terrorism.
Unions planning a rally of 1 million workers in Rome this weekend to oppose
the Government's labour reforms said they would dedicate the march to
anti-terrorism and democracy instead.
The Pope yesterday appealed for "a climate of understanding between the
social factions in this dear Italian nation", but the assassination only
fuelled the bickering among politicians, union and business leaders.
The leader of the right-wing Northern League, Umberto Bossi, declared that
"the Left has lost its mind".
The peak industry lobby group Confindustria echoed his sentiments. "Every
time this country has to make an important reform, the men who push ahead
with the reforms are struck by terrorism and this is a price that we cannot
continue to pay," said its president, Antonio D'Amato.
The Minister for Productive Works, Antonio Marzano, warned that "revenge
for the murder of Marco Biagi by the Red Brigades is something which may
happen".
He described the terrorists as "like bombs which are set off when you try
to make reform, because they fear the new and want Italy to remain silenced".
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi insisted his Government would not back
down on labour reforms because "we cannot let terrorism force our hand".
But the unions refused to budge on the same grounds, insisting they would
go ahead with a general strike next month.
Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi urged Italians to have faith in
their democracy.
"The horror and anguish over the barbaric assassination of Marco Biagi
cannot and must not weaken confidence in the force of democracy," he said.
"Italians are united against terrorism."
Anarchists set to take over Italy., matthew X
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Now this is a history lesson.....LOL
See Venona and other reports at:
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Ralph E.
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1993
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2001
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2001
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The Invisible
Cryptologists
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2001
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The Secret of
Adam and Eve
Jennifer
Wilcox
2003
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David
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2003
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Patrick
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2002
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1997
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Frederick
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1993
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copies of this
manuscript, call
301-688-6524,
or e-mail
nsapao@nsa.gov
Enigma
Solving the
Enigma - History
of the
Cryptanalytic
Bombe
Jennifer
Wilcox
2001
Brochure - PDF
or Text version
Enigma
The
Cryptographic
Mathematics of
Enigma
Dr. A. Ray
Miller
2001
Brochure - Text
version
Midway
The Battle of
Midway: AF is
Short of Water
Patrick
Weadon
2000
Monograph -
Text version
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Revisited US
Navy
Communication
Intelligence
1924-1941
Frederick
Parker
1994
Booklet - For
copies of this
manuscript, call
301-688-6524,
or e-mail
nsapao@nsa.gov
Pearl Harbor
The Quiet
Heroes of the
Southwest
Pacific Theater
Sharon A.
Maneki
1996
Booklet - For
copies of this
manuscript, call
301-688-6524,
or e-mail
nsapao@nsa.gov
SIGSALY
SIGSALY Story
Patrick
Weadon
2000
Monograph -
Text version
SIGSALY
The Start of the
Digital
Revolution:
SIGSALY Secure
Digital Voice
Communications
in WWII
J. V.
Boone
and R. R.
Peterson
2000
Brochure - Text
version
Women
Sharing the
Burden: Women
in Cryptology
during WWII
Jennifer
Wilcox
1998
Brochure - Text
version
Cold War (1948-1991)
Subject
Title
Author
Date
Format
Cold War
A Dangerous
Business: The U.S.
Navy and National
Reconnaissance
During the Cold
War
John R.
Schindler
2004
Brochure - PDF or
Text version
Cold War
CT3 Edward
Purcell
Patrick
Weadon
2003
Monograph - PDF
or Text version
Cold War
Dedication and
Sacrifice: National
Aerial
Reconnaissance in
the Cold War
Center for
Cryptologic
History
Brochure - Text
version
Cold War
SSgt Donald
Hill/A2C Earl
Radlein Jr
Patrick
Weadon
2002
Monograph - PDF
or Text version
Cuban
Missile
Crisis
NSA and the
Cuban Missile
Crisis
Thomas R.
Johnson and
David A.
Hatch
1998
Brochure - Text
version
VENONA
The VENONA Story
Robert Louis
Benson
Brochure - PDF or
Text version
VENONA
VENONA Soviet
Espionage and the
American
Response
1939-1957
Robert Louis
Benson and
Michael
Warner
1996
Booklet - For
copies of this
manuscript, call
301-688-6524, or
e-mail
nsapao@nsa.gov
Korean War Era (1950-1953)
Subject
Title
Author
Date
Format
Korean War
PFC Jay Stoner
Patrick
Weadon
2001
Monograph - PDF
or Text version
Korean War
The Korean War:
The SIGINT
Background
David A.
Hatch and
Robert Louis
Benson
2000
Brochure - Text
version
Pusan
Perimeter
SIGINT and
COMSEC Help
Save the Day at
Pusan
Patrick
Weadon
Monograph -
Text version
Pusan
Perimeter
So Power Can be
Brought into Play:
SIGINT and the
Pusan Perimeter
Jill Frahm
2000
Brochure - Text
version
Vietnam War (1954-1975)
Subject
Title
Author
Date
Format
Vietnam
Essential Matters
History of the
Cryptographic
Branch of the
People's Army of
Vietnam
1945-1975
Translated
and edited
by David W.
