3 SECRET PHOTOS CALLED NOTHING NEW TO SOVIETS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403710034-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 34
• Publication Date: October 12, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403710034-3
WASHINGTON POST
12 October 1985
3 Secret Photos Called
Nothing New to Soviets
AU Professor Testifies in Navy Spy Trial
By George Lardner Jr.
Wawa" No.t s0 Wriler
BALTIMORE, Oct. 11-Publi-
cation of three secret KH-11 spy
satellite photos in a British maga-
zine last year told the Soviets noth-
ing important that they did not
know already, according to testimo-
ny today at the espionage trial of
former Navy intelligence analyst
Samuel Loring Morison.
Testifying for the defense, Amer-
ican University Prof. Jeffrey T. Ri-
chelson, who has made several
studies of U.S. satellite reconnais-
sance programs, said that the So-
viets already had the KH-11 man-
ual, which they had bought from a
CIA officer, as well as earlier sat-
ellite photon to show them how the
system worked.
"It just didn't really tell me any-
thing that I didn't know," Richelson
said of the August 1984 publication
in Jane's Defence Weekly of three
KH-11 photos showing a nuclear-
powered Soviet aircraft under con-
struction at a Black Sea shipyard. "I
don't think they provide any new
information. Therefore I don't think
it's of any value."
Morison has been accused of es-
pionage and theft for taking the
photos from a colleague's desk at
the Naval Intelligence Support Cen-
ter in Suitland, and sending them to
Jane's in hopes of securing a full-
time job there. He was also indicted
on charges of keeping in his apart-
ment two classified documents
about a May 1984 fire at a Soviet
naval ammunition depot.
Government witnesses have tes-
tified that the leak to Jane's was
potentially valuable to the Soviets
in confirming the KH-11's sophis-
ticated workings and in disclosing
U.S. targeting interests. Similarly,
a Navy intelligence expert, Capt.
Robert W. Chapin Jr., testified that
the details about the ammunition
depot fires, also gleaned from sat-
ellite photos, were so precise that it
would have been "very damaging"
to the United States if the docu-
ments had been leaked.
Richelson, however, said public
sources have provided much detail
about the KH-11 and other satellite
programs, such as their flight paths
over the Soviet Union, their altitude
(75 to 155 miles), and the fact that
they and another so-called Keyhole
satellite, the KH-9, are launched by a
Titan 3D rocket. He rattled off the
data so fast that at one point U.S.
District Judge Joseph Young inter-
rupted him angrily, evidently in fear
that some classified data might be
tumbling out.
"I don't want you rambling on as
though you were teaching a course
at American University, is that un-
derstood?" Young demanded.
Richelson, who did a three-vol-
ume study on what was publicly
available about the satellite recon-,
naissance programs only to see the
compilation classified Top Secret,
said that he did.
He said it was well known that
that the KH-11 sends its pictures
back to Washington by way of an-
other satellite in a matter of sec-
onds and that it passes over targets
quite frequently.
Another defense witness, 'John
Pike, associate director for space
policy at the Federation of Amer-
ican Scientists, testified as a layman
expert on what is publicly available
about the KH-11.
He said it is due to be replaced
shortly by a longer-lasting succes-
sor, the KH-12. According to Pike,
the KH-11 orbits the Soviet Union
11 times a day, has the capacity to
take pictures continuously, and has
a peripheral vision that can switch
from extreme left to extreme right
in an instant.
The government rested its case
this morning with a final burst of
testimony about the retrieval of the
three photos from Jane's, one of
which was. found to carry Morison's
right thumbprint.
Vice Adm. Sir Roy Halliday, di-
rector of British military intelli-
gence until last fall, said the pic-
tures were returned to him at
Whitehall Sept. 12, 1984, by mes-
senger from Jane's Defence Week-
ly,, In the same envelope was a note
frbrn Jane's Managing Director Sid-
ney Jabkson that said no security
classification or other information
appeared on the prints. The cut in
the top left-hand corner was made
before we received them."
Morison later admitted to the
FBI that he cut the Secret markings
from the top of the photos.
Halliday said outside court today
that Jane's, which could have been
subjected to Britain's Official Secrets
Act, yielded the photos readily.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403710034-3