STUDIES IN INTELLLIGENCE

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 02316049
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 131
• Document Creation Date: March 9, 2023
• Document Release Date: November 18, 2020
• Case Number: F-2018-00559
• Publication Date: January 1, 1958

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CON Fl DJNTIAL
STUDIES
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INTELLIGENCE
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VOL. 2 NO. 3 SUMMER 1958
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
OFFICE OF TRAINING
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All opinions expressed in the Studies are those of the
authors. They do not necessarily represent the official
views of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Office of
Training, or any other organizational component of the
intelligence community.
WARNING
This material contains information affecting the National
Defense of the United States within the meaning of the
espionage laws, Title 18, USC, Secs. 793 and 794, the trans-
mission or revelation of which to an unauthorized person is
prohibited by law.
CONFIDENTIAL. Siprairufm
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STUDIES IN INTELLIGENCE
EDITORIAL POLICY
Articles for the Studies in Intelligence
may be written on any theoretical, doc-
trinal, operational, or historical aspect
of intelligence.
The final responsibility for accepting or
rejecting an article rests with the Edito-
rial Board.
The criterion for publication is whether
or not, in the opinion of the Board, the
article makes a contribution to the litera-
ture of intelligence.
EDITORS
PHILIP K. EDWARDS
EDITORIAL BOARD
SHERMAN KENT, Chairman
LYMAN B. KIRKPATRICK EDWARD L. ALLEN
LAWRENCE R. HOUSTON
WALTER L. PFORZHEIMER
Additional members of the Board
represent other CIA components.
rnmcinPm-ii AL
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CONTRIBUTIONS AND DISTRIBUTION
Contributions to the Studies or communications to the Editor
may come from any member of the intelligence community or,
upon invitation, from persons outside. Manuscripts should be
submitted directly to the Editor, Studies in Intelligence, Room
2013 R & S Building (143-3832), and need not be coordinated
or submitted through channels. They should be typed in du-
plicate, double-spaced, the original on bond paper. Footnotes
should be inserted in the body of the text following the line in
which the reference occurs. Articles may be classified through
SECRET.
For inclusion on the regular Studies distribution list call your
office dissemination center or the responsible OCR desk, 143-
571. For back issues and on other questions call the Office of
the Editor, 143-3832.
wirer
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CONTENTS
Page
What Is a Generalist? Gordon M. Stewart 1
Describes the development of CIA thinking on the
selection of general officers. CONFIDENTIAL
Toward A Federal Intelligence Memory
George W. Wright 7
Central reference facilities critically examined with a
view to prospects for integrated community serv-
ices. CONFIDENTIAL
Developments in Air Targeting:
The Damage Assessment Model. . Davis B. McCarn 23
The development of formulae to predict the effects of
atomic weapons on particular targets. CONFI-
DENTIAL
Psychological Problems in Singleton Cover Assignments
Martin L. Schatz 31
The lone intelligence officer faces special psychologi-
cal hazards. SECRET
Kim or Major North? Wm. A. Tidwell 37
For a career service of bachelors well integrated into
particular foreign cultures. SECRET
New Anachronism Ralph Riposte 43
Takes issue with Mr. Tidwell. SECRET
The Exploitation of Russian Scientific Literature for In-
telligence Purposes J. J. Bagnall 45
The intelligence community's response to the mush-
room growth of Soviet technical literature. CON-
FIDENTIAL
The Interrogation of Suspects Under Arrest
Don Compos 51
How to "break" a recalcitrant subject without crip-
pling him. SECRET
1110014*,
r-MIriEDENTIAL
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The Intelligence Hand in East-West Exchange Visits
Guy E. Coriden 63
Comparative evaluation of different countries' con-
trol systems. SECRET
A Note on Casual Intelligence Acquisition
Amerikanskiy Turist 71
Poking around behind the not-so-iron curtain.
SECRET
The BBC Monitoring Service and Its U.S. Partner
Roland A. Way 75
How the side-line activity of a foreign service is in-
tegrated into U.S. intelligence collection. CONFI-
DENTIAL
A Cable from Napoleon Edwin C. Fishel 81
How General Sheridan's intercept of a critical cable
from Napoleon III relieved Franco-American ten-
sion after the Civil War. CONFIDENTIAL
Communication to the Editors
A reader takes exception to Lewis R. Long's philoso-
phy of air intelligence. CONFIDENTIAL
UNCLASSIFIED ARTICLES
103
Page
Military Intelligence Behind Enemy Lines
Stefan Borowy 107
Organization and activities of the Polish Home
Army's Intelligence Division.
A Neglected Source of Evidence . . . . Myron Rush 117
Apologia for an exoteric approach to esoteric com-
munications.
We Spied Walter Pforzheimer 127
4firearamo
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CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE
Gordon M. Stewart is CIA's Director of Personnel.
George W. Wright, a CIA analyst, was recently commissioned
to make one of a series of studies of the Agency's central
reference facilities.
Davis B. McCarn is a technical advisor to the Air Force on the
mathematics of weapons effects prediction.
Martin L. Schatz is a psychologist with several years of experi-
ence in overseas operations.
W. A. Tidwell is a CIA senior staff officer charged with develop-
ing new approaches to old problems.
Ralph Riposte is an intelligence officer with responsibility for
various aspects of covert operations.
Don Compos
Guy E. Coriden is the executive secretary of the IAC Ad Hoc
Committee on Exchanges.
Amerikanskiy Turist is a reliable informant.
J. J. Bagnall is Chairman of the IAC Committee on Exploita-
tion of Foreign Language Publications.
Roland A Way for several years headed
Edwin C. Fishel is an analyst employed by the National
Security Agency.
Stefan Borowy is the pen-name of one of the Polish Home Army
officers who led the Warsaw uprising in 1944.
Myron Rush, a specialist in Soviet affairs for the Rand Cor-
poration, is the author of The Rise of Khrushchev, reviewed
in the Spring 1958 issue of Studies.
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How CIA has come to select its
general officers largely from
the ranks of its experienced
specialists.
WHAT IS A GENERALIST?
Gordon M. Stewart
The word generalist as it is used by intelligence people has
no fixed and useful meaning. It suggests a number of ideas
which, for the most part, have been imported from other walks
of life: from the military services we derive the concept of the
general staff officer; from medicine, the general practitioner;
from business, the manager; and from the world of scholarship,
the synthesizer. And it must be admitted that an element
of bias creeps into any discussion of generalists in intelligence.
Most of us tend to line up for or against them. The result of
this is that people beginning a career in intelligence have a
hard time deciding upon long-range goals. They fear that the
old hands will reject them if they try to become generalists and
that they will run the risk of being tucked away and forgotten
if they specialize. These fears, it will be seen, are largely the
result of misunderstanding.
It is my purpose to describe the generalist in the light of
what is known at the present time about career development
in the field of intelligence. The need for qualifying this de-
scription and limiting it to the present is apparent if one turns
to earlier discussions of this subject. The definitions of gen-
eralist and specialist that were current as recently as six or
seven years ago must be set aside in the light of our experience,
and it may be expected that our views will change in the future.
In a paper entitled "A Program for the Establishment of a
Career Corps in the Central Intelligence Agency" dated 7
August 1951, the following paragraphs were written on the
subject of generalists:
"Generalists are those very rare individuals who have the
capacity to bring together many aspects and branches of
the intelligence problem and organization, and wish to do
so. Their need is not for specialized training, but for in-
creasing areas of responsibility and experience on the one
hand, and for rotational experience within the Agency, as
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well as in other intelligence agencies and other govern-
mental agencies which have mutual intelligence needs.
"Whereas the purpose of Specialist Career Training is to
produce better specialists, there is considerable doubt that
any particular effort should be made to improve the special
skills of the generalists, excepting to broaden their lan-
guage ability, increase their first-hand knowledge of im-
portant foreign areas, and to give them enough experience
in the various offices of the Agency and other intelligence
agencies so that they can understand their products, and
know their limitations and capacities.
"Therefore, while a high percentage of this group will have
benefited as specialists from . . . training . . . before
they have been identified as generalists, an entirely new
emphasis must subsequently be placed on their career de-
velopment. The purpose of their training is to produce
Directors of Central Intelligence, Deputy Directors of Cen-
tral Intelligence, Assistant Directors, and Deputy Assistant
Directors, Assistants to the Director, members of the Na-
tional Estimates Board and other key people."
Clearly, the Agency considered making a relatively early
selection of those persons who were to be developed as gener-
alists and then planning their careers in such a way that from
among their number the top management of the Agency could
be drawn. The career pattern for the generalist was to be
something like this: duty with Army, Navy, Air or State; rota-
tion in CIA; assignment to ONE or OCI; rotation in CIA;
National War College; assignment to the NSC; rotation in CIA;
and, finally, graduate studies in the field of intelligence.
At the same time the generalist was pursuing this course of
development, a carefully selected group of specialists would be
developed by each of the major intelligence areas in the Agency,
and it was expected from among the ablest of the specialists
the top positions in these areas would eventually be filled.
These proposals for Agency personnel management were
never formally adopted, partly because there was something
too artificial and self-conscious about the early designation of
individuals as generalists, but even more because of the pres-
sure of work in the Agency. Since 1951 we have undoubtedly
been influenced by the experience of others in the field of per-
sonnel management. The report of the Secretary of State's
Public Committee on Personnel dated June 1954 described the
trend in management thinking as follows:
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"Banks and industrial firms and commercial concerns
used to develop 'generalists' for top management posts by
moving promising talent through different departments.
The idea was to familiarize a promising man with the dif-
ferent operations of a business. That practice, however,
has been all but abandoned by large-scale private enter-
prise�first by business, not much later by the banks, and
finally by universities. Prevailing management practice
today emphasizes the development of an individual around
his specialty, with the generalism coming later as he ap-
proaches full maturity.
The report also pointed out the great importance of bringing
men of stature and experience into the Foreign Service at
higher levels. Although our experience and our needs are
somewhat different from those of the Foreign Service, we too
have found in practice that there are two types of generalists:
those who have entered intelligence work at a relatively high
level and those who have first achieved status as specialists
and later have become generalists.
We need devote but little attention to the former category,
important as it is. Intelligence needs the infusion of new
blood not just at the lower level but at the medium and higher
levels. The fact that intelligence is coming of age is no reason
to close the door to the great resources of talent and compe-
tence represented in industry, in the academic world and
among professional people in and out of government. Further,
by bringing in outstanding men from time to time, we will pre-
vent intelligence from falling behind in those fields in which
American progress is so intimately associated with the interests
of national security: in science, in technology, in management
and in the social sciences.
At the same time, any strong and cohesive service will neces-
sarily try to develop a major share of its leadership from the
ranks, and in intelligence this means from among its qualified
specialists. To do this, it will need to convert a certain number
of specialists into generalists.
Let us, therefore, begin with the specialist. The specialist,
as contrasted with the apprentice or technician, is a man who
has developed specialized competence and recognized standing
in one or several of the broad fields of intelligence: espionage,
counter-espionage, overt procurement or analysis. He is a
creative worker and is, above all, reliable in the sense that he
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is a known quantity. Within his field he works efficiently be-
cause he has a grasp of the factors that bear on his assignment.
He deals easily with other intelligence elements, using what
they can offer in the furtherance of his work. His knowledge
of the intelligence process is broad and his ability to judge re-
sults in fields other than his own is at a high professional level.
The specialist may be a case officer, an analyst, a reports
officer; or he may manage case officers or analysts. He may
also be in charge of all of the administrative machinery asso-
ciated with a substantial intelligence undertaking. Promotion
to an important supervisory position is not tantamount to con-
version to a generalist. Wide areas of the intelligence com-
munity are entirely dominated by the purest of specialists and
it is in these areas that the most valuable work is done.
This is what makes conversion from specialist to generalist
difficult. There tends to be built up among any really good
group of specialists an attitude of self-satisfaction and a spirit
of defense against all corners. Among intelligence people there
exists the strong belief that there is no place for generalists.
Are not all of us regarded as specialists by people outside of
the intelligence community? Then why not fill our top posi-
tions with high-caliber specialists and let it go at that?
Harold J. Laski provided what is perhaps the best answer to
this question 28 years ago in an article in Harper's Magazine.'
He said that expertise sacrifices the insight of common sense
to intensity of experience. It breeds an inability to accept new
views from the very depth of its preoccupation with its own
conclusions. It sees its results out of perspective by making
them the center of relevance to which all other results must
be related. It has, also, a certain caste-spirit about it, so that
experts tend to neglect all those who do not belong to their
own ranks.
If Laski had been writing about U.S. intelligence anno 1958,
he could not have come closer to the mark. These are, indeed,
the characteristics of the intelligence specialist; characteristics
that many of us have long since recognized in ourselves and in
our colleagues. They are the price we pay for effectiveness at
the cutting edge.
Harper's Magazine, December 1930, pp. 101-110, "The Limitations
of the Expert"
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But there is another side to intelligence. There are con-
stantly at work broadening influences which over the years
have left their mark on a good many men. First among them
is variety. Over a period of time an intelligence officer is in-
troduced to many of the factors bearing on national security
or related to the overseas interests of the government. He has
a front-row seat at the biggest show in our time. The extent
and breadth of his intellectual development is limited only by
his ability and willingness to learn.
Overseas, the experienced intelligence officer may be called
upon to deal with men in very high positions in government,
business or the professions. These relationships are not infre-
quently of an intense and revealing nature. They have proved
to be of great value in the cultivation and growth of our people.
The structure of American clandestine activities, involving
controlled competition and requiring as it frequently does the
coordinate efforts of several agencies, is a permanent counter-
poise to excessive parochialism and self-satisfied narrowness.
It also makes a demand on the managerial skills of those who
engage in joint efforts, for there are intrinsic inefficiencies to
be overcome in any attempt at governmental teamwork.
Certainly the type of assignment and the type of training
planned for the generalist seven years ago can provide valuable
experience. These opportunities do not come in as concen-
trated doses as originally foreseen, but they come. Very often
in making selections for the advanced schools the question of
a man's ability to grow is carefully weighed, and in this sense
the original purposes of the career development planning done
in 1951 are kept alive.
Then, finally, in the conduct of our business it is necessary
to move men from one field of specialization to another. Two
elements dictate this: the shifting pressures of work and the
recognized need to provide men with wide experience. This
process does not, of course, operate at the rate that many
would wish nor, necessarily, at the rate that it should. Intelli-
gence has a long way to go in the development of its doctrine
of manpower utilization. Nonetheless, in its few years of exist-
ence, intelligence has offered a wide variety of experience to a
substantial number of men.
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These, then, are the broadening influences that may affect
the outlook of an intelligence officer and move him in the direc-
tion of generalism. They are at work long before the question
arises whether or not a given man should become a generalist.
Indeed, they are in one degree or another common to the ex-
perience of all senior specialists. The final step from specialist
to generalist would appear to involve a large measure of self-
selection. A good number of our ablest intelligence officers
remain specialists despite broad experience and outstanding
success in different assignments. Those who take the step do
so gradually. A man may be a practicing generalist, that is
"one who devotes himself to general rather than specialist apti-
tudes or deeds," and yet for some time align himself with the
specialists. But the change proceeds nonetheless, with the
result that intelligence is constantly and imperceptibly gain-
ing leadership from the ranks. Among these new leaders are
to be found the true intelligence generalists.
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A new DCID makes timely this
critical review of CIA's refer-
ence facilities with recommen-
dations for improvements in an
eventual federal system.
TOWARD A FEDERAL INTELLIGENCE MEMORY
George W. Wright
The problem of storing an ever mounting accumulation of
raw intelligence information and maintaining ready access to
assorted needles in this haystack is one of the most baffling
in the whole field of intelligence management. It is particu-
larly difficult in CIA, where it is necessary to provide com-
munity-wide reference services and where no categories of data
are excluded from the collection. The problem has been at-
tacked manfully and partial solutions have been achieved; but
these solutions have not kept pace with the growing mountain
of documents and the sharpened requirements of intelligence
analysts. CIA analysts still fall more or less frustrated be-
tween the impossibility of keeping adequate personal files and
the deficiencies of the central reference service.
It is the purpose of this article to examine the central refer-
ence problem critically from the substantive end-user point of
view, keeping in mind the intellectual processes and the
methodological problems involved in the production of finished
intelligence. This is an opportune time for such an examina-
tion in view of the new DCID 1/4 creating a permanent IAC
Committee on Documentation. The new directive enlarges
somewhat upon past community-wide approaches to this prob-
lem, and looks toward an integrated community system of com-
patible individual agency reference services�toward a unified
federal intelligence Memory. The Committee will seek to de-
velop appropriate relationships within such an integrated sys-
tem, so that individual structures may function harmoniously
and usefully within the framework of the whole.
The framework to be provided for the federal intelligence
Memory would seem to have five theoretical functions:
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Function I: It should integrate the information handling
capabilities of all intelligence agencies and other special col-
lections as sub-sets of a federal reference system. As a corol-
lary of this function, and specifically to facilitate interchange
and wide use of all raw intelligence information, the central
framework must insure compatibility in the development of
information handling systems and equipment within individual
agencies.
Function II: It must insure that raw data from all sources,
both open and classified, can easily be brought to bear selec-
tively upon any given substantive problem. This is the basic
requirement from which derive such procedural problems as
how to deal with the flow of information from any particular
agency or source. The function presents difficult problems in
the development of adequate techniques for dealing with cur-
rent unclassified literature.
Function III: It should insure that the central reference
service is responsive to intelligence priorities, not just to fre-
quency of demand. Factors underlying such responsiveness
include the form of document storage and directness of access
thereto; the techniques of search in indirect access and the
resulting speed, completeness, and relevance of document re-
trieval; and the provision of special collections. As a corollary
the central framework must provide for placement of document
collections and indexing devices within IAC agencies in accord-
ance with needs deriving from their assigned responsibilities
and for the maintenance of a central all-source collection in
CIA for internal and community use.
Function IV: It should seek to solve the problem of dealing
simultaneously with several high priority requests which re-
quire the same files, equipment, or personnel.
Function V: It should provide for continuing consultation
with users as a basis for improving procedures and should fur-
nish oral and written guidance to users to enable them to em-
ploy the facility as effectively as possible.
In moving from theoretical functions at this level toward
more specific management problems within the Memory, there
is always a danger of losing the orientation to research and
substantive services in favor of procedures and approaches
which facilitate internal housekeeping. The discussion which
follows will attempt to retain the end-user point of view, and
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above all to keep in mind the reasoning and discriminate judg-
ments which go into the development of intelligence products.