Gaddy
1994
Booklet - For copies
of this manuscript,
call 301-688-6524,
or e-mail
nsapao@nsa.gov
Miscellaneous
Subject
Title
Author
Date
Format
Anniversary
50th Anniversary
Brochure
NSA
Publication
2002
Brochure - PDF or
Text version
Books
Rare Books in the
National
Cryptologic
Museum
Center for
Cryptologic
History
Brochure - Text
version
Cryptology
American
Cryptology: Two
Centuries of
Tradition
Center for
Cryptologic
History
Monograph - Text
version
Cryptology
The Voynich
Manuscript - an
Elegant Enigma
M. E.
D'Imperio
1978
Booklet - For
copies of this
manuscript, call
301-688-6524, or
e-mail
nsapao@nsa.gov
Information
Security
Securing Record
Communications:
The TSEC/KW-26
Melville
Klein
2003
Brochure - PDF or
Text version
Mathematics
Women in
Mathematics
Society
Michelle D.
Wagner
2003
Monograph - Text
version
Museum
Showcase of the
National Security
Agency The
National
Cryptologic
Museum: A
10-Year
Anniversary
Retrospective
Jack Ingram
2003
Brochure - Text
version
NSA
The Origins of NSA
Center for
Cryptologic
History
Brochure - Text
version
Operation
Enduring
Freedom
SSG Gene Vance
Patrick
Weadon
2003
Monograph - PDF
or Text version
Tordella
In Memoriam Dr.
Louis Tordella
Brochure - PDF or
Text version
>>Information Assurance >>Signals Intelligence Accessibility
Privacy & Security
Thanks for the ping!
My time at the library is almost up....printing out the post for later reading.
Sadly, I have come to believe that the Cold War never really ended after all...and is currently in a phase of significant escalation.
Re post #12.
It didn't copy the entire post, the mentions of terrorists and the different needs, are in the 'rest of it'.
Interesting that this is 6 months before 9-11
Cal is this what you wanted? or is it all wrong?
From: Michael Dravis oso@xxxxxxx
To: intelforum@xxxxxxx
Subject: CIA's Analysis of the Soviet Union, 1947-1991
The following message is cross-posted from H-Diplo.
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 02:47:39 -0500
From: "H-DIPLO [Grossman]" hdiplo@xxxxxxxx
Subject: JRL: CIA's Analysis of the Soviet Union, 1947-1991
To: H-DIPLO@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: David Johnson davidjohnson@xxxxxxxxx
Johnson's Russia List
14 March 2001
DJ: For more information go to www.cia.gov or
www.foia.ucia.gov/historicalreport.htm
1. Remarks of the Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet Opening
the Conference on CIAís Analysis of the Soviet Union, 1947-1991.
2. Remarks of the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence John E.
McLaughlin: The Changing Nature of CIA Analysis in the Post-Soviet World.
*******
#1 Remarks of the Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet Opening
The Conference on CIAís Analysis of the Soviet Union, 1947-1991 Princeton
University As Prepared for Delivery 8 March 2001
Princeton Universityís Center of International Studies and CIAís Center
for the Study of Intelligence have done a great job in organizing this
Conference on the Agencyís Cold War Analysis of the Soviet Union. It is
just the newest example of Princetonís famous motto: "Princeton in the
Nationís Service and in the Service of All Nations." I have no doubt that
these discussions will make an important contribution to the understanding
of intelligence analysis and of the role it played in shaping policy
during the defining conflict of the latter half of the 20th century.
Back in 1997, CIA held its 50th anniversary gala. Dick Helms, a legend in
the world of espionage well before he ever became Director of Central
Intelligence, delivered the keynote address. I had expected Dick to focus
on the operational side, but he surprised me by reminding everyone that
analysis ó putting all the information together, evaluating it, and
warning US policymakers of key elements in the international environment ó
was in fact the CIAís original and central mission.
Of course, each Director of Central Intelligence has his own perspective
on analysis. William Colby, a Princeton alumn, believed that, while a DCI
must juggle many different things at once, his responsibility for
substantive intelligence is his most important charge. A DCI should do his
homework, discuss with his analysts the basis of their assessments, then
be prepared to brief ó and defend ó the Agency or Intelligence Community
views with precision and conviction before the President ó or perhaps even
more daunting ó the likes of a Henry Kissinger. According to Colby,
Kissinger had a voracious appetite for intelligence, but he didnít
necessarily believe it. "Bill," Kissinger would tell him, "give me things
that make me think!"
Allen Dulles, the only other Princeton graduate to become Director, had
his own way of processing analysis. It could be tough to brief him. There
were always distractions and phone calls, invariably ops-related.
According to one war story, an analyst was ushered into the inner sanctum.
Dulles was watching a baseball game from a reclining chair (for his gout,
he said) placed directly in front of his TV. The analyst stood facing him
>from behind the set. As the analyst pressed ahead with his briefing,
Dulles would remark "good fielder, canít hit" or something like that,
leaving the hapless briefer totally at a loss. Which is not to say that
Dulles was not listening ó it was just hard to tell sometimes. For
example, when Khrushchev kicked out the anti-Party group in 1957, he
evidently took in what everyone said, then dictated his own briefing for
the President. By all accounts it was brilliant. He did not miss a single
nuance.
