WHO IS WINNING THE SPY WAR?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000200990001-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: May 4, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000200990001-4
ARTICLE AP
ON PAGE I
WHO IS WINNING
spywmi
Some are worried about
America's ability to protect
its secrets and ferret out
those of the Soviet Union.
WELL
"
T CALD
he espionage revela-
tions of recent years
show that Soviet intelli-
gence penetrated al-
most every U.S. na-
tional security agency,
doing incalculable harm in the pro-
cess. But the Soviets, too, have suf-
fered serious intelligence losses, in-
cluding, no doubt, some that
Washington never will publicize and
Moscow never will acknowledge.
Who, then, is winning the spy
war?
Without access to the intelligence
secrets most closely held on both
sides, the answer must remain
something of an educated guess.
Some of those best equipped to make
that guess, however, are deeply wor-
ried about America's ability to pro-
tect its own vital secrets and ferret
out those of the Soviet Union.
George Carver spent 23 years at
the en me igence Agency, be-
ginning as a junior officer in 1953
and retiring in 1976 as deputy to the
director of central intelligence for
national security. Mr. Carver, who is
now a senior fellow at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies
in Washington, is dismayed by re-
cent events and not optimistic about
the future.
Mr. Carver worries most about
counterintelligence, the ability of
the United States to prevent Soviet
penetrations or, failing that, to dis-
cover them in time to limit the dam-
age.
"We are not doing all that well,
partly because counterintelligence
is a fairly thorny nettle for a demo-
cratic society;" Mr. Carver said in a
recent interview.
'Good counterintelligence g'eesi
against the grain of much in our so-
ciety - civil liberties, for example.
That does not mean we have to be-
come a police state, but it does mean
that certain things must be done that
some civil libertarians might not
like:' he said.
WASHINGTON TIMES
4 May 1987
Mr. Carver listed three essentials
if the United States is to possess an
adequate counterintelligence cap-
ability:
First, see the Soviet Union as the
implacable adversary it considers
the United States.
Second, keep extensive files on
people with access to classified in-
formation.
Third, rigorously screen every-
one granted security clearances,
and reinvestigate them regularly.
Mr. Carver believes that none of
these requirements is being met suf-
ficiently today.
"The State Department gave an
award to somebody the other day
who said that although some Soviet
nationals employed at the U.S. Em-
bassy in Moscow were intelligence
agents, many others were hard-
working and 'loyal' to the embassy.
"That is the sort of naivete that
makes us vulnerable to penetration;'
said Mr. Carver.
"It is hard for some people to
accept that there is an adversary
(the Soviet Union) that refers to us
as the 'main enemy' and works con-
stantly to suborn our people," he
Mr. Carver also believes that the
battering the Central Intelligence
Agency absorbed from Congress
.during the 1970s sharply diminished
the agency's ability to detect some
Soviet intelligence operations.
Wholesale dismissals of counterin-
telligence agents and, later, of clan-
destine service officers, com-
pounded the damage, according to
Mr. Carver.
14 James J. Angleton, who built up
the (CA's counterintelligence direc-
torate during the 1960s, was re-
ported recently by The New York
Times to have told friends that its
- aftffhvas reduced from 280 to 80
during the 1973-76 tenure of then-
CIA Director William Colby.
Mr. Angleton also reportedly said
that many of the directorate's oper-
ations were terminated and the re-
maining staff left paralyzed.
Soon after the Carter admin-
istration took office in 1977,
a reported 820 members of
the clandestine service (offi-
cers who work abroad and recruit
foreign agents) were dismissed and
not replaced. Reportedly, this repre-
sented a 40 percent cut in the clan-
destine service; a deliberate de-
cision by the Carter White House to
de-emphasize so-called human intel-
ligence and rely far more on elec-
tronic means-of gathering informa=
tion.
Mr. Carver acknowledges that
some of this damage was repaired
by the Reagan administration, be-
ginning in 1981. But he also sees
much bureaucratic lethargy, par-
ticularly in a State Department that
usually seems institutionally more
attuned to diplomacy than security.
In addition, he argues that Con-
gress is notably reluctant to disci-
pline its members and staff for leaks
of classified information.
And, for all the Reagan adminis-
tration's apparent emphasis on im-
proving security, Mr. Carver re-
mains largely skeptical and critical.
"Even in the Reagan administra-
tion, we talk a good game but we
don't play a good game. We drasti-
cally undercut our ability to conduct
counterintelligence during the
1970s in ways we have not yet made
up for," he added.
J
ohn Barron, author of two
widely acclaimed books on
the KGB and a recent book on
the Walker family spy ring, is
less critical of the Reagan admin-
istration. But Mr. Barron agrees that
the nation's counterintelligence cap-
abilities were savaged during the
1970s.
