THE ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY IN COVERT INTELLIGENCE COLLECTION BY HERBERT SCOVILLE, JR.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000200030002-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 23
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 14, 2004
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: September 13, 1974
• Content Type: REPORT

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THE ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY
IN COVERT INTELLIGENCE COLLECTION
By Herbert Scoville, Jr.
Background
Beginning with World War II technological methods of
collecting intelligence have become increasingly dominant
over the traditional agent, informer, or defector as sources
of information, particularly in areas affecting national
security. Stealing plans, infiltration of agents into labo-
ratories, visual observation of new weapons have become more
and more difficult and unproductive. Even if a spy might
succeed in getting a look at a new weapon, he might not be
able to acquire important information since this might be
obtainable only with a scientific instrument. Thus, a person
watching a nuclear explosion would learn little other than
that it went off with perhaps some estimate as to whether it
was large or small; but a seismic instrument or an acoustic
listening device half way around the world could tell the ex-
plosive yield, and a filter in an aircraft at this same
distance could collect particles from which the secrets of
the internal design of the bomb could be determined.
Fortunately, as the usefulness of human beings for col-
lecting intelligence has decreased, the science of technical
intelligence collection has grown dramatically. Not only has
collection technology improved, but the very nature of modern
military weaponry has made the task easier. to accomplish in
less provocative ways. Nuclear explosions release trenfendous
amounts of energy, and modern missiles travel along trajec-
tories observable hundreds or even thousands of miles away.
Radars and communications systems frequently bounce energy
off the ionosphere so that the signals can be received at
long distances. Modern weapons and their logistic support
are easily observable by aerial photography. As a consequence,
available information on even the most secret military
weapons and on the deployment of forces even in remote locali-
ties is far superior to what it was twenty years ago.
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When President Eisenhower made his famous "open skies"
proposal calling for unrestricted, but monitored overflight
of national territories on both sides of the Iron Curtain,
we considered that.its acceptance would have gone a long way
toward thawing the Cold War. The Russians disparaged it as
legalized espionage. Today, thanks to technological improve-
ments, our capabilities for obtaining military information
far surpass any that we dreamed of under the Eisenhower plan
and, surprisingly, the Soviet Union in the 1972 SALT Agree-
ments sanctioned the right of the United States to have
pertinent military information provided that it was obtained
by national technical means that were not in violation of
international law.
In view of the overwhelming priority of technological
intelligence collection in the overall intelligence picture,
it is most appropriate that the role of this technology be
examined in considerable detail as a part of the Conference
Study of the entire intelligence process. This paper will
attempt to analyze the usefulness of the major technical
methods of intelligence collection and consider the political
risks and provocations which they entail. These, of course,
could vary considerably depending on the conditions surround-
ing their use. For example, an electronic receiver on a ship
far out in international waters is quite different from one
planted surreptitiously within a Soviet missile test center.
Communications Intercept
One of the oldest forms of intelligence collection is
the interception of other parties' communications. Early man
undoubtedly watched hostile smoke signals and attempted to
decipher the messages being transmitted. However, this form
of intelligence collection took on a whole new significance
with the advent of radio communications, which not only
heralded a tremendous increase in the volume of information
communicated, but also presented valuable new opportunities
for listening in on the messages being transmitted. Since
such listening was so inherently easy, a new field of counter-
measures was developed to protect the privacy of radio commu-
nications. Encrypting messages became a standard procedure
for disguising the content, and this, in turn, promoted a
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science of deciphering the codes. The race was on as one
side attempted to improve the security of its communications
system while the other side attempted to break through these
barriers. Because this was a game of counter-measures and
counter-counter-measures, dark secrecy was applied to efforts
in this area. Successes had to be concealed in order to pre-
vent them from being countered in future situations. The
classic publicized case was the U.S. breaking of the Japanese
codes before World War II. The secrecy over this success was
probably in no small part responsible for our failure to take
advantage of it at the time of Pearl Harbor.
Today, there is probably little question that methods
are available to insure that any specific communication can
be made invulnerable to being read. One time cryptographic
techniques make breaking specific messages almost impossible.
However, in the real world there are practical barriers toward
establishing such tight security on all communications. The
volume of communications, even in the national security area,
is so large that it is not possible to use such methods for
every message. Furthermore, the operation of any system is
always subject to human or mechanical errors and, in cryptog-
raphy, these can lead to the compromise of information. To
minimize this problem, resort is often made to the use of
land lines, short range line of sight radio transmissions, or
reduction in the power of the transmitters in order to limit
the opportunities for intercept.