This conference coincides with the release of over 850 CIA analytic
documents on the Soviet Union, totaling over 19,000 pages of text ó all
part of a larger effort begun by DCI Bob Gates to illuminate the
intelligence component of the Cold Warís history. This latest tranche of
>documents, combined with the approximately 2,700 CIA analytic products and
National Intelligence Estimates on the USSR that were previously
declassified, constitutes the largest trove of intelligence analysis on
any single country ever released by any nation.
That achievement is significant, but it is not sufficient. I am determined
to make more of the analytic record available. And so, the office that
does most of our declassification work will be releasing to scholars
within the next couple of years a substantial additional amount of CIA
analysis on the Cold War and more National Intelligence Estimates on the
USSR.
Declassification is not easy. There are no shortcuts. It takes
experienced, knowledgeable people sitting down with each document and
painstakingly going over it page by page, line by line. There is no
alternative. A mistake can put a life in danger or jeopardize a bilateral
relationship integral to our countryís security.
Despite the difficulties involved in the declassification process, no
other nationís foreign intelligence agency has voluntarily released as
much information about its past as has the Central Intelligence Agency and
we will continue to build upon that achievement in the years ahead.
CIA will be as forward-leaning as possible consistent with our security
responsibilities. We will be forthcoming for two major reasons: One:
because US intelligence is a servant of Americaís democratic system. We
are accountable for our actions and the quality of our work to elected
leaders and ultimately to the American public. The American people are
best served by having available the information necessary to understand
how their government functions. And Two ó because the men and women of US
Intelligence are proud of the contributions they made to defending the
security of the Free World during the Cold War. We believe that a careful
study of our role in that great global struggle will show that, time and
again, US Intelligence provided American leaders with critical information
and insights that saved American lives and advanced our most vital
interests.
Keeping the Cold War from becoming a hot one was the overriding goal of US
Intelligence and American national security policy for over four decades.
An intelligence effort of such magnitude and fraught with such great risk
and uncertainty was bound to have its flaws and failures, both operational
and analytical. I believe, however, that the overall record is one of
impressive accomplishment.
I know that each of you here tonight has arrived at this conference with
deep expertise, unique experiences and strong opinions that should make
for interesting discussions. This is, of course, not the first time that
we have sought the views of outside specialists. For example, from the
early 1950s to the early 1970s, CIAís Office of National Estimates
benefited from the counsel of its "Princeton consultants" ó a group of
>scholars who met at Princeton and exchanged ideas with CIAís top analysts.
Others in universities and think tanks, individuals with family or other
ties to Russia and Eastern Europe, diplomats, business people, and others
>from many walks of life who were interested in and knowledgeable about
Soviet affairs helped our analysts greatly. Our products were enriched by
their inputs, but any errors that may be found in our products are
entirely our own.
We in US Intelligence never claimed to have had a monopoly on wisdom
regarding the Soviet Union. It always pays to have a little humility on
that score, particularly here on George Kennanís stomping ground. In
recent years, as you know, Ambassador Kennan has warned American
policymakers against (quote) "creating a Russia of our own imagination to
take the place of the one that did, alas, once exist, but fortunately is
no more." It was no less a challenge for Americaís scholarly, diplomatic,
military ó and intelligence communities ó throughout the Cold War to
understand the Soviet reality ó so that our national leaders could base
their decisions not just on fears, but on facts.
Analyzing the Soviet Union was anything but an exact science for all of
our communities, and dealing effectively with Moscow was every Cold War
Presidentís ultimate leadership test. Among the first to admit the
difficulties for Cold War analysts and policymakers alike was George
Kennanís good friend, fellow Soviet expert and "Wise Man" , Chip Bohlen.
Bohlen said (quote): "There are two statements which indicate beyond doubt
that the person making them is either a liar or a fool. The first is:
Whiskey has no effect on my judgment. The other is: I know how to deal
with the Russians.
Bohlenís statement holds just as true today.
Assessing CIAís Analytic Contributions
To the men and women of the CIAís Analytic Directorate ó the Directorate
of Intelligence ó their Cold War mission was very clear: to use all
sources at their disposal to gauge the capabilities and intentions of the
massive, closed, totalitarian system that was the Soviet Union, and by so
doing, to provide the President and other US policymakers with the
information and insights they needed to act and plan with confidence.
Allow me to give you only a few examples of the ways CIA analysis informed
US decision making toward Moscow. I will draw from a sampling of the
Agency products that were released for this conference, but in so doing I
do not in any way wish to ignore the substantial analytic contributions of
CIAís companion agencies in the Department of State, the Department of
>Defense, the armed services, and other parts of the federal government. Of
course, intelligence analysts were not the only ones working on the Soviet
puzzle. It should be interesting at this conference to explore how our
assessments measured up to contemporaneous judgments from other quarters.
And, as the former policymakers in the audience will attest, many other
factors besides intelligence reports and judgments shaped their thinking
and actions.
Those caveats aside, what does the record show?
>From the mid-1960s on to the Soviet collapse, we knew roughly how many
combat aircraft or warheads the Soviets had, and where. But why did they
need that many or that kind? What did they plan to do with them? To this
day, Intelligence is always much better at counting heads than divining
what is going on inside them. That is, we are very good at gauging the
size and location of militaries and weaponry. But for obvious reasons, we
can never be as good at figuring out what leaders will do with them. In
regard to the "unmeasurables", CIA analysts were keenly aware of the
importance of what they would conclude and of the political pressures
attendant to the issues on which their judgments were sought. And for a
quarter of a century, our national leaders made strategic decisions with
confidence in our analystsí knowledge of the Sovietsí military strength.
