OGARKOV'S RETURN CASTS DOUBT ON THEORIES OF DISGRACE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706130009-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 13, 2011
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: March 18, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706130009-9
WASHINGTON TIMES
18 March 1986
Ogarkov's return casts doubt
? der Marshal Ustinov, the tale ap-
^~,~ ^r pears unlikely.
By Martin Sieff
The reappearance of Marshal
Nikolai Ogarkov on the Communist
Party Central Committee has con-
firmed the suspicion of many Soviet
watchers that he was never in dis-
grace during his 2' 2-year absence. It
was just another ploy by the man
who once headed the Chief Director-
ate of Strategic Deception.
Marshal Ogarkov, 68, was chief of
the Soviet General Staff and first
deputy defense minister from 1977
to 1984. In that time, he became noto-
rious as the Kremlin's arch-hawk -
a military planner of boldness and
imagination.
He published articles urging an
increase in military spending and a
new emphasis on high technology
weapons. This appeared to clash
with Leonid Brezhnev's stated policy
of keeping such spending pegged at
existing levels.
Western analysts speculated that
Marshal Ogarkov was able to keep
his position only because of the sup-
port of such hawkish figures on the
ruling Politburo as Leningrad party
leader Gregory Romanov and
Ukrainian party boss Viktor Scher-
bitsky.
The marshal appeared to be a po-
tential successor to veteran Defense
Minister Dmitri Ustinov. Then, in
September 1984, he was removed
from his post in circumstances that
still puzzle Sovietologists.
When senior Soviet military fig-
ures fall from grace, they vanish to
their dachas and are seldom seen in
public again. But Marshal Ogarkov
remained a figure in good standing
in the Soviet military hierarchy. He
continued to publish highly influen-
tial books and articles and his name
appeared in a prominent position on
the obituary list after Marshal Us-
tinov's death.
Some western analysts feel Mar-
shal Ogarkov moved sideways to de-
vote himself to refining a Soviet plan
for the military conquest of western
Europe. In October 1984, a month
after his dismissal (if such it was),
he met with East German leader
Erich Honecker in Berlin. Such a
meeting would be inconceivable,
these analysts argue, if Marshal
Ogarkov had been disgraced.
Disgrace, they point out, would
have meant transfer to deputy chief
of staff of the Siberian Military Dis-
trict, or some comparable backwa-
ter. Instead, Marshal Ogarkov kept
popping up in the Western Theater,
the prime Soviet strategic area of
concern.
He also was seen in Warsaw, a
likely headquarters for such oper-
ations. A September 1985 Defense
Intelligence Agency
re ort note
that as of Dec. 22, 1 4, tie was
commander-in-chief Western The-
ater, a position he apparently still
Holds. is wou put him over the
Warsaw Pact command, a slot that,
curiously, has remained unfilled for
several months.
The position fits Marshal Ogar-
kov's background as the Soviet
army's prime specialist on initiative
strike and strategic warning prob-
lems. Some analysts believe he has
been the champion of a blitzkrieg
strategy in the western theater of
operations.
This "can win" concept em-
phasizes high-speed offensives
through battlefields contaminated
with nuclear, biological, and
chemical agents. This would give the
Third Shock Army in East Germany
the option of launching a sudden
strike against the West without a
giveaway major mobilization.
Some U.S. intelligence sources
claim that Marshal Ogarkov has re-
organized , the Western Ori-
ented Fronts, and that he has built up
a new STAVKA, the Soviet World
War II military headquarters, west
0 oscow, from w is t e western
theaters would take their commands
in the event of war with the West.
One senior intelligence analyst
said, "There's no doubt in my mind
that Ogarkov is the power [in the So-
viet military leaderships."
He pointed out that Marshal Ser-
gei Akhromeyev, who succeeded
Marshal Ogarkov as chief of staff,
had previously been his protege.
"It would be a master-student re-
lationship," the analyst said. "If any-
thing, Ogarkov was his mentor."
Current Defense Minister Sergei
Sokolov, 74, is widely regarded as a
colorless figure. According to this
view, he would be seen as a front
man for the miltary planners rather
than a stopgap until another figure
emerges.
Many colorful stories circulated
about Marshal Ogarkov's ouster.
It was said that the dying Defense
Minister Ustinov said, "Promise me
one thing. After I'm dead, get rid of
that man Ogarkov" As he had risen
to the top of the Soviet military un-
However, it fits a pattern of disin-
formation, afield in which Marshal
Ogarkov has immense experience.
He commanded the Chief Director-
ate for Strategic Deception, the most
powerful directorate on the Soviet
General Staff. He attended most in-
ternational disarmament negoti-
ations through the 1970s, including
the SALT talks, and served as for-
eign policy spokesman for the mili-
tary lobby under Marshal Ustinov
In his book "Inside the Soviet
Army," former Soviet officer Viktor
Suvarov wrote that Marshal Ogar-
kov "made a brilliant success of the
operation to fool the American dele-
gation [at the SALT I arms talks ]. For
this he was made Chief of the Gen-
eral Staff." His role as public "point
man" at the 1983 press conference
after Soviet aircraft shot down a Ko-
rean airliner with 269 people on
board showed his skill at handling
the press. The supposedly dour
Ogarkov's performance was de-
scribed by one western reporter as
"spellbinding"
Marshal Ogarkov, some intelli-
gence sources claim, is also a close
friend of Soviet leader Mikhail Gor-
bachev and sees him often.
Mr. Gorbachev emphasises high
technology, as does Marshal Ogar-
kov. He has appointed senior figures
with a background in the military-
industrial complex over the civilian
economy. Deputy Premier Ivan
Silaev, in charge of the bureau of
machine building, was a master-
mind in the aerospace field. First
Deputy Premier Nikolai Thlyzin,
chairman of the State Planning Com-
mission, had a background in com-
munications satellites.
The controversial removal of the
marshal was announced in Septem-
ber 1984, the same month Western
analysts believe Mr. Gorbachev took
over effective control from the ailing
Konstantin Chernenko, who died the
following March.
His reappointment to the Central
Committee at the 27th Party Con-
gress confirmed the suspicion of
some Soviet watchers that he had
always been a Gorbachev favorite,
involved in top-level work and not
languishing in obscurity. If that is
the case, the world may not have
heard the last of Nikolai Ogarkov,
born within a month of the Bolshevik
Revolution, and the most eminent
Soviet soldier of his generation.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706130009-9