SEVEROMORSK EXPLOSION THE FACTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: NGA Records (Formerly NIMA)
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99B00330R000100110009-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 16
• Document Creation Date: December 28, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 24, 2009
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: July 14, 1984
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

Approved For Release 2009/07/24: CIA-RDP99BOO33OR000100110009-3
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 Approved For Release 2009/07/24: CIA-RDP99BOO33OR000100110009-3
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Front cover
The nuclear-powered battle cruiser Kirov,
one of 150 Soviet warships whose
capability .has been severely restricted by
the explosion at the Severoritorsk missile
storage facility (Picture: MoD (UK) Navy.
Chart: US Defense Mapputq Agency)
THE WEEK
Severomorsk update
Dagger system developed by Egypt and France by Christopher F Foss
USA to field enhanced 105 mm gun
New Sea Gnat decoy system
US Army rapped over contract for 'unreliable' Hummer by Hugh Lucas
US Army's fuel pipeline runs unguarded through city
Finland confirms purchase of Soviet T-72 MBTs
Industry
Lynx 3 flight test progress
Background to the Castor project
Soviet Intelligence
Soviet electronic warfare aircraft - Part 1
Briefing
USA gives new priority to mine warfare by Roy McLeavy
Features
AN/ALO-99 tactical jamming system by Martin Streetly
The strategic role of Soviet Airborne Troops by mark L Urban
Sea Dart missile system - an update by Antony Preston
Electronics
Marketing intangibles by Stephen Broadbent
Litton and Honeywell ring laser gyros
New Developments
Improvements to the Sterling Para Pistol
Helio FVH 3000 high angle machine gun hatch
New military pistol from Italy
Business
Oerlikon Buhrle
AV-8B climatic tests
l.k4ady News Editor Gui it tie- M,,
Naval Editor Antony PitStnn
Military Editor Christopher Foss
Av,ation Editor Tim Wnxon
Systems Editor Stephen Broadtwni
Reporters: Mark. Daly. Nick Childs
Contributing Editors: Bernard Blake, Terry Gander. tan V
Hogg. Capt John E Moore RN. Kenneth Munson, Ronald
T Pretty, Bob Raggett, John W R Taylor.
Production Editor: Linda Jones
Editorial & Production:: Frances Jary, Viv Harper, Sue Dingley
Librarian: per ick -Ballington
Press Off car, jtichard Caftan USA Bureau: Hugh Lucas. Room 2E 756, Pentagon.
Washington. DC 20301. Telephone: [phone]
CORRESPONDENTS-.'Abu Dhabi: Peter Hellyer. Australia:
News Fdilor- Rotxart Hutchinson
Frank Cranston.. 8raz,/:.RonaldoS Olive, France. Jeande
'Gatard 4idie:'Pushpindar Singh? Israel:-Benny Morris. Italy:.
-0 Ciampi/Anlonio,de:Marchi,' Japan: Keisuke Ebata.
Netherlands: Antonio Schuller,`Noi-+ay .John,Berg, :Spain
J Jiminez-Alfaro, 'Thailand: Josephde. Rienzo, Turkey.`
Selcuk K Ernie. Uruguay: Dr Alpho-nse Emanuiloff-Max,
West Germany: Alfred W Krueger
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 proved For Release 2009/07/24: CIA-RDP99BOO33OR000100110009-3
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Stealing Navy Documents
1st Espionage Conviction for Press Leak
By George Lardner Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
BALTIMORE, Oct. 17-A fed-
eral court jury here found former
Navy, intelligence analyst Samuel
Loring Morison guilty today of es-
pionage and theft for leaking three
spy satellite photographs that were
classified secret to a British mag-
azine..
Morison, the 40-year-old grand-
son of the late famed naval historian
Samuel Eliot Morison, also was con-
victed on separate espionage and
theft charges for taking portions of
two other Navy documents, both
classified secret, and keeping them
in an envelope at his Crofton, Md.,
apartment.
It was the first time that anyone
has been convicted under the espi-
onage 'statute for leaking , docu-
Health Official
ments "relating to the national de-
fense" to the press. Congress en-
acted the law in 1917.
Morison could be sentenced to up
to 10 years in prison and a $10,000
fine on each of the four counts. U.S.