The record shows that confidence was justified.
In the early ó and mid ó1980s, for example, a radar under construction in
Krasnoyarsk generated considerable debate in Washington. The Intelligence
Community's analysts were at center stage, providing policymakers with
their assessment of the radarís true purpose. As it turns out, the
Community assessment was on the mark. The analysts maintained ó correctly
ó that the station was to be used primarily for tracking ballistic
missiles, not space tracking as the Soviets had claimed. This analysis
served as the basis for the Reagan Administrationís policy, which was to
declare the radar a clear violation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty
and to call for its dismantling.
Intelligence analysts perform a critical service when they help
policymakers think through complex issues, identify possible strategies
and project likely outcomes. A case in point is the role CIA played in
assessing the potential implications for the United States vis-a-vis
Moscow of President Reaganís Strategic Defense Initiative. Our Office of
>Soviet Analysis, or SOVA, forecast in late 1987 that Moscow could not
effectively counter SDI without severely straining the Soviet economy,
discounting Moscowís assertions that it could do so quickly and cheaply.
SOVA maintained that anything more than a modest acceleration of existing
offensive and defensive strategic deployments would divert advanced
technologies desperately needed to modernize the civilian economy. Indeed,
SOVA predicted that Moscow would defer key decisions on deployments and
"continue to pursue arms control measures to gain American concessions on
SDI." And so it did.
Leadership analysis remains perhaps the most difficult of analytic
specialties. Mikhail Gorbachevís rise to power in the Soviet Union ó
assessing his evolving thinking and policies, their implications and the
chances for their success ó posed huge analytical dilemmas. One of the
first papers done in the Gorbachev era was devoted to the promises,
potentials and pitfalls of his economic agenda. Published in the fall of
1985, it expressed doubt that the economic reforms that Gorbachev had
announced would actually be carried out, or that resources could be found
to meet his modernization goals. Two years later our analysts were even
more doubtful that he would succeed. They predicted that the radical
reforms that Gorbachev might be tempted to implement risked "confusion,
economic disruption, and worker discontent" that could embolden potential
rivals to his power.
It is tough to divine leadership intentions in a secretive, centrally
controlled society ó particularly if that leadership, as was true under
Gorbachev, ceases to be static. Assessing thinking beyond the leadership ó
identifying other societal forces at work and weighing their impacts, is
even tougher. Take nationalist and ethnic pressures, for example. For
decades, Moscowís policies toward minorities had combined gradual
modernization with rigid suppression of any hints of separatism. CIAís
analysis reported that this long-standing combination of concessions and
coercion had kept a lid on a "potentially explosive source of political
instability." Our analysts picked up, however, on signs of change in
Soviet policy and rising ethnic tensions under Gorbachev and drew the
attention of US decision makers to their far-reaching implications.
A Business Built on Uncertainty, Analysis Based on Judgment
Obviously our record was not perfect. Intelligence analysis ó even the
most rigorous ó can never be error-free. Our analysts may have the best
information available, but they seldom have the luxury of complete
information before making a judgment. The glints and glimmerings of
insight that they get from examining shards of information help them peer
into the unknown. But getting some forecasts wrong is an unavoidable part
of the intelligence business ó a business built on uncertainty.
Although we could fairly accurately count how many they already had,
projecting the future development of Soviet military forces, for instance,
proved to be one of the most difficult problems for the Intelligence
Community during the Cold War. Every National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)
written on the subject from 1974 to 1986, to which CIA analysts
contributed, overestimated the rate at which Moscow would modernize its
strategic forces.
But there is an important difference between getting it wrong despite
thoughtful analysis, and deliberately exaggerating the threat. I think
that an honest review of the documents shows that our analysts made a
good-faith effort. I would also note that, in many cases, the very same
analytic teams that overestimated future Soviet procurement also published
volumes of analysis about existing Soviet nuclear missiles and warheads
and other weapons programs that Moscow very much wanted to keep secret. It
was their painstaking analysis that gave successive American Presidents
and Senators the confidence to pursue, sign and ratify arms control
agreements ó agreements that helped contain and mitigate the very real
dangers of the Cold War.
The fact that some of our analysis became controversial ó and remains the
subject of heated disagreement today ó does not necessarily mean that the
judgments were wrong. The Agencyís work in assessing the state of the
Soviet economy, for example, has come under criticism since the Soviet
collapse. This topic will be debated at the conference, and that is all to
the good. I will only note that it is all but forgotten ó and the
declassified studies are there to remind us ó that CIA analysts reported a
deceleration in Soviet economic growth as early as 1963. President Lyndon
Johnson thought this analysis so important that he dispatched a delegation
to brief the findings in West European capitals. American academics and
the national press, however, were skeptical of CIAís analysis. Indeed,
many economists of that era believed that the Soviet Unionís command
economy possessed inherent advantages over the market-based systems of the
West. But whatever the prevailing currents of popular thinking may be, it
is the responsibility of our analysts to call it like they see it, whether
the evidence supports the conventional view or not.
We can even point to an instance where CIA analysts helped to shape not
only US policy, but even may have helped to shape Soviet policy as well.