Finally, even if a message is transmitted in an unbreak-
able code the intercept of the communication may still produce
meaningful intelligence information. For example, the fact
that points A and B are communicating gives by itself a useful
piece of datum since it shows some connection between the two
points; this can often be a clue as to the nature of the work
at A and B. During World War II, the transmission of messages
from Los Alamos, a deserted school site in New Mexico, and the
War Department, to say nothing of the University of Chicago,
Hanford in the state of Washington, or Oak Ridge, Tennessee,
would have provided an important lead as to the nature of the
activities being carried out in the Los Alamos area. The
activation of communications links between a missile launch
site and a missile impact point would be an important indica-
tor that a missile might shortly be fired. Since it is well
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known that these types of communications could provide clues
to the hordes of analysts involved in communications intelli-
gence, communications security has to go farther than just
establishing codes. It must control the volume and nature
of the traffic on any communications link and frequently pass
false messages in order to hamper traffic analysis. Thus, it
will be seen that communications intelligence is a vast game
of cops and robbers in which each side is continuously trying
to outwit the other. Secrecy is an inevitable component in
this game which must be played if this information source is
sufficiently valuable.
There would seem to be little question that this form of
intelligence collection is vital not only in the national
security, but in the political area as well. Intercepting
communications can provide a wealth of useful information on
governmental plans and thinking. Different parts of a modern
bureaucracy must communicate to operate. While the most
sensitive messages can be kept secret, many of the less criti-
cal ones can be intercepted and understood. Furthermore, much
useful information must be'transmitted completely in the open,
and occasionally this can prove to be of vital importance,
For example, at the end of August, 1961, a woman listening to
open radio transmissions within the Soviet Union at a receiver
in the eastern Mediterranean heard an advance press release
with a three-day embargo announcing that the Russians would
resume nuclear testing. She recognized the significance of
this message, pulled it out of the mass of transcripts which
were being made routinely and forwarded it by priority to
Washington. This unclassified message gave President Kennedy
advance notice of the Soviet intentions to terminate the
nuclear test moratorium and the opportunity to take political
action to forestall this Soviet move. Unfortunately, the
government decision-making bureaucracy was too cumbersome
and, in the end, the President docilely allowed the Soviets
to recommence testing. An important political opportunity was
lost. This is a good example of where intelligence was good
but was of little value because of unwillingness to act upon
The usefulness of communications intercept in the na-
tional security field is so great and all-encompassing that
the selection of specific examples can be misleading. Aljnost
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all military activities both in peacetime and in war are
heavily dependent oncommunications.
greatlyfenthese hancedan b~ thed,
then national security would
event that military forces were to be used in a surprise
aggression, widespread communications would be needed between
their various elements. The understanding of even one of
these messages might give advance warning and eliminate the
surprise. It could be the difference between national sur-
vival or collapse. It should be remembered that the communi-
cator normally has to send thousands of messages, while the
intelligence collection system can perhaps succeed in breaking
the system by a single success. Even if the content of the
messages cannot be read, the increased volume of communica-
tions could frequently be the indication that some operation
is imminent. Communications between military aircraft and
the ground are an important source of intelligence on mili-
tary operations. In the heat of battle, communications
security is frequently very poor.
As mentioned previously, messages passed on a missile
test range or at other weapons test sites can provide im-
portant clues as to the nature of the weapons system involved.
For example at the Atomic Energy Commission's (AEC) test sites
in Nevada and Eniwetok, scientists were in constant communica-
tions between various instrumentation stations and the labora-
tories at headquarters. Although there were strict injunctions
on communications security, any recording of these messages
would certainly have provided invaluable information on the
nature of the tests and their results. Security had to rely
primarily, but not always successfully, on the fact that the
frequencies and power used in the communications system were
such as to limit the range over which they could be received.*
As technology has improved, however, the ability to pick up
weak signals, to use computer techniques for pulling information
* Sometimes communications can inadvertently mislead. In 1958,
the Russians were obviously listening to communications at the
Eniwetok test site. They heard messages sent for a rehearsal
and mistook this for an actual test. Later, in commenting on
the extensive U.S. testing program at the Geneva test ban
negotiations, they wrongly listed this as an actual U.S. nuclear
test.
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out of the noise, and to understand better the nature of an
anomalous radio, transmission has made it easier to overcome
attempts to conceal the messages. Computers are also criti-
cally important for cryptoanalysis, although never sufficient
to break a truly first class communications code. The
counter-measure counter-counter-measure battle continues
today, albeit at a much higher technological level.
What are the political implications of intercepting
governmental communications: Secretary Stimson is reported
to have said before World War II that "nations, like gentle-
men, do not read other people's mail." This highly moral
attitude has long since disappeared from the conduct of na-
tions, and no longer is the public horrified at the thought
of such operations. All countries take for granted that
attempts are being made to intercept their communications
and employ the best counter-measures of which they are tech-
nically capable. This, of course, works to the disadvantage
of less affluent and less developed countries since they
neither have the resources nor the sophistication to carry
out such operations on a sufficiently extensive scale.
The provocation from this type of operation depends pri-
marily on the means and location by which the intercept is
carried out. Much of this can be done from international
waters or from friendly countries bordering the target area.
