SOUTHERN BORDER IS THE SOFT UNDERBELLY' OF U.S., OFFICIALS SAY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403050001-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: May 12, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000403050001-2
T~ K, .~ CHICAGO TRIBUNE
12 May, 1985
G
d ais.~s
ed by a dozen old DC-6s; full : of
du
i
b
t
p
ng,
e
Us
w,.< i ; envi gge
Russian; commandos,. )lying over the Rio Grande. Some
border guard looks up and shrugs-'More damn drug runners
wing itp tp Arkansas -
+~-JobnCusack, chief of staff,
Mal, 'tHouse Select Committee
, on Narcotics Abuse and Control
'Sy,Wili iam''H. Inman br, ~~ ~,a
a
.ISIBILITY,.WAS unlimited the morning'a snub-nosed, ?'
Jet,- sidled up . to the control ,tower at Florida's!,'?
Homestead Air, Force, Base and its pilot buzzed the
. ;~;
oll
o
ers ,i
ntr
:=c
e tower were .
ge.:wad. in Spanish The .inth
s niessa men
? iiomentarily stunned-at a loss to figure, out what he was
e. Soon they knew
h
r
saying; why he wan, e
-The pilot, a Cuban defector, wanted to, know where to park',
. t t. -r 1- amhln
::.zoned asbig as thenoonday :sun, was the white star emblem
' had zipped effortlessly through the electronic
b
C
an
u
:.They
picket j' fences ;;; guarding' this s. southern :flank, registering,
"scarcely'? at',Alak
it blip durin lotig`irel;;
f om Cienfuegos, Cuba -located: eit '.than .
sputhern ';coast , of the- island--to the !high-
powere d, military-base; the.. nation's eyes an
,,.> __ t ;,t+iwr c+17`?'1.:?''.
tion's
th
..
e na
,; .because it was obvious
on that day-Oct: 5,1969-at. that salient of the':coasti were
us
b
d
ide a
.... ...,
eca
,
? Joke. econ
"Suddenly it appeared we had a soft underbelly,' said Bill
What
0! Deak; spokesman, for, the Drug Enforcement Agency.,
._ t. .e..e of bombers cnmin2
h
e --k-
.. right over t
ark .
Last March,' Govs. MWhite of Texas and Bob Graham'
inability
government s
nia-to-Florida frontier.-The governors cited evidence of vast:
d
.a..a. ... ... __.
gaps in the 151oun
that Cuban freedom ? flight 16 years earlier and penetrated
._ . _
d_.
-1--
an
of them rickety World",
g
m
y
of
CUL
.
War I'iU
"If they [dope peddlers] can fly
in and out with impunity,"
said, imagine what a hostile
plane, low-flying missile or some
mercenary terrorist could do."
UPI examined the evidence,
talked to electronic surveillance
experts, sifted through congres-
sional testimony and agency stud-
ies. Some findings follow:
? Ground radar of the North
American Aerospace Defense Sys-
tem [NORAD], built to respond to
the threat of the 1950s, cannot
detect low-flying aircraft of any
kind on the southern approaches:
not drug planes, not. MiGs, not
cruise missiles.
? The so-called DEW line, a dis-
tant early warning system now
being replaced in Canada, does not
exist along the nation's southern.
perimeter, yet the Pentagon insists
it is in a "posture to respond" to
any serious military threat in the
region.
? Texas has no fixed-radar cov-
erage between Laredo and El
Paso, a 500-mile range, and at key
points along the western Gulf
Coast.
? The Southwest and Gulf of
Mexico are at the bottom of the
Defense Department's priority list
to receive the latest electronic sur-
veillance technology-the Over-
The-Horizon Backscatter network.
? The nation's Airborne Early
Warning and Control Coverage, its
fleet of super-sophisticated planes
known as AWACs, does not extend
to the so-called "choke points" of
Mexico and the Caribbean, ideal
vantages from which to monitor
illicit air traffic.
So, who watches over southern
U.S. airspace? In some critical
places, nobody.
To begin with, continental air
defenses are the neglected step- -
child of the strategic forces. The
south is the neglected of the ne-
glected. The nation's air defense
network has only five squadrons of
active Air Force fighter-intercep-
tors-18 aircraft each-with anoth-
er 10 slightly smaller squadrons-in
the Air National Guard, according
to Pentagon data.
Putting that in perspective:
American bombers would face
1,250 Soviet interceptor fighters
and almost 10,000 antiaircraft mis-
siles to reach their targets; Rus-
sian bombers would contend with
only 90 Air Force and 180 largely
obsolete Air National Guard inter-
ceptors.
In addition, the majority of the
,.existing tactical units are position-
ed away from the gap-riddled
southwestern frontier.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000403050001-2
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved
There are other inconsistencies.
Mexico plays no significant role
in the air defense of the northern
hemisphere, despite its strategic
position. That responsibility is
shared entirely by Canada and the
United States. All interceptor
squadrons are controlled by the
joint U.S.-Canadian NORAD com-
mand post buried deep in massive
caverns in a Colorado mountain. It
controls a bewildering array of
early-warning radar and optical
detectors. There are also special
warning satellites, equipped with' infrared sensors to detect the hot
exhaust of enemy missile
launches.