District Judge Joseph H. Young said
he will pass sentence on Nov. 25,
and he released Morison on the
same $100,000 bond posted for him
last year.
Morison stood somberly at the
defense table, looking disappointed
as he heard the verdicts, and later
left the courthouse without com-
menting.
"He can't say anything," one of
his attorneys, Mark H. Lynch of the
American Civil Liberties Union,
said. "There's a sentencing pro-
ceeding pending that's very sensi-
tive."
SAMUEL LORING MORISON
... could face 10 years in prison
Lynch said the verdict will be
appealed. ACLU officials have con-
tended that a successful prosecu-
tion in the Morison case poses a
grave danger to freedom of the
press, at least insofar as reporting
on national security matters is con-
cerned.
See MORISON, All, Col. 1
Morison Found Guilty
Of Espionage, Theft
MORISON, From Al
The chief prosecutor in the case,
Assistant ? U.S. Attorney Michael
Schatzow,' took sharp exception to
such complaints and accused the
ACLU of an "orchestrated cam-
paign" dating to. last year to "try
this case in the newspapers."
"I don't think.it means something
about :reporters waking up with
subpoenas in their hands in the
morning," Schatzow `said after the
verdict. "That's not going to hap-
pen: That's ludicrous."
The prosecutor said that he
hopes. the case will have a deterrent
effect. ' .
"Certainly, I would hope that peo-
ple who are tempted to give out in
an unauthorized fashion information
relating to the national defense will
stop doing it," Schatzow said.
"It may be true," he said, "that if
people with access to classified in-
formation follow the rules, then the
press won't receive what you refer
to as leaks. That's different from
going after the press."
The ACLU has, argued that a con-
viction, if sustained on.appeal, could
give the Reagan 'administration a
working version of Britain's Official
Secrets Act, a law' that makes it a
crime to 'disclose,. any government
information without proper author-
ization.
Under the prosecution's theory,
government officials would be vi-
olating the espionage and theft stat-
utes for leaking information "relat-
ing to the national defense" and, by
that same theory, members of the
.press would be violating those same
laws in keeping the information.
Schatzow emphasized that nei-
ther Jane's Defence Weekly, to
whom Morison provided the pho-
tographs taken by the KH-11 recon-
naissance satellite last year, nor any
of the other news organizations that
reprinted the pictures were in-
dicted.
"Nobody prosecuted Jane's,"
Schatzow said. "Nobody prosecuted
The Washington Post .... Nobody
prosecuted CBS. Nobody prose-
cuted AP [the Associated ' Press]
"In my view, this was a case
about a fellow who worked for the
government, who had a top secret
clearance, who knew precisely what
he was authorized to do and not
authorized to do and who for his
own venal purposes abused his po-
sition and violated his oath," Schat-
setting, to people like "spies and
saboteurs," and not to disclosures
to the press.
But Judge Young said it was "con-
ceivable that Congress, in 1950'
.when the statute was' amended,
would have . considered a person
who 'leaked' national security in-.
formation to the press 'a 'saboteur'
or one who would weaken the in-
ternal security of the ` nation, and
thus subject to prosecution."
Defense lawyers tried to 'portray
Morison as. a `patriotic American
who wanted ' to alert the' public to
growing Soviet'naval power; but the
judge ruled that his motives were
irrelevant.
All the government had to estab-
lish, Young held, was that Morison
willfully transmitted photographs
and documents "relating to the na-
tional defense" to someone "not en
titled to'receive" them.
By the time both sides rested,
there was no dispute over the facts,
only whether they amounted to
criminal conduct.
The testimony showed that Mor-
ison took the three. KH-11 photo-
graphs from an absent colleague's
desk at Naval Intelligence Support
Center headquarters ' in Suitland
sometime in late July 1984, cut the
"secret" markings from them and
had them mailed to Jane's.
zow said. ' The magazine used the photo-.,
The seven-day trial began after
months of legal skirmishes, most of
them ending in victories for the
prosecution.
Citing congressional debates in
1917 and when the law was
amended in 1950, Morison's law-
yers claimed that the sections of the
espionage statute at issue were
meant to apply only in a clandestine
graphs for a cover story about con- ' .
struction of a Soviet nuclear aircraft
carrier in its Aug. 11, 1984, edition.:
'FBI analysis of the typewriter
ribbon . Morison used at work
showed that he had been corre-
sponding with Jane's and, in fact,
had been hoping for a full-time job
with the magazine.