In the latter case, political sensitivities can be raised
since most nations do not wish it known that their territory
is being used as a base for intelligence operations against
their neighbors. However, such operations are so widely prac-
ticed that they now are rarely the cause for international
protest. The use of friendly countries,as a base does, how-
ever, create a degree of indebtedness to that country which
can sometimes be a political liability. We are prone to
support regimes which allow us to use their territory even
though the objectives of that regime may not be compatible
with our basic political goals. This is a problem which
applies to cooperation in intelligence gathering generally
and is probably less serious in the communications intercept
area than in more clandestine or provocative operations.
For some types of communications, receiving at a distance
is not practical, and this leads to operations which can be
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much more provocative. For example, for the intercept of
certain air defense communications it may be desirable to. fly
very close to the border. This can be much more provocative
and occasionally errors can occur in which the aircraft acci-
dentally overflies another nation's territory. This can be
the cause of major incidents. Even more provocative would be
a situation in which the aircraft purposely intruded across
the boundaries of a country, but this probably rarely occurs
any more; certainly not by the United States over Russia or
by Russia over the United States. However, both countries
may have truly covert communications intercept operations in-
side the other nation's borders. These might be for the pur-
pose of intercepting some highly sensitive communication link
which could not be picked up at long range. Such an opera-
tion, of course, has all the political risks of any covert
operation and would only be practiced under highly critical
situations.
A new form of communication employs satellites as relay
stations. Since these are for transmission over very long
distances they are easily intercepted without the need. for
provocative collection operations within the territory of
the communicating country. In general, therefore, such
satellites would not be used for highly sensitive messages
unless some unbreakable code were used. In theory, satel-
lites can also be a platform for communications intercept,
but since satellites in normal orbit traverse the nation at
a very high rate of speed, they would provide only intermit-
tent information. A stationary satellite over a particular
location has to be more than 20,000 miles out which reduces
greatly its effectiveness in receiving radio signals unless
they are beamed directly to it. However, if it could be
used for this purpose, it certainly would not be provocative
since satellites for intelligence collection are now inter-
nationally accepted. (See section on Photo-Reconnaissance.)
Electronic Intelligence (ELINT)
A similar type of technological intelligence collection
is the intercept of radio waves of a non-communications type,
particularly those from radars. This type of intercept, known
as ELINT in the intelligence jargon, first came into being
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with the advent of radar in World War II and has since blos-
somed into a very extensive intelligence activity. Radars
are now the eyes of almost every aspect of military opera-
tions. In addition to detecting and tracking hostile air-
craft and missiles, radio beams are used for guiding defensive
missiles toward the incoming targets. Although many modern
offensive missiles now rely on inertial or laser guidance
techniques to avoid the chances of their being jammed, radars
are often used for offensive missilry as well. Radars are
critical to all manner of naval operations. Thus the collec-
tion and analysis of ELINT has become a very high priority
task of all military intelligence organizations.
Radars, if they are to be of any military use, must be
continually exercised. An air defense radar which is not
turned on provides no defense at all. Furthermore, training
must be continuously carried out to insure that they are
operated properly. All of these factors provide frequent
opportunities for carrying out ELINT operations. Counter-
measures, such as with the coding used for communications
transmissions, are not available to maintain security. The
only protection is to restrict the operations of the radars
to locations well within the interior of the country so that
the opportunities for ELINT collection are minimized. How-
ever, even this is not feasible since most air defense radars
must be located near the border, aimed out, in order to detect
aircraft flying in. The same is true for ballistic missile
defense radars. Moreover, even for tactical electronic equip-
ment, maneuvers must be carried out and, particularly in
Europe where the most advanced systems are likely to be em-
ployed, these must be held in regions susceptible to obser-
vation by foreign intelligence.
However, despite the increased opportunities for ELINT
collection, all such operations are not necessarily non-
provocative. In order to detect anti-aircraft radars located
along the periphery of a country, it is frequently necessary
to fly aircraft and sail ships close to the borders in order
to intercept the signals. Frequently, such operations are
subjects of international incidents. The Pueblo seizure off
the coast of Korea is an example of one in which the intercept
platform, this time a ship, was seized in international waters,
although operating in a perfectly legal manner. On another
occasion of more doubtful legality a U.S. RB 47 flying along
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the Russian arctic coast was shot down and the crew captured
in 1960. We insisted that the plane was always over inter-
national waters, but the Russians claimed we had penetrated
into their air space. When the crew was returned as a part
of the detente at the beginning of the Kennedy administration,
the crew members admitted having been over Russian territory
thus at least partially substantiating the Russian claim.
Even when over international waters, such operations can
be provocative. and are often a potential source of interna-
tional incidents. In order to insure that the radars will be
turned on and functioning in a truly operational mode, the
aircraft frequently approach the coast as if intending to
penetrate the national boundaries. it is not surprising that
under such circumstances, trigger-happy air defense personnel
are inclined to take counteraction. Furthermore, the scale
and number of such operations is probably much larger than
can be really justified on the basis of military need. There
is always a tendency in such a situation to repeat and repeat
operations with the consequent increased probability that an
incident will occur. Greater restraint on the part of those
authorizing such operations would probably reduce interna-
tional tensions without any serious loss to national security.
