Intelligence and secret services Intelligence and secret services around the world - Soviet Russia with its KGB, United States with CIA and NSA etc. A lot of interesing info! Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 0 0 0 3676

Articles from Intelligence and secret services

New Light on Old Spies - A Review of Recent Soviet Intelligence Revelations - part 3 2007-07-15 08:10:00 Part 1Part 2State Security: AbelThe admission to the Soviet people that the state security service, long portrayed as a defensive, counterintelligence arm of the state, does in fact engage in peacetime espionage abroad is equally dramatic. By virtue of its internal, repressive activity, the security service is only too well known to the Soviet population. Few Soviet citizens can have avoided some brush with the heavy hand of the security component, but equally few of them have known until recently what every literate Westerner has long known, that the state security service is also a principal arm of Soviet espionage abroad. In keeping with the dogma that only aggressive imperialist states engage in espionage, the existence of the First Chief Directorate of the security service, the foreign arm, was never admitted. The surfacing of its espionage in foreign countries, therefore, represents a major shift in Soviet intelligence policy.This policy shift was signaled by an article on the ca ...

New Light on Old Spies - A Review of Recent Soviet Intelligence Revelations - part 2 2007-07-15 08:07:00 Part 1Other GRU CasesSoviet authorities have also seen fit to give publicity to an obscure officer of the GRU surfaced under the name of Colonel Lev Yefimovich Manevich. This man was made posthumously a Hero of the Soviet Union in early 1965, presumably for wartime services. He is credited in the Soviet press with service in an unidentified foreign country, possibly Germany or German-occupied Europe. According to the Soviet accounts he was betrayed through the cowardice of an assistant and imprisoned in German concentration camps, where he was known under the name Ya. N. Starostin. Before his death from tuberculosis at the Ebensee camp in Austria on 12 May 1945, he is said to have confided to a fellow inmate, one Grant Gregoryevich Ayrapetov, that his cryptonym was Etienne and to have asked that the Soviet authorities be notified.Manevich is portrayed as a devoted intelligence agent who continued his work despite serious illness. According to Ayrapetov, Manevich compiled files on Sovie ...

New Light on Old Spies - A Review of Recent Soviet Intelligence Revelations 2007-07-15 08:03:00 Note - language is not corrected. Keep in mind that this article was written during the Cold War era.Espionage is needed by those who prepare for attack, for aggression. The Soviet Union is deeply dedicated to the cause of peace and does not intend to attack anyone. Therefore it has no intention of engaging in espionage.--Nikita Khrushchev to Saneo Nozaka, Chairman of the Japanese Communist Party, 1962.The average Soviet citizen, had he been asked, would have denied that his Government engaged in espionage against other states. Such a dirty practice, he could have added if he faithfully followed the official propaganda line, was employed only by the imperialists, with the USSR as their target. Had not the Soviet Union been compelled to create and maintain a state security service to protect itself from just such imperialist machinations?The average Soviet, if he was ever so naive, is now disabused of his illusions. His government has reversed a policy in force since Lenin's day to a ...

The Cold War Atomic Intelligence Game, 1945-70 - From the Russian Perspective - part 3 2007-07-13 00:35:00 Part 1 Part 2 Counterintelligence Operations The USSR's Communist Party and the government called on the KGB to maintain an enhanced counterintelligence posture at nuclear facilities. A 1947 resolution of the USSR Council of Ministers regarding security at the warhead R&D facility in Sarov, for example, directed that, "[I]n order to prevent infiltrations of Object No. 550 (code-name of the R&D center] by spies, saboteurs, and other enemies . . . the USSR Ministry of State Security (comrade Abakumov) is obligated to step up its operational and chekist work at Object No. 550 and in the areas of Mordov republic and Gorky region adjacent to the special regime zone." In response, the KGB established a Department K in its headquarters in Moscow and "K" units in the regions. The KGB worked with nuclear facilities to develop suitable cover stories to conceal their true missions, monitored information protection measures, and implemented countermeasures against technical collection systems ...

The Cold War Atomic Intelligence Game, 1945-70 - From the Russian Perspective - part 2 2007-07-13 00:31:00 Part 1Personnel IsolationThe isolation of construction workers and facility personnel to prevent potential recruitment by foreign spies was another critical security task. The construction force was particularly difficult to control. At least 15 of 114 GULAG camps supported the construction of nuclear facilities. In late 1947, over 20,000 prisoners were working in Ozersk, and about 10,000 were in Sarov. There were over 18,000 prisoners in Novouralsk during 1950-51. Over 27,000 were in Zheleznogorsk in 1953.The Soviet government adopted several measures to minimize the security risk posed by the prison labor force. The KGB's policy was not to send prisoners with sentence terms of less than five years or those with sentences expiring in less than three years to nuclear sites. After completing nuclear construction projects, the prisoners finished their terms at the Vorkuta camps in Siberia, which were famous for their remoteness and harsh conditions. When released from the camps, the pri ...

