KREMLIN MAN WITH A LINE TO WEST'S SPY SATELLITES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96B01172R000300030014-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 14, 2007
• Sequence Number: 14
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2007/12/14: CIA-RDP96B01172R000300030014-1
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worst of the rivalry and Approved For Release 2007/12/14: CIA-RDP96B01172R000300030014-1tant
y
ompetence. The four signa- nave cnanged their telemetr fully laden area" said Profs Eik
.,esorrson.
.ories to the agreement, system so that the informa- "A red light comes on on "They ,monitor the internal
3ritain, the United States, tion is taped on the missile your radio set and everyone traffic of the Soviet Union,
.''anada and Australia, carved and ejected back. to Earth, in the room stands round using some very sopht,tlcated
p the world into zones for instead of being transmitted watching this fighter. Every- equipment, it's largely an
he collection of material. back to base on a high fee- thing else stops. You get American operation."
quency of the type which that away to Cheltenham as The object
is to monitor
'Rhyolite intercepts. fast as possibly Thy do also "indicators" _f ., .
Although Rhywate is seen a feu phone ther whihe th i
ec gose countryn search of clues
by the intelligence com- through direct to Downing to policyp, particularly in the
munity as "the ultimate Street for something really military field. -
big." Professor Erikson said :
At another base a staff of "Tile indicator business is
British and American civilians very important. At one time
produce special transcripts of there may be up to 200 indi-
the conversation of Russian cators to tell you whether c,
pilots to try to . Identify state has Warlike lnterttiona.
regional accents -, a clue to By;no means all thesd,indica-
the origin of their unit. They. tors are military. They cover
also keep a' master list of all all aspects of the social, poli-
names mentioned, as well as tical, economic and military
noting jokes and references to competence of a modern
other units and aircraft. It all state."
helps to build up a picture It was these sort of ro
-
of Soviet military capability. ternal indicators which
Information from the satel-
lites and the long range alerted the GCHQ network to
listening stations is supple- the Cuban missile crisis a
niented by a third layer of year before it broke publicly
intercepts from short range \in October, 1962. "One of
stations, grouped along fron- `the first indicators of that
tiers with the Warsaw Pact was in the autumn of 1961,"
countries, the Soviet Union said Professor Erikson.
and China. "There was a shortage of
Most of the work at this bunkering fuel for ships in
level is radio eavesdropping. the north of the Soviet
The linguists are given Union then, around March,
special training in Russian 1962, there was alot of com-
obscenities to allow them- to mercial traffic showing
follow every detail of the strange shipping movements
radio traffic. So advanced is in the south near Odessa,
their linguistic ability that plus a lot of unusual radio
they compile their own dic- traffic between Russia and
tionaries. Cuba.
A former employee of one "You can see that some-
listening post described the thing is developing and then
routine inside the two hangars one small indicator will
on the edge of the airfield bring the whole picture
where the eavesdropping is together and close it off.
conducted. " It's a very sophi- That's Why the internal indi-
sticated operation. The equip- cators are so important."
merit there must have cost a A lot of the information is
fortune, There are about 100 pooled between the four
partners, although it is
known that the American
,NSA has a special classifi-
cation for some papers,
which are marked "No For-
eign" to stop them being
shared with the partners.
From Cheltenham, GCIIQ
sends processed information
to Whitehall for the daily
meetings of the Current Intel-
ligence Groups; which meet
every morning to review up-
to-date intelligence assess-
ments, medium-term
prognoses, and reports oil
sudden changes in indicator
patterns,
qost of Europe, the Soviet
Jnion east of the Urals, the
Mole of Africa and China.
anada's Communications
security Establishment takes bug, it is by no means the
,ome of. Europe and the only satellite used for inter-
iorth of the Soviet Union. ception. The Big Birds, which
Australia's joint Intelli- orbit at between 90 and 100
;ence Organisation deals .miles, can photograph a car
'num'ber plate and locate un-
derground installatlgns with
their, infra-red detectors.
Ferret satellites map
Soviet radar systems; 949s
have an infra-red sensor to
detect , rocket plumes and
Vela detectors to locate sur-
face nuclear explosions; 647s
over the Indian Ocean and
the Panama Canal form an
early warning net against
submarine-launched missiles,
This array of satellites -
purpose built for thousands
vith South-east . Asia,. -the,.
iouth PaCillc and -parts of
he ' Indian Ocean. The
Jnited States National Secur-
ty Agency deals with every-
hing else. Internal GCHQ
iocuments, used to train rec-
?uits, put the American NSA
Clone at the top of the hier-
irchy.