A related type of intelligence collection normally
classed under FLINT is the intercept of telemetry signals
from new weapons testing programs. In order to develop a new
missile or carry out a space mission, a nation must equip its
test vehicles with instrumentation to measure the functioning
of various components, and the only way in which the data from
these instruments can be relayed back to the test site is by
radio-telemetry. Since in many cases the telemetry signals
will be receivable at long distances from the source, the op-
portunities for intercepting such signals from without the
country are great. Interpretation of the signals may be more
difficult than for the nation which was originating the tele-
metry, but, nevertheless, useful information can frequently
be obtained on the nature of the test program. An example of
conspicuously successful telemetry intercept was at the time
of the first Soviet manned space flight. U.S. receivers in
the Aleutians were able to pick up the television pictures of
the astronauts as they were being transmitted back to the
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Soviet Union so that U.S. authorities were in a position to
know simultaneously with the Russians that the mission was a
success. Soviet secrecy had led to considerable skepticism
over their claims of space superiority, and these intercepts
provided the data for an independent analysis of their
achievements. Similar telemetry intercepts provided much of
the information which Secretary Schlesinger and his predeces-
sors have published on the details of the Soviet missile test
program.
Since most of this collection can be carried out at long
distances and outside the territories of the testing country,
it is not provocative and therefore not a source of interna-
tional friction. Truly covert ELINT operations within the
country are rarely needed or feasible, but in some areas the
territories of friendly countries are required as a base of
operations. This could on occasion lead to political embar-
rassment and an undue dependence on the good will of that
country in order to obtain permission for the operations. A
case in point is Turkey which is strategically located oppo-
site the southern border of the Soviet Union where much of
the Soviet missile launching and other weapons testing occurs.
It is no secret that the United States has many stations in
that country for the collection of such information, and the
continuance of these operations is dependent on maintaining
good relations with the Turkish government. These relations
were recently subject to strains as a result of our desire
to persuade the Turkish government to halt the cultivation
of poppies, a major source of the illicit drug trade in the
United States. The United States could have been hampered
in its representations to Turkey by the desire to keep these
strains from reaching the point where we would lose our re-
ceiving sites there.
The reentry part of the Soviet ICBM test ranges is either
on the Kamchatka peninsula or in the Pacific ocean, so obser-
vations can be made from U.S. territory or international
waters, obviating the political difficulty of dealing with
other foreign governments. Intelligence on Soviet MIRV pro-
grams is thus easy to obtain without any political hazards.
Unfortunately, satellites are not ideal platforms for
intercept of signals from those portions of the test ranges in
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the interior of the USSR because normal altitude satellites
traverse the target area so rapidly that the duration of any
single intercept is very short. Thus it would be easy to
schedule launchings so as to minimize useful coverage by the
satellite receivers. The intercept from stationary satel-
lites at a distance of more than 20,000 miles is greatly
handicapped because the long range reduces the strength of
the signal to an intolerable extent.
Radars for Intelligence Collection
A final form of electronic intelligence collection is
the converse of ELINT, that is the use of active radars to
observe a missile in flight. This type of collection, known
as RADINT, involves the transmission of easily detectable
radio signals so it cannot be done clandestinely. It has
been used very successfully to observe missile flight testing
by operating high-powered radars within line of sight of the
ballistic missile trajectory. By this method the United
States was able to confirm the first Soviet ICBM test flight
in 1957 and to keep track of virtually all launchings of
long-range missiles since that date. The deployment of such
radars on native territory is of course'non-provocative since
radiation has no effect on the object in space. However, as
in the case of the telemetry receivers referred to earlier,
the radar had to be located in Turkey in order to observe
the launch ends of the Soviet medium, intermediate and inter-
continental range ballistic missiles. Although there was a
moderate amount of secrecy associated with this radar instal-
lation to avoid undue provocation, it could not be kept from
the Russians since it was a large installation which trans-
mitted very powerful radio waves. To the best of my knowledge
no official protest was ever made to Turkey over this instal-
lation. However, it did increase U.S. dependence on Turkish
good will. The more that such type of technological intelli-
gence collection is recognized internationally as legal, the
less will be the dependence on good will of the nation for its
continued deployment. The United States and the USSR have now
endorsed such national technical means for use in verifying
arms control agreements. (see page 21.)
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A new form of RADINT which can perhaps become of increas-
ing value and which would present even fewer international
problems would be the use of over the horizon (OTH) radars.
Since these do not require line of sight location, they do
not need to be located in sensitive areas. However, at pres-
ent, such technology is not as advanced so that the quality
and thus the value of the information gathered would probably
be considerably lower. So far only the wildest and most
impractical schemes have been suggested for using satellites
as radar platforms. Side looking radars, flown in aircraft,
have been developed for observing ground targets, even through
cloud cover and at night, but the quality of the information
obtained is relatively low when compared with optical photog-
raphy. It is unlikely that overflight of hostile territory
would ever be undertaken in peacetime for this type of in-
telligence collection so such radars would only be useful for
observations of areas close to the border.