The present analysis, however, does not get into the important
related problems of formulating information requirements or
of collecting and evaluating information in the field. Rather
it deals with the general problem of facilitating the use of that
information which has been sent to the central Memory.
Basic Problems of Information Storage and Retrieval'
It is generally recognized that intelligence draws heavily on
open-source information, and that the unique element in in-
telligence research is the careful assimilation of open-source
and classified information into a timely, all-source analysis.
This requires the systematic treatment of myriad incoming
documents, periodicals, and books.
The intelligence reference function is differentiated from
ordinary reference services primarily through its servicing of
needs for classified documents. Although calls on these docu-
ments have in CIA experience constituted considerably less
than half the reference requirements, the importance of classi-
fied documents to the intelligence officer and to the policy
maker is inestimably greater than this proportion would indi-
cate. Their importance derives from a substantive content not
available in open sources, from their timeliness, and from the
reliability of controlled sources.
The approach to handling these documents is consequently
of fundamental importance in a system of information storage
and retrieval, but the same logic of approach extends to in-
coming unclassified materials as well. In both types there are
1 Technical note: Although this article, for simplicity's sake, fre-
quently refers somewhat loosely to "information" storage, it actu-
ally means "document" storage. Information storage and retrieval
in the technical sense applied to modern electronic computers is in
use in some areas of intelligence�SAGE and some aspects of war
gaming are examples�and feasible for certain others, but informa-
tion storage and retrieval in this sense can never fully replace the
basic raw intelligence document collections. The reasons are very
complex. Suffice it for our purposes here to say that the processes
for producing finished intelligence must continue to challenge the
sources, to apply consistency tests to fragmentary information in
the basic documents, and to apply other varying criteria in order
to assess the credibility of the information and to arrange the in-
formation into ever more meaningful patterns.
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three primary substantive dimensions by which they can be
organized�namely, time, country (or area), and functional
content (politics, economics, military subjects, science, etc.)
In both types also there are two general difficulties which can-
not be overcome completely or adequately by any simple over-
all system. One is that the full significance of all the content
elements cannot be recognized or understood, even under opti-
mum conditions, immediately upon receipt of the document
for interpretation or processing. We shall call this the Limited
Immediate Recognition Problem; it is discussed further in
examining indirect access techniques below. The other diffi-
culty is that any given document may refer to numerous coun-
tries or to numerous functional fields of knowledge. This diffi-
culty, which we shall call the Multi-Country/Multi-Function
Problem, precludes the development of special collections of all
relevant materials for each possible subsequent research project.
It is largely these two general problems�Limited Immediate
Recognition and Multi-Country/Multi-Function�which make
exclusive reliance on analyst files impossible as an over-all sys-
tem and make multiple access to a central document file neces-
sary. The Limited Immediate Recognition Problem makes
direct substantive access to intelligently organized central files
of the raw intelligence reports necessary in a system designed
to insure maximum utilization of available information. With
these considerations in mind let us turn to the maintenance of
the federal intelligence Memory and to the three main determi-
nants of its capability: document storage�form and logic;
indirect access techniques; and supplementary capabilities and
special collections.
Document Storage � Form and Logic
The central reference system, with its huge and ever increas-
ing volume of material, is forced to use some kind of photo-
graphic reduction of the hard copy documents it receives,2 one
important device now in use being the aperture card which
holds up to ten frames of microfilm. But photoreduction
brings the user immediate and immense disadvantages: he
The files of individual research offices, in the form of hard copy,
must, because of the space they occupy if for no other reason, re-
main "gem" collections, rather than complete documentation over
any long period. The two general problems mentioned above obvi-
ously join the conspiracy against completeness in an analyst's file.
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often cannot get a recent document from the federal Memory
until it has been microfilmed, mounted and coded; under some
storage systems he must resort to some index device to identify
and locate appropriate documents; he can look at a document
only through a viewer or in re-enlargement; he cannot easily
compare it with other documents. For these reasons it is clear
that exclusive reliance on photoreduction in the Memory tends
to restrict utilization of raw intelligence documents. An obvi-
ous way out of this difficulty is to adopt parallel hard copy and
photoreduced files for the current year, while the documents
are most in demand, and discard the hard copy only when it
is say one year old.
The logic of the filing arrangement for raw intelligence docu-
ments is one of the most critical determinants of the federal
intelligence Memory's capability, affecting as it does the
amount of material concentrated for direct access by the
analyst. The present arrangement of filing raw documents
by central acquisition dates within their respective issuing
agency series scatters through the entire document collection
the associated reports from a given country. The analyst who
wants one particular report and knows the issuing agency and
number has immediate access to it, at least in theory; all others,
whether area or functional specialists, must resort to search
by one of the varieties of indirect access indexing techniques,
all of which have significant limitations (see below). A filing
arrangement by country of origin,3 on the other hand, with a
second breakdown by issuing agency in chronological sequence,
would provide direct and immediate access for country special-
ists and would similarly serve functional specialists in some
measure, to the extent that issuing agencies specialize each in
its own functional field. Certainly the current hard copy files
urged above should have this arrangement, and its advantages
would extend also to the photoreductions of older material un-
less parallel hard copy files are to be maintained indefinitely.
An incidental but important characteristic of this system is
' There are certain applications problems involving unusual charac-
teristics of the various issuing agencies which must be worked out.
The main requirements are that each reporting series be kept
homogeneous, and that cables and dispatch series be kept separate.
The theoretical problem can be best handled by a centrally-designed
prefix numbering system covering at least three variables, agency,
country (or post), and means of transmission (cable or dispatch).
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that it is open-ended and permits the addition of other classified
series such as photointelligence as well as of parallel open-
source series such as FBIS (rearranged chronologically by
country of origin) , newspapers, and foreign affairs material
from unclassified wire services.
This simple alteration of the primary filing arrangement
would thus provide some very important substantive advan-
tages while offering no substantive disadvantages and few if
any internal housekeeping disadvantages within the Memory.
The new logic largely copes with the Limited Immediate Recog-
nition Problem by permitting, when appropriate, immediate
and direct recourse to primary document files for indefinite
periods by country of origin and by issuing agency. The Multi-
Country/Multi-Function Problem is still with us in a large
measure, however, and we shall need some other device unless
we wish to rely on the analysts' experience to suggest what
other country files should be looked at for a particular research
project.
It is primarily to solve the Multi-Country/Multi-Function
Problem, and especially to go into the myriad details of certain
functional fields such as economics and the military, that in-
direct access techniques have been devised. It must be recog-
nized at the outset, however, that all such efforts are impaired
by the Limited Immediate Recognition Problem in a manner
which cannot be fully compensated for in these indirect
methods. The indirect methods, nevertheless, are necessary
elements of any over-all system designed to overcome the
deficiencies which cannot be removed by improving the organi-
zation of the primary document file.
Indirect Access Techniques
There are two general types of devices for indirect access: the
abstract,4 which has its conventional meaning of a brief gen-
4 The abstract as a form of indirect access appears to have in isola-
tion rather limited substantive value when applied to raw intelli-
gence documents, which frequently are sketchy, fragmentary, and
disjointed. Its most important application is to unified, coherent,
journal-type articles as in the Chemical Abstracts series and to
finished intelligence studies. In raw intelligence report applica-
tions the abstract adds but little to the code form if the latter is
applied satisfactorily. Intelligence reporting, however, probably
should be standardized to provide an abstract or summary in the
first paragraph.
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eral summary, and what we shall call the "code form," which
indicates the specific categories of information contained in the
counterpart document. (These devices may be used singly or
in combination, and either or both may be combined with the
basic document under some sophisticated systems involving
photoreduction.) Both devices can handle the Multi-Country
Problem and therefore complement the proposed new file logic
for document storage; and the code form is well suited to cope
with certain types of detailed functional content as well.
Another great advantage of the code form in application to
large volumes of material is that it lends itself to machine
search.
In theory, machine search rapidly works out the implications
of current information-selection instructions on past document
classification decisions. Machine search proper enters the
process after master code categories have been established and
after the content of incoming documents has been matched
against these code categories. The over-all system is thus
designed to permit the substantive and security classification
of incoming documents on a routine basis, so that when an
intelligence project is levied the substantive analyst can ideally
obtain without delay (Speed Test) a group of documents com-
prising all those in the system which contain relevant informa-
tion (Completeness Test) and no document which does not
contain relevant information (Relevance Test). Unless the
documents are attached to or associated with their counterpart
code forms, the research analyst obtains a list of relevant docu-
ment citations from which he orders retrieval 5 from the docu-
ment file. There is some tendency toward incompatibility be-
tween completeness and relevance�to assure completeness one
often must risk some irrelevant documents�and sophisticated
systems permit the user to lean in one direction or the other
according to his project needs. The greater the number of
digits in the classification code, the greater the selectivity for
the research analyst and the greater the speed advantage of
sorting by machine.
The Intellofax system, discussed below, combines the abstract and
the code form. After machine search has been completed, a re-
searcher then, on the basis of the counterpart abstracts, has the
option of not retrieving some documents which machine search
found to be relevant. The rationale of inserting this option is not
obvious in past applications of the abstract.
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Retrospective machine search systems, however, are only as
effective as the external human judgments which select the
pigeonholes for the incoming documents on the one hand, and
as the external judgments which decide what pigeonholes to
empty for the analyst's request on the other. All retrospective
machine search systems, in fact, have three sensitive points�
the master code, the document analysts or coders, and the
search instruction writers�which limit the efficiency and relia-
bility of recovery built into the actual searching techniques.
The Intellofax machine search system used by the CIA ref-
erence service for handling classified documents has been
severely criticized on the ground that it is unreliable, unselec-
tive, and costly, and that it is incapable of providing, con-
veniently if at all, some important services which are desirable
in a federal Memory. The unreliability and lack of selectivity
stem in a large measure from lack of progress in the initial
coding of incoming documents, the notable exception being the
adoption of the principle of using one code throughout the
intelligence community. This code, the Intelligence Subject
Code (ISC), however, lacks a fundamental unifying logic, and
has not been adequate to cope with the many new demands
levied upon it. It is difficult, if not impossible, to apply the
code consistently and accurately because categories have not
been defined properly and given items appear in numerous
places without adequate cross referencing.
To make matters worse, the organization and staffing of the
document analysis sections lack specialization, balance and
adequate procedures for assuring high-level analysis in the
various intelligence fields. Furthermore, the search instruc-
tion writers also lack specialization, and have not been kept
fully informed on the coding decisions which were being made
by document analysts. Moreover, their substantive decisions
on what categories of data to recall have been made unilat-
erally, without adequate consultation with the research an-
alyst. As a result of these deficiencies, the really conscientious
research analyst, in order to be sure he has all the available
information bearing on his problem, should theoretically forego
the selectivity of the six-digit code and make broad requests at
about a two or three digit level; that is, he should deliberately
ignore the capability of the search apparatus and use it like
a conventional card file.
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Vigorous efforts are now under way to develop a more flexible
and better balanced machine search system, of necessity a more
costly one, and especially one able to cope with the Limited
Immediate Recognition Problem which plagues all indirect
access techniques.� But there is little point in spending huge
sums of money to develop and purchase a high machine search
capability if this capability cannot be utilized because of a
much lower capability elsewhere in the system, namely, in cod-
ing documents or in writing search instructions. Large ma-
chine search expenditures are rational only if similar effort is
made to get comparable quality in the three sensitive spots
involving the concomitant human effort: the code, the coders,
and the search instruction writers.
The Code. The main principle to be followed in formulating
the master code for indexing document content should be to
focus to the greatest extent possible on general categories of
observable data in a manner which obviates the necessity for
the coder to blur the classification process through the intro-
duction of personal assumptions. Within the general cate-
gories the code should then go to particular sub-categories and
modifiers. (Categories should be defined properly, and given
data should be either treated in one place in the code rather
than scattered about, or adequately cross referenced.)
The search for any general category of documents should
yield, along with its family of sub-categories and modifiers, the
documents of the unmodified general category for which spe-
cific sub-category identifications could not be made when they
entered the system. Under this type of coding, highly selective
runs would be made into a particularly relevant sub-category
or modifier code for the direct evidence. But by Boolean alge-
braic manipulation, the research analyst can select from within
the general category homogeneous categories of knowns and
unknowns which bear indirectly upon a problem concerned
with the particular sub-category, and this may result in further
6 The Minicard system, for example, combines or associates the code
form with the photoreduced counterpart document. This system
has not been fully tested in intelligence applications, but it appears
to offer unusual flexibility in use and to facilitate the interchange
of documents and code forms. As regards files, Minicard could pro-
vide the country files recommended above and still permit machine
search for specifics within that logic.
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identification of some unmodified general category data. Other
portions of the code will have to deal with more abstract cate-
gories of data.
Centralized Community Coding. The analysis and coding of
incoming documents within CIA is at present carried out in
four sections which are organized to specialize on types of docu-
ments according to issuing agency and which are staffed by
personnel having political science or general education back-
grounds. In general, a single person analyzes a given incom-
ing document. The analysis is usually reviewed by one other
person, but there is no method for assuring that the implica-
tions of the given observable phenomenon are coded completely
in all relevant functional specializations. There are no econ-
omists, military specialists, and physical scientists to recognize
and identify data in these fields.
The coding sections should be regrouped, probably under the
general guidance of the IAC Committee on Documentation, to
provide both functional and area specialization. It is recom-
mended that groups be organized first by functional specializa-
tion, for example a political and social section, an economics
section, a military section, a physical science section, and per-
haps a geography section. Within functional sections there
probably should be area specialization, for example an econ-
omist for Bloc economies, one for western European economies,
one for non-Bloc Asian economies, etc. Within the military
section, other specialties could be introduced, for example, ex-
perts able to identify information bearing on Soviet missiles
and possible missile sites. Briefings should be arranged on
various subject problems, particularly those having high intelli-
gence priority. Finally, estimates and gaps-in-intelligence re-
ports from all major IAC research groups should be routed to
and discussed within these sections.
Procedurally, every incoming raw intelligence document
should be routed to each functional section for analysis, to
assure competent examination for implications in all intelli-
gence aspects. This innovation assumes that current batch
handling be replaced by discrete handling of individual incom-
ing documents. Its functional orientation could, and I think
should, lead to a centralized and highly sensitive coding for
the entire IAC to replace the several duplicative operations
which individually have limited competence in some fields. The
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coding slots could be staffed jointly by CIA and the IAC com-
munity in accordance with assigned primary responsibilities.
In any case it would be profitable to have select advisory per-
sonnel from IAC agencies assigned to the functional sections
on a temporary or rotational basis. All these measures serve
to restrict significantly the scope in which the Limited Imme-
diate Recognition Problem operates, but clearly they do not
eliminate the problem. And, in view of this recognition prob-
lem, the general decisions not to code or to photoreduce certain
types of documents�the so-called "NODEX" guides�should
be carefully reviewed by community users.
Search Instruction Writing. The central reference service
has also underestimated the importance of the search instruc-
tion writer. This person, usually a trained librarian but un-
derstandably insensitive to the indirect evidence which bears
on specific research problems, is nevertheless making substan-
tive judgments on each such problem which requires reference
material, in that he determines what categories of coded data
are relevant to it. If he makes this selection unilaterally, his
inexpert substantive determination removes responsibility from
the research analyst for further data probes. Present Intello-
f ax procedures call for "another look" if no documents are re-
covered on the basis of the first instructions or if a known
document is not turned up, but in the more typical cases short
of these extremes there is no way of assuring that the instruc-
tion writer has ordered all or even most of the categories which
the research analyst should study.
There should be a reconsideration of the question whether
the formulation of the master code used by the document
analyst is really adequate in the search instruction phase.
Document analysis is primarily the matching problem, re-
sembling inductive reasoning, of subsuming the document con-
tent to the master code. In search instruction writing there
is primarily the deductive problem of calculating what data
bear upon a given research problem. It is therefore possible
that two sets of code books would be more effective, a basic one
for document analysis and a cross-referenced one for search
instruction. The latter might bring together code categories
which usually bear upon certain typical and frequent research
problems.
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Search instruction writers should specialize more than at
present and should undergo special training on research
methods. Daily current intelligence briefings, as well as read-
ing finished intelligence within their specializations, might be
helpful to them. Procedures for keeping them informed of the
coding sections' decisions on particular coding problems should
receive continuing review. Above all, instruction writers
should never make unilateral decisions on what categories of
data to search for. The research analyst must be made more
familiar with the problems of coding and should participate
actively in the formulation of search instructions.
Ideally, for optimum functioning of an indirect access ref-
erence system, the research analyst himself should have coded
all documents and should write the search instructions for
material relevant to his immediate problem. It is only by
approaching this ideal more closely, through procedures based
on an improved understanding of the formidable communica-
tion and comprehension problems involved, that the cost of
machine search can be justified. These considerations apply
both to Intellofax and to the more complex machine systems
under experimental development. (See, for example, footnote
6 above.)
Problems of Political and Military Dynamics. Machine
search has its greatest potential value for those documents
whose content aspects contain easily defined and recognized
logical categories. Economic activities, physical country de-
scriptions (including missile site characteristics) , target infor-
mation, military hard goods, order of battle, biographic infor-
mation and other broad categories of data can be handled con-
veniently and with great rapidity by Intellofax or by some other
retrospective machine search. (In line with Function II
above, machine search can conveniently be extended to include
unclassified material relating to selected high priority National
Intelligence Objectives.) But these machine systems are in-
convenient, if useful at all, for certain other information re-
trieval requirements.
Especially for political and military dynamics�the delicate
tasks of inferring strategies, objectives, and motivations and of
identifying and weighing opposing forces�there usually is no
substitute for intact chronological files by country and issuing
agency. In these pursuits the relevant categories of data are
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not fully known, and in addition they can change frequently,
perhaps with the demise of a political leader. Moreover, purely
economic or purely military data sometimes later acquire criti-
cal political meaning, even if only through an implicit threat.
Furthermore, there may be very indirect shreds of evidence in
the raw documents which suggest new lines of inquiry or which
contribute to the testing of hypotheses on the possible strategies
of various factions or interests, shreds which seldom can be
identified a priori for coding purposes but acquire meaning
gradually with successive study of preceding and subsequent
events. Finally, the machine search system is incomplete;
certain types of documents such as FBIS, cables and Weekas
are not coded.
