COLONEL FITZGERALD AND THE ABM QUESTION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79R00967A001100020018-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 27, 2006
• Sequence Number: 18
• Publication Date: March 2, 1967
• Content Type: MF

Approved For Re a 2006/025?' .4-KbP79R00967A 00020018
2 March 1967
SUBJECT : Colonel Fitzgerald and the ABM Question
1. The question of Col. Fitzgerald's use in Moscow
has arisen specifically in relation to the talks' he has had
with high-ranking Soviet officials with regard to the Soviet
deployment of ABMs and the nature of that deployment. Some
people, including DDP and State, feel that Fitzgerald is
being used to feed to the US bogus information and that his
usefulness is therefore limited. The military generally
feel that he is the best source we have had in Moscow in a
long time. This memo will address first our view of
Col. Fitzgerald's general capability and usefulness, and
then the specific problem of his reporting on the ABM question.
2. Col. Fitzgerald's interest, capability, and back-
ground have made him extremely effective in the Moscow post.
He has a fluent conversational Russian ability; he has gotten
to know the Russians at previous tours in Moscow and at the
control commission in Berlin; he looks and thinks like a
Russian; he has been extremely imaginative and aggressive
in fulfilling intelligence requirements and in following up
leads on his own. He has produced more and higher quality
information than any other attache posted to Moscow. In
particular, he has been able to develop information on Soviet
thinking and policy to a degree far beyond the ability of
his predecessors. His reporting on general strategy and on
questions of general purpose forces policy have been extremely
useful, and generally unchallenged. It is his reporting on
specific strategic developments, such as ABM, that has been
called suspect.
3. The interview that Col. Fitzgerald had with
Gen. Maj. Cheryshev, Executive Officer for Marshal Zakharov,
Soviet Chief of Staff in January, 1967, was the most provo-
cative of the ABM interviews. Chernyshev opined that there
could be no US-USSR ABM agreement because deployment of the
Soviet ABM system has been in progress for 2-3 years and is
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well advanced. He also implied Col. Fitzgerald could have
seen ABMs in the Leningrad area, but he changed the subject
when questioned if the remainder of the country was covered.
He also implied the Soviets did not tell the truth when they
called Griffon an ABM. If the timing that Chernyshev
indicated is correct (and it was substantially the same as
given by Gen.Batov to Col. Fitzgerald earlier in January),
then the ABM system in question would appear to be the
Tallinn system, as construction started on the Moscow system
five years ago.
4. Other series of Soviet statements have, however,
apparently referred to the Tallinn system as a SAM system:
a. In April, 1966, Marshal Malinovskiy said "New,
highly effective SAMs have been worked out and adopted
for armament . . . Our air defense means assure the
reliable destruction of any aircraft and many enemy
rockets."
b. Red Star in June 1966 said "Air defense forces
have received new surface-to-air missile complexes ...
reliably assuring the destruction of any hostile air-
craft and many of their missiles."
5. The credibility of Chernyshev's statements would
have been higher if it were not for the fact that his main
points had all been spread abroad by US broadcasts or by US
newspapers and magazines in the previous two months. It
would seem reasonable to assume that the Soviet Chiefs of
Staff are fully aware of the importance of ABMs to their
national security, that they are briefed on what the US
thinks of Soviet ballistic missile defenses, and that
Chernyshev could have consciously been feeding back what,
according to these briefings, the US press and radio were
saying, and that he would say nothing damaging to Soviet
security. Chernyshev didn't seem to become uncomfortable,
according to Col. Fitzgerald, until Fitzgerald pushed him
beyond what US media had already publicized; beyond that
point, he gave no information. Chernyshev's admission that
the Soviets had been just a little sly in calling the Griffon
an ABM raises the question of whether he wasn't just being
a little sly again. (It should be noted that the Soviets
didn't call the Griffon an ABM until the US press had
done so.)
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6. It seems possible therefore, that, although Col.
Fitzgeraldts reporting has been immensely useful in general,
he has been fed a line on the occasion of his reporting on
the ABM question.
7. Col. Fitzgerald is now back in the US at Carlisle
Barracks, and will presumably be available for debriefing.
We should make a point of talking to him at length.
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