DISINFORMATION: OR, WHY THE VERIFY AN ARMS-CONTROL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000606540019-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2010
• Sequence Number: 19
• Publication Date: July 1, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/24: CIA-RDP90-00552R000606540019-2
ARTICLE
ON FAGE_, f _ JULY 1982
Disinformation: Or, Why the
Verify an Arms-Control
Edward Jay Epstein
W HEN Secretary of Defense Caspar
Weinberger revealed last April that
the Soviet Union had achieved superiority over
the United States in intercontinental missiles, he
provoked a furor in Congress over the status of
the nuclear balance. Weinberger's revelation also
pointed to an intelligence failure of unprecedented
proportions that extended back over two decades,
and that cast a great shadow of doubt over the
capacity of the United States to keep accurate track
of the Soviet military arsenal and therefore to verify
any arms-control agreement with the Soviet Union
in the future.
In 1961, the Soviet Union, despite all its bluff
and bluster, had deployed only four cumbersome
and unreliable intercontinental missiles. U.S. intelli-
gence had confidently asserted that there was no
way the Soviet Union could ever deploy the num-
ber of missiles necessary to threaten the rapidly ex-
panding American missile force without providing
years of advance warning.
Such confidence then seemed fully warranted, as
U.S. intelligence had through its technical wizardry
found means of intercepting virtually all the Soviet
missile-testing data, or telemetry, and of determin-
ing the accuracy of the missiles. It was on the basis
of this powerful array of intelligence about Soviet
activity that American leaders made crucial deci-
sions throughout the 1960's concerning the number,
location, and defense of America's missiles.
Yet in the event, these intelligence assumptions
proved to be seriously flawed. Even though its mis-
sile testing was being relentlessly monitored by
America's electronic sentinels in space and on land,
the Soviet Union, without alerting U.S. intelli-
gence, managed to develop-and deploy-missiles
with multiple warheads accurate enough to attack
the most hardened missile silos in the United States.
EDWARD JA) EPSTEIN writes often on issues of intelligence.
Among his books in this field are Legend: The Secret
11'oild of Lee Harvey Oswald and Inque.ct: The ti'ar,en
Ccmmiscion and the Ecinblishment of Truth. He has also
contributed articles to the New }n:krt, the Ncu lark
How could su
been detected?
At first, explan_-,,,., stir tnis Incredible intelli-
gence failure tended to focus on the errors of the
American analysts. The, inability to see improved
Soviet missile accuracy was attributed either to the
prevailing disposition grossly to underestimate
Soviet technical competence, or to incorrect assump-
tions about the method by which Soviet scientists
tested missile accuracy. The fault, in other words,
lay in self-deception.
However, when the data taken from the Soviet
missiles were studied in retrospect, with the help of
new and better methods of analysis, it appeared that
considerably more was involved in the intelligence
failure than American mistakes and self-deception.
This reanalysis suggested that the Soviet Union had
deliberately and systematically misled American in-
telligence by manipulating and "biasing," as it is
called, the missile transmissions that were being in-
tercepted. In other words, by channeling doctored
data into our most sophisticated scientific spying de-
vices, Soviet intelligence had duped the satellites
and antennas on which American intelligence had
come to depend. The Soviets had thereby effected a
decisive change in the delicate balance of strategic
missiles.
After nearly a decade of bitter debate within the
secret world of intelligence, the deception issue still
remains unresolved. Recently a plan was drawn up
by the National Security Council staff to place tech-
nical as well as human spies tinder the scrutiny of a
centralised counterintelligence authority. The pro-
ponents of this reorganization argue that without
such an "all-source" unit, able to piece together in.
formation from secret agents, surveillance cameras,
and the interception of coded messages and tele-
metry, the various intelligence-gathering services
could again be easily deceived. The opponents of
this plan in the American intelligence agencies
doubt that the Soviets ever in fact orchestrated a
massive deception of our highly sophisticated moni-
torine devtcep, and reject the proposed centraliza-
T:'nrc urn .o ,,.i I'., .. - . tlnll At in.? .1 .i_..
With Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/24: CIA-RDP90-00552R000606540019-2 e