Morison had been the U.S. editor
for Jane's Fighting Ships sine
mid-1970s and had been at Ic
heads for months with his
boss, John R. Lewis, who sa
thought it "immoral" for Mori,
use NISC facilities for the
and once told him not to use
"unclassified data available
this command."
Before ' he sent off the
graphs, it turned out, Moriso
had sent Jane's a rundown on
ries of devastating explosion;
Soviet' naval ammunition del
Severomorsk on the Barents
Jane's Defence Weekly editor
ek Wood had a $300 check s
him for that and other contrib
in preceding months.
Morison was arrested 0
1984, after the head of Britis
itary intelligence had retrieve
photographs from Jane's an
turned out 'to have Mot
thumbprint. A search of his
ton, Mdi, apartment turned u
tions of two so-called Weekly
that detailed the damage de
Severomorsk as revealed b)
ellite imagery."
. With all that beyond dispul
trial boiled down to two key
tions. The first was whethe
information about the KH-1
ellite system that could be g
from the photographs an,
Weekly Wires was still that "t
held" in light of past leaks.
The jurors also were asl
decide whether disclosure, at
light of.past leaks, would caul
tential", damage to the '
States or "potential" advantal
foreign power.
The jury delivered its
shortly before 3 p.m., cone
six hours of deliberations.
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05`0
I a
Photos Did No . Damage,
00 rin
icial Testifies
Ex-CIA Off
Morison Case Focuses on Satellite Pictures
By George Lardner Jr.
. Washington Post Staff Writer
BALTIMORE, Oct. 15-A re-
tired CIA veteran who once headed
the interagency committee in
charge of spy satellites said yester-
day he saw ',zero damage from
publication of three KH-11 photos
last year in a British magazine.
Called as a defense witness at the
espionage trial of Samuel Loring
Morison, former CIA official Roland
S. Inlow repeatedly and flatly dis-
puted the prosecution's contentions
that the disclosures could have giv-
en the Soviets important tips about
U.S. intelligence-gathering capabil-
ities and priorities.
Morison, a civilian analyst at the
Naval Intelligence Support Center,
is charged with espionage and theft
in the leaking of three photos of a
Soviet nuclear aircraft carrier un-
der construction to Jane's Defence
Weekly in hopes of securing a full-
time job there. His defense, con-
stricted by rulings from the bench,
tried to show that information about
the KH-11, even though classified
secret, was not "closely held" and,
that disclosure of the photos posed
no danger to the nation.
Government prosecutor Michael
Schatzow sought repeatedly to get
Inlow to concede that Jane's August
1984 publication of the photos could
at least have prompted the Soviets
to take "countermeasures" against
such satellite reconnaissance.
Inlow, who headed the-U.S. intel-
ligence community's Committee on
'Imagery Requirements and Exploi-
tation (COMIREX) for 10 years, re-
sponded with a soft-voiced lecture.
"The Soviet Union has a very
good intelligence capability, very
.good analysts," he said. The` coun-
termeasures they take, Inlow said,
"in my judgment, simply do not
hinge on something so trivial or
haphazard or chancy a thing as the
appearance of these photographs in
the western press." ,
Inlow said he was only mildly sur-
prised when he saw two of the pic-
tures of the 75,000-ton Soviet car-
rier republished in Aviation Week.
"My reaction was that somebody
had decided to release these pho-
tographs;' he recalled. "I was some-
what surprised at that. But in all
honesty, my reaction was much
more 'ho-hum' than 'oh, my,God.' "
COMIREX, which Inlow headed
from 1969 to 1979, decides what
targets the KH-11 and other spy
satellites should photograph and
what agencies should get which
photos to analyze. He directed the
so-called "damage assessment" of
CIA officer William Kampiles' 1978
sale of the entire KH-11 operations
manual to a KGB agent for $3,000.
According to Inlow, the manual
told the Soviets all they needed to
know about the KII-11's technology.
The 1984 photos, he suggested,
could have hurt the United States
only on two other scores: if the So-
viets had been imprudent enough to
assume that the satellites weren't
working or if they had been sur-
prised that it had been focused on
the shipyard, a "very routine and
mundane" target to which the KH- 11
has "daily access."