Surveillance goes far into space,
but m ssea hundredshun-
dreds of miles of airs ace near the
groun .
Conventional land-based elec-
tronic surveillance, the heart of
the FAA-NORAD system, cannot
detect low-flying objects. These
fixed radar dishes face skyward;
the curvature of the Earth and
rocky terrain prevent it from de-
tecting objects close to the ground.
The farther from the dish the
greater the gap.
"We realize our air defense sys-,
tem is archaic, outmoded and out-
dated," said Kay Cormier,'
spokesman for NORAD headquar
ters in Colorado Springs, Colo. "It
was fine 20 years ago when we
feared a [high-altitude] bomber
threat more than a cruise missile
I threat."
In Texas, the radar gap is known
it as Smuggler's Alley, but it's
hardly that narrow. At points, ac-
'cording to U.S. Customs data, it
stretches for hundreds of miles in
width and extends up to three
miles [14,500 feet] in altitude.
"You'd have to try real hard to
be caught," concedes Jim Adams,
director of. the Texas Department
of Public Safety. In fact, he told
Congress, authorities probably
catch less than one-tenth of the
traffic funneling through the gaps.
Drug traffickers not only evade
authorities, most of them are not
even detected.
When a balloon-hoisted radar
unit was tested over the Bahamas.
earlier this year, authorities were
astounded to discover the magni-
tude of small aircraft activity they
never, knew existed.
"The [radar] screen just erupted
like it had a bad case of chicken
pox," said Bob Mills, staff mem-
ber of the Senate subcommittee'
which funds Customs. "They [Cus-,
toms] were seeing stuff they said,,
they'd never seen before."
To counter acknowledged'
failings in the defense cordon, the
Army and Air Force have lent U.S.
Customs helicopters and an array
of radar-equipped aircraft to pa-
trol border areas.
for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000403050001-2
The problem is one of coordina-
tion. When Customs needs the air-
craft, the military is not always
prepared fo lend them. Drug run-
ners don't bother with timetables.
But drug hunters must.
To. schedule a piggy-back flight
aboard an AWACS-equipped 747
takes an average of four months.
Few drug busts have resulted from
the hundreds of hours Customs
agents have spent aboard AWACs.
In addition, many Customs flights
are curtailed between midnight
and dawn-prime time for smug-
glers, or for that matter, enemy
attack.
Oddly, in an age of cruise mis-
siles and long-range bombers, the
Pentagon has been downplaying
the threat of a southern attack.
"We feel we're in a posture to
respond to any potential [military]
threat from the south," said Maj.
Peter Wyro, a Defense Depart-
ment spokesman. ' We feel there
are isolated instances of what are
principally civilian aircraft which
don't conform to known military-
threat characteristics-waves of
aircraft, lift capability, speed,'
range. But they don't pose any
kind of threat to the national de-
fense." -
Actually, officials concede, there
is a heated debate within the Pen-
tagon on southern vulnerability.
The Soviets have been poking
around.
"Soviet lon -ran a reconn 'sa -
ce p es, a eve to be origins
tmg from Cuban ases, are ma -
in an increased number of 1W ht
over Mexico's a and an Cris-
tobal e s se near
e Guatemalan border, said re-
tired Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, former
member of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, in the Air Force Times.
Reports also have surfaced of
advanced missile-bearing Soviet
submarines cruising in
southeastern coastal waters.
Cuban airliners continue to
violate-some believe they deliber-
ately test-U.S. flight corridors on
the Havana-Mexico route. ' .
In addition Nicaragua is known'
to e u uian immense air base
at n uete near Managua,
.Ma mil-
the largest and most-ea
itary airfield in Central merica.
it is a perfect staging area for e
diet Union's supersonic Backfire
bombers . according to a U.S. intel-
ligence re rt released the
White House
On March 18, the U.S. and Cana-
da signed a memorandum to mod-
ernize the North American defense
system. The'blan calls for expati-'
ding the coverage of AWACS and
forward operating fighters and re-
placing the so-called DEW line.
The distant early warning system
built three decades ago-31 fixed
radar sites stretching in an arc
from Greenland across Canada to,
Alaska-contains . "numerous low
altitude coverage gaps, exhibits
poor radar performance charac-
teristics and is expensive to oper-
ate and obtain," according to an
Air Force internal review.
The memo also proposes instal-
lation of a revolutionary intelli-
gence scanning s tem known as
Over- a orizon Evackscarter.
would virtually e iminate? the
threat of low-flying aircraft.
The military hopes to install
components of its first Backscatter
within three years. It would sweep
the East Coast from Greenland to
Cuba. A second Backscatter is
planned for the West Coast and
would be on line sometime after
1987.
The final gap in Backscatter coy-'
erage, the southern range from
Cuba to California, is perhaps a
decade or more into the future.
Nobody knows. It's at the bottom
of the funding list.
"We need help now along our,
southern borders not sometime in
Me -1 1 s r - cm s
committee aide to Sen. De s
ncmi [D., Ariz. a critic o the
defense surveillance system.
soverei air ace is m viola-
te eac ay m exact y S s re-
ig on.
UNkd Rase W.10-W
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000403050001-2