Nuclear Test Detection Methods
A special class of technical intelligence techniques
includes those which have been devised for the specific pur-
pose of detecting and obtaining information on nuclear tests.
Ever since the first nuclear explosion, an important intelli-
gence goal has been to acquire knowledge of nuclear tests
carried out by foreign governments and insofar as possible to
gather as much information on the nature of the explosive
used. As a consequence, over a period of years a series of
highly sophisticated scientific methods were developed and
put into operation. Fortunately, nuclear weapons produce
such large scale phenomena that they are easily observed at
very long distances from the source and, therefore, do not
require the intrusion into the territories of the testing
country. Measurements can in many cases be made half way
around the world, but since broad geographic coverage is fre-
quently desired, particularly if information on source loca-
tion is needed, collection stations have been placed in
friendly countries. Although such operations were often kept
secret in order to avoid possible embarrassment to the host
nation, this precaution was probably exaggerated since no one
has ever questioned the legality or desirability of gathering
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this type of information. The value and effectiveness of the
various techniques were freely discussed in open negotiations
which began in 1958 and led to the Limited Test Ban Treaty of
1963. There have been continued international information
exchanges since then in attempts to negotiate a comprehensive
test ban. Rather than being considered provocative, the col-
lection of information on nuclear tests is looked on as a
contribution toward reducing the risks of nuclear war.
These specialized techniques included seismic and acoustic
receivers which could pick up the shock waves transmitted
through the earth and air and provide data on the location
and size of the explosion. Recordings of the electromagnetic
waves produced at the moment the explosion occurred provided
supplementary information. For detonations which took place
in the atmosphere or which vented into the atmosphere, the
collection of the radioactive debris provided unequivocal
evidence that it was indeed nuclear in origin and most im-
portantly, information on the nature of the explosive device.
All of these techniques were refined until a very sophisti-
cated intelligence collection system emerged and made the
nuclear programs of any nation testing in the atmosphere rela-
tively open. Since 1963, all tests except those carried out
by France and China have taken place underground so that de-
tailed information available from radioactive debris analysis
has been denied. Since very small amounts of radioactive ma-
terial are needed to carry out detailed radio chemical analy-
ses, the debris does not need to be collected close to the
source. Aircraft flying over international waters and, in
many cases, on the opposite side of the world, are quite
satisfactory for sampling the bomb clouds. Thus, this very
useful intelligence technique does not-involve any provoca-
tive action. Occasionally, bases from which t1e sampling
aircraft take off were located in foreign countries in order
to obtain cloud samples within a shorter time after the ex-
plosion, but the use of such bases has never generated any
international repercussions. Overflight of non-friendly
nations was never required.
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Photoreconnaissance
While all the foregoing technological methods of intelli-
gence collection are extremely useful for the maintenance of
adequate information to protect our national security, they
are dwarfed in importance by photoreconnaissance. A picture
is worth a thousand words--and often many reels of recorded
radio signals. Photography provides easily understandable
evidence even when a skilled photo-interpreter is needed to
describe the object on the film. It has applications in al-
most every intelligence area, whether it be scientific,
political, economic or military.
While photoreconnaissance has long been an important
tool of intelligence, recent technological advances culminat-
ing in the capability to obtain useful photography using
satellites as platforms have completely revolutionized the
entire intelligence collection process. No longer can any
nation hide its military and industrial activities behind an
Iron Curtain. Only those facilities, equipment, or forces
that can be continuously kept under a non-revealing cover,
such as underground or in an innocuous structure, can be con-
cealed; this can rarely be done. The mission of an agent to
procure information on troop dispositions, missile deploy-
ments, or submarine construction has now been eliminated. An
entire country can be photographed within a few days, the
only limitation being the degree to which clouds interfere,
and almost no area in the world is continuously cloud covered.
Thus, with persistence any target is now subject to photo
observation.
Aerial reconnaissance dates back to the first availability
of the airplane, and probably the most valuable function of
aircraft in World War I was to carry out visual reconnaissance.
By World War II the sophistication of both the aircraft plat-
form and its photographic systems was greatly improved, and
aerial reconnaissance was an important combat mission. How-
ever, the risk of a single aircraft operating on a reconnais-
sance mission being shot down was very high so that its use-
fulness was somewhat restricted. With the end of open conflict
the value of photographic reconnaissance became very limited
because of the political and physical hazards of penetration
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beyond foreign borders. While such overflights probably oc-
curred, they were certainly very limited in number. They
could only be justified for the most critical intelligence
missions and occasionally resulted in the loss of the air-
craft and crew. A few abortive attempts were made to use
balloons as camera platforms, but this misguided effort
collapsed without many tears being shed by the intelligence
community. They were both provocative and non-productive.