The Cold War Atomic Intelligence Game, 1945-70 - From the Russian Perspective 2007-07-13 00:25:00 Since its inception in the early 1940s and through much of the Cold War, the Soviet atomic project was the focus of a massive intelligence effort by the United States and its allies. Of primary interest were the issues of uranium availability; the production of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium; nuclear warhead R&D and testing; and the nuclear weapons production and management infrastructure.Washington needed such information to assess the Soviet nuclear strike capability. Estimates of the Soviet inventories of HEU and plutonium when put together with data on warhead designs would allow CIA analysts to gauge the size and composition of the Soviet nuclear weapons stockpile. Information on Moscow's knowledge of nuclear weapons effects was needed to evaluate the capability of the Soviet Union to design warheads for air-defense and anti-missile missiles and to develop hardened warheads capable of surviving US ballistic missile defenses. Analysis of the impact on the Soviet nucle ...

Sitemap 2007-07-12 11:47:00 IntroductionSoviet Union KGB (Committee for State Security)IntroductionOrganizationOverviewThe First Chief Directorate (PGU)The First ResidenturaThe Second Chief DirectorateThe Third Chief DirectorateThe Fifth Chief DirectorateThe Seventh (Surveillance) DirectorateThe Eighth Chief DirectorateThe Ninth DirectorateThe Sixteenth DirectorateThe Border Guards DirectorateThe Operations and Technology DirectoratePoison laboratoryOperations"Trust""TOUCAN""Raduga" ("Rainbow")"Agat" ("Agate")Assassination and KidnappingChekaOverviewOperationsGPUNKVDOverviewOperationsHistory and structureGRU (Main Intelligence Directorate)OverviewOperationsTrainingNew Light on Old Spies - A Review of Recent Soviet Intelligence RevelationsSMERSHOverviewOperationsGUGBOSNAZSpetsnaz OverviewOrganizationWeapons and equipmentTacticsAlpha groupBeta groupVympelKaskadGromDelfin OverviewEquipmentOperationsTrainingBorder TroopsOther topics Dem'ianiv LazKatyn massacreRed OrchestraRussian FederationFAPSIFSB (Federal Security ...

The theory and practice of Soviet intelligence - part 8 2007-07-12 02:14:00 Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4Part 5Part 6Part 7The inventor's name was Worm. When he saw what fabulous prices Krupp was getting for the industrial diamonds which he had created and which cost the company so little, he decided to build secretly a plant of his own and realize some of these profits for himself. He borrowed money from the bank, rented a little shop, made an oven like the one he had constructed for Krupp, installed the minimum equipment needed, and made a few profitable sales of vidi to foreign customers. With the proceeds of these he was able to pay off part of the loan, and it looked as though he was on the way to becoming a rich man. But at this point the Krupp concern learned about his disloyal competition and swooped down on him with all the fury of an industrial giant. He was summarily fired. Customers were warned that if they bought a single ounce of vidi from him Krupp would never sell them anything. The bank suddenly became rigid and demanded prompt repayment. In spite ...

The theory and practice of Soviet intelligence - part 7 2007-07-12 02:13:00 Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4Part 5Part 6Sometimes the theft of all the necessary formulas, blueprints, and instructions would still not enable Soviet engineers and inventors to construct a complicated mechanism or duplicate a production process. They would need the human component, the special skill or engineering know-how. In such cases officers of the Division for Industrial Intelligence would, with offers of additional rewards, persuade the appropriate foreign engineers to make a secret trip to Russia to instruct the Russian engineers or supervise the laboratory experiments on the spot. Precautions were taken to insure that the traveler's passport should not bear any border stamps or other traces of his visit to the Soviet Union: the engineer would travel with his own passport only to the capital of an adjacent country, where he would turn it over for safekeeping to the local Soviet agent and get from him a false one on which he would proceed to Russia; then on the return trip he would ...