"If they think it important to deny
our imaging of an installation such ,
as this, they will do so ... indepen-
dent of these three photographs,"
Inlow said. lie concluded there was
"zero" damage on all three scores.
"Zero plus zero plus zero," he
added, "is zero."
Other testimony dealt with cony
panion espionage and theft counts
stemming from Morison's taking
home portions of two classified doc-
uments dealing with explosions at
the main ammunition depot for the
Soviet Union's Northern Fleet.
One witness, David R. Huff, who
used to work with Morison at NISC,
said it was "common practice to car-
ry home" various papers one was
working on. Another witness, for-,
tner Washington Post reporter
Scott Armstrong. said he had often
received classified documents from
government officials. Under the
government's theory of the case,
such activity would be a crime.
Defense lawyers then tried to call
CBS television correspondent Wil-
liarn Lynch and UPI reporter Rich-
ard C. Gross to confirm that stories
they did in June 1984 about spy sat-
ellite information concerning the
ammunition dump disaster came
from government officials, but with-
out naming the officials.
U.S. District Judge Joseph I.I.
Young said he:respected the report
ers' privilege not to name their,
sources, but held that this would
put the prosecution at a disadvan
tage. He refused to allow it.
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A24 MONDAY, OcrooER 21,:1985
Espionage Trial Jurors
Split for Several Ballots
Potential Impact Caused Spirited Debate
By George Lardner Jr.
t Washington Post Staff Writer
BALTIMORE-The 12 jurors
who found former Naval intelligence,
analyst Samuel Loring Morison
guilty of espionage and theft here
last week reached their verdict after
several ballots and some spirited de-
bate, over the potential impact of his
leaks of classified information.
Morison, 40, is the first Amer.
ican? to be convicted under the es-
pionage statute for providing infor-
mation "relating to the national de-
fonse" to the media.
But one of the jurors said after the
verdict that it would have made "a
big difference for me" if U.S. District
qourt Judge Joseph ' H. Young had
included in his final instructions an
explanation of the word "potential,"
an explanation that the judge had
initially said he: would provide.
n A crucial question left hanging as
the 'case went to the jury was wheth-
er disclosure of the secret KH-11
spy satellite. photos and other clas-
sified documents Morison was ac-.
cused.of stealing would have been
'',potentially" damaging to the United
States.
Unknown to the jurors, Judge
Young had informed prosecution.and
defense lawyers Tuesday evening he
would instruct the jurors that "the
potential must be real and not imag-
ined." But he subsequently changed
his mind and left the defense-pro-
posed instruction out of his final
charge to the jury late Wednesday.
,;'The landmark case has touched
off ' warnings from the American
Civil Liberties Union that it could
havea chilling effect on news re-
porting, especially in connection
with national security matters.
The Justice Department, in turn,
has dismissed as "nonsense" talk of a
wave of repressive censorship-by-
prosecution. But officials there
refuse to rule out more indictments
under the same statutes, given suf-
ficient evidence. Neither the govern-
ment officials who do the leaking, nor
the news publications at the receiv-
ing end, these officials add, should
consider themselves exempt.
Here in Baltimore, the jury of sev-
en men, and five women, most of
them in their fifties' and sixties, re-
turned their decision Thursday after-
noon, after six hours of deliberations.
But several seemed ,reluctant when
the court polled them individually.'
. One, Evelyn Miller of Baltimore,
remained silent when asked if she
agreed with the verdict and had to
be prodded by the judge to speak up
before she said yes.
system was "closely held" in light of
leaks dating to 1978.
' The second was whether the dis-
closure of the documents Morison
was accused of stealing-two of
which never left his apartment-
could have hurt the United States
or helped a foreign power, again in
light of past leaks.
The Soviet KGB, the jurors were
reminded frequently, had bought the
KH-11 operations manual from a
renegade CIA officer for $3,000 in
1978, and other KH-11 photos had
leaked out before. .
Government witnesses' insisted in
response that the new disclosures
could still have prompted the Soviets
to take- fresh "countermeasures"
against KH-11 surveillance.