In 1955, the effectiveness of the Iron curtain in ob-
scuring Soviet military developments became intolerable to
U.S. security planners as the Russians gradually accumulated
nuclear weapons of greater and greater power and sophistica-
tion. Under CIA direction a crash program was initiated to
develop a very high altitude long-range photoreconnaissance
aircraft equipped with the most advanced state-of-the-art
photographic equipment. Its ability to fly above Soviet
interceptor or missile defenses was its only protection; it
could, however, be observed and tracked by Soviet radars so
that its presence was known. On the other hand, it had no
capability for offensive action. This new aircraft, nick-
named the U-2, was truly a revolutionary technological achieve-
ment and became operational in 1956 just at a time when fears
were being aroused over the burgeoning Russian ballistic
missile program. Overflights of critical areas in the Soviet
Union were carefully programmed, and for the first time the
Iron Curtain was significantly lifted.
Although the Soviet leaders knew of these overflights,
they refrained from public protest since they did not wish
to admit to the vulnerability of their air space--a good ex-
ample of a most provocative intelligence collection program
which was protected by its immunity from counteraction.
However, by may 1960, perhaps with the assistance of a bit
of luck, the Russians finally managed to shoot down a U-2,
and the, international uproar that followed brought this pro-
gram of overflight of the USSR to an end. However, the use-
ful reconnaissance life of U-2 type aircraft continued, and
this type plane discovered the Soviet missiles being deployed
in Cuba and also provided photographic coverage in many
troubled areas of the world even up to the present time.
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Although the U-2 was invaluable in collecting the only
information then obtainable on a wide variety of high priority
intelligence targets within the Soviet Union, it still was far
from an ideal reconnaissance platform. Because of the politi-
cal sensitivity of overflights, the number of sorties was kept
very limited, perhaps of the order of thirty during the four
years that it operated in that theater. More importantly, the
area that an aircraft could cover in a single flight was
limited to at the most a swath approximately 100 miles across
and about 500 miles long. As a consequence, only the highest
priority locations could be targeted for coverage, and large
areas of the Soviet union remained completely blacked out.
When fears of a missile gap arose in 1959, every effort
was made to find possible ICBM launch sites; this was the
primary mission for the ill-fated flight in may of 1960. No
such operational launchers were ever located by a U-2, but
because of the limited area covered, the negative results
were no proof of their absence and did nothing to allay fears
that deployment was under way. The Soviets had a fully tested
and operational, so-called SS-6, ICBM, and the logical assump-
tion was that it was being deployed. The failure of the U-2
to find launchers could not dispel the belief that they were
there. It was not until more than a year later, when satellite
photography with the capability of large area coverage became
available, that one could establish that the Russians never
deployed more than a handful of.their first generation ICBMs.
Aircraft photoreconnaissance has tremendous value in
some situations since the vehicle can be easily directed on
short notice to a specific location, can take a high resolu-
tion picture, and can give a planner useable information
within a few hours after the return of the plane. It has
the disadvantages of the need for a base within range of the
target, of limited area coverage, of vulnerability to destruc-
tion and, most importantly, of being extremely provocative.
It is hard to tell whether a plane is carrying a camera or a
bomb. This hostile characteristic frequently destroys com-
pletely its value as an intelligence tool in peacetime. Be-
cause of their flexibility, aircraft will probably continue
to have limited utility as platforms for photoreconnaissance
despite these drawbacks. The United States has already
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available a successor to the U-2, the SR-71, and the Soviet
Union also has planes for this purpose. Other nations use
them as well and in times of actual armed conflict they be-
come essential.
October 4, 1957, however, marked the beginning of a new
era which culminated in the current revolutionary improvement
in capabilities for photoreconnaissance.* On that day the
Soviets orbited their first satellite which traversed the
United States and many other countries of the world and set
the precedent for making legitimate space transit of national
territories without permission of the states involved. No
request was ever made for permission to carry out this opera-
tion, and no complaint was ever voiced by the Soviet Union
when the United States followed suit the next year.. No other
country has ever raised the question of legality, and thus
the first steps were taken toward the establishment in custom-
ary international law of the freedom of access to outer space
for peaceful and scientific purposes.
Of course, these early satellites did not contain any
cameras for taking pictures of the territory over which they
passed, but the precedent had been set, and it was not long
thereafter that at least crude reconnaissance capabilities
became available. In 1960, the United States orbited weather
satellites capable of making low resolution photographs of
the earth, i.d., photographs which could define large geo-
graphical features such as lakes, but not smaller manmade
objects such as buildings or vehicles. In April 1961, the
Soviets placed Astronaut Gagarin in orbit around the earth
so that at least limited visual observation would have been
possible. Still no complaints on the part of any nation.
Admittedly, these early space flights were of no practical
value. for intelligence purposes, but they did help set the
stage for international approval of satellite reconnaissance.
Already by May 1960, when the U-2`aircraft was shot down
over the Soviet Union, the United States had foreseen the
* This material on satellite reconnaissance is drawn from a
chapter by the author entitled "A Leap Forward in verifica-
tion" in the book SALT - The Moscow Agreements and Beyond,
Free Press, 1974.
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eventual demise of aircraft reconnaissance over many foreign
countries and had proceeded with a program for developing
methods of obtaining similar information from satellites.