We now know that the Kremlin monitored economic studies done in the West
on the Soviet Union, especially CIA reports published by the Joint
Economic Committee of Congress. President Jimmy Carter drew particular
attention to such a CIA study when he declared to a surprised world that
the Soviet petroleum industry was beset by serious problems. The Agency
had projected that Soviet oil production was likely to plateau by the
early 1980s and then decline to the point where the USSR would become a
net importer of oil. As it turned out, CIA was right on the fundamental
problems that eventually brought about a fall in production. But our
analysts underestimated the Sovietsí ability to avert the worst by
shifting investment in favor of the energy sector and changing the USSRís
extraction and exploration policies ó changes that perhaps resulted from
Moscowís reading of the Agencyís published assessment. And those changes
have real implications for Russian energy production today.
US Intelligence capabilities clearly were not omniscient during the Cold
War, and we are not all-seeing now. Our Soviet analysts were not prescient
then and our Russia analysts are not all-knowing today. Our analysts
continue to work in a climate that President Kennedy described in his day
when he said that intelligence successes are often unnoticed while our
failures are paraded in public.
And that is fine. Our analysts are not in this business for headlines or
kudos. They are in it to make a critical difference ó to advance our
nationís interests and values. And that is what they do every single day.
I make it a point to remind them that the fear of sometimes getting it
wrong should never, ever get in the way of them doing their job. And when
my analysts do call it wrong, they take responsibility and they learn from
their mistakes. That means taking apart the evidence or the assumptions
that got them off track. It can be a painful process, but it makes for
better analysis.
What, then, if not infallibility ó should our national leaders, and
ultimately the American public, expect of our analysts?
First and foremost, they should expect our analysts to deliver
intelligence that is objective, pulls no punches, and is free from
political taint.
Next, that our analysts think creatively, constantly challenging the
conventional wisdom, and tapping expertise wherever it lies ó inside the
Intelligence Community or in the private sector and academia.
That our analysts always act with the highest standards of
professionalism.
That they take risks ó analytic risks ó and make the tough calls when it
would be easier to waffle.
That they respond to the Presidentís and other decision makersí needs on
demand ó juggling analytic priorities and capabilities to meet the most
urgent missions.
And lastly, that our analysis not only tell policymakers about what is
uppermost on their minds ó but also alert them to things that have not yet
reached their in-boxes.
Making a Critical Difference, Then and Now
In closing, I will only say that more that a decade after the Soviet
Unionís demise, we live in a world still in transition from something that
was well understood ó the bipolarity of the Cold War ó to something that
has yet to crystallize. In such a world, our country needs a strong
analytic intelligence capability more than ever to help the President
separate fact from fiction, avoid danger, seize opportunities and steer a
safe course to the future.
On behalf of CIAís analytic community, I want to thank you for your
participation and interest in this conference and in our work ó past,
present and future. As always, we welcome and value your insights, and we
hope that you will find the discussions stimulating.
******
#2 Remarks of the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence John E.
McLaughlin at the Conference on CIA's Analysis of the Soviet Union,
1947-1991 Princeton University "The Changing Nature of CIA Analysis in the
Post-Soviet World" As Prepared for Delivery 9 March 2001
When the conference organizers asked me to give its first keynote address,
I reminded them that my principal work on this part of the world came
after the Soviet Union had broken up. In fact, it was just three months
after that breakup that I was put in charge of the Office of Slavic and
Eurasian Analysis ó the name we gave to the organization that picked up
the responsibility for analysis of the former Soviet Union, once it had
ceased to exist. Because I had the opportunity to lead our work on this
part of the world at that pivotal moment, I thought that is what I ought
to talk about rather than looking back at our effort on the Soviet Union.
You are going to be doing that nonóstop for a day and a half, so perhaps
you will welcome a brief excursion into the decade that just passed into
history.
This topic is germane to the conference for a number of reasons. First,
what I encountered back in March of 1992 was in every way the inheritance
of our long focus on the Soviet target. And the experiences we had in
those early postóSoviet years were emblematic of the Agency's efforts,
successful I believe, to adjust to a new world that no longer had a
universally accepted organizing principle for American intelligence.
So let me take you back to the spring of 1992 and tell you something about
the journey we have been on since then. Let me begin with an anecdote that
I believe says a lot. On my first day on the job in 1992, I made the
rounds, shaking hands with my new colleagues. I remember stopping by one
officer's cubicle, and there, sitting on top of her computer, instead of
the usual souvenirs, was a big can of peas with Cyrillic lettering. When I
asked why, she replied: "I'm the canned goods analyst." We also had a
timber analyst back in those days.
To me, that anecdote says volumes about Soviet analysis during the Cold
War. For reasons that this audience will readily grasp, it was actually
important that we understand things like the food processing industry ó
symbolized by that can of peas ó in order to gauge the underlying strength
of Soviet society. As you know, we tried every conceivable way to gain
insights into that fundamentally closed system ó a system whose
functioning was opaque in the most basic respects, not only to the rest of
the world, but to its own people ó even to its leadership, as Vlad Treml
will attest tomorrow. Sherman Kent, the founding father of national
intelligence estimates, once said: "Estimating is what you do when you do
not know." We did a lot of estimating during the Cold War, and we are
doing a lot of estimating now. But what we didn't know then about the
Soviet Union is different in so many ways from what we don't know now
about Russia. Most of what we needed to know then was at least
discoverable. Much of what we'd like to know now may not even be knowable.