In the field of political and military dynamics perhaps more
than in others, a further deficiency of the present central ref-
erence system is a serious one�delays and gaps in the actual
retrieval of documents. If it requires several days or weeks to
retrieve or re-enlarge an eight- or ten-month country file, if it
requires even two days to furnish prints of a hundred or so
documents, if documents received in recent weeks are not made
available because they are in photoreduction process, then the
area analyst with an immediate need cannot be serviced by
machine search, regardless of how well the material may be
coded or how wisely the search instructions are written. In-
telligence officers with important policy briefing functions
simply cannot afford to be kept waiting while the slow, pains-
taking process of assembling country files takes place. The
responsible country analysts must have direct and immediate
access to the intact files by country, preferably in hard copy,
for which this article pleads.
Supplementary Facilities
The central reference system should be a house of many
mansions. It should include, in addition to its reorganized
complete file of classified documents, photoreduced and coded
for machine search for functional analysts, and its hard-copy
file by country of current classified and open-source material
for broad political analysts at a country level, a number of
supplementary facilities. Some of these are represented in CIA
by existing registers and special libraries. For example, the
important Industrial Register provides direct access to reports
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on numerous Bloc industrial installations. There should be
added an improved reference assistance service with substan-
tive competence (area and functional) , somewhat analogous to
the Legislative Reference Service of the Library of Congress;
a complete collection, by country, of the speeches and com-
muniques of political leaders; area source registers; a file of
FBIS dailies by country of broadcast origin; and arrangements
for making revealed US policy positions on a given country
available for quick reference. Finally, it is possible that for
selected high priority intelligence objectives, selected unclassi-
fied material should be coded for the purpose of achieving the
rapid all-source objective cited in theoretical Function II above.
Speeches, communiques, and other position papers by major
political leaders theoretically are available in central reference,
but access to them requires a tedious search of NY Times, FBIS
dailies, State and CIA reports, and foreign newspapers. These
materials are of such usefulness to national intelligence in
showing the evolution of political leaders' public positions that
special efforts should be made to make complete files by country
available within CIA on a moment's notice. This service, in-
volving routine search through relevant incoming source docu-
ments plus nominations by substantive area analysts, would
result in a file similar to the present Bloc economic plans
collection.
Area source registers should maintain a listing of the publi-
cations within or relating to each country, with data on the
usual subjects covered in each, its orientation, apparent back-
ers, etc. This file can borrow as appropriate from The Political
Handbook of the World and from Library of Congress reference
facilities and publications. Such a device has considerable
potential for filling important data gaps, and would be useful
in liaison work with other libraries.
FBIS material can be systematically included within the
central reference system by a simple, inexpensive device.
Existing FBIS regional dailies could be split up into countries
to form new reference volumes containing the accumulation of
individual country output over some months. Each new refer-
ence volume would comprise two parts, the index and the broad-
casts, and each part could be set up on a day-to-day chronologi-
cal basis. In this form, FBIS would parallel the proposed
primary document file according to country of origin and
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within that by issuing agency. Alternatively it could be bound
and indexed as a book, but indexers should have an intelligence
orientation.
In short, the central reference system should thus develop
a combination of machine search, country files, and other fea-
tures with a goal of achieving balance and flexibility. The
criteria for balance and flexibility are two: the attainment of
speeds of reaction which are generally consistent with the
intelligence priorities of existing and foreseeable types of
projects; and the maintenance of a capability of filling effec-
tively all reasonable requests and needs which are now experi-
enced and those which are likely to have a significant bearing
on national intelligence and security within the next five to ten
years. Consideration should be given to the problem of simul-
taneous high priority requests which make use of the same raw
intelligence documents, reference personnel, or other capabili-
ties and to the problem of making the entire community's
assets available when appropriate to researchers in any of the
IAC agencies.
CIA now has primary responsibility for studies looking
toward the assignment of more specific and differentiated re-
sponsibilities among IAC agencies for maintaining information
storage with rapid search and retrieval capabilities. It must
take the lead in developing a master system to integrate the
compatible assigned capabilities of other IAC agencies, as well
as those of the Library of Congress and other special collections,
as chambers of the federal intelligence Memory. Especial em-
phasis should be given to the provision and placement of infor-
mation handling capabilities�realistically conceived in the
perspective of the data and intellectual processes involved�to
facilitate the analysis and weighing of factors which tend to
upset political equilibria in countries of the Free World or to
alter the strategic balance in the world situation. These capa-
bilities certainly should have the highest information handling
priorities in the intelligence community.
This review has been very critical in tone. The underlying
point, however, is not that there are better reference systems
elsewhere, that the existing facilities are not of considerable
value, or that no progress has been made in the past few years.
Rather, the point is that the international situation is moving
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into a subtle phase in which the time required to recognize new
strategic and tactical developments and assess their implica-
tions will become increasingly important. The existing refer-
ence facilities are not yet good enough to meet this need.
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In this third article of its series,
Air Targets solves for the most
elementary unknown in its
threat-vulnerability equations.
DEVELOPMENTS IN AIR TARGETING:
THE DAMAGE ASSESSMENT MODEL
Davis B. McCarn
The primary mission of air targeting is the identification of
opportunities for air action. The identification of these oppor-
tunities requires an exhaustive study of many aspects of the
structure of potential enemy nations. Each of the important
resources of these nations must be evaluated, measured, and,
if possible, associated with specific geographic locations. The
contributions of these resources to the strengths of the enemy
must be evaluated. The motivations and national objectives
of the enemy must, in turn, be studied to determine the prob-
able threats posed by his available strengths. Having defined
the threats posed, it is then possible to return to the resources
which were critical to the strengths underlying these threats
and assess their vulnerability to air attack. Through the
assessment of the vulnerability of many combinations of re-
sources, opportunities for optimum air action can be identified.
This analytic process, proceeding from the enemy's resources
and strengths to the threats he poses and from his vulnera-
bilities to the opportunities they provide for air action, is what
air targeting calls "comprehensive analysis."
The analytic model described in a previous issue, the Mili-
tary Resources Mode1,1 can be thought of primarily as an aid
in the analysis of resources to determine strengths. The Air
Battle Model, also described previously,2 and the Damage
Assessment Model, considered here, are primarily concerned
with the measurement of threats and the assessment of vulner-
ability. Since an enemy threat can best be measured in terms
of our vulnerability to it, both of these elements reduce essen-
tially to measurements of vulnerability.
1 Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 2 No. 1, Winter 1958, pp. 51-84.
2/bid., Vol. 2 No. 2, Spring 1958, pp. 13-32.
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Vulnerability in this sense covers a wide range. In particu-
lar, it includes by inversion the time-phased capabilities of the
two (or more) antagonists in relation to each other. The pur-
pose of the Air Battle Model is to keep under calculation the
interacting and fluctuating capabilities related to the progress
of an air war. It disregards other capabilities, military, social,
and economic, which do not affect the progress of the air battle.
Determining the vulnerability of these remaining capabilities
and strengths requires additional analysis. Basic to both the
Air Battle Model and this analysis of other capabilities is an
ability to predict the effects of weapons and weapon systems
used by the opposing forces. The Damage Assessment Model
has been developed to meet this requirement.
The Theory of Damage Assessment
"Damage assessment" as used here is limited to mean pre-
diction of the probable effects of hypothetical applications of
atomic weapons or weapon systems to specific targets or target
systems. The Model is simply a body of analytic procedures
which have been standardized to the point where they can
either be manipulated even by people who don't understand
them or fed into high-speed computers. The Damage Assess-
ment Model is a growing body of highly flexible analytic proce-
dures, capable of utilizing rapidly changing data with regard
to atomic explosions in predicting the probable physical, func-
tional, or operational effects of atomic weapons on targets or
target systems.
In a relatively simple example, the Damage Assessment
Model predicts the effects of attack on a specific airfield with
an atomic weapon of given yield which is burst at a particular
height. This prediction is usually in straightforward terms of
physical effect, such as probable fraction of aircraft rendered
inoperative, probable fraction of hangars collapsed, or residual
contamination in the maintenance area after four hours. In-
terpretations of these physical effects may be computed, how-
ever. In this simple case, the calculation of contamination
intensities, blast damage, and thermal and initial gamma radi-
ation fluxes may be combined with intelligence or assumptions
about personnel distributions and shielding to produce injury
and fatality estimates. More complex cases involve functional
or operational interpretations of physical effects. These inter-
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pretations are important, but the basic building block for all
damage assessment is the capability to predict the probable
physical effects on targets of a projected attack.
George F. Kennan has written in a recent article in Harpers
Magazine, "I do not believe there is any human mind or group
of human minds or any calculating machine anywhere in the
world which can predict with accuracy what would happen if
these weapons should begin to be used. . . ." His proposition
as stated is undoubtedly right. Prediction of the total effect of
atomic attacks is an overwhelmingly difficult problem. Prob-
ably the most difficult part of it is the assessment of human
reactions, like for example that of the doctor at Hiroshima who
painted severe burns with iodine. Most of the available evi-
dence indicates that people cannot be trained to accept
catastrophe.
Even with the more limited problem of predicting the specific
physical effects of atomic attack, it is not evident what physical
effects should be selected for prediction. Any damage predic-
tion presumes a prediction of the occurrence or non-occurrence
of some selected type of damage. The questions asked must be
of the type "Did the building collapse?" not of the type "What
happened?" Determining what questions to ask is itself an
abstract question requiring careful analysis.
These two aspects of the total problem, the assessment of
human reactions and the selection of the physical or other
effects to be predicted, are both under continuing investigation.
The purpose of this article is to describe only the first step in
the solution, the development of a capability to predict specific
selected physical effects. This capability, which now exists in
the Damage Assessment Model, has considerable importance in
its own right, without regard to the solution of the larger prob-
lems. There are many problems requiring only comparative
accuracy which are susceptible of solution with such a model.
Questions about the advisability of using alternative weapon
systems or strategies can be attacked through the computation
of even arbitrarily selected physical effects to show the relative
advantages of each with respect to these effects. And while
prediction of the total effect of atomic attack is not possible,
it is certainly possible to develop techniques for indicating the
order of magnitude of some of the effects.
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The Operation of the Model
The Damage Assessment Model can be divided conceptually
into two parts, the first for assessing the direct effects of atomic
weapons�blast, thermal radiation, and initial gamma radia-
tion�and the second for estimating residual contamination
or fallout. Of the direct effects, attention has been focused
primarily on blast, and the procedures for calculating blast
damage are here described in greatest detail.
The conceptual framework for the assessment of blast effects
was developed from analysis of the damage at Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. Analysis of these data indicated that any system
for predicting blast damage must take into account the rather
awkward fact that many structures near the bomb-burst sur-
vived while structures of similar construction farther away
were damaged. If a weapon were burst over an extensive hous-
ing development of uniform construction, the result might be
pictured as in Figure 1. In this figure each black square indi-
cates a building that collapsed, and each white square one
that did not. It will be noted that there is no sharp line
between those collapsed and those left standing.
Figure 2 shows a plot of the data on one type of structure at
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The curve shown is a statistical best
fit to the data; it associates with each distance a probability of
occurrence for a particular type of damage. Statistical an-
alysis of a series of such fits to data on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
indicated that the probability functions for all of the various
categories of structures in these two cities were remarkably
similar.
If a series of these similar probability curves is drawn suc-
cessively along the distance axis of Figure 2, each such curve,
identified by its mean distance, can be thought of as represent-
ing a vulnerability class. These classes were assigned vulner-
ability numbers, VN's, and through weapons effects tests the
distance range of each was translated into an equivalent range
of overpressures. The VN classes thus define the probability
associated with any distance or overpressure. The obvious
question with regard to this last sentence is, probability of
what? The answer is probability of any kind of damage, since
the scale itself is a general one unrelated to any specific dam-
age effects.
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The Damage Assessment Model
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CONFIDENTIAL The Damage Assessment Model
Given a particular kind of damage, however, the overpressure
associated with 50 percent probability of the occurrence of that
damage can be estimated, and the probability of that damage
at other overpressures can be estimated, by selecting the appro-
priate VN. In addition, the extensive data available from
atomic tests can be used to predict the overpressure at partic-
ular distances over a wide range of weapon yields and heights
of burst. Thus the assignment of a VN class to a target to
define the probability of some particular type of damage allows
the prediction of this probability for any weapon yield or height
of burst. The selection of VN's for a variety of kinds of damage
on many different types of structures and targets has been
accomplished on the basis of data from the Japanese experi-
ence, atomic test data, and theoretical calculations.
The handling of thermal and gamma radiation is done with
probability functions similar to those used in blast analysis.
The system thus allows the prediction of any type of damage.
Pre-analysis is required to determine, on the basis of the vul-
nerability of the target and the type of damage to be predicted,
which vulnerability classification is appropriate. The model
then provides for estimating the probability of this type of
damage.
The technique used in estimating residual contamination is
basically different from that used in the analysis of direct
effects. Whereas the analysis of direct effects is based on a
probability curve and results in a statement about the prob-
ability of some type of damage to a particular target, the con-
tamination assessment model produces definite answers about
absolute intensities or doses. This difference does not arise
from any predictability of fallout as opposed to unpredicta-
bility of direct effects. On the contrary, it results from the
difficulty of constructing a probability model of fallout; an-
alytic effort has not succeeded in developing a probability model
of fallout patterns, which depend upon unpredictable weather
conditions among other factors.
Contamination analysis, however, is usually applied only to
large target systems, where accuracy with respect to individual
targets is less important than average estimates for the whole
system. The Model allows the computation of estimated con-
tamination levels based on a stylized contamination pattern,
given the assumed weather conditions at the time of the burst,
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the location of the burst, and the type and yield of the weapon.
The Model provides for estimating intensities or doses at any
time after the initiation of hostilities.
It may be noted that the definition of this Model does not
require that it be available on a computer. The description of
its two parts, one for direct effects and one for contamination
assessment, is applicable to either a hand or a computerized
model. The Model is available in either form. Numerous
technical manuals have been prepared describing the use of
these procedures in hand analysis. Programs have also been
developed for several computers, mechanizing the preparation
of damage assessments by the Model. The requirement for a
computer program is evident from the magnitude of present
targeting problems. In one recent study, roughly 1,000 high-
yield weapons were gamed against a system of 40,000 targets
and target areas. Thirteen hours of computer time were re-
quired to produce twelve damage answers on each target or
target area, a total of nearly 500,000 predictions. A problem
of this size is well beyond the capabilities of hand analysis.
The Damage Assessment Model herein described is only one
of several such models which have been developed to serve this
purpose. The development of a single, standardized damage
assessment model is now being actively pursued in the Depart-
ment of Defense. It is expected, however, that such a stand-
ardized model will adhere quite closely to the concepts illus-
trated in this article.
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SECRET
An analysis of the personal ten-
sions which may beset an in-
telligence officer under official
cover and lacking full contact
with his intelligence organiza-
tion.
PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS IN SINGLETON
COVER ASSIGNMENTS
Martin L. Shatz
People in the intelligence business have long recognized the
problem of the psychological tensions sometimes experienced
by a singleton intelligence officer. In the case of the singleton
who conducts covert operations from the official cover of an
overseas organization, these are not infrequently so severe as
to include among their manifestations an evident unproduc-
tiveness from the intelligence point of view. The man is judged
by his operational supervisors to have produced less than his
capabilities and cover potential would have led them to expect.
He may become so involved in his cover position that he seems
to have neither time nor inclination to carry out his intelligence
duties. This paper seeks to identify the sources of some of
these tensions.
It is evident that one of the singleton's difficulties lies in the
constriction of his opportunities to communicate with other
intelligence personnel: his cover is likely to isolate him to the
extent that his motivation is impaired by his inability to discuss
his covert activities with the base out of which he operates.
What is less evident is the difficulty of psychological tensions
generated by his attempt to maintain a satisfactory relation-
ship with the members of the cover group with whom he lives
and works, who may or may not have knowledge of his covert
status.
There are certain psychological needs which most of us de-
velop, in varying degrees, by virtue of the very fact that we
have been reared in the American culture. Some of these have
been presented in non-technical language in recent books on
the subject of the American social character, for� example in
William A. Whyte's The Organization Man. The three such
needs pertinent to the problem of this article are in simplified
summary the following:
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As we grow up we develop specific satisfactions from being
members of groups which are important to us or which we find
in some way attractive. These can be formal or informal
groups. Conversely, we feel concern if we are excluded from
such groups. Psychologists call the need for these satisfac-
tions "belongingness needs."
We also learn to want and enjoy the respect and recognition
of others for a variety of reasons, whether for pure ability,
wealth, family background, or some other superiority. This is
sometimes referred to as "status need."
We set up certain standards for ourselves which we attempt
to maintain; and we also set up certain goals which we strive
to achieve. These are called "achievement needs."
It must not be assumed that the individual is always con-
scious of these needs. Indeed, at times he may be completely
unaware that they are influencing his actions in a given situ-
ation. But the frustration of these needs, conscious or sub-
conscious, is likely to produce considerable psychological ten-
sion in any person.
This frustration is not likely to occur among intelligence
officers at a field station where a number of them are clustered
together under the same kind of cover. Here, as at home,
they are all members of a structured organization, each with
his role and function as a part of the team. In addition they
are generally members of the social groups which are formed
from station personnel. The station organization also pro-
vides the intelligence officer the opportunity to develop his pro-
fessional skills and his career under the direct observation of
his operational supervisors. He can work with confidence
toward promotion and other goals which he has set up for
himself.
To return, however, to the singleton under official cover and
his problem of unproductiveness and overinvolvement in cover
activities: what are some of the influences operating on him?
For one thing he may find his new cover role very pleasant.
If he has been a covert employee for a number of years, without
an overt employment role which relates him to the outside
world, he may now find it most refreshing to be able to act as
representative of a respected organization and deal comfortably
with outsiders, especially the local population of the country
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in which he is stationed. A more basic reason for this over-
involvement, however, this "vice consulitis," as it is sometimes
called, is the closure of other avenues for satisfying his need
to be accepted as a member of a group and to be respected for
his performance as one of the players on a team.
It is true that he could develop personal and social relation-
ships with his colleagues of the cover organization without
throwing himself into their work, and that these should satisfy
in part his need for association with a group; but the respect
he receives from them will be determined not so much by per-
sonal relationships as by his ability to perform his cover duties.
If he is a person with a strong psychological need for recogni-
tion of his status or achievements and if he has received this
kind of recognition in the past within his own organization,
he will probably devote to his cover duties whatever time and
effort is necessary to achieve a like status and recognition with
the cover organization, even to the extent of slighting his in-
telligence assignment. Such a person finds it difficult to resign
himself to playing a weak or undistinguished role among his
colleagues in the group with which he is immediately
associated.
Even in the social groups formed from the cover organiza-
tion, moreover, he may find his intelligence duties an obstacle
to his and his family's acceptance as full members. These
duties may require him to work evenings or to be away fre-
quently on trips and thus may inhibit his regular participa-
tion in the rather full social life of some overseas organizations.