But in the spring of 1960, this new camera platform was
still not fully operational. As mentioned earlier, fears of
widespread Soviet ICBM deployment that could not be confirmed
or put to rest by the U-2 or other intelligence sources re-
sulted in the creation of the so-called "missile gap," an im-
portant campaign issue in the presidential elections of that
year. There was no disagreement even within the Eisenhower
administration that the Soviets had more ballistic missiles
than the United States, only on the size of the gap and its
military significance. The Air Force saw the gap as very
large and the significance as horrendous, while the President
was less concerned since he felt the U.S. bomber deterrent
was more than enough to compensate for the reasonably esti-
mated disparity in missile force levels until the U.S. missile
program could catch up. By the end of 1960, satellite photog-
raphy was starting to be available and during early 1961, the
missile gap began to shrink and, by the end of 1961, U.S.
authorities confidently discounted the existence of any missile
gap. Apparently the Russians had deployed at the most a hand-
ful of their cumbersome first-generation SS-6 missiles. The
ability to carry out satellite observation of large areas of
the Soviet Union with sufficient photographic resolution to
spot missile silos had proven that the launchers were not
hidden even in the most remote parts of the USSR.
The Soviet Union proceeded with a parallel development of
observation satellites, and both nations improved the capabi-
lities of their systems throughout the 1960's. By 1964, Sec-
retary McNamara was regularly reporting publicly on Soviet
strategic deployments and in 1967 President Johnson extolled
the virtues of the U.S. space program for protecting our
security. In recent years, Secretaries Laird and Schlesinger
have described the Soviet strategic posture in detail, fre-
quently announcing new construction very shortly after it began
and accurately describing the size of Soviet missiles. Neither
country, however, publicly admitted the method by which this
information was obtained in order to avoid a political con-
frontation and a possible international uproar which might
have raised questions as to the legality of such operations.
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Instead, there was a tacit recognition of photographic satel-
lite capabilities by both sides and perhaps an increasing
realization that the availability of the information to the
other nation provided a stabilizing influence.
Satellite reconnaissance has a number of major advan-
tages over that carried out by aircraft in addition to its
invulnerability and international acceptance. A satellite
in an orbit of 100 to 300 miles altitude can survey very
large areas in a very short time period. If a satellite were
launched in a north-south polar trajectory, then the entire
earth could be covered, once in daylight and once at night,
every 24 hours. Thus, a satellite camera platform is ideally
suited for searching large areas to determine the presence of
military equipment and installations. A satellite at these
altitudes would normally have an orbit period of approximately
1' hours, thus permitting 16 orbits of the earth each day.
For complete daily coverage of the earth's surface at 450
latitude, the camera would have to photograph a swath 1,100
miles wide. Since most of the USSR lies north of the 450
latitude, a camera that could observe 600 miles on each side
could cover the entire USSR in successive passes. Since this
wide a swath might unduly degrade the quality of the picture,
it may be more practical to photograph a narrower strip of
the earth, leaving gaps in the coverage which can then be
filled in on subsequent days. This gap-filling can be accom-
plished by selecting an orbital period which is not an even
fraction of 24 hours so that the identical path over the
earth will not be covered on successive days. The satellite
programming must, of course, take into account the hours of
sunlight, but a complete survey should be obtainable in 3 to
4 days. Some areas will inevitably be screened by clouds,
so observation of the entire country cannot be counted on
in any given flight. While certain parts of the world are
covered by clouds a large part of the time, they are never
covered 100 percent of the time, and the entire world is thus
always potentially exposed to satellite observation.
Since the wider the swath, the poorer will be the
photographic resolution, a narrower band would have to be
photographed in a single pass for detailed examination of an
object. This can be accomplished by longer focal length
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cameras which can be programmed to look at small areas. Thus,
a survey type system might locate a missile silo while a high
resolution system could measure its dimensions and determine
its characteristics. Apparently, at the present time, the
United States and the USSR each have both kinds of systems,
i.e., those that can photograph rapidly-large areas with rela-
tively low resolution, and other systems which can focus on
specific locations deemed of interest as a result of the large
area surveys. Judging by the details reported on Soviet
weapons systems, the United States and probably also the USSR
have a capability to resolve objects with a dimension of a few
feet or even less. This would permit the observation of most
items of military equipment exposed in the open, but the
presence and characteristics of those under cover can only be
inferred from the nature of the surroundings. The informa-
tion obtained can be relayed back to earth by TV transmission,
in which case the quality and resolution might be degraded,
or by returning the photographic film to earth in a recover-
able capsule. In the case of TV transmission, the time lag
between observation and the. availability of the information
at a command center can be very short--hours or less, but if
the film must be returned to earth, the delay can be days or
even a week or more.