The NSA runs a vast
irganisation from its base at
ort Meade, Maryland, but it
reeds allied co-operation. A
tuirk in the way that radio
vaves travel from some
'xample, means they can be tracking stations which are
'eceived in eastern Canada, run by any of the four
rut not in Britain. partners to the 1947 agree-
The NSA's job, a~ defined ment. It is processed and
)y the National Security much of it is pooled with in-
"ouncil's Intelligenc6 D1r(_,c ---tercepts"from other sources.
.ive No, 6 is "the interce,)- The second layer of inter-
iion and processing of cepts is a network of, Ion"'
range , listening stations,
devoted mainly to tracking
the movement of Soviet and
Warsaw Pact forces. It is a
very thorough operation.
"They track everything that
moves - from a cup of tea
to an atom bomb," said one
man who has worked in
several of the stations.'
assed by radio, wire or
ether electromagnetic means
,nd the processing of foreign
encrypted coin munications,
however transmitted".
In operational terms, that
instruction means that the
americans in consort with
their three partners have set
up a global surveillance coin-
posed of layers of intercep-
tion.
The most powerful and
sophisticated layer - and
the one where Prime may
have done the most damage
-- is the use of communi-
cation satellites, particularly
the series of four "Rhyolit?"
satellites.
These satellites-fully pub-
licised and discussed in the
USA - intercept microwave
communications, usually long-
distance telephone- calls and
radio links and also telemetry
signals - the streams of high
frequency digital information
by which a missile reports'
back to its earth station every
aspect of its performance.
The first Rhyolite satellite
was launched on March 6,
973, into a geosynchronous
orbit 22,800 miles over the
horn, of Africa, from where
it can watch the intercon-
i mental ballistic missiles
being tested at Tyuratam, in
,Kazakhstan, and, the SS16s
and SS20s at the Plesetsk
missile base. .A second Rhyo-
tite was launched on May 23,
1977, at the same height over
Borneo to intercept Chinese
and Soviet military communi-
The stations; use radio
searches, VI1F intercepts, a
specialised radar tracking
system called SWAMP, and
ultra short wave intercepts to
provide a daily up-date of
the world "order of battle"
the exact' disposition and de-
tail of all military forces.
Professor John Erikson,
who lectures in Soviet mili-
tary strategy and communi-
cations at Edinburgh
University, and who has also
trained GCHQ staff, said :
" They know a lot about
Soviet and Warsaw Pact
order of battle. They have a
very complete picture from
all sorts of information
which they pick up.
Outside Britain GCHQ runs
long-range listening posts at
Sinop in 'Turkey, Tai Mo Shan
and Little Sal Wan in Hong
Kong, Darwin in Australia,
and in Mauritius, Gibraltar,
Malta, Cyprus, Ascension
Island, and Botswana. Inside
Britain a dozen stations collect
and process information.
One radio operative who
worked at a listening post
described his work to the
Guardian : "That place is
highly sensitive. It's an RAF
place but there's no runway,
no planes. It's. pure sigint -
"I was in Berlin when the
signals intelligence. It's amaz-
ing what they pick up there. Russians invaded Czechoslo-
monitor Soviet missiles being "There are about 250 RAF vakia. We were on stand-by.
test-fired into the Kamchatka . staff and some civilians as for a month beforehand,
Rhyolites have 'been iaun; Approved For Release 2007/12/14: CIA-RDP96B01172R000300030014-1 aid:
RAF Sgt. Doug Britten,
who is serving a 211-year
gaol sentence for spying
staff : they're RAF people, but
the whole thing is run by
GCHQ.
"There were people track-
ing the movements of planes,
logging grid references,
checking morse and other
people taking voice communi-
cations. We followed our own
traffic as well as theirs. We
even intercepted Reuters.
There is a similar daily
meeting in Washington. On a
weekly basis, the director of
GCHQ, Sir Brian Tovey, tra-
vels to London by train to
attend the Joint Intelligence
Committee Meeting. It is
common ground among those
who have worked with GCHQ
that it is handling so much
raw information that it is
often unable to process and
assess it accurately while it
is still useful.
This delay, together with
the ever-present possibility
that an infiltrator such as
Prime may be allowing the
Russians to produce disinfor-
mation, may explain the re-
current charge that Western
governments fail to act on
the material which has been
Although the fiiut
domestic
on each oth
in %,,?
publicly
that th
rr,-14 1I;r
hgerccn
e'nd at
they
Accordi
claim
secret
dential
tween
Washin
Earli
were r
emba
firme
T
not
effort
lance
their ow
effort to
American
simply re
the job f
In his
recently
United
ford pu
docunie
GCHQ
for the
Operated
gramme
radicals,
surveilia
levance
Ireland.