Informal pressures may be exerted on him to conform with the
normal obligations of this social life and as a result neglect
certain operational activities. If his colleagues do not know
about his intelligence duties, there is the additional compli-
cation of finding credible excuses and explanations.
Fortunately, some of these problems are usually obviated by
informing at least part of the cover organization's staff that
the intelligence officer has a special assignment in addition to
his regular duties, and his colleagues often come to recognize
the necessity for his irregular pattern of action. This under-
standing eases his social and office relationships, but by no
means fulfills his need for real membership in the group and
a satisfying function in the organization. He is still likely to
strive, at least subconsciously, to achieve recognition in his
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cover role and so devote more time and energy to it than is
required to maintain the cover.
Socially, his colleagues' awareness of the nature of his other
activities may be a further barrier to his, and more distress-
ingly his wife's, being accepted as a member of the group.
Many such groups have standards which reject intelligence
operations as unethical activities which are in conflict with
democratic and diplomatic principles. Their members, not
knowing precisely what the intelligence officer is doing, imagine
the worst and fear the worst, contemplating their own dreadful
embarrassment if he should be exposed. The men may be
antagonistic, suspecting that the intelligence officer is working
at cross purposes or in competition with their own objectives.
The women may make slighting comments about "people who
pretend to be doing something they aren't."
If in these circumstances his contacts with other intelligence
personnel and his own organization are too tenuous to com-
pensate for exclusion from his cover group, and if he finds the
cover group an attractive one, he may be forced subconsciously
to accept its standards and conform to its expectations of a
member. He may come to share their disapproval of illegal
operations and have fear for their embarrassment�and his
banishment from the group�if he should be exposed. These
attitudes will of course affect unfavorably his approach to in-
telligence activities.
It is not implied that most, or even many, officers under lone
cover become thus alienated from their intelligence mission.
The point is that these unfulfilled needs are productive of
unhealthy tensions in many, perhaps most, such singleton
operators, tensions which act on them the more acutely in
proportion to their dedication to their intelligence careers.
The dedicated officer strives to maintain and improve his stand-
ing in the intelligence organization, his professional skills, and
his operational production; but he does not realize how de-
pendent he has been on the constant flow of expressed or silent
approbation from his peers and supervisors until it has been
choked to a trickle in infrequent meetings and messages. Even
if the trickle is predominantly favorable, it may still be much
less than what he is used to; and any disapprovals or divergent
views, expressed or implied, are likely to become magnified in
the absence of opportunity for him to present his case.
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The flow of information about what's going on in the parent
organization has also been choked to a trickle, information
about operations and information about organizational devel-
opments. It may be difficult for him to maintain an intensive
interest in operations if all his current knowledge about them
has to be derived from those few he is himself conducting. And
it will seem to him that his planning for his own future beyond
this assignment is being done in a vacuum, out of touch with
the organization.
Finally, he may suffer from tensions arising from the very
multiplicity of his roles. If, for instance, he is handling four
compartmentalized cases and using a different alias and cover
story with each, while at the same time performing his duties
as a member of the cover outfit and maintaining covert contact
with his intelligence organization, he may feel himself in an
unreal world which does not often permit him to be himself.
The intelligence officer assigned to a station lives in a world
of reality for intelligence officers; he can discuss his multiple
roles and cases with other operational people and share their
experiences. The singleton is cut off from this world of reality.
This article has been designed to point out and analyze a
problem rather than offer a solution to it; but some of the
avenues along which the solution lies can be suggested in con-
clusion. First, by careful selection and assessment, the most
suitable type of individual for the difficult singleton assignment
can be separated from those who may be predisposed to over-
involvement in cover activities. If the man chosen is an "odd
ball" by headquarters standards or in terms of Washington
society, that does not matter so long as he is otherwise com-
petent and will be able to derive satisfaction from his work
in the singleton status. Second, supervision and guidance
prior to and during the assignment can help keep the single-
ton's cover activities in perspective with his intelligence mis-
sion. If he likes, trusts, and respects the man who is his link
with the intelligence organization the risk that these problems
will arise is minimized. Third, the singleton's wife, who in
some instances has a worse problem than her husband, should
whenever possible be taken in and treated as a partner in the
operation from its inception; and she should be psychologically
supported and backstopped by women of the intelligence organ-
ization within the limits of security and feasibility.
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This and the following article
debate a radical solution to the
problem of deinsulating intelli-
gence officers abroad from the
cultures they are sent to pene-
trate.
KIM OR MAJOR NORTH?
W. A. Tidwell
It is primarily through overseas intelligence activities that
official Washington reaches out to seek an understanding of
other countries and tries to meet their people on their home
ground in their own cultural environment. The intelligence
community is not only responsible for knowing what the people
of other cultures think, but for knowing how they think and
why, and for doing something about it when it is in the US
national interest to influence their thinking and actions. Dis-
charging this responsibility requires overseas personnel who
have analytic, reporting, or operational ability, language skills,
and the ability to live with people whose culture is radically
different from the American culture.
The need for all but one of these skills is well recognized, and
with much effort we are making progress toward acquiring
them. The requirement for ability to live in a foreign culture,
however, is not so widely understood, and we have made little
progress toward acquiring it.
The American culture is in some respects an Electrolux and
Old Granddad culture. We are most at ease when surrounded
with the familiar and convenient amenities of American civili-
zation. As a result, when Americans go overseas they usually
try to take the material aspects of their culture with them
wherever they go. In many cases they are amazingly suc-
cessful�so successful that their two-year tour abroad is spent
shopping at the local supermarket, watching the latest Holly-
wood product, and reading Mickey Spillane; and they come
into contact with the local population only as they must make
use of servants, cab drivers, and waiters from among the
"natives."
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In another respect the American culture could be called a
Good Old Joe culture. We want to be open and friendly. If
we meet people who do not understand or respond to this atti-
tude we tend to avoid them and seek associates who do. The
path of least resistance abroad is to associate only with other
people who are trying to be Good Joes, and by and large these
will be other Americans. This natural gravitation toward our
own kind reinforces the tendency to form isolated colonies and
makes it doubly hard for us to meet, know and understand
foreigners.
For all the hue and cry about the breaking up of homes and
neglect of children the American culture is one oriented toward
family life. The population statistics reveal at least one result
of this preoccupation with family. Most American men in the
twenty or thirty most active years of their lives are centering
their energies on home-making and often are devoting a large
portion of their time to household chores and child-raising.
This speaks well for the vitality of the Americans as a people,
but it leaves little time and no incentive for learning to live in
an alien culture.
We have read a lot recently about the drive for conformity
dominating American culture. There are lots of good reasons
why this tendency should exist; after all, we are still assimilat-
ing many varied elements into our race and culture. But this
tendency can lead us to neglect and even reject any under-
standing of people who do not conform to our way of life.
In addition to these natural cultural barriers, we in CIA
have created a number of artificial obstacles which make it
difficult for a man to live inside another culture even if he
should overcome the natural barriers and make a serious effort
in that direction. One could say that these obstacles are a
result of the headquarters orientation of our organization and
its personnel policies. We discourage association with aliens
and practically prohibit marriage to them. We require con-
formity to American moral standards, social mores, and con-
ventionalities of behavior in those who hold or seek key posi-
tions in Washington. The practice of rotation to headquarters
and the greater opportunities of a Washington career combine
to enforce these standards and conventions upon overseas per-
sonnel as well. These policies prevent our developing men who
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can live inside a foreign culture. Worse, they drive away men
who do want to live inside a foreign culture and attract those
primarily concerned with success in the headquarters milieu.
All of these obstacles, natural or of our own making, create
serious operational problems for us. It is natural for an in-
telligence organization to depend heavily on foreigners in its
work, but our situation forces American intelligence to depend
on foreigners much more and at an earlier point in the process
than is desirable. It forces us to use those foreigners who are
best educated and most westernized to do our own job; and
these people are poor points of entry into a culture, being them-
selves at least partially withdrawn from it. Furthermore, our
relative unfamiliarity with foreign cultures makes it hard for
us to get a true reading of the people we are so using. It is
hard for us to judge their reliability and motives, and hard for
us to guide them in their operations, because we know so little
about the context in which they must operate. In some cases
we even use foreigners against third countries. This device
may have virtues, but it means that we are trying to see
through two cultural barriers instead of one.
The Communists do not have the difficulties in crossing cul-
tural barriers that we do. Through their emphasis on the
subordination of national, racial, and cultural differences to
an international cause, the Soviets have at their disposal in-
telligent and trained Communists who are at home not only
in West European cultures but in the Burmese, or Javanese, or
Arab and can bring the Soviet influence to bear on great num-
bers of backward and unwesternized people throughout the
world. These Communists are our strongest competition.
They are the people that we must beat, and we cannot beat
them from the desks of an embassy office or a consulate
compound.
It is not an easy job to find people with the brains and
personal skill necessary to do an intelligence job inside an alien
culture who will make the effort and endure the discomfort
involved. Even in the comfortable and insulated communities
abroad through which we now operate, Americans and their
families must go to a great deal of trouble and suffer illness
and other discomfort to work overseas. What can we do to get
intelligence officers to dig deeper into the world abroad?
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For one thing, the hard core of the overseas service might
consist of men unburdened with family ties. It is true that if
a woman is willing to make the effort she can be a great help
to a man in getting to know people and aspects of foreign cul-
tures that he might not get to know on his own, particularly
in those western cultures where women are relatively emanci-
pated. Very few American women abroad, however, have an
ambition to serve in this way. Families can therefore accom-
pany without detriment only those overseas officers who have
no real need to get to know the country they live in intimately,
or those few whose wives are found to have the skill and in-
terest necessary to make the same sort of movement across
the cultural barrier that we want their husbands to make.
These wives should be subject to the same recruitment and
training process as their husbands. The active nucleus of an
overseas station should be made up of bachelors or men in a
position to act like bachelors, having the freedom to move deep
into the local culture and to spend most of their time in contact
with the local people.
For another thing, we might encourage the development of
career patterns oriented primarily toward a particular foreign
area or culture. Overseas officers could be selected from per-
sonnel whose ambition is not to become a division or office chief,
but to enjoy success, power, and prestige in the area or culture
selected for them. They should be encouraged to "go native,"
devoting their energies to making a place for themselves in this
culture, not burying themselves in the routine of the local
American business or diplomatic community. Problems of
cover would be complicated, but these problems would not be
unsoluble, and the gain would be worth the extra effort.
The activities of these overseas officers should be evaluated
upon their effectiveness, which will in large measure be a
function of the position they carve for themselves in the local
milieu, and they should not be expected to conform to Ameri-
can social standards and conventions. They should, it is true,
be expected to maintain an objectivity of view in spite of their
prolonged adoption of another culture, but a man who bridges
two cultures is more likely to be objective than one who has
never got outside the American way. The danger that an
officer so thoroughly assimilated may develop greater sympathy
and loyalty toward his adopted society than his native country
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can be forestalled by periods of leave in the United States and
a system of rewards and incentives, and in extreme cases can
be disposed of by modern security check techniques.
What system of rewards and incentives would attract intelli-
gence officers to surrender for long periods their status and
aspirations in American society in exchange for the dangers
and discomforts of an unfamiliar one? The standard incentive
is money; yet money is for spending, and spending abroad leads
to the conspicuous consumption which is one of an American's
greatest obstacles to crossing the cultural barrier. The assimi-
lated intelligence officer should have access to good medical
service, but no other material support which would tend to
differentiate and separate him from the people with whom he
must live.
The problem could be met in part by providing the major
monetary reward in the form of a bonus to be collected after
a fixed period of satisfactory service. The amount of the bonus
might be raised considerably for each additional fixed period
of satisfactory service. This would prevent the development
of conspicuous consumption, but would hold an ever larger
carrot before the man's nose.
Another incentive could be provided in the form of a radical
change of pace. Most people can endure hardship much better
if they know that at some point they will be relieved of it.
These overseas officers could be rewarded with a year's vaca-
tion with pay in the United States for say every five years spent
in Aden or Meshed; and this year would at the same time serve
to prevent their becoming too un-Americanized at heart.
The best way to attract people with drive, however, is to
provide prestige and recognition for them. At home this re-
ward in the profession of intelligence has to be confined to a
narrow circle, but intelligence officers who achieve success in
another culture have by virtue of their very duties acquired
prestige and recognition inside the culture they have pene-
trated. This prestige abroad could be augmented by the
Agency in various ways tailored to each individual case. Many
men would rather have fame and power among the Sikhs than
obscurity in Foggy Bottom.
Aside from the concrete intelligence yield from better cul-
tural penetration, American prestige and influence in general
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might rise drastically in many parts of the world if inside each
important culture we had well-known Americans who, although
obviously foreign, conformed to and participated in the cus-
toms and practices of that culture.
It is a hard job to take on a completely new way of life, but
intelligence personnel have to undertake many a hard job; they
can do whatever is necessary to accomplish this too. Life in
any culture is really a question of learning the appropriate
techniques. The techniques of staying alive and healthy in a
neolithic culture are probably no more complicated than the
techniques we use every day; they are only different.
Probably the key element in this problem, however, is the
image of what we want to be that we carry in our minds. Being
Americans, we carry first of all the image of the successful
American. It may have many forms, but they are all Ameri-
can forms. Next, being in the profession of intelligence, we
have an image of what an American intelligence officer should
be. This is an image not yet fully matured, because we are
still internes at the profession. The chances are that at the
present stage of development this image is closer to that Ameri-
can superboy of fiction, Major North, than it is to Kipling's
Kim. Let us be careful that as we develop this image we make
it that of a brave and energetic man who can move freely in
non-American society. Let us not make it the image of an
expatriate bureaucrat.
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NEW ANACHRONISM
Ralph Riposte
There can be no quarrel with the charge in the foregoing
article that Americans generally, and some intelligence per-
sonnel as well, tend to transport their homes abroad along with
their baggage, consort with other Americans to the near exclu-
sion of foreigners, attend Hollywood films in Bond Bros. suits,
etc. Nor can there be any doubt that the insularity of some
intelligence officers creates grave disadvantages. Mr. Tidwell's
proposals, however, carry within them problems quite as grave
as those he seeks to solve.
First, it must be assumed that the writer is speaking of staff
employees rather than contract personnel. The "outside man"
under unofficial cover is in many places abroad close to the
local population. If the article's admonitions are intended for
him, they will have for him none of the stimulus of a new idea.
Personnel under official cover, on the other hand, cannot follow
a pattern of conduct conspicuously different from that of their
colleagues in the cover organization without attracting the
attention not only of those colleagues but of local services as
well.
The basic objection to admonishing all our people abroad,
or as many as possible, to adopt any one line of conduct is that
the admonition is Procrustean. Our intelligence officers are
individuals. Our task is to see that each man knows his
strengths and weaknesses and, both for the organization's sake
and his own, exploits the former and guards against the latter.
The question, "How should intelligence officers act?" is wrong
per se. The right question is, "How should this officer act?"
The Richard Halliburton type of intelligence officer became
obsolescent before World War I and obsolete thereafter because
this century has witnessed a marked increase in the sophistica-
tion and skill of counterintelligence in many nations. It is no
longer possible, with the aid of Max Factor's makeup kit and
a soiled burnoose, to slip shadow-like among the Arabs and
ferret out their plots. The cop wants to see the ID Card; and
if it isn't backstopped�as it won't be unless the purpose of the
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deception has been defeated at the outset�then our hero's
troubles are even blacker. The only way in which we can learn
about Arab plots today is to ask Arabs.
In some areas the appeal of Americans is their Americanism.
For years after the war�and perhaps even now�Germans, for
example, viewed with a narrow eye those Americans who spoke
their tongue too glibly and followed their conventions too auto-
matically. They suspected such Americans of being Jews who
had fled Germany in the thirties and returned to employ offi-
cial power for personal revenge and benefit. Most people, even
citizens of rather hostile governments, like and are willing to
help the foreigner whose efforts to learn their language and
history are as sincere as they are naive. But this pleasant
atmosphere may vanish if the American is suspiciously sophis-
ticated. Here too, the point is not that some foreigners will
not be deeply impressed by a sophisticated assimilation of their
culture. The point is that a uniform mode of conduct would
be wrong in concept not only because intelligence officers are
individuals but also because potential agents are individuals.
The security risks intrinsic in Mr. Tidwell's recommended
behavior-pattern are precisely those which are likeliest to re-
main invisible to the devil-may-care, bash-on-regardless hero
most apt to act upon the recommendation. A study of the
provocation techniques employed against us in Hungary and
elsewhere makes it plain that the disadvantage of an English-
Russian dictionary with curves is that she is very likely to be a
Russian-English dictionary as well. Of course it may be very
useful for an intelligence officer to establish intimacy with a
foreign woman. But before he does so, he not only name-traces
her but also submits his operational plan for approval. How-
ever wide-spread his contacts should be, they must remain thor-
oughly discriminate. The officer who followed whole-heartedly
the spirit of Mr. Tidwell's advice would probably find himself
well tiddled. He would not only lose the cover over him; he'd
also find nothing between him and the cold, cold ground but
one thin native girl.
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The intelligence community's
response to the mushroom
growth of Soviet technical lit-
erature is impressive in its co-
ordination and thoroughness.
THE EXPLOITATION OF RUSSIAN SCIENTIFIC
LITERATURE FOR INTELLIGENCE PURPOSES
J. J. Bagnall
Russian scientific literature has been an object of the in-
telligence community's attention for the past ten years and
more. Even before the end of World War II, US intelligence
had assigned some priority to the examination of Soviet docu-
ments. Army intelligence had established its Special Docu-
ments Section to collect information on the USSR from cap-
tured documents in both the Russian and German languages.
Although not abundant in these sources, a good deal of in-
formation on Soviet military technical developments was fer-
reted out. The Washington Document Center, jointly oper-
ated by the Army and Navy, similarly searched captured Jap-
anese documents for Russian scientific and technical develop-
ments.
Development of the Program
As the examination of captured documents passed its peak
of usefulness, when it no longer filled the need for information
on current scientific developments in the USSR, the CIA com-
ponents which had taken over this wartime activity turned to
current Soviet scientific and technical literature. They did
not find such a wealth of information as has now become
available, but still a surprising amount on scientific research
in progress, if virtually nothing on its technical application.
As the number of journals was small and procurement rather
erratic because of Soviet censorship, it was decided to abstract
all articles and then translate in full certain ones needed by
the community. This procedure, begun in August 1947, con-
tinued for almost nine years to April 1956.