The theory and practice of Soviet intelligence - part 6 2007-07-12 02:11:00 Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4Part 5Political ActionThe sixth line of Soviet intelligence is to influence the decisions of foreign governments through secret agents occupying important positions within them. In the last two decades there have been quite a few instances in which highly placed Soviet secret agents were able to tip the scales of policy in favor of the Soviet Union. Some of these agents started out as junior diplomats in the foreign offices of the West and climbed with the help of their socially prominent families to high government positions. Others were already mature politicians and statesmen when they were seduced by money and other base considerations. One of the leading members of Mussolini's cabinet and the Fascist Grand Council succumbed to an offer of money and agreed to collaborate with Soviet Russia.A leading member of the parliament of a mid-European country, who was not thought to be a friend of the Soviet Union, would meet secretly with the Soviet ambassador and t ...

The theory and practice of Soviet intelligence - part 5 2007-07-12 02:09:00 Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4PenetrationThe fifth line of Soviet intelligence is infiltration into the security agencies and intelligence services of foreign countries. This activity holds a special challenge and a peculiar fascination for Soviet intelligence officers. Although they regard foreign intelligence officers as mercenary spies (while thinking of themselves as devoted revolutionaries carrying out dangerous assignments for the Party) , the Soviet officers do have a feeling of kinship with them and react to an encounter with one of them with the same thrill and curiosity that enemy fighter pilots feel on sighting each other across a space of sky. Their hostile attitude toward their foreign counterparts becomes sincerely friendly the moment the latter begin to cooperate as informants.The principal aims pursued in infiltrating foreign security agencies are the following: to find out what these agencies know about Soviet intelligence operations in the country in question; to determine ...

The theory and practice of Soviet intelligence - part 4 2007-07-12 02:08:00 Part 1Part 2Part 3As we have said, the KGB does not look for this information in public documents. Neither is it interested in monitoring foreign radio transmissions and distilling from them crumbs of random information. It procures the military secrets of foreign governments from the classified files of the general staffs of those countries, from the secret reports of foreign defense ministries, from military research laboratories and proving grounds, and so it knows that what it gets represents, even if incompletely, the true facts on which Soviet policy makers can confidently base their decisions.In wartime, military intelligence becomes the principal function of every branch of the Intelligence Directorate of the KGB. The main task of its field posts, its underground residenturas abroad, is then to inform the Soviet government by radio and other means about the war plans of the enemy, his troop concentrations and movements, the size of his uncommitted reserves in men and materiel, ...

The theory and practice of Soviet intelligence - part 3 2007-07-12 02:06:00 Part 1Part 2Political IntelligenceWhile The Main Intelligence Department (GRU) of the Soviet Ministry of Defense does only military intelligence, the Foreign Directorate of the Committee of State Security (KGB), successor to the NKVD, is actively engaged in at least seven lines of intelligence and related work, not counting sabotage and guerrilla warfare.The first line, which is considered the most important, is the so-called diplomatic intelligence, the purpose of which is to keep the Soviet government informed of the secret deals between the governments of capitalistic countries and of the true intentions and contemplated moves of each of these governments toward the Soviet Union. This information is to be procured from primary sources within the secret councils of the foreign governments. The principal sources are the following: foreign diplomats, including ambassadors; the staffs of foreign ministries, including code clerks, secretaries, etc. ; private secretaries to members of the ...

The theory and practice of Soviet intelligence - part 2 2007-07-11 11:01:00 Part 1Stalin, who was his own intelligence boss and liked to take a personal part in the cloak-and-dagger business, warned his intelligence chiefs time and again to keep away from hypotheses and "equations with many unknowns" and concentrate instead on acquiring well-placed informants and access to the secret vaults of foreign governments. He used to say, "An intelligence hypothesis may become your hobby horse on which you will ride straight into a self-made trap." He called it "dangerous guesswork." In 1932 he had ordered that our quarterly intelligence surveys of foreign countries no longer be sent him. Although based on secret data, these surveys were interspersed with unsubstantiated hypotheses and subjective views; they corresponded roughly to the national estimates which the American intelligence agencies produce for the National Security Council. After that the NKVD sent him the cream of raw intelligence only-summaries of important documents stolen from other governments and rep ...

The theory and practice of Soviet intelligence 2007-07-11 10:58:00 Like the Western intelligence services, the Russians get information about foreign states from two principal sources, from secret informants and undercover agents and from legitimate sources such as military and scientific journals, published reference material, and records of parliamentary debates. But the Russians regard as true intelligence (razvedka) only the first type of information, that procured by undercover agents and secret informants in defiance of the laws of the foreign country in which they operate. Information obtained from legitimate sources and publications they consider mere research data. In the eyes of Russian officers it takes a real man to do the creative and highly dangerous work of underground intelligence on foreign soil, while the digging up of research data in the safety of the home office or library can be left to women or young lieutenants just beginning their careers. The Western intelligence services, on the other hand, treat both types of information as ...