Today, our Office of Russian and European Analysis does not employ a
canned goods analyst, or even a timber specialist. The Russia that our
analysts are trying to understand is no longer cloaked from view by a
totalitarian regime. But in many ways I think it is even harder to grasp
óby us and by the Russians themselves.
It was not always this way. Dick Lehman, the creator of what we now call
the President's Daily Brief, once remarked that the basic analytic
training he got back in 1949 came down to a single piece of advice from
his boss: "Whatever you do, just remember one thingóthe Soviet Union is up
to no good!" Simple, but that said it. To be sure, there were other
targets, but as someone who worked on many of them, I can tell you that
our interest was mostly derivative. For something to gain priority
attention or command resources, there had to be a connection to the Soviet
threat.
Many CIA analysts cut their baby teeth in SOVA ó the legendary Office of
>Soviet Analysis ó or in one of the celebrated offices that preceded SOVA's
creation in 1981. And young analysts soon learned that the ultimate
objective of their collective efforts ó whether their expertise lay in
peas or trees or tanks ó came down to helping us gauge the Soviets'
military strength and intentions. Everybody understood the paradigm.
Everybody knew what the top analytic priorities were: the frontal threat
to NATO, Moscow's first strike capabilities, the Soviet command and
control system, arms control monitoring, the capacity of the Soviet
economy to sustain military power. As many of you will recall vividly, the
butter-guns question of how many dishwashers equals a tank was a serious
analytic calculation ó also I might add, a difficult proposition from a
collection standpoint, considering that Soviet dishwashers actually looked
like tanks!
With the demise of the Soviet Union, the nature of our analytic questions
changed. Before, threats emanated from Soviet strengths. Now, dangers
stemmed largely from Russia's weaknesses or simply from the uncertainties
associated with its transformation. Now, we were not much concerned about
a deliberate, surprise attack by Moscow or the sheer numbers of military
forces and equipment. Instead, we worried about instability in 15
sovereign states instead of one, about the cohesiveness of Russia itself,
about whether it was reconciled to the independence of the other fourteen
states, about the safety and security of weapons, about proliferation
fueled by Russia's economic straits, and about how to maintain momentum in
arms control when your original partner no longer existed.
And this was a time of wrenching change for our analysts. Economists who
had worked their entire professional lives on a command economy were
suddenly confronted with free prices and privatization. And it was not
enough just to apply the tried-and-true lessons of macro-economic and
micro-economic theory, for this was an economic transition unlike any that
preceded it. We quickly discovered that no one had the market cornered on
analyzing such a thing, and we had to actually devise from scratch
methodologies to do things like gauge the size of the private sector.
Our political analysts, meanwhile, had to plunge into real electoral
politics while our military analysts, sharply reduced in numbers, could
stop worrying about the cost of Soviet defense while they refocused on
more qualitative questions such as whether the military would play a
stabilizing role in the new Russia. For their part, the canned goods and
timber specialists were retooling in Uzbek language class, brushing up on
Ukrainian politics, or starting to focus in detail on places like
Chechnya.
While we were wrestling with these challenges, outside the Intelligence
Community, in the world of politics, the pundits and the press, there was
expectant talk of a "Peace Dividend." The "End of History" had come ó the
last, great ideological conflict was over. Skepticism was rife about the
need for the US to sustain a global presence ó diplomatic, military and
intelligence. There was talk of a US-Russian strategic partnership and
after a protracted post-Tiananmen policy rollercoaster, Washington and
Beijing were getting back on track. Osama bin Laden and the missile threat
hadn't made headlines ó yet. Sanctions had put Saddam in a straitjack. The
world seemed like a much less dangerous place.
When DCI Woolsey talked about the proliferators, traffickers, terrorists,
and rogue states as the serpents that came in the wake of the slain Soviet
dragon, he was accused of "creating threats" to justify an inflated
intelligence budget.
As was the case with the State Department and the Defense Community, the
Intelligence Community was downsized. By 1995, CIA's analytic ranks had
shrunk by 17% from what they were in 1990. By the end of the 1990s, we
were down by about 22%. I reduced the office I headed by 42% in the space
of three years. Overall, our Russia effort decreased by 60%, as personnel
were justifiably shifted in the ways I've described and to non-Russian
areas.
Well, almost a decade has gone by since the Soviet collapse and even
though there still is no organizing principle that pulls our priorities
into an alignment comparable to the Soviet period, there is no shortage of
work for the Intelligence Community. If anything, the list of issues the
Director must discuss in the threat assessment he delivers annually to
Congress grows longer and more complex each year. Those thirsting for the
clarity of the Soviet period may have to live with the likelihood that
what we see is what we may continue to get for a long time: a
kaleidoscopic world of rapidly shifting, interconnected problems ó the
kind of world that presents the toughest challenge to an analyst trying to
help decisionmakers minimize the risk of strategic surprise.