Between 1952 and 1954 the Soviets began to release more
scientific literature; whereas in 1952 only 87 journals were
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available, by 1954 there were 165. The Air Force, taking note
of this and desiring to have as much of the literature abstracted
as possible, set up with CIA a joint program for abstracting
cover-to-cover 58 selected journals of prime intelligence in-
terest. This program also continued until April 1956.
By this time the number of scientific journals released by the
Soviet Union had increased to 328, and the intelligence com-
munity took a closer and harder look at the increasing amount
of material available. Information was beginning to appear
on Soviet research and development in, or related to, the fields
of atomic energy, guided missiles, electronics, automation and
ABC warfare. There were now far more than 58 journals of
prime interest. There was no question of the value of the
information to intelligence; the problem was how best to handle
it in order to serve the varying needs and analytical facilities
of the several agencies.
Two separate methods evolved. The Air Force felt a com-
pelling need to continue and expand a cover-to-cover abstract-
ing program, and therefore proceeded on its own to increase
the abstracts coverage gradually, more than doubling the num-
ber of journals regarded as of major departmental interest.
Other members of the community, lacking the facilities to
sort and maintain files for tens of thousands of abstract cards
per year, wanted a screening process performed. Accordingly,
in April 1956, CIA began issuing twice a month, as a service
of common concern, a digest of information. This sizable re-
port sought to cover the entire range of Soviet Bloc scientific
literature, sifting out all research reports of high intelligence
priority and also providing news-type items about personnel,
organizations and activities in all scientific fields.
Although these efforts have focused on scientific journals as
the best source of current information, books have not been
overlooked. In 1953 the Air Force began the abstracting of
Russian scientific books received in the Library of Congress and
continues this program today.
The Current Effort
The foregoing historical sketch has traced the growth of in-
terest and activity on the part of US intelligence in the exploi-
tation of Soviet scientific literature, providing a background
for correction of the misleading and erroneous publicity in the
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US press on the subject following the advent of Sputnik. How
does the picture look today, and how is intelligence being pro-
vided with information from this source?
Russian literature of scientific interest is available today in
approximately 325 journals specifically devoted to scientific
fields, another 75 partially occupied with items of scientific
concern, and about 80 additional periodicals of a bibliographic
nature in the scientific and technical fields. Of books and
monographs there are approximately 3,000 per year available.
In addition, two newspapers devote regular coverage to fields
of science and technology.
The Air Force is abstracting all articles in 137 of the journals.
These abstracts are issued in card form and disseminated to
the intelligence community. The Air Force also prepares re-
views of books received and available in the Library of Congress.
Meanwhile, CIA is producing two digests in the scientific field.
One, entitled Scientific Information Report, has the objective
of providing condensed information, whether in summary, ex-
tract or abstract form, on subjects of highest priority interest to
intelligence. This report, issued twice monthly, is the product of
a complete screening of all Soviet scientific periodicals. The
other CIA digest is a compilation of items on International
Geophysical Year activities. Because of the sensitivity of in-
telligence interest in IGY information, the report is issued
under Commerce Department cover.
These operations carried on within the intelligence commu-
nity are specifically designed to serve intelligence purposes.
However, some activities not so designed, and carried on outside
the intelligence community, also produce information which
can serve intelligence needs. The intelligence operations de-
scribed above were therefore developed with cognizance of these
others and with a view to making maximum use of them and
avoiding duplication.
For bibliographic and indexing service there is first the
Library of Congress' Monthly Index of Russian Accessions
(MIRA). This publication gives the titles of all articles and
books received. It is the bibliographic guide to all Soviet liter-
ature, including scientific and technical items. In addition,
two other libraries�the National Library of Medicine and the
Agriculture Library�issue bibliographies which include the
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Russian literature in their respective fields; they overlap with
the MIRA listings. All three publications are widely available.
There are also several specialized indexes. One in the Agri-
culture Department Library covers the field of veterinary medi-
cine. This is in card files and not disseminated. Another, in
CIA, indexes in card-file form information from Soviet litera-
ture on scientific institutions in the USSR. In addition, the
abstracting services cited below usually provide indexes to the
literature they have abstracted.
Abstracting is the most popular approach to scientific litera-
ture, and there are numerous professional abstracting societies.
Among the best known are Chemical Abstracts, Excerpta
Medica and Biological Abstracts. These professional organi-
zations publish abstracts each in its own field, usually with a
lag of six to eighteen months from the publication date of the
original source material. In addition, the Joint Publications
Research Service has begun issuing translations of the ab-
stracts produced by the Soviets themselves and published in
their abstract journal Ref erativnyy Zhurnal. These are ab-
stracts of their own literature. The three series being trans-
lated are chemistry, physics and biology.
With respect to translation, a rather extensive program of
cover-to-cover translation covering some 30 to 40 journals is
sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Na-
tional Institutes of Health, and this is supplemented by work
undertaken by commercial translating agencies. Translation
of specific articles is sponsored by a wide range of agencies and
organizations, and a complete monthly listing is issued by CIA
in its Consolidated Translation Survey.
In summary, now, what does intelligence have as a result
of this program? First, it has a complete listing and index
of the titles of all Soviet books and journal articles received in
this country. Second, it has a digest of all journal informa-
tion on research related to the high priority objectives of atomic
energy, guided missiles, ABC warfare and electronics, as well
as all news about Soviet scientific organizations, personalities
and activities. Third, it has a review of each book or mono-
graph on a scientific or technical subject. Fourth, it has
rather prompt abstracts of all articles in the most important
journals. Fifth, it has abstracts excellently prepared by the
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Soviets themselves on their own research in the fields of chem-
istry, biology, and physics. Sixth, it has a fairly large volume
of translations of individual articles selected on the basis of
particular interest. At longer range there are available ab-
stracts prepared by the professional societies in their subject
fields, as well as cover-to-cover journal translations and colla-
tions of material in special subject categories.
Intelligence then has available for analysis and evaluation
a broad selection of the important information on Soviet sci-
ence obtainable from the literature. It does not, of course,
have an abstract of every article nor a translation of every
article. But that is hardly necessary or even advisable. Trans-
lating every piece of scientific literature put out by the USSR
would fill an estimated 1,500,000 pages per year at a cost of
over six million dollars, provided a sufficient number of linguists
could be found to do the job. The analytic handling of such
an indiscriminate mass of material would be next to impossible.
What we need and what we now have is a good alerting and
screening mechanism for the exploitation of Russian scientific
literature. This does not mean that every little kink has been
worked out of the system nor that the intelligence community
will sit back in complacency. At the moment, for example,
investigations are being conducted on the feasibility of obtain-
ing data on the guided missile industry in the Soviet Union
by collation of fragmentary bits of information scattered
through the literature in not obviously related fields. In its
coordinated attack on these problems, the community will con-
tinue to monitor, through its interdepartmental Committee on
Exploitation of Foreign Language Publications, changes in So-
viet practices in releasing information through open literature,
indeed trying to anticipate them, and accordingly will take
joint action to revise as necessary the system of exploitation
or its procedures.
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The recalcitrant subject of an
intelligence interrogation must
be "broken" but broken for use
like a riding horse, not smashed
in the search for a single golden
egg.
THE INTERROGATION OF SUSPECTS
UNDER ARREST
Don Compos
Your virtuous interrogator, like the virtuoso in any field, will
tell you that formulating the principles of his art would be a
presumptuous and sterile procedure. Interrogators are born,
not made, he almost says, and good interrogation is the organic
product of intuition, experience, and native skill, not reducible
to a set of mechanical components. Yet the organic whole can
usefully be dissected, and examination will reveal its structural
principles.
This article selects from the many different ramifications of
the interrogation art that genre which is applicable to sus-
pected agents under arrest, and sets forth some of the prin-
ciples and procedures which characterize it. The essay is
slanted toward relatively unsophisticated cases, and does not
cover the subtler techniques which should be used, for example,
against a suspected double agent, nor those required when
access to the subject or the control of his person is limited.
It does, however, treat interrogation as a process designed to
yield the highest possible intelligence dividend. Such an in-
terrogation is usually incompatible with one intended to pro-
duce legal evidence for a court conviction, since statements by
the accused may be barred as court evidence on the ground that
they were made under duress, during prolonged detention with-
out charge, or in some other violation of legal procedures.
An interrogation yields the highest intelligence dividend
when the interrogee finally becomes an ally, actively cooperat-
ing with the interrogator to produce the information desired.
It is to a discussion of principles and procedures helpful in
transforming a recalcitrant prisoner into something approach-
ing an ally that this article is devoted. This kind of interroga-
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tion is essentially a battle of wills in which the turning-point is
reached as the subject realizes the futility of his position. It
usually develops in three tactical phases: a) breaking the cover
story; b) convincing the subject that resistance is pointless and
acquiescence the better part of valor; and c) getting active
cooperation.
The question of torture should be disposed of at once. Quite
apart from moral and legal considerations, physical torture or
extreme mental torture is not an expedient device. Maltreat-
ing the subject is from a strictly practical point of view as
short-sighted as whipping a horse to his knees before a thirty-
mile ride. It is true that almost anyone will eventually talk
when subjected to enough physical pressures, but the informa-
tion obtained in this way is likely to be of little intelligence
value and the subject himself rendered unfit for further ex-
ploitation. Physical pressure will often yield a confession, true
or false, but what an intelligence interrogation seeks is a con-
tinuing flow of information.
No two interrogations are the same. The character, be-
havior, and degree of resistance of each new subject must be
carefully assessed, and his estimated weaknesses used as the
basis of a plan for intensive examination and exploitation.
Each interrogation is thus carefully tailored to the measure of
the individual subject. The standard lines of procedure,
however, may be divided into four parts: a) arrest and deten-
tion; b) preliminary interview and questioning; c) intensive
examination; and d) exploitation. The first three stages may
often be merged; they constitute the softening-up process dur-
ing which the cover story is broken and the subject may be
shown up as a liar, an important step in making him realize
the futility of further resistance.
In the matter of proving the subject a liar a word of caution
is necessary. Showing some subjects up as liars is the very
worst thing to do, because their determination not to lose face
will only make them stick harder to the lie. For these it is
necessary to provide loopholes by asking questions which let
them correct their stories without any direct admission to lying.
When the cover story and the will to resist have been broken,
when the subject is ready to answer a series of carefully pre-
pared questions aimed at an intelligence target, the exploita-
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tion can begin, often in a veiled spirit of cooperation and mu-
tual assistance. At this stage the interrogation may for ex-
ample be moved to an office assigned the subject, where he
might even be left alone for a few minutes to show that he is
being trusted and that there is something constructive for him
to do. This feeling of trust and responsibility can be very im-
portant to a broken subject, because he may now have suicidal
inclinations; he must be given something to occupy his mind
and keep him from too much introspection.
We shall examine in detail each stage of the interrogation
procedure after a word on the language problem. Without
doubt an interrogator using the subject's language is in a much
better position than one who has to work through an inter-
preter. But the interrogation skill is infinitely more important
than the language skill, and a good linguist should not be sub-
stituted for a good interrogator. In the absence of an inter-
rogator who speaks the language, an interpreter should be
used, preferably one with some training in interrogation tech-
niques. It is very important that the interpreter not only
report accurately what both parties say but also reflect as
faithfully as he can their inflection, tone, manner, and em-
phasis. He should try to become part of the furniture in the
room rather than a third personality, and the interrogator
should act as though he were not there.
Arrest and Detention
The interrogations officer, since his critical objective is break-
ing the subject's will to resist, should attempt to control the
psychological factors in every aspect of the subject's life from
the earliest possible stage, normally the time of arrest. If pos-
sible, he should plan in advance the conditions of arrest and
immediate detention. If the subject is already in detention,
the principles set down in the following paragraphs may be
applied to his removal from ordinary detention to the place of
interrogation.
The arrest should take the subject by surprise and should
impose on him the greatest possible degree of mental discom-
fort, in order to catch him off balance and deprive him of the
initiative. It should take place at a moment when he least
expects it and when his mental and physical resistance is at
its lowest. The ideal time which meets these conditions is
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in the early hours before dawn, when an abrupt transition from
sleep to alert mental activity is most difficult.
If the arrest cannot be made during the pre-dawn sleep, the
next best time is in the evening, when a person is normally re-
laxed in his own home. One is most impressionable when relax-
ing at home, as witness the findings of advertising firms who
have studied the impact of television commercials. A less desir-
able time is in the morning when the day's routine begins, espe-
cially in the case of underground personnel, because they will
have thought through the day ahead of them and steeled them-
selves to its risks.
The police detachment which effects the arrest, or removal
from detention to the interrogation center, should impress the
prisoner with its cool efficiency and assurance. This scene is
important enough to justify a rehearsal, if necessary. A sub-
ject arrested by three or four ill-dressed, clumsy policemen is
more likely to regain his composure after the initial shock and
draw some confidence from his superiority over his captors.
If he is abruptly awakened by an arresting party of particularly
tall, smart, well-equipped and business-like officers, he will prob-
ably be exceedingly anxious about his future.
The arresting party should also be schooled in observing the
prisoner's reactions and in the techniques for a quick but
thorough search of his room and person. In ordinary arrests
there are arguments for having the prisoner witness the search-
ing of his room: he cannot then claim theft or willful damage
to his property; he can be asked questions about what is found;
and his reactions may help the searchers uncover hidden ob-
jects. But during the search preceding an intelligence interro-
gation it is usually better to have the subject out of the room;
his ignorance as to what has been found there will foster uncer-
tainty and uneasiness in his mind. One member of the ar-
resting party should be specifically charged with watching the
prisoner's reaction to everything that goes on.
Other aspects of the arrest and the conditions of initial de-
tention should be governed by the interrogator's preliminary
assessment of the subject's personality and character on the
basis of records, reports, and any other sources available. If,
for example, the prisoner belongs to a subversive organization
which makes a practice of stressing the harsh and summary
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treatment its members should expect if they let themselves fall
into the hands of the security authorities, the arresting party
might make a point of treating him correctly and even courte-
ously. This unanticipated finesse might disconcert his antag-
onism and be a useful factor in winning him over later.
Some of the alternative detention conditions from which the
interrogator must choose according to his preliminary assess-
ment of the subject are: a) a long period or brief interval be-
tween arrest and initial questioning, b) solitary confinement
or quartering with other prisoners, c) comfortable or discom-
fiting accommodations, and d) subjection to comprehensive
personal search or no. Some subject-types would be enabled by
any delay between arrest and questioning to firm up a cover
story, regain their composure, and fortify themselves against
the interrogation. On the other hand, a prisoner left in solitary
confinement for a long period with no one, not even his cus-
todian, speaking a word to him may be thoroughly unnerved
by the experience. When this course is chosen it is important
to deprive the prisoner of all his personal possessions, especial-
ly of things like snapshots and keepsakes, symbols of his old life
which might be a source of moral strength to him.
Other techniques which may or may not be employed at this
stage, according to the subject's personality, include the use
of a stool-pigeon, the double stool-pigeon routine, microphon-
ing the cell and doctoring it in other ways. The double stool-
pigeon technique has two stool-pigeons in the cell when the
prisoner arrives. One of them befriends him, warns him that
the other is a stool-pigeon, and if possible enlists his help in
agitating for the removal of this plant. When the third man
has been removed the subject may have come to trust his fel-
low-agitator and confide in him. The cell can be doctored by
having messages written on the walls, either with deceptive
content recommending for example some attendant as a sym-
pathetic channel to the outside or with discouraging and de-
pressive impact.
The Preliminary Interview
The preliminary interview is not intended to obtain intelli-
gence, but only to enable the interrogators to make a firm as-
sessment of the character and type of subject with whom they
will have to deal. It is useful to have the interrogators � pre-
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ferably two of them � seated behind a table at the far end of
a long room, so that the subject after entering will have some
distance to walk before taking his chair in front of them. This
device will enable them to observe his poise and manner, and
may often quite unsettle the subject. The interrogators should
sit with their backs to the main source of light in order to ob-
scure their faces, veil their expressions, and place a strain on
the prisoner.
The subject can be placed under further strain by providing
him an uncomfortable chair, say one with a polished seat and
shortened front legs so that he tends to slide off it, or one with
wobbly legs. On the other hand, an opposite technique has
sometimes been successful: the prisoner is made so comfort-
able, after a hearty lunch with beer, that he drops his guard in
drowsiness.
The interview must of course be recorded, either on tape or
in stenographic notes. The interrogators must on no account
try to do this job themselves; it would distract them from the
critical task of framing questions and steering the course of in-
terrogation according to the implications of the subject's re-
plies. Whether the stenographer or recorder should be con-
cealed or visible depends on the subject's sophisication and the
state of his alert. If the recording process is not evident some
subjects may become careless of what they say when they see
that the interrogators are not taking notes, whereas a visible
recording would alert them to be more cautious. For others,
consciousness of a recording going on in full view may be un-
nerving, and they may betray the weak links in their stories
by showing signs of distress at these points.
At a later stage of the interrogation it may be of value to
play back to the subject some part of this recording. The sound
of his own voice repeating his earlier statements, particularly
any with intonations of anger or distress, may make a psy-
chological breach in his defenses.
The attitude of the interrogators at the preliminary inter-
view should usually be correct, studiously polite, and in some
cases even sympathetic. It is imperative that they keep their
tempers both now and throughout the interrogation. The
prisoner may be given the true reason for his arrest or a false
one, or he may be left in doubt, according to the circumstances
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of the case. The interrogators must try to determine whether
his usually vigorous protestations of innocence are genuine
or an act, but they should not at this stage give any indication
of whether they believe or disbelieve him. A clever prisoner
will try to find out how much the interrogators know; they
should at all costs remain poker-faced and non-committal.
At this interview the interrogators should do as little as pos-
sible of the talking, however many questions they are anxious
to have answered. The prisoner should be asked to tell his
story in his own words, describe the circumstances of his arrest,
give the history of some period of his life, or explain the details
of his occupation. The object is to get him to talk without
prompting in as much continuous narrative as possible; the
more he talks the better the interrogators can assess his per-
sonality.
Personalities are individual, but some typing of subjects can
be done cutting across factors of race or background. One
category displays no emotion whatever and will not speak a
word; another betrays his anxiety about what is going to hap-
pen to him; a third is confident and slightly contemptuous in
his assurance; a fourth maintains an insolent attitude but
remains silent; a fifth tries to annoy his interrogators by pre-
tending to be hard of hearing or by some trick like repeating
each question before answering it.
