ELECTRONICS: A MAJOR PART OF SPY GAME

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000200950006-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 28, 2012
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: October 20, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000200950006-3
ARTICLE APP R D 20 October 1985
ON PAGE _, or
Electronics:
A Major Part
Of Spy Game
5
By DAVID BURNHAM
Spend to The New York Ttmas
WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 - The inter-
cepted radio conversations that pur-
portedly took place between the hijack-
ers of the Achille Lauro and an associ-
ate on shore have underscored the cen-
tral role that electronic snooping now
plays in the intelligence operations of
the United States and other nations.
According to various intelligence of-
ficials and outside experts, both the
United States and the Soviet Union
make enormous expenditures each
year to eavesdrop on the communica-
tions of nations all over the world and
to protect their own sensitive com-
munications from detection.
The United States' largest single in-
telligence organization, the National
Security Agency, for example, has the
prime responsibility for secretly
recording and decoding electronic mes-
sages worldwide. Estimates of its
budget are from $5 billion to $10 billion.
The second largest such organiza-
tion, the National Reconnaissance Of-
fice, is in charge of operating the na- I New Telephones
tion's spy satellites. It report edly as a
$2.5 billion annual budget. An aspect of this broad effort was an
$2 Billion for C.I.A. agency project announced a year ago
to equip various Government agencies,
The Central Intelligence Agency, by military contractors and other private
contrast, has a budget estimated at $2 companies with as many as 500,000
billion. The C.I.A. has the responsibil- newly developed telephones that make
ity for overall analysis of the intelli- secret interception far more difficult
gence information and for guiding indi- than when a conversation is transmit-
vidual spies and undercover agents and ted on convention instruments.
directing undercover operations. The deputy director of the National
Thus, the two agencies primarily re- Security Agency in charge of com-
sponsible for collecting various kinds of munication security, Walter G. Deeley,
electronic data, or what the trade calls said in an interview that he believed
"Sigint" - short for "signals intelli- the United States was in "deep trou-
gence" - are apparently spending at ble" because so many key conversa-
least three times more than what the tions were being picked up by hostile
C.I.A. spends for intelligence from in- governments.
dividual spies or "Humint" - short for "They are having us for breakfast,"
"human intelligence." he said. "We are hemorrhaging. Your
James Bamford, author of'a book on progeny may not enjoy the rights we do i
the National Security Agency, said today if we don't do something."
Congressional experts estimated that Mr. Deeley said anyone making a
65 percent of the intelligence collected long-distance telephone call from the
by the United States came from techni- West Coast, Boston or Washington had
cal sources like satellites. no idea if the call would be transmitted
The strategic electronic espionage by one of the nation's 19 domestic satel-
activities of the National Security lites, microwave towers or cable. "If it
Agency and the National Reconnai- is going via satellite, you can presume
sance Office are conducted from sev- the other guy is listening to it," he said.
eral satellites and from hundreds of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan,
land- and ship-based eavesdropping Democrat of New York, a former
stations in this country as well as in for- member of the Senate Select Commit-
eign countries. tee on Intelligence, has also repeatedly
accused the Soviet Union of widespread
electronic surveillance here. He has
unsuccessfully pressed for a law to
make such activities a Federal crime.
NEW YORK TIMES
Military Eavesdrops, Too
In addition, the three military serv-
ices undertake various forms of tacti-
cal electronic espionage activities. For
example, specially equipped Navy air-
craft were able to eavesdrop and jam
the messages from an Egyptian
The United States' eavesdroppping
satellites are known as "ferrets," and
pick up radar, long-distance telephone
calls, and the telemetry from missile
tests. More than 25 years ago, the
United States developed a technique to
eavesdrop on the radio telephones in
the limousines of top Soviet officials. It
was not until early 1984, however, that
the United States got around to adding
protective equipment to the radio tele-
phones of President Reagan and other
top officials.
airliner as it flew across the Mediterra-
nean with four Arab terrorists, and Is-
raeli intelligence intercepted the ship-
to-shore conversations from the cruise
ship Achille Lauro.
The immediate significance of the in-
terception of the conversation from the
Italian liner is that it has given Federal
prosecutors evidence of the involve-
ment of Mohammed Abbas, leader of a
Palestinian faction, in the hijacking.
According to intelligence officials,
the United States and the Soviet Union
are not alone in undertaking extensive
electronic surveillance activities. Brit-
ain and Czechoslovakia are said to
have widespread experience in this
area of espionage.
One indication of the extent of the
electronic surveillance threat inside
the United States posed by the Soviet
Union and other nations was President
Reagan's decision to order the National
Security Agency to lead a Government-
wide effort to improve the communica-
tion security of the military, civilian
agencies like the Internal Revenue
Service and even private organiza-
tions, like banks, transmitting infor-
mation that might be helpful to an
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000200950006-3