In the early 1960's, while the early reconnaissance
satellites were being gradually improved, debate was simul-
taneously proceeding on the international legality of such
operations. Although the principle of free access to space
for peaceful purposes was universally recognized from the
outset, considerable debate ensued concerning the definition
of the term "peaceful." In 1962, in the Legal Subcommittee
of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer
Space, the Soviet Union proposed that the "use of artificial
satellites for collection of intelligence information in the
territory of foreign states is incompatible with the peaceful
objective of mankind in its conquest of outer space." The
United States, while not accepting that'reconnaissance satel-
lites were "incompatible" with the peaceful uses of space,,
was, nevertheless, a strong advocate of restricting the use
of outer space to non-military purposes. This apparent incon-
sistency in position was clarified by a later U.S. statement
that reconnaissance was non-aggressive and, therefore, should
be considered peaceful and essentially a non-military use. The
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United States argued that observation from space is consistent
with international law just as is observation from the high
.seas.
This difference in point of view between the United
States and the Soviet Union was finally resolved in the fall
of 1963 when the Soviet Union suddenly dropped its insistence
on including a ban on space reconnaissance and negotiated with
the U.S. representatives a United Nations resolution* dealing
with outer space which called upon all States to refrain from
placing in orbit nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass
destruction. The United States and the USSR had just previ-
ously stated their intentions not to do so without including
any reference to the issue of reconnaissance satellites.
This public change in Russian attitude may have resulted
from their acquisition of a satellite reconnaissance capabi-
lity of their own, although Khrushchev is reported,to have
stated earlier that satellite photography was permissible.
In 1967, this U.N. resolution was broadened into a Trey on
Outer Space** which carefully omitted reconnaissance fro
the banned activities. However, no document during this
period ever specifically endorsed the use of space for recon-
naissance purposes.
The final seal of approval was placed on the use of
space for photoreconnaissance by the ABM Treaty and the Interim
Agreement on offensive Weapons signed in Moscow, in 1972. In
these agreements the United States and the USSR:agreed that
national technical means should not only be used to verify
the provisions of these arms control agreements., but also that
these information collection methods should neither be inter-
fered with, nor have deliberate concealment measures used
against them. While satellite reconnaissance is not specifi-
cally mentioned in the treaty, the legislative history is
clear that this was the key method of information collection
being referred to. While these were bilateral agreements
* General Assembly Resolution 1884, XVIII, October 17, 1963.
** Treaty on the Principles Governing the Activities of States
in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon
and Other Celestial Bodies.
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between the United States and the USSR, no other country has
ever objected to such reconnaissance, and thus one can say
that it now has widespread international legality. At last
we have available a technological intelligence collection
tool which is recognized as legal and, therefore, non-;
provocative. Space vehicles are not practical for launching
weapons and so overflights by reconnaissance satellites can-
not be considered as hostile acts. Furthermore, such recon-
naissance has the capability of satisfying such a wide
variety of information needs that it should reduce the
justification for intelligence collection by many much more
provocative methods. For example, aircraft reconnaissance
could be largely phased out and the capability maintained
only for extraordinary situations or potential use in wartii -,
New Role of Technical Intelligence
A review of the overall field of technical intelligence
collection demonstrates with little question its overwhelming
importance in the entire intelligence picture. No other in-
telligence methodology even approaches technical intelligence
in the breadth of its applications or in the quality of the
information provided. It produces a wealth of hard facts
much less subject to alternative interpretations than the
information from other sources. No one questions its relia-
bility as a source since it is not subject to manipulation
like a human agent. Its data is invaluable for almost every
aspect of military and national security planning. Even such
limited arms control agreements as the partial Test Ban
Treaty and the SALT treaties would have been impossible with-
out technical intelligence data, and, more significant,
disarmament will never be achieved without it. Even in the
political arena, technical intelligence provides the factual
background to assess the estimates of intentions derived from
political analyses. It is similarly useful in the economic
field where it provides data on industrial and agricultural
programs without which too often one would be dependent on
suspect published reports.
Technology has not only improved the intelligence data
base, but it has done so with increasingly less provocation
and fewer political risks. The use of satellite platforms
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are now internationally recognized as proper for the collec-
tion of what heretofore had been considered sensitive national
information. Many other technical collection methods can be
effectively used without intrusion across national boundaries.
National technical means of verifying arms limitations have
been legitimized in treaties between the United States and
the Soviet Union. This is a revolutionary turnabout from the
outcry which greeted President Eisenhower's "open skies"
proposal.
The important question that should be asked is whether
our national security planners and the intelligence community
have adequately taken this new situation into account. We
should not carry out politically risky agent operations when
the incremental addition to data available by technical
methods is not large. We should not carry out provocative
peacetime aircraft missions when satellites can provide the
same data even if the latter method is more expensive. We
should not be negotiating arrangements with governments
inimical to our democratic principles just to obtain a base
for redundant information available from other sources.
Aircraft and naval missions which run the risk of armed
conflict should be carefully re-examined to determine their
real priority in light of the new situation. Some of these
new looks are undoubtedly taking place and may be behind
the reported cutbacks and reorganizations in the intelligence
community, but in light of the revolutionary changes wrought
by improvements in the technology of intelligence collection,
it is hard to believe that even more cannot be done.
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