After the interview the interrogators should confer, formu-
late their assessment of the subject's character, and work out
a plan of intensive examination, including the kind of detention
conditions to be applied between questionings. The details
of this plan will vary widely, but it will be based on two prin-
ciples, that of maintaining psychological superiority over the
prisoner and that of disconcerting his composure by devices
to bewilder him.
The Intensive Examination
The intensive examination is the scene of the main battle of
wits with the prisoner, having the critical objective of breaking
his cover story. The cover story, if it is a good one, will be a
simple explanation of the subject's activities as a straight-for-
ward normal person, plausible even to his close friends, con-
taining a minimum of fabrication and that minimum without
detail susceptible to a check or ramifications capable of devel-
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opment. Its weakness may often lie in the subject's abnormal
precision about certain details, especially when two or more
subjects are using the same cover story.
The most difficult subject is one who will not talk at all, and
prolonging his solitary confinement usually increases the diffi-
culty of getting him to talk. It is best to put him into a labor
gang or some such group of prisoners where he may be drawn
into conversation. After some days or perhaps weeks he may
be communicating normally with these others, and may have
concluded that his interrogators have given him up for good.
At that time some incident can be created involving the labor
gang which requires that they all be questioned. If innocuous
questions are put to the silent prisoner rapidly in a routine
and indifferent manner, he may answer them. He may then
find it hard to revert to complete silence if caught off guard as
the questioning is switched without break to matters of real in-
terest. The device of starting with questions easy for the sub-
ject to answer is useful with many whose replies to significant
questions are hard to elicit.
Everything possible must be done to impress upon the sub-
ject the unassailable superiority of those in whose hands he
finds himself and therefore the futility of his position. The
interrogators must show throughout an attitude of assurance
and unhurried determination. Except as part of a trick or plan
they should always appear unworried and complete masters of
the situation in every respect. In the long and arduous exam-
ination of a stubborn subject they must guard against showing
the weariness and impatience they may well feel. If a spe-
cialist in the subject's field is used to interrogate him, say
scientist to interrogate a prisoner with a scientific specialty,
this interrogator must have unquestioned superiority over the
subject in his own field.
Many prisoners have reported amazement at their own ca-
pacity for resistance to any stable pressures or distresses of an
interrogation, such as onerous conditions of confinement or the
relentless bullying of a single interrogator. What is demoraliz-
ing, they find, is drastic variation of cell conditions and abrupt
alternation of different types of interrogators. A sample device
in the regulation of cell conditions for unsophisticated pris-
oners is the manipulation of time: a clock in a windowless cell
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can be rigged to move rapidly at times and very slowly at
others; breakfast can be brought in when it is time for lunch
or in the middle of the night's sleep; the interval between lunch
and dinner can be lengthened to twelve or fifteen hours or
shortened to one or two.
The questioning itself can be carried out in a friendly, per-
suasive manner, from a hard, merciless and threatening pos-
ture, or with an impersonal and neutral approach. In order
to achieve the disconcerting effect of alternation among these
attitudes it may be necessary to use as many as four different
interrogators playing the following roles, although one inter-
rogator may sometimes double in two of them:
First, the cold, unfeeling individual whose questions are shot
out as from a machine-gun, whose voice is hard and monoto-
nous, who neither threatens nor shows compassion.
Second, the bullying interrogator who uses threats, insults
and sarcasm to break through the subject's guard by making
him lose his temper or by exhausting him.
Third, the ostensibly naive and credulous questioner, who
seems to be taken in by the prisoner's story, makes him feel
smarter than the interrogator, gives him his rope and builds
up false confidence which may betray him.
Finally, the kind and friendly man, understanding and per-
suasive, whose sympathetic approach is of decisive importance
at the climactic phase of the interrogation. He is most effec-
tively used after a siege with the first and second types, or after
a troubled sleep following such a siege.
The course of the intensive questioning cannot be standard-
ized, but some useful procedures are outlined in the following
paragraphs.
When the subject is brought in he is asked to tell again the
story he gave at his preliminary interview. Then he is asked
to repeat it, and again a third time. He will be annoyed and
with luck might even lose his temper. He at least will be wor-
ried about possible inconsistencies among the four versions he
has given. In some cases it will be better that the interrogator
not disclose his awareness of any such inconsistencies; in others
it may be advantageous to emphasize them by making a com-
parison in his presence and perhaps playing back a recording.
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If the cover story is still intact, the next step is to probe for
detail. One of two interrogators questions rapidly into many
details of a particular aspect of some incident. Then the other
puts detailed questions on another aspect of the same incident.
Then the first takes up a third aspect, and so on alternately for
some time. The object is to force the subject to invent detail
hastily. Finally, without any break, the interrogators start
going back over their detail questions a second time; and the
subject, not having had time to fix his improvisations in mind,
is most unlikely to remember them.
By deliberately misquoting the subject's replies the interro-
gator may often succeed in confusing him, or better yet in
irritating him and making him lose his temper. A talkative
subject should always be encouraged to give full and lengthy
explanations; he is likely of his own accord to get mixed up and
introduce inconsistencies into his story. Catching the subject
in a lie of relatively little importance sometimes unnerves him
and starts his resistance crumbling.
A not too sophisticated subject can be told that his fellow-
conspirators have let him down, that an informer among them
has betrayed his secret, or that some of them are in custody and
have been persuaded to talk. Incriminating testimony from
others, true or false, can be read to him, or a hooded man can
pretend to recognize and identify him. The subject can be
placed in profile at a window while two guards lead a "prisoner"
past outside who will send in word that he recognizes his true
identity.
Sometimes a very long period of silence while the inter-
rogators are pretending to go over critical evidence will un-
nerve the subject.
The whole procedure is a probe for an opening � a confes-
sion of guilt, an admission to having lied, a state of confusion
or even extreme concern on some particular point. Once an
opening is found, however small, every effort is concentrated
on enlarging it and increasing the subject's discomposure. At
this stage he is allowed no respite until he is fully broken and
his resistance at an end.
The Exploitation
When the subject has ceased to resist his interrogators and
is ready to talk freely he must be handled with great care, both
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because this attitude may change and because he may now have
suicidal impulses. He should get better treatment and better
detention conditions. He should be induced to ally himself
with his interrogators, and encouraged to believe that he is
doing something useful and constructive in assisting them. It
is often important to keep him hard at work regardless of
whether the product of his efforts is of any real value; he could
be asked to write out a lot of details about his subversive organi-
tion, for example, whether or not such information were re-
quired. The object is to keep him busy, to keep his mind oc-
cupied, to prevent his having time for introspection.
Since interrogators for the exploitation must be well ac-
quainted in the particular field of information involved, it may
now be necessary either to introduce new specialist interro-
gators or to give the earlier ones a thorough briefing in this
field. Which course is better will depend on the subject's char-
acter, the way he was broken, and his present attitude toward
those who have been handling him. Sometimes only a fresh
interrogator can get real cooperation from him. Sometimes,
on the other hand, he is so ashamed of having broken that he
is unwilling to expose himself further and wants to talk only
to his original questioner. And sometimes he has built up a
trustful and confiding relationship with his interrogator which
should not be destroyed by the introduction of another per-
sonality.
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A member of the responsible
IAC stag makes a comparative
evaluation, from the intelli-
gence viewpoint, of mechanisms
for the control of East-West
exchange visits.
THE INTELLIGENCE HAND IN EAST-WEST
EXCHANGE VISITS
Guy E. Coriden
Exchange visits with the Soviet Bloc have now become a
prominent feature of East-West relationships. Such visits
have been lauded by both Eastern and Western statesmen as
an ideal method for bringing the peoples into contact and
thereby lessening world tensions. Scientists have said that the
free interchange which is provided by direct contact is essential
if man is to make maximum progress in his battle to conquer
nature and the elements. Men of good will have reiterated the
necessity for peoples of the world to know each other and to
share the gifts they possess with those who are in need of them.
Last, and maybe least from any point of view except that of this
community, exchanges have been considered as vehicles for the
collection of foreign positive intelligence.
It is clear that many different agencies and interests must
be involved in the planning of exchanges. While the aims of
these different interests are not necessarily incompatible, it
sometimes seems that they are, especially to those attempting
to reconcile the views of the many participants. In organizing
specific exchanges one finds that in addition to group interests
each individual involved seems to have his own axe to grind.
The US citizen playing host to Soviet citizens may be using
Soviet attendance to increase the attractiveness of his confer-
ence, may have a financial profit motive, may be attacking the
problem of East-West enmity in his own personal way, or may
just wish to show off his plant or university to a Soviet
acquaintance he met at a European conference. The US citi-
zen visiting the USSR has an additional motive, the desire to
see for himself just how the two countries compare. After we
have loaded on all the personal aims and hopes, the exchange
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must pass through the channels of Government, where it en-
counters the cross-currents of other purposes. Among these
are intelligence collection, technical gain, propaganda objec-
tives, internal security, interagency rivalries, and national
policy.
Some semblance of this maze of complications must face
those in any nation who are attempting to organize exchanges.
This community's professional objective is to derive from them
a maximum intelligence yield consistent with national policy
objectives. A comparison, from the viewpoint of this objective,
of the different methods and mechanisms used by different
countries for carrying out exchange programs may be useful to
us. This article will review the procedures in use in four coun-
tries: the United States, where we who are involved in the
program know it at first hand; the UK and Canada, where we
know the procedure pretty well through friendly liaison; and
the USSR, where we only guess at the set-up on the basis of
our experience with the other three countries.
The US Program
In the United States, the principle of a US�USSR exchange
visits program has been indorsed at the highest levels. The
President introduced the principle at the 1955 Geneva Con-
ference and has spoken favorably of the program many times
since. There is a National Security Council directive, NSC
#5607, which instructs the Secretary of State to carry out the
program. Pursuant to this administration policy the Depart-
ment of State has established a Special Assistant to the Secre-
tary for East-West Contacts and an East-West Contacts Staff
(EWC) under the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Af-
fairs. EWC uses an informal interagency panel to keep other
offices of the Department and other interested Government
agencies informed of developments, and the opinions and
recommendations of these agencies are in turn funneled back
through the panel members.
The intelligence community has established the IAC Ad Hoc
Committee on Exchanges as a forum for intelligence views on
exchange matters. Because only the intelligence community
concerns itself with all scientific, technical, and economic in-
formation from the Soviet Bloc, this IAC Committee can be
considered the logical place in the US Government to weigh
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the possibilities of a gain to the United States from a tech-
nical and intelligence point of view. The Department of State,
of course, must weigh any intelligence consideration together
with policy and propaganda considerations and arrive at a final
decision concerning a specific exchange.
Administration policy calls for extracting reciprocity from
the Soviet Union for any privileges accorded in connection with
the exchange program. It is through this reciprocity that we
hope to arrange tours to installations and areas of the USSR
previously unvisited; and the IAC Ad Hoc Committee on Ex-
changes endeavors to provide continuing support to EWC in
applying this policy during the course of negotiations on ex-
changes. It is evident that the hard insistence on reciprocity
has hampered the Soviets. While it has not forced them to
open the door wide, it has revealed their sensitivity regarding
certain areas and has given us access to previously unvisited
installations. On the other hand, EWC is hampered in its
effort to extract the maximum privilege by reciprocity because
Government funds are not available to guarantee that a nego-
tiated exchange will be carried out.
Since not only the US and Soviet Governments, but also
private US citizens originate exchanges, EWC has some prob-
lem with those who, proceeding from newspaper accounts of
an open exchange policy, make elaborate arrangements for
entertaining Soviet visitors in the United States without con-
sidering either the principle of reciprocity or the possibility that
other negotiations might be going on for exchange visits in the
same field of interest. As the policy of the Government toward
reciprocity has become more widely known, however, it has
been complemented by a desire on the part of US private bid-
ders for Soviet visits to make visits to the USSR themselves.
The Soviets have involuntarily assisted in selling the reciprocity
principle to US citizens by their apparent inability to provide
return invitations and other social amenities which contribute
to a smooth program and friendly visits.
In an added effort to obtain information compensating for
the vast store of knowledge about the United States which the
USSR has at its disposal because of our freedom of publication,
the Department negotiated an extensive exchange agreement
on 27 January 1958. This agreement covered some aspect of
all technical, educational, cultural, athletic, scientific, and gov-
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ernmental fields. It provided a working base for developing a
successful exchange program, but was not intended as a maxi-
mum limit. By suggesting appropriate additions to this agree-
ment, the United States has now developed a schedule of ex-
changes which promises to give us at least an even break from
all viewpoints. Because in a democratic system control over
the actions of private citizens cannot be complete, the develop-
ment of the program has required a good deal of careful
handling. The procedure has been to give advice and consul-
tation to the many US citizens involved through EWC, as the
designated Government entity, and to make it a focus for the
responsible opinions of the Government agencies concerned.
The Canadian Procedure
The Canadian Government approaches the Exchange Pro-
gram in a different way. Deputy Ministers from its various
interested departments constitute a Visits Panel, which con-
siders Soviet proposals and Canadian proposals to the USSR.
The Chairman of the Canadian Joint Intelligence Committee
is a member of the Panel and the focal point for intelligence
influence on the exchange program. He presents the opinion
of the JIC, which reviews proposed exchanges at its regular
meetings and is expected to propose desirable new areas of ex-
change. The Canadian Government has not, however, at-
tempted to funnel all exchange activities into Government
channels, and the Soviets have therefore been successful in
end-running the Government in many cases. The Ministry of
External Affairs is careful not to advise Canadian citizens as
to their course of action when approached by the Soviets with
an exchange proposal. The intelligence community does pro-
vide advice to private citizens in certain selected cases, but it
has no effective method of preventing Soviet negotiation of a
private exchange when the demands imposed by the Govern-
ment for an official one become too onerous. The Canadians
have, to be sure, obtained some valuable intelligence through
the guided efforts of some private citizens, but they have not
been able to arrange exchanges in any of the fields of priority
interest established by the Government. The Canadian tradi-
tion of party responsibility enables them to focus the Govern-
ment end of their programs effectively, but lack of the closed
areas and other control devices available to the US makes it
unfeasible to control other aspects in such a way that the net
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advantage to Canada is a consideration in each case and in the
total program.
The British Approach
The British, in the early days of the exchange program, had
to contend with the fact that active Soviet Friendship Societies
were eager to cooperate with the USSR in arranging exchanges,
exchanges which would of course be shaped to the propaganda
advantage, at least, of the Soviet Union. The British answer
was to establish the Soviet Relations Committee of the British
Council. This Committee, composed of Members of Parlia-
ment, Government officials, and private citizens, has the re-
sponsibility and funds for negotiating and carrying out an
elaborate exchange program. The Soviet Government is on
notice that all exchange activities are to be handled by this
Committee, which because of its standing and financial means
has been eminently successful.
From all accounts, however, the voice of intelligence in plan-
ning the British program has been weak in comparison with
its influence in the US and Canadian programs. This does not
mean that it has not produced substantial information; the
intelligence community has participated in planning and exe-
cuting some of the technical exchanges. There is, however, no
mechanism for bringing intelligence initiative to bear on the
shaping of the program or for effecting exchanges which are of
particular interest to the intelligence community. It is only
because the Soviets are interested in some of the subjects which
are also of critical British intelligence interest that valuable
exchanges have been proposed and carried out. Neither have
the British sought to negotiate itineraries in an effort to pene-
trate or feel out the sensitive points in the Soviet technical
fields. The mechanism of the Council, however, with its control
of funds has been relatively effective in securing the coopera-
tion of the British people and all elements in the Government.
Soviet Practices
The USSR approaches the program in the entirely different
way made possible by its totalitarian control, which enables it
to present a single face to the world and issue a single invita-
tion concerning any subject exchange. It also has a clear aim
of technical and propaganda gain for its program. It is ham-
pered in negotiations, however, by some evident internal dis-
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agreements over methods and by the complexity of its
bureaucracy.
The location of the real focus of the exchange effort in the
USSR is not known. The Soviet Academy of Sciences is the
front for the scientific exchange effort, and the other special
ministries handle cultural exchanges. Most technical ex-
change proposals are handled by the Ministry of Foreign Af-
fairs. There is strong evidence that individual Soviet citizens
who have answered or extended invitations without consulting
some proper authority have done so to their detriment. There
is also ample evidence that delegates participating in official
exchanges have been chosen for the usefulness of their abilities
without regard to their personal desires to make the trip. One
Soviet scientist reported to a friendly US interpreter that he
had arrived in Moscow in response to a summons without so
much as a toothbrush in hand. He was instructed to acquire
the necessary equipment to enable him to spend three weeks in
the United States beginning the next morning.
On the minus side, the prolongation of itinerary negotiations
for as much as six months in some cases indicates that the
conflict in the USSR between those desiring technical gain and
those concerned with internal security is more of a problem
than it is in any of the Western countries. The continued
statements warning Soviet citizens about free interchange of
information with Western visitors, coupled with the insistence
that Soviet delegations bring their own interpreters, leads one
to believe that the USSR is concerned about the amount of
information seeping out from under the Curtain. The evi-
dence also suggests that the Soviets, like the Western countries,
do not consider their exchange program to be completely suc-
cessful. Their continued efforts to arrange long-term ex-
changes in the fields of most interest to them shows that they
have not yet harvested the amount of technical knowledge
they desire. These negative features, however, do not indicate
that the Soviets have not made technical gains or have pro-
vided us with startling amounts of information. There is evi-
dence to show that the visits have brought home to them some
Western technical methods which should have been at their
disposal from their thorough coverage of Western literature
but apparently required personal experience to be accepted
and assimilated.
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When faced with stiff reciprocal proposals, the Soviets have
changed tactics several times in their apparent effort to obtain
a net technical gain by getting many Soviet specialists inten-
sively exposed to advanced US installations. Originally they
suggested straight exchanges with only loose agreement on
itineraries, apparently hoping that they would be able to plan
their own visit on the scene while limiting US access to their
installations by heavy social schedules and a very well guided
tour. When resistance was encountered, they sought attend-
ance at conferences in the United States, attempting to arrange
tours following the conferences in exchange for treks down the
same worn paths in the USSR. The next tactic was the long-
term (three to six months) exchange; this was quietly aban-
doned, at least for the moment, when fields other than those
named by them were counterproposed. The current gimmick
seems to be an effort to catch us off balance by partial agree-
ment to one of our counterproposals at the last minute after
long amicable negotiations; the concession calls for US agree-
ment to something less than we requested, if elaborate plans
are not to be discarded.
These tactical maneuvers are not nearly as clear as they
appear in the telling, and perhaps not as deliberate. Their
description is distilled from a vatful of experience which leaves
unexplained in the residue a number of spurned nonreciprocal
requests in key fields, projects abandoned without explanation
after frenzied effort, and visits to key places on a free basis
refused. But it seems safe to say that the Soviet exchange
visits group has not reached its goal and has not so far mus-
tered the assets to do so.