I imagine
is now
Northern
The sh
ordinary
of the ea
partner
taking e
prevent
covering
start at
lions of
go as hig
Mode
weapons,
Erikson.
inters
essage
led.
ented th
co-operate
citizens.
ade the
eavesdro
Minaret,
surveil
British,
e has a s
hat a lot
concentr
stopped
overnmen
what th
mates, of
not to
said
 Approved For Release 2007/12/14: CIA-RDP96B01172R000300030014-1
- three weeks before the in-
vasion - there were satellite
photographs of Russian
trucks on the road, radio re-
ports.
Although the four govern-
ments resolutely refuse to
admit it, it is clear now that
their eavesdroppig is not
aimed solely at declared ene-
mies. They eavesdrop on
allies on domestic citizens
and even on each other.
Officials in Washington
publicly admitted last month
that the Pentagon had been
secretly assessing the intel-
'Iigence capacity, of Canacla
and other Western allies, but
they denied allegations in
Canadian newspapers that
this amounted to spying.
According to Reuters, who
claim to have obtained a
secret Congressional report,
the American NSA has been
routinely spying on confi-
dential dam,munications be-
tween British diplomats in
Washington and London.
Earlier this year there
were reports in Canada that
the NSA had intercepted and
decoded a. message from the
Ottawa government to its
embassy in Washington. The
reports were neither con-
firmed nor denied.
In the late 1970s, the CIA
was caught intervening dir-
ectly in a union dispute in
Australia which was holding
up the supply of equipment
to an NSA base in Alice
Springs.
This mutual suspicion has
not prevented the four
partners co-operating in
efforts to turn their surveil-
lance network inwards on
their own citizens. In an
effort to evade the legal re-
striction on eavesdropping on
American citizens, the NSA
simply recruited GCHQ to do
the job for them.
In his book, Puzzle Palace,
recently {published in the
United States, James Bam-
ford published internal NSA
documents which record how
GCHQ intercepted telegrams
for the Americans as part of
Operation Minaret, a pro-
gramme of surveillance of
radicals, including Jane
geant Doug
prison servj'
tence for
sians fro
listening
Britain.
Detail
at his
worked
ever, just
crisis in
Russians
been able
the right
there
That w
had tol
Ivanovitc
approach
ington S
troduced
about a
Britten's h
Britten, ph
ments and
him for
erial. Britt
disguised
false botto
negatives,
concluded, .per
cally, that his
no security wea
During the
Britten's espio
coral with the
Germany, Brian
fected to Ea
in the GCltQ
Russians hay
served by infi
American Na
Agency, which
surveillance has a special re- colloquially
levance because of Northern Agency
Ireland. Professor Erikson In 1960, t d NSA intelli-
said We intercept our gence analys s, Vernon Mit-
allies, everybody's traffic. But chell and ill Martin,
I imagine that a lot of GCHQ defected to t e 'oviet Union
is now concentrated on where they eld a press con-
Northern Ireland. ference, exp sin the NSA's
The sheen size and extra- activities an , i particular,
ordinary political significance its habitual int ception of
of the eavesdropping network its allies' co mu cations.
have not stopped the four In the b' ckwa h of their
partner Governments from defection, 6 her NSA
taking every possible step to employees I st th ir, jobs in
prevent their citizens dis- "a purge of sexu I deviants"
covering what they are inspired by the " act that US
involved in GCHQ_at Cheiten- the defectors ~iiight have
ham range from 6,000 to been hoi.losex , al. Three
9n non Estimates of the cost years later in 963, another
lions of pounds a year " and named Victor amllton, de-
an as high as #.W) millions. fected to lylosco . Again, the
ying for the Itus-
1962 to 1968 at
fthe damage done
were kept secret
1, but a man who
enly changed,
period of years
when you had
tune in k4lowing
u tuned in' and
nothing there.
em exactly what
and call signs
we knew about, so
ed the lot.",
Borisenko, who
him in the Kens-
nce M,nscum, in-
talking to him
ateur radio,
sed a camera,
cigarette case,
documents at
er cans with
t e rn which
e was living
Commission
ps optimisti-
se reflected
ess,
period of
ge, a cor-
rmy signals
atchett, de-
Germany
GCHQ sec-
and Patchett
complex, the
been well
rators in the
it is known
s No Such
i r P10jury pul
q 9861 Our f uI ?,
pap :yap awl.1d So
Approved For Release 2007/12/14: CIA-RDP96B01172R000300030014-