The future-ologist Peter Schwartz believes that we have entered an era of
what he calls "fundamental discontinuity" which will go on indefinitely
due to globalization and the accelerating speed of technological
innovation. I think he is right. Maybe because our analysts are used to
thinking in geopolitical terms and five to ten years out, they tend to
refer to this post-Cold War period as a "strategic pause" ó or what Paul
Kennedy might call the gap between "strategic epochs." Policymakers used
to worry about a missile gap ó until our reconnaissance and imagery
pioneers proved it didn't exist. Now, it's an "epoch gap", but I'm not so
sure we can help with that!
My point is that after any great upheaval ó in this case the Soviet
collapse ó there has usually been a period of confusion, uncertainty, and
turbulence while the world sorts itself out.
Think back on the last time empires disintegrated on anything like the
scale we witnessed when the Soviet Union came apart and imagine the
challenge it presents to our intelligence analysts.
For example, if we had had a US Intelligence Community when the
Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires collapsed after World War I, could it
have predicted the enormity of what came next: the rise of Hitler, the
Holocaust, Stalin's purges, World War II, the atomic bomb, the Cold War?
Just as there was high potential for surprise in that period of
transition, I believe that our nation has entered an era when the
potential for unwelcome surprise is greater than at any time since the end
of the Second World War. There are a number of reasons for this:
As we have seen in places as diverse as the Balkans, East Timor, and the
Congo, the crumbling of Cold War constraints and the surge of
globalization have unleashed forces that rapidly spill-over into open
violence that can engulf entire regions.
Second, the revolution in technology enables, drives, or magnifies dangers
to us. DCI Gates has said that after the 1960s, the US was never surprised
by a Soviet weapons system. We cannot be as confident today that we know
about our adversaries' capabilities, because paradigm-busting advances are
occurring simultaneously in so many scientific and technical fields. As we
point out in our report on the world in 2015, in science and technology,
the time between discovery and application is shrinking every year.
Third, the advanced technologies that once were the preserve of the
superpowers have passed into other hands. Access to advanced technology
gives hostile states and non-state actors new shields and new swords.
Greater power and longer reach. In today's networked world, they have
easier access to information, finances, deception-and-denial techniques,
and to each other. And the perception of America's so-called "hegemony"
has itself become a lightning rod for the disaffected. Related to all of
this, America's sole superpower status has created a global climate
conducive to what I would call "experimental alliances", as various
aspiring powers search for common cause, usually with the aim of
off-setting American preeminence.
Fourth, the American public ó for the first time ó has to face the fact
that the territorial United States ó our power grids, our water and
transportation systems, and our public communications networks are
vulnerable to new and unconventional dangers like chemical and biological
weapons and cyber attacks, and also to some older conventional threats
like ballistic missiles.
Last but not least, Russia and China and other key countries in volatile
regions ó Iran, and the Korean peninsula ó are undergoing political,
economic, demographic and strategic transitions whose outcomes could have
widely varying national security consequences for the United States.
>From the perspective of an intelligence officer, it seems that America's
next move these days must always be calculated on a three dimensional
chess board.
Given such a world, I tell our analysts that I do not belong to the Peter
Schwartz School of "fundamental discontinuity" or the Paul Kennedy School
of "epochal gaps." I belong to the Monty Python School of "Now for
Something Completely Different." I am conscious every day of how important
it is for our analysts to challenge the conventional wisdom, to separate
what we really know from what we merely think, to consider alternative
outcomes ó in short, to not fall victim to mindset, overconfidence, or
anyone's pet paradigm. Our country and its interests are at their most
vulnerable if its intelligence professionals are not always ready for
"something completely different."
On that score, today's Russia seldom fails to disappoint. Our Russia
analysts would be the first to admit that at times they have had to
struggle hard to anticipate what is coming next. But they have found some
consolation in the thought that Yeltsin and Putin have probably felt the
same way.
That said, I think when someday we have a conference about this latest
decade, our analytic record on Russia will stand up well. Among the things
I think it will show:
We got an early grip on the newly independent states and their likely
evolution along different paths. In March of 1991 ó nine months before the
Soviet breakup ó a new division was created in SOVA to devote more
attention to the republics.
Our analysts anticipated the violent crisis in the fall of 1993, when
Yeltsin dissolved the Communist-dominated Supreme Soviet to break the
constitutional gridlock that paralyzed the country.
In 1994, we warned of the first Chechen War.
We were forward-leaning on the outcome of the presidential and
parliamentary elections in 1995-1996 and 1999-2000, and we published and
briefed extensively on corruption and the rise of Russian organized crime,
long before it became such a prominent issue.
In the economic sphere, we warned policy makers of the looming economic
crisis two months before the August 1998 ruble crash and called the
rebound in the economy long before business and academic experts did.
And we were frequently able to stay ahead of the curve in anticipation of
Yeltsin's frequent government shake-ups.
On the things that can inflict harm on Americans or America's vital
interests or those of our allies ó such as loose nukes, proliferation and
efforts to stymie NATO enlargement ó we didn't know everything, but we put
together a pretty good picture because we had a strong factual base from
which to speculate.
But there were many "softer" issues ó subjects which don't lend themselves
to measurement ó that were more difficult for us to assess with high
levels of specificity. Putin's meteoric rise to the presidency is a case
in point. When he was plucked from obscurity to become Premier, we would
not have told you with confidence that he would rise to the Presidency ó
until his handling of the Chechen war dramatically increased his
popularity. But in early 1999, Putin probably did not foresee this either.