Comparative Evaluation
The process in each of the four countries, with its composite
of aims, attitudes, and mechanisms, has some advantages and
disadvantages from the standpoint of the intelligence collector.
The Canadian system assures that all the facts will be weighed
at a policy level with a minimum chance for misunderstanding,
and it gives strong play to intelligence initiative. The British
approach provides a cornerstone for the national program and
financial stability for any effort undertaken. The Soviet sys-
tem has the advantage of a clear aim and unlimited resources.
This advantage is offset to a substantial degree by an unwill-
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ingness to allow visits to trouble spots even to secure desired
ends and by the apparent fact that internal security forces
have the upper hand and can frustrate efforts to gain technical
knowledge. The wholehearted cooperation among agencies in
the US program enables the intelligence community to plan for
penetration of targets in the USSR in the expectation of ex-
ploiting the full extent of Soviet willingness to pay for tech-
nical familiarization. The lack of US financial support and the
strong influence of private aims incongruent with the intelli-
gence plan are offsetting factors. Although in our struggle
with these problems we sometimes look with envy at our oppo-
site numbers in the other countries, our own advantages seem
on balance just a little greater than theirs.
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A sophisticated tourist describes
how he casually probed weak
spots in the Iron Curtain.
A NOTE ON CASUAL INTELLIGENCE ACQUISITION
Amerikanskiy Turist
"Your pass, please," crisply asked the guard. "Oh, the Devil!
I left it home." With a gesture of annoyance tempered by
indifference, the guard motioned me into the Frunze Soviet
Army Club in Moscow. And so I wandered around and cased
the place. The auditorium was ultramodern, well equipped
for several hundred guests. The luxury of the surroundings
for the senior and field-grade officer class which frequents this
elite officers' club was evident in the mosaic murals and paint-
ings depicting in warm colors the past battles of the Red Army.
No secrets lying about�but a laxity on the part of the guard
reflecting his assumption that, after all, no unauthorized So-
viet citizen would try to get in.
So, too, in Tbilisi. When as a visitor from Moscow I in-
quired about a place I could relax in the evening, other than
the restaurants or one pseudo-nightclub, someone mentioned
the Voroshilov Club, down almost next to the Staff of the Trans-
caucasian Military District. So I sauntered into the Voroshilov
Club, and was asked for my bilet. Surprised that a ticket
would be required, I asked where to get one. When my in-
quiry was met with incomprehension, I adopted what I had
observed to be a Soviet technique for overcoming perplexity,
and began shouting I had a right to enter. Again, a shrug of
the shoulders and I went in. Only later did I realize that the
club was exclusively for Party members, and the attendant had
been asking for my Party card (the Russian word being identi-
cal with that for a ticket) ! In this case I was evidently taken
as a visiting Czech or East German Communist.
But the greatest opportunities for casual intelligence col-
lection may occur in places where no subterfuge is required to
gain access. By cultivating a young lady working in a second-
hand bookstore in Moscow, for example, I obtained a classified
five-volume Soviet history of the Soviet-German campaigns of
1941-1945 prepared at the Frunze Military Academy (Corn-
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mand and Staff College), which a negligent Soviet officer, or
perhaps his widow, had left in a group of books sold to an un-
discerning bookseller. This work, much more comprehensive
than any previously known to exist, is based on materials from
Military Thought (the confidential theoretical military journal,
published by a section of the General Staff for senior Soviet
officers) , unpublished war college lectures, and material from
archives. It was written by a number of generals and colonels.
The military bookstores form a separate system of stores
under the Military Publishing House of the Ministry of Defense,
with branches in the dozen or so main cities. I visited some
half dozen of these, and obtained various open publications (the
artillery manual, internal service regulations, disciplinary reg-
ulations, etc.) and some factory and office civil defense posters.
But in Leningrad, by exceptional chance�and by flashing a
Soviet officer's identification card-holder I had picked up else-
where, in a provincial military store�I bought another (1956)
classified history of the recent war, and another study, put out
by the Voroshilov Academy of the General Staff (National War
College) . This study, like the Frunze Academy series, had not
previously even been known to exist.
These incidents illustrate the opportunities created by the
difficulty Soviet citizens have in recognizing Russian-speaking
foreigners (unless, of course, their dress is too evidently
Western) . On a number of occasions, after dealing at some
length with a Soviet citizen, I have casually admitted the fact
(which I had never done anything to conceal) that I was an
American; and it came as an obvious surprise to them.
It is no news to any intelligence officer that libraries continue
to be a useful source of intelligence. In the Soviet Union they
are often most useful in indicating categories of items not
available on security (or political) grounds. In some libraries,
by filling out the forms required (including the notation "non-
Party" in respect to Party status) and submitting one's pass-
port to negligent inspection, it is possible to get a regular
library pass to consult some areas in history and military
affairs, for example, which are not open to all. The most
useful library I found, however was the Fundamental Library
of the Social Sciences of the Academy of Sciences, where I filled
out no forms, did not identify myself except as a foreign
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scholar, and yet obtained access to files including unpublished
dissertations, political instructions in the armed forces, etc.
Security on military matters including ordnance�leaving
aside the separate matter of airfields and field installations�is
sometimes mildly compromised at the military museums. In
the Frunze Aviation and Civil Defense Museum I was able to
buffalo the attendants into allowing me to take flash color
photographs of the engine of the TU-104 and certain other
items which the US Air Attache's office had been denied per-
mission to take. When as a foreign tourist I asked if it was
permitted to take photographs, I was told, "In general, no."
After arguing not "in general" but in particular (Why not?
Of course if they were ashamed to have a foreigner take interest
in their technological level . . .), I was finally granted per-
mission. Similarly, at the Zhukovsky Aviation Section located
at the Central Aerodynamics Institute, I succeeded in photo-
graphing scale models of various Soviet aircraft, including one
prototype (identified even as to model) which we had never
before seen! At the Naval Museum I was able to see, but un-
fortunately not to obtain (as it was secured under glass) the
April 1957 "Instructions of the Central Committee to the
Organizations of the CPSU in the Soviet Army and Navy," a
document unpublished and, I believe, not yet in our possession.
My purpose in describing these incidents is to illustrate the
little appreciated possibilities for casual intelligence collection
by prepared travelers, aside from such routine opportunities as
conversations with Soviet citizens and direct observation of
installations encountered. Some of these opportunities are
denied to attaches (e.g., photography in the Air Museums) but
some of them can be exploited even by official representatives
(e.g., coverage of second-hand bookstores to secure classified
or rare published Soviet materials).
These and other techniques of casual intelligence acquisition
can of course only supplement covert collection operations;
but they have the advantage of legality. Some of them do
require psuedo-impersonation and pseudo-naivete, and some
require that the subject not be under surveillance at the time.
Most of them require, in addition to knowledge of Russian, a
detailed specific awareness of possible targets, that is, knowl-
edge of requirements, of what is and is not already available,
and of the location of institutions not publicly identified and
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other such places. Often it is purely a matter of exploiting
unpredictable potentialities, but these too can better be seized
upon if examples are previously available.
This discussion does not pretend either to open an entirely
new field nor to do more than note a few aspects of the subject.
It is offered merely as an individual's observations on the unex-
hausted field of casual intelligence collection, based upon recent
experience while traveling as a tourist in the U.S.S.R.
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CONFIDENTIAL
The product of a British "pub-
lic corporation" is an integral
and important part of what the
U.S. intelligence community
reads in its "FBIS."
THE BBC MONITORING SERVICE AND ITS
U.S. PARTNER
Roland A. Way
The monitoring of foreign broadcasting stations was devel-
oped before the war, as government-controlled radios in Europe
came to be used increasingly to publicize official communiques,
policy statements by party and government leaders, and propa-
ganda lines. A pioneer in the monitoring field was the British
Broadcasting Corporation, a public corporation with a govern-
ment monopoly on both domestic and external broadcasting
and with a Treasury grant-in-aid for its broadcasts to listeners
abroad. One of its most important activities was, and remains,
the gathering and presentation of news.
In 1939, anticipating the drying up of many normal news
sources with the imminent outbreak of war, the BBC deter-
mined to tap the news potential of foreign radio broadcasts,
and in cooperation with the Ministry of Information began a
monitoring operation in Evesham in Worcestershire. Although
this operation was primarily a service to the BBC's own news
output desks, the armed services and government departments
quickly grasped its possibilities as a rapid source of information
and encouraged its expansion. Coverage of foreign stations
was increased and the material processed was issued to BBC
output desks and government departments in daily mimeo-
graphed reports and over teleprinter hook-ups. In 1943 the
monitoring unit moved to its present location at Caversham
Park near Reading, and at the end of the war was reorganized
and consolidated on a full peace-time basis under the adminis-
trative control of the BBC's External Services, responsible for
broadcasts to listeners abroad.
By this time, monitoring of foreign broadcasts had also be-
come a recognized war-time activity of the U.S. Government.
The Foreign Broadcast Monitoring (later renamed "Intelli-
gence" and then "Information") Service, which had been organ-
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ized in 1941 under the FCC, placed a small number of editors
with the BBC late in that year. This group cooperated with
a local unit of the OWI in the selection and transmission to
Washington of BBC-monitored material. When the OWI was
dissolved in 1946 and FBIS became a Central Intelligence
activity, the arrangement to post an American group with the
BBC Service at Caversham was made permanent, and the two
services entered into a reciprocal agreement for world-wide ra-
dio coverage. Under this agreement the BBC assumed responsi-
bility for covering the central Soviet Home Service and Mos-
cow's broadcasts to Europe, most Satellite transmitters and a
scattering of stations in Western Europe and the Near and
Middle East. FBIS assumed coverage of most of the rest of
the world. The product of each service's monitoring is fur-
nished the other by radioteletype in plain text.
The producing staff of the BBC Monitoring Service is dis-
tributed among three departments: the Reception Unit tunes
in on selected broadcasts and makes summaries or translations
from them; the News Bureau picks out "hot" items and writes
them up for its wire service; and the Reports Department pre-
pares comprehensive mimeographed reports covering the moni-
tored material. The necessary technical facilities are provided
by a section of the BBC Engineering Division. These consist
of a primary antenna system on the grounds of Caversham
Park, capable of receiving a high proportion of the broadcasts
scheduled for monitoring, and a more elaborate intercept center
some three miles distant, where those signals not receivable at
Caversham are picked up and fed in by land line.
The Reception Unit operates around the clock on a shift sys-
tem seven days a week. It covers broadcasts from 37 countries
in more than 30 languages, processing some 150,000 words a
day of the nearly two million it hears. Its schedules are kept
under constant review to meet the requirements of BBC output,
government departments, and other consumers, including
notably the FBIS. Its coverage responsibility continues to
embrace the whole critical segment of Moscow broadcasts in
Russian and other European languages, as well as some re-
gional Soviet stations, most stations in East Europe, and some
in Western Europe and the Near East.
Each monitor is allocated certain broadcasts which he listens
to and simultaneously records. Any news flashes he either re-
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ports immediately or transcribes promptly when the broadcast
is over. Less urgent material required by the output depart-
ments he transcribes or translates into English later from the
recording. It is his responsibility to make the preliminary
selection of this material, guided by general and particular
directives and to a great degree by his own area knowledge and
good judgment, ripened by experience. The monitor's tran-
script is then transferred to a master stencil and reproduced
for distribution to the principal receiving offices in the build-
ing�the News Bureau, Reports and FBIS editors.
The News Bureau runs the "ticker" of the Monitoring Serv-
ice. From the broadcast material passed to it by the Reception
Unit and that received by teleprinter from FBIS monitoring
stations it selects and files some 20,000 words daily to the news
departments of the BBC and the Foreign Office.
Production of documents is the responsibility of the Reports
Department, which likewise receives the total take from both
BBC and FBIS monitoring. A daily Monitoring Report sums
up in two to three pages the main lines of emphasis in the pre-
vious day's world broadcasting. A special daily report reviews
the principal trends of Middle East broadcasting. Summaries
of World Broadcasts published bi-weekly cover the USSR, East-
ern Europe and the Far East. Supplements to these are pub-
lished daily or weekly as required: a Far East Economic Sup-
plement is published regularly every week, for example, and a
supplement covering the proceedings of the USSR Supreme
Soviet appears daily while the meetings are in progress.
The British Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence use the
product of the Monitoring Service in much the same way as
the Washington intelligence community uses the FBIS wire
and publications. Of special import and interest to the Min-
istry of Defence is a periodic report containing economic infor-
mation from monitored Soviet regional broadcasts. U.S. in-
telligence, for its part, is acutely dependent on the products
of the British service which it receives through FBIS. FBIS
editors stationed at Caversham select for Washington some
50,000 words daily, principally from the vast USSR and East
European radio output. This selection contains a large pro-
portion of each day's important world news, press articles,
statements of policy, and propaganda.
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The BBC is organized to give speedy, preferential treatment
to speeches by national leaders. In preparation for a two-
hour address by Khrushchev, for example, the Reception Unit
assembles the most experienced members of its Russian team.
Before the broadcast begins monitors are assigned to listen to
several of the assigned Moscow frequencies and to select one or
two of the best. While the speech is in progress, play-by-play
highlights are transcribed in English and distributed to the
News Bureau and the FBIS editors, who relay them to Wash-
ington, by the highest appropriate precedence, through an
FBIS wire room in the American Embassy. It is not uncom-
mon that the first takes of these summaries are being read by
subscribers to the FBIS Washington ticker before the broadcast
from Moscow is completed. Meanwhile at Caversham other
monitors have begun a full textual translation of the speech
from the recordings. Portions of the finished product are dis-
tributed and filed in the same manner as the summaries.
Thanks to the combined efforts of the BBC and FBIS staffs
at Caversham and at the London wire room, and to allocated
communications channels which permit instantaneous trans-
mission to FBIS Washington, our intelligence consumers come
into possession of statements of important world figures with
a minimum of delay, often within minutes after their utterance.
The FBIS transatlantic radio channels are two-way streets.
While one side of a duplex is carrying BBC-originated material
to Washington, the other is carrying to the BBC the selected
files from Far East and Latin American radios monitored at
FBIS domestic and Far East field stations. The BBC auto-
matically gets the product of FBIS Near and Middle East
monitoring on Cyprus, for it supplies the communications link
which carries this traffic to London.
"Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation." This motto of the
BBC, which has such limited currency in the world today,
applies in a striking way to the Anglo-American joint enterprise
which listens to words of peace or war broadcast by friends,
foes and neutrals. Sixteen years of collaborative efforts have
produced an effective instrument for the exploitation on a
world-wide basis of this overt and fruitful source of intelligence
'information. Without BBC partnership, the United States
could obtain coverage of indispensable sources only by the con-
struction of new and costly facilities. Despite some differences
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in requirements and procedures, the two services have agreed
on principles of operation, reaffirmed in periodic meetings on
one or the other side of the Atlantic, which embody a high de-
gree of compatibility and mutual confidence. In the char-
acter and scope of its activity and in the closeness of its work-
ing relationships, the BBC�FBIS combine affords a possibly
unique example of enduring Anglo-American cooperation.
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The story of a critical intelli-
gence finding almost unre-
corded in the history of French
intervention in Mexico during
and after the Civil War is re-
constructed here from official
records in the National Ar-
chives.
A CABLE FROM NAPOLEON
Edwin C. Fishel
The years 1864-67 saw the United States facing one of the
severest international problems in its history: an Austrian
prince ruled Mexico and a French army occupied the south
bank of the Rio Grande. It was toward the end of this period
that the Atlantic cable went into permanent operation. Thus
the United States had both the motive and the means for what
was almost certainly its first essay in peacetime communica-
tions intelligence.'
The nation had emerged from the Civil War possessing a
respectable intelligence capability. Union espionage activities
were generally successful, especially in the later stages of the
war; Northern communications men read Confederate mes-
sages with considerable regularity (and received reciprocal
treatment of their own traffic from the rebel signalmen); and
there were intelligence staffs that developed a high degree of
competence in digesting and reporting these findings.2
'No earlier use of communications intelligence by the United States
In peacetime is known to the writer. Any reader who knows of one
is urged to present it.
'At the beginning of the war the government's conception of military
Intelligence work was so limited that it employed Allan Pinkerton,
by that time well known as the head of a successful detective agen-
cy, as the chief intelligence operative in Washington. Pinkerton
proved effective in counterintelligence work, but his intelligence
estimates so greatly exaggerated Confederate strength that he is
commonly given a large share of the blame for the supercaution
that caused his sponsor, General McClellan, to stay close to Wash-
ington with far superior forces. Pinkerton left the service with
McClellan in 1862, however, and long before the end of the war com-
petent intelligence staffs, entirely military in character though com-
posed of men drawn from civil life, served the principal head-
quarters.
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With the war over in 1865, this new capability was turned
against Napoleon III and his puppet, Emperor Maximilian of
Mexico. In the struggle to get the French army out of North
America and Maximilian off his throne, this government had
the use of an intelligence enterprise which, though conducted
on a small scale, turned out to be very effective. Up to the
last weeks this intelligence operation consisted of competent
reporting on the part of espionage agents and diplomatic
representatives; but when a crisis developed at that point, these
sources were silent, and it was a cablegram from Napoleon to
his commanders in Mexico that yielded the information needed
by the nation's leaders.
As an intelligence coup the interception and reading of this
message were hardly spectacular, for it passed over fifteen
hundred miles of telegraph wire accessible to United States
forces and, contrary to later assertions that it had to be de-
ciphered, it appears to have been sent in the clear. Neverthe-
less, the event was an outstanding one in the history of United
States intelligence operations, not simply because it represented
a beginning in a new field but also because the message in
question was of crucial importance.
State of the Union, 1861-65
The crisis in which America's intelligence capability as-
serted itself did not come until after the nation had spent five
anxious years watching the European threat develop.
Napoleon had sent an army to Mexico late in 1861, assertedly
to compel the payment of huge debts owed by the government
of Mexico. His object, however, was not simply a financial
one: a new commander whom he sent to Mexico in 1863 re-
ceived instructions (which leaked into the press) to the effect
that the Emperor's purpose was to establish a Mexican govern-
ment strong enough to limit "the growth and prestige of the
United States." 3 At a time when the American Union ap-
peared to be breaking up under pressure from its southern half,
such a statement meant to American readers that Napoleon
had no intention of stopping at the Rio Grande.
