SOVIET UNION/TERRORISM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000200950004-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 27, 2008
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: November 15, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2008/06/27: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000200950004-0
1D AQVt=DCL 170.)
SOVIET UNION/ RATHER: Terror, sabotage, assassination--it is the stuff of spy
TERRORISM novels. It also is real life. CBS News correspondent Bill
McLaughlin has seen classified documents that tend to confirm
the existence of a highly secret Soviet military group whose
mission is terror, sabotage, assassination.
MCLAUGHLIN: It is called Spetsnaz--Special Military Purposes
Unit. It is controlled by the GRU--Soviet Military
Intelligence. Classified U.S. documents confirm recent
revelations about Spetsnaz by a Soviet military defector. The
roughly 15,000-man force is trained at secret centers in Odessa
and Kirovograd. And what it is trained to do should make U.S.
military planners more concerned.with security, especially with
U.S. military bases abroad. The Spetsnaz training centers
contain mock-ups of made-in-America targets--the cruise and
Pershing missiles and jet fighters like the F-15. Spetsnaz is
trained to sabotage and destroy these missiles and aircraft. It
is also trained to penetrate hundreds of miles into enemy
territory with a sinister mission: to kill the other side's
political and military leaders. Units are now deployed in East
Germany, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. East Germany is also home
for a Spetsnaz naval brigade that.uses Norway and Sweden for
live and dangerous training exercises. Over the past two years,
Swedish and Norwegian destroyers have hunted their coastlines
trying to catch Soviet, subs that seem to appear and disappear at
will. Intelligence sources believe they are Spetsnaz minisubs
manned by sabotage and assassination teams training to destroy
enemy submarine bases and coastal defenses. The recruits are
the best, the brightest and the toughest in the Soviet Union.
But the average Soviet citizen does not know that Spetsnaz
exists. However, some of its best agents are known at home as
something else: sports heroes. Experts on the Soviet Union say
that Soviet military intelligence uses sports as a cover and a
reward for qualified Spetsnaz agents, thus making it possible
that a medal at the Los Angeles Olympic Games could go to a man
from Spetsnaz. Bill. McLaughlin,. CBS News, the State Department.
Approved For Release 2008/06/27: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000200950004-0