On such "unmeasurables," analysts must operate with greater degrees of
uncertainty ó they must work in the realm not just of the unknown, but of
>the unknowable.
What is knowable is that Russia's efforts to find its identity at home and
its place in the world cannot be divorced from larger 21st century
realities ó the realities of a world in which countries globalize or get
left behind, where national strength is measured not just in a military's
access to hardware but in civilians' access to software ó an increasingly
borderless world of hope and hazard and unremitting change ó realities
which all countries confront, including our own.
Just like their targets, to be successful in this new century, our
intelligence analysts must adapt. US Intelligence must find new ways of
doing its analytic business. And that is exactly what we are doing. Let me
briefly describe some of the steps we are taking:
First, we have repositioned institutionally to meet the changing nature of
the threats. Today we devote only a fraction of the effort we once did to
Russia. In the old days, SOVA was the largest office in the Directorate of
Intelligence; today, given the cross-border nature of many current and
emerging threats, that distinction goes to the Office of Transnational
Issues.
We also have channeled substantial analytic resources to specialized
centers staffed by experts from across the Intelligence Community to deal
with Nonproliferation and Crime and Narcotics issues.
And, as the National Intelligence Council's 2015 report demonstrates, we
are paying increasing attention to non-traditional areas such as
demographics, disease and water scarcity while continuing to chart trends
in energy, economic development, and weaponry. We are spending more time
on how these factors inter-connect and on how they affect security and
stability.
Next, we have placed a high priority on getting our analysts the technical
tools they need to deal with the growing problems of volume and speed.
Information increases by about a million documents per day, and that's
just on the web. Five years from now, our all-source analysts will have to
deal with ten times the amount of information that they now receive from
open sources and clandestine collection. One analyst recently told me that
the way she does her job has changed more in one year than in the
preceding nine due to her desk top links with the Internet and classified
intelligence networks. Today, providing vital "value added" analysis to
consumers sometimes depends as much on our analysts' ability to pluck key
information out of the flood and move it quickly as it does on the
analysis itself. Information-mining technologies and connectivity among
our analysts within CIA, across the Intelligence Community and with our
customers will help us stay ahead of the competition ó I don't mean our
commercial competitors, but the hostile actors who can ó and will ó
exploit what is commercially available.
But being smart about how we configure ourselves, allocate resources and
use technologies will not be enough. As Sherman Kent put it decades ago:
"There is no substitute for the intellectually competent human ó the
person who was born with the makings of critical sense and who has
developed them Ö through firsthand experience and study."
With that in mind, we have over the last several years begun very
aggressively to strengthen our analytical ranks that were so dangerously
thinned after the Cold War. CIA, for example, is engaged in the largest
across-the-board recruiting drive in a decade, and we are bringing in
first-rate talent. We have established a new Sherman Kent School for
Intelligence Analysis to intensively train the new recruits. Beyond
increasing our bench strength against key targets, we are going all out to
achieve greater analytic depth. We are providing incentives for analysts
to stay on their accounts longer. We are affording our analysts greater
opportunities to travel and to broaden their experience. Because we claim
no monopoly on wisdom, we are bringing in outside experts for short tours
as scholars-in-residence. We also are encouraging our analysts to expand
their contacts with specialists elsewhere in government, in the private
sector and in academia.
Our objective is a vigorous, creative, agile analytic capability that is
equal to 21st century challenges and second to none.
I will close my comments on all that has changed in the analysis business
by talking about what hasn't changed at all. I've mentioned Sherman Kent
frequently, and let me say that today's analysts have the same three
wishes that he used to talk about in his day: "To know everything. To be
believed. And to exercise a positive influence on policy."
Of course, today's analysts don't know everything ó that's why they still
call 'em estimates. And they realize, as did their predecessors, that they
won't always be believed, in spite of the rigor of their analysis. As to
whether our analysts have a meaningful influence on policy, we will soon
hear from former decision makers on that score. As for the decade I've
just discussed, I can tell you that if the volume of questions we answer
is any indication, our analysts have been very influential indeed. I am
very proud of what they've accomplished.
Thank you. I would be happy to hear your thoughts and take your questions.
THANK YOU Ruth!!!
Ping to me
This conference coincides with the release of over 850 CIA analytic
documents on the Soviet Union, totaling over 19,000 pages of text ó all
part of a larger effort begun by DCI Bob Gates to illuminate the
intelligence component of the Cold Warís history. This latest tranche of
>documents, combined with the approximately 2,700 CIA analytic products and
National Intelligence Estimates on the USSR that were previously
declassified, constitutes the largest trove of intelligence analysis on
any single country ever released by any nation.
That achievement is significant, but it is not sufficient. I am determined
to make more of the analytic record available. And so, the office that
does most of our declassification work will be releasing to scholars
within the next couple of years a substantial additional amount of CIA
analysis on the Cold War and more National Intelligence Estimates on the
USSR.
I agree that the cold war has never ended.
I find it is still one and find the Nazi and Muslims to be
so mixed in with communism and Russia, that i do no see a dividing line.
Russia Won't Renounce Hitler-Stalin Deal
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1326896/posts
Thank you for having a link to this, in one of your threads.
I wanted to save it and now thanks to the unlimited size of the Yahoo email boxes, can do so.
So many threads that I wanted to read today, have been deleted.
Link to original article does not work...
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