Against this backdrop, Morison
was convicted of one count of espi-
onage and one of theft for taking
three KH-11 satellite photos from a
colleague's desk at the Naval Intel-
ligence Support Center in Suitland
and sending them to-Jane's Defence
"There were two or three of us
that had a real problem" [with the
guilty verdict], one of the jurors,
Who asked not to be identified, said
later. 'It took several ballots and
,ome wrenching debate, the juror
added, before the reluctant panel-
fists made it unanimous. The con-
troversy in the jury room, as in the
;ourtroom, centered on two key
nuclear aircraft carrier under con-
struction.
A civilian analyst at NISC since
1974, Morison also was found guilty
of one count of espionage and one
count of theft for taking home por-
tions of two NISC "Weekly Wires," a
sort of classified newsletter; dealing
with a devastating series of explo-
sions in May 1984 at Severomorsk,
the main ammunition depot for the
Soviet Union's Northern Fleet.
Morison, who for years had been
the American editor of the author-
itative military yearbook, Jane's
Fighting Ships, had sent off a sum-
mary of. the incident at Severo-
morsk to JDW in late June 1984.
But his dispatch to Jane's made
no mention of the "Weekly Wires"
or the fact that the information in
them had been been gleaned from
"satellite imagery." It was not until
government witnesses at the trial
began citing chapter and verse from
the Wires that the Soviet Union was
on notice of the "potential" value of
these documents.
Some of the jurors contacted de-
clined to discuss their deliberations.
James A. Frye, a retired manufac-
turing engineer from Glen Burnie,
said he did not feel free to talk "until
someone gives me the authority."
Lester L. Troup, a retired dairy
farmer from Rockville, took excep-
tion to a reporter's inquiry.
"If you want to find out what hap-
pened in that room, you talk to
Judge Young," Troup said. "I think
you're invading my privacy if you
try to find out what happened in,
that room. I think you're invading
my privacy and the privacy of the
11 other people in that room."
Another juror said, however, that
.there was heavy debate over the two
key, issues. Told of the instruction
about the meaning of "potential"
damage the judge had said he would
TIE WASHINGTON 1'OST
give and then decided against, this hibiting effects of the Morison
juror paused and said, "That would ecution. "Every time a rel
have. made a big difference for me." cones into a newsroom with
Morison, the grandson of the mation relating to the nation
U.S. Navy's foremost historian, the . fense, the question will be, 'A
late Samuel' Eliot Morison, will be risking an indictment?' ,
sentenced' Nov. 25. He could be "The reporter will call the
sentenced to up to 10 years in pris- tagon and they'll say, 'We vie,
on and $10,000 in fines on each information as closely held.'
count. newspaper will then call its Ia?
His attorneys have said they~will and the lawyers will say,
appeal the conviction, and they. have could put you in jail.'
indicated that one of the grounds Halperin concluded that the
they plan to cite will be Young's is going to have "a chilling eff~
decision to drop the "potential" what reporters are preparf
damage instruction. write. and what their editor.
The controversy over the effect prepared to print."
of the case on the media, mean- The assistant attorney gene
.while, is far.from settled. Under the charge of the criminal division
.governments theory of : prosecu-
tion, anyone who "willfully" trans- phen Trott, said in an interviet
mits photographs or documents "re the Justice Department is
lating to the national defense". to mindful of the First Amendmer
someone not authorized to receive of the legitimate interest [of th
them is guilty of espionage, "no dial in issues of public concern.
matter how laudable his motives." "The sense that this is pi
In addition, under the theft statute some program to pursue an 0
as applied in the Morison case, it is Secrets Act is a bunch of nonsc
not only a crime for a government Trott added. "There's a certaif
official to take information worth teria about what we're up to."
more than $100 without 'authorize- But beyond that, he said,
tion, but also a crime for anyone to laws will be enforced .... I
receive that information "with intent think it's at all helpful to
to convert it to his use or gain." whether we will or will not [
The ACLU's Washington direc- against a publication]. Every
tor, Morton H. Halperin, contends or potential case will be revi
that the biggest danger lies in in- on the basis of the facts."
The first was whether the ifrfor-
~mation about the KH-11 satellite
CI-IE WASHINGT
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jurors say they convicted
Naval intelligence analyst
Samuel L. Morison after
several ballots and debate
over the potential impact of his
leaks. Story, Page A24.
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