He cites several examples: Con-
gress cut the number of FBI agents
by 770 (or nearly 10 percent) from
1976 to 1980. Congress also slashed
the numbers of Defense Depart-
ment security officers from 3,000 to
1,740. As a direct result, a backlog of
about 84,000 incomplete back-
ground investigations accumulated.
That prompted the Pentagon to
cease making reinvestigations of
people possessing top-secret secu-'
rity classifications.
Had such a reinvestigation been
conducted on John A. Walker Jr.,
head of the Walker. spy ring, his es-
pionage for the Soviets almost cer-
tainly would have been detected
years before he finally was arrested
in 1985. Even then, it took a stroke of
luck to catch him.
"Remember that Walker would be
spying today if his (former) wife had
not turned him in," recalled Mr.
Carver.
The reductions in FBI ranks came
during a period in which the num-
bers of Soviet and Soviet-bloc per-
sonnel, plus those stationed in the
United States from other communist
nations, rose to more than 4,000. Vir-
tually all intelligence experts agree
that at least one-third of this number
were professional intelligence offi-
cers.
The FBI simply lacked the num-
bers of counterintelligence agents
needed to maintain adequate sur-
veillance of that many spies.
tontinU
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Roger Young, formerly an FBI
specialist in counterintelligence and
an assistant to FBI Director William
Webster from 1980 until 1984, ac-
knowledges the deficiency. "We
didn't have the numbers to surveil
everybody we thought was an intel-
ligence agent;" Mr. Young said dur-
ing a recent interview.
However, Mr. Young said in-
creases in FBI strength ordered
soon after President Reagan took of-
fice reduced the odds against U.S.
counterintelligence.
Mr. Barron cites the even more
effective, and dramatic, measures fi-
nally ordered last year by President
Reagan. In response to the horren-
dous damage inflicted by the Walker
spy ring, Mr. Reagan in March 1986
began ordering reductions in the
numbers of Soviet KGB and GRU
(military intelligence) agents per-
mitted in the United States under di-
plomatic cover
n all, 179 KGB and GRU offi-
cers were ordered expelled
from the United States last
year or prevented from return-
ing. According to Mr. Barron, the ex-
pulsions included virtually the en-
tire KGB and GRU leadership at the
Soviet Embassy in Washington and
the Soviet U.N. Mission in New York.
Mr. Barron also says that the expul-
sions completely wiped out the KGB
residency at the Soviet Consulate in
San Francisco.
These mass explusions appar-
ently prompted Soviet leader Mi-
khail Gorbachev to retaliate last Oc-
tober by withdrawing all 260 Soviet
workers from the U.S. Embassy in
Moscow. Although it greatly incon-
venienced U.S. diplomats, it also for-
feited a principal means for Soviet
penetration of the embassy.
In addition to these pluses, Mr.
Barron notes that the KGB and the
Soviet Union are now suffering ideo-
logical defections - in effect, rebel-
lions within the elite of Soviet intel-
ligence.
Among recent .examples:
Levchenko, KGB Col. Vitaly Yur-
chenko and the KGB resident in Lon-
don, Oleg Gorzdievski. According to
some reports, Mr. Gorzdievski had
been working for Britain's external
intelligence agency, MI-6, for 13
years when he defected in 1985.
Mr. Barron also is encouraged by
political developments in Washing-
ton, namely the "re-emergence of bi-
partisan support, and popular sup-
port, for stronger counter-
intelligence:'
Nevertheless, Mr. Barron readily
concedes the great damage caused
by the Walker spy ring, by CIA and
National Security Agency turncoats,
and by other Americans who chose
to sell out their country. The 32 Jus-
tice Department prosecutions for
espionage since 1982 reflect, in part,
more vigilant, effective counterin-
telligence. But they also reflect So-
viet successes in suborning Ameri-
cans into espionage and treason.
"Yes, we've taken some enormous
losses ... (such as) the Walker-
Whitworth case, and the Moscow
Embassy case apparently com-
pounds the damage inflicted on our
communications security;' Mr. Bar-
ron said.
,,It is no secret that our techno-
logical means of collection (satel-
lites, etc.) are excellent. And if six
agents were lost, as reported, be-
cause of the Moscow Embassy case,
it at least attests to our ability to run
some agents inside the Soviet Union,
although our efforts in this field
compared to those of the Soviets are
infinitesimal:'
Old CIA hand George Carver is
decidedly less encouraged.
,,It is true that our technical
intelligence-gathering capabilities
are very good. But our human-assets
work is not that easy. And it is going
to become progressively more dif-
ficult as we demonstrably lose our
ability to keep secrets.
"There will be less cooperation
from friendly intelligence agencies
and fewer people willing to risk
themselves by working with us... .
It's not a very encouraging picture.
Looking at what happened from
1980 to 1985, it is difficult to be opti-
mistic."
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