J. Fred Rippy, The United States and Mexico (New York, 1926) , p.
261, citing Genaro y Carlos Pereya Garcia, Documentos ineditos o
muy raros para la historia de Mejico (20 vols., Mexico City, 1903) ,
XIV, pp. 8-20.
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In June 1863 French arms swept the Liberal government of
President Benito Juarez from Mexico City, and in the summer
of 1864 Napoleon installed the Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian,
thirty-two-year-old brother of Emperor Franz Joseph of Aus-
tria, on the new throne of Mexico. During this period the
Northern people, their belligerence aroused by the Southern
rebellion, were clamoring for action against France � action
that might well bring disaster upon them. Aggressive be-
havior by the United States might give Napoleon the popular
support he needed to join hands with the Confederacy in a
declaration of war, a development that could provide Seces-
sion with enough extra strength to prevail.
While the Civil War lasted, Congress and the public were
held in check largely through the prestige and political skill
of the Federal Secretary of State, William H. Seward. But
when the War was over � by which time the government had
reason to believe that Napoleon had become disenchanted with
his puppets in Mexico � Seward was ready to turn his people's
aggressive demeanor to advantage, and he warned Napoleon
that their will would sooner or later prevail. Before this state-
ment reached Paris, however, the United States Minister there,
John Bigelow, who had been mirroring Seward's new firmness
for some months, had in September 1865 obtained a tentative
statement from the French that they intended to withdraw
from Mexico.4
While Bigelow was shaking an admonitory finger at the
French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, an American military fist
was being displayed before the French along the Rio Grande.
Promptly upon the silencing of Confederate guns, General
Grant sent Philip Sheridan, second only to William T. Sherman
in the esteem of the General-in-Chief, to the command of the
Department of the Gulf, with headquarters at New Orleans.
A considerable force was posted along the Mexican frontier
and designated an "army of observation."
Rippy, op. cit., pp. 264-65 and 269-72; Seward to Bigelow, September
21, 1865. All diplomatic correspondence sent or received by United
States officials that is cited herein will be found in the Papers Re-
lating to Foreign Affairs Accompanying the Annual Message of the
President to the First Session, Thirty-Ninth Congress (covering the
year 1885), Second Session, Thirty-Ninth Congress (1866) , and
Second Session, Fortieth Congress (1887-68).
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Sheridan and Intelligence
Sheridan, thirty-four years old and the possessor of a reputa-
tion as a gamecock, adhered strongly to an opinion prevalent
in the Army that a little forceful military action now would
save a full-scale war later. The audacious statesman who was
directing foreign policy at Washington was, to Sheridan, "slow
and poky," and the general found ways of giving considerable
covert aid to the Juarez government, then leading a nomadic
existence in the north of Mexico.5 Sheridan and Seward,
though the policy of each was anathema to the other, made an
effective combination.
One of the ways in which Sheridan could exercise his relent-
less energy against the Imperialists without flouting Seward's
policy was in collecting intelligence on what was going on below
the border. There was an interregnum at the United States
Legation in Mexico City, and all the official news reaching
Washington from below the Rio Grande was that supplied by
the Juarist Minister to the United States, Matias Romero, a
scarcely unbiased source if a prolific one.6 Sheridan quickly
undertook to fill the gap.
This task must have been decidedly to the general's taste, for
he had been one of the most intelligence-conscious commanders
in the Civil War.7 He had achieved something of an innovation
in organizing intelligence activities when, during his 1864
campaign in the Shenandoah Valley, he established a group of
intelligence operatives under military control. His previous
sources of information, local citizens and Confederate deserters,
had both proved unreliable. "Sheridan's Scouts" were a mili-
tary organization in a day when it was customary to have
civilians perform most of the intelligence-gathering tasks other
5 John M. Schofield, Forty-Six Years in the Army (New York, 1897) ,
p. 381; Philip H. Sheridan, Personal Memoirs (2 vols., New York,
1888) , II, pp. 215-19; Percy F. Martin, Maximilian in Mexico (London,
1914) , p. 432.
'Dozens of examples of this intelligence will be found in the Romero-
to-Seward correspondence in the Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs
described in footnote 4.
'When a division commander in 1862-63, Sheridan had exercised an
initiative in intelligence collection that was more likely to be found
in an army commander. His Memoirs reveal a constantly high in-
terest in intelligence activities.
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than battle-zone reconnaissance. After the war, Major Henry
Harrison Young, the Scouts' commander, and four of his best
men went to the Gulf Department with Sheridan.
Sheridan also, in common with numerous other commanders
North and South, had an acquaintance with communications
intelligence as it was produced in the field command of that
day. By the time the Civil War was well advanced, Signal
Corpsmen in every theater had learned how to solve the enemy's
visual-signaling alphabets, and they derived much information
for the commanders by keeping their field glasses trained on
enemy signal stations.8 There was not likely to be any op-
portunity for such methods along the Rio Grande, however, and
no more likely was the possibility of tapping telegraph lines
carrying useful information.
Young and his four men were dispatched to important points
in northern Mexico to report on movements of the Imperial
forces and the various projects of ex-Confederates who were
joining Maximilian's forces and attempting to establish colonies
under his flag.� Judged by the accuracy of the reports reach-
ing Sheridan and the strong tendency of the Southerners'
projects to abort after coming under his notice, the work of
these five men was most effective.10
1866, Year of Telegrams and Tension
The critical question � whether the French would tire of
their venture and withdraw � was, however, one to which no
intelligence service could divine an answer, for the French for
a long time did not know the answer themselves. In 1865
Marshal Francois Achille Bazaine, now Napoleon's commander
in Mexico, was informed by the Minister of War that he must
bring the army home, and at about the same time he received
8 War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confed-
erate Armies (Washington, 1884-1901) contains hundreds of deci-
pherments resulting from such interceptions, chiefly in the oper-
ations of 1863-65 in Tennessee and Georgia, the operations along
the South Carolina coast beginning in 1863, and the Richmond-
Petersburg siege of 1864-65.
'Sheridan, op. cit., It, p. 214.
"See, for example, intelligence reports sent by Sheridan to Grant,
March 27, May 7, June 24, July 3 and 13,1866. All Army correspond-
ence cited hereafter in this article will be found in the United States
National Archives, except where otherwise indicated.
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word to the opposite effect from the Emperor himself." Na-
poleon's treaty with Maximilian by which the latter accepted
the throne of Mexico contained a secret clause providing that
French military forces to the number of 20,000 were to remain
in Mexico until November 1867.12 As events were to prove,
however, this compact was less likely to determine Napoleon's
course of action than were the pressures on him represented
by the United States' vigorous diplomacy and the rising mili-
tary power of Prussia.
In April 1866 Minister Bigelow succeeded in pinning Na-
poleon down to a definite understanding, to the effect that the
28,000 French soldiers in Mexico would be brought home in
three detachments, leaving in November 1866 and March and
November 1867. Seward's reply to this promise was char-
acteristic of his tone at this time: dwelling only briefly on the
diplomatic niceties, he suggested that the remaining period of
occupation be shortened if possible. The Secretary was in high
feather; in the same month a protest by him induced the Aus-
trian government to abandon an effort to send substantial
reinforcements to the small Austrian force in Maximilian's
army.13
In June Maximilian received a studiously insolent letter from
Napoleon containing the stunning announcement that the
French would withdraw. Attention now focused on whether
he would attempt to hold his throne without French arms.
The unhappy sovereign reacted first by dispatching his Em-
press, twenty-six-year-old Carlota, to Paris in a vain attempt
to change Napoleon's mind. He soon decided to abdicate, then
determined to remain on his throne, then wavered for many
weeks between abdicating and remaining."
Napoleon meanwhile had to contend not only with his pro-
t�'s indecision but with some apparent recalcitrance on the
" Philip Guedalla, The Two Marshals (London, 1943) p. 130.
la Ibid., p. 112.
18 Seward to de Montholon, April 25, 1866; Seward to J. Lothrop Motley
(United States Minister to Austria) , April 6, 16, 30, May 3, 30, 1866;
Motley to Seward, April 6, May 1, 6, 15, 21, 1866; James M. Callahan,
American Foreign Policy in Mexican Relations (New York, 1932) ,
p. 235.
1* Martin, op. cit., pp. 266-267 and 272-273.
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part of Bazaine, who was variously suspected of having a secret
agreement with Maximilian to remain in the latter's support,
of being secretly in league with the Mexican Liberals, of profit-
ing financially from his official position, and of having hopes
of succeeding Maximilian. (There is evidence to support all
these suspicions.) 15 Soon Napoleon realized he had made a
bad bargain with the United States; to attempt to bring the
army home in three parts would risk the annihilation of the
last third. Early in the autumn of 1866 the Emperor sent his
military aide, General Castelnau, to Mexico with instructions
to have the army ready to leave in one shipment in March, and
to supersede Bazaine if necessary. Thus the evacuation was
to begin four months later than Napoleon had promised, but
to end eight months earlier.'e
No word of this important about-face was, however, promptly
passed to the United States government. At the beginning of
November � supposedly the month for the first shipment � the
best information this country's leaders possessed was a strong
indication that Napoleon intended to rid himself of Maximilian.
This was contained in a letter written to Maximilian by a con-
fidential agent whom he had sent to Europe; it showed the
failure of Carlota's visit to Napoleon. Somewhere between its
point of origin, Brussels, and its destination, the office of Maxi-
milian's consul in New York, it had fallen into the hands of a
Juarist agent." Soon after Minister Romero placed it in
Seward's hands, Napoleon's new Foreign Minister, the Marquis
de Moustier, wrote his Minister in Washington, de Montholon,
that the evacuation timetable was raising serious difficulties
but that in no case would the November 1867 deadline for its
" Castelnau to Napoleon, December 8, 1866, quoted in Georges A. M.
Girard, La Vie et les souvenirs du General Castelnau (Paris, 1930),
pp. 112-124; Marcus Otterbourg (United States charge d'affaires in
Mexico) to Seward, December 29, 1868; Martin, op. cit., pp. 298-99;
Lewis D. Campbell (United States Minister to Mexico) to Seward,
November 21, 1866.
" De Moustier (Foreign Minister) to de Montholon (Minister to the
United States), October 16, 1866, in Foreign Affairs; Bigelow to
Seward, November 8, 1866; Martin, op. cit., pp. 56-57; Guedalla, op.
cit., p. 133; Girard, op. cit., p. 122.
17 Romero to Seward, October 10, 1866; New York Tribune, January 4,
1867.
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completion be exceeded.18 This note should have reached Sew-
ard in early November (1866) , but if it did, its strong hint
that there would be no partial evacuation in that month was
apparently lost on him.
When the French felt able to promise complete withdrawal
in March, de Moustier revealed to Bigelow the abandonment
of the three-stage plan. So alarmed was Bigelow by the pros-
pect of a major outbreak of anti-French feeling in America
that he refrained from sending the news to Seward until he had
heard it from the Emperor himself, whom he saw on November
7. The November shipment had been cancelled for reasons
purely military, the Emperor said, showing surprise that the
United States had not known of the change. The order had
been telegraphed to Bazaine and had been sent in the clear
in order that "no secret might be made of its tenor in the
United States." 18 Undoubtedly the Emperor was perfectly
sincere in implying that he expected the United States govern-
ment to make itself a tacit "information addressee" on tele-
grams of foreign governments reaching its territory.
Receiving Bigelow's report of this interview, Seward struck
off a peremptory cablegram to Paris: the United States "can
not acquiesce," he declared. The 774 words of this message un-
folded before Bigelow on November 26 and 27, their transmis-
sion having cost the State Department some $13,000. On De-
cember 3 Bigelow telegraphed the Foreign Minister's assurance
that military considerations alone were responsible for the
change of plans and his promise, somewhat more definite than
the previous one, that the French "corps of occupation is to
embark in the month of March next." 20
So strongly had this government relied on Napoleon's original
promise that President Johnson had dispatched an important
diplomatic mission to Mexico (republican Mexico, that is) � a
mission that was already at sea, expecting, on arrival at Vera
1� De Moustier to de Montholon, October 16, /oc. cit.
IR Bigelow to Seward, November 8, 1866.
2� Seward to Bigelow, November 23, 1866; Dexter Perkins, The Monroe
Doctrine, 1826-1867 (Baltimore, 1933) , p. 534; Bigelow to Seward,
December 3, 1866.
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Cruz, to find the French leaving and Juarez resuming the reins
of government. The mission consisted of ex-Senator Lewis D.
Campbell, newly appointed Minister to Mexico, and General
William T. Sherman, sent with Campbell to give the mission
prestige, to advise Juarez in regard to the many military prob-
lems that would be plaguing him, 21 and possibly to arrange
for the use of small numbers of United States troops to assist
the Liberal regime by temporarily occupying certain island
forts.22
Evidence was accumulating that Maximilian and his Eu-
ropean troops would soon be gone from Mexico, 23 but it stood
no chance of general acceptance in Washington. Such was the
degree of trust now accorded Louis Napoleon that his promise
to evacuate Mexico would be believed on the day when the last
French soldier took ship at Vera Cruz.
At this juncture Sheridan's headquarters came into posses-
sion of a copy of a coded telegram to Napoleon from Bazaine
and Castelnau. The message had left Mexico City by courier
on December 3 and had been delivered to the French Consulate
at New Orleans, from where it was telegraphed to Paris on the
9th. As will be explained below, there is every reason to believe
that this message went unread by United States cryptogra-
phers. The possession of its contents would have been of great
value, for the message (as translated from the version given
by Castelnau's biographer) said:
21 Seward's instructions to Campbell, dated October 25, 1866, are per-
haps the most impressive of the numerous masterful documents
produced by the Secretary in the Mexican affair. Grant was the
President's first selection as the military member of the mission
and was excused only after a number of urgent requests. Cor-
respondence relating to the inception of the Sherman-Campbell
mission includes: Andrew Johnson to E. M. Stanton, October 26
and 30; Grant to Sherman (at St. Louis) , October 20 and 22; Grant
to Johnson, October 20 and 21, and Grant to Stanton, October 27.
"Sherman to Grant, November 3, 1866 (Sherman MSS, Library of
Congress) ; Grant to Sheridan, November 4, 1866. Sheridan was
directed to "comply with any request as to location of troops in your
department that Lt. Gen. Sherman . . . may make."
"Campbell to Seward, November 21, 1866; unaddressed, unsigned
military intelligence report dated at Washington, November 18.
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New Orleans, 9 Dec 1866
To His Majesty the Emperor Napoleon at Paris.
Mexico, 3rd December.
Emperor Maximilian appears to wish to remain in
Mexico, but we must not count on it. Since the evac-
uation is to be completed in March, it is urgent that
the transports arrive. We think that the foreign regi-
ment must also be embarked. As for the French of-
ficers and soldiers attached to the Mexican Corps, can
they be allowed the option of returning?
The country is restless. The Campbell and Sherman
mission, which arrived off Vera Cruz on November 29
and left December 3, seems disposed to a peaceful solu-
tion. Nevertheless it gives moral support to the Juar-
ists through the statement of the Federal government.
Marshal Bazaine and General Castelnau 24
As December wore on, rumblings from Capitol Hill indicated
that Congress � the same Congress that was even then mov-
ing to impeach President Johnson � might attempt to take
the management of the entire affair out of the Administration's
hands. Word arrived from Bigelow that transports to bring the
army home were ready to sail from French ports, but that
information would by no means be convincing enough to reas-
sure Washington. And that word was the last to be heard
from Bigelow, as competent a reporter as he was a diplomatist.
He was relieved as Minister by John Adams Dix, ex-senator, ex-
general, who did not manage to turn his hand to report-writing
until mid-February, after the crisis was past.25
Similarly, nothing that would clarify the situation was com-
ing out of Mexico. General Grant received a report from Sher-
man, at Vera Cruz, containing two items of intelligence, highly
significant and completely contradictory: two ships, waiting
at Vera Cruz to take Maximilian home, had been loaded with
tremendous quantities of royal baggage; and the Emperor had
just issued a proclamation to the Mexican people announcing
'4 Girard, op. cit., pp. 117-18.
"New York Herald, December 7, 1866, p. 4, col. 3; Bigelow to Seward,
November 30, 1866; Morgan Dix, Memoirs of John Adams Dix (2
vols., New York, 1883) , II, 150; Dix to Seward, December 24, 1866.
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TrIfiESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY.
RUM.
Dated,
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CONFIDENTIAL
Mom& L
THE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY.
PRIAM 2,2. S./
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12.6
First and last pages of the five-page message to Napoleon III
from his commanders in Mexico, reporting on the situation
there and asking instructions concerning the evacuation of the
European forces. The French clear-text version, as repeated
by General Castelnau in a letter to Napoleon on December 8,
1866 (and quoted by Castelnau's biographer) , reads:
L'empereur Maximilien parait vouloir rester au
Mexique, mais on ne peut y compter. L'evacuation
devant etre terminee en mars, il est urgent que les
transports arrivent. Nous pensons que le regiment
etranger doit etre aussi embarque. Quant aux offi-
ciers et soldats frangais detaches aux corps mexicains,
peut-on leur laisser la faculte de revenir? Le pays est
inquiet. La mission Campbell et Sherman arrivee
devant Vera Cruz le 29 novembre et partie le 3 de-
cembre semble disposee a une solution pacifique. Elle
n'en donne pas moms un appui moral aux Juaristes
par la declaration du gouvernement federal.
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his intention to remain. Sherman and Campbell were facng
a dilemma, in that they could not reach Juarez without cross-
ing territory held by the Imperialists, with whom they were
supposed to have nothing to do. Sherman invited Grant to
instruct him to go to Mexico City to see Bazaine, who, he was
sure, would tell him the truth about French intentions, but
nothing came of this suggestion. Wrote the general of the
colorful pen and the fervid dislike of politics: "I am as anxious
to find Juarez as Japhet was to find his father, that I may dis-
pose of this mission." 26
Tension mounted in Washington early in January as the
Senate prepared for a debate on the Mexican question, and a
wide variety of reports circulated, the most ominous being that
half of the French forces were to remain in Mexico through the
summer, and that Assistant Secretary of State Frederick W.
Seward, who had sailed mysteriously from Annapolis on Christ-
mas day, was on his way to see Napoleon. (He was en route
to the West Indies on one of his father's projects for the pur-
chase of territory.) 27 But on January 12, before the Senate
got around to the Mexican question, the War Department re-
ceived a message from Sheridan at New Orleans transmitting
the following telegram:
Paris Jany 10th
French Consul New Orleans
for General Cast[elnau] at Mexico.
Received your dispatch of the ninth December. Do
not compel the Emperor to abdicate, but do not delay
the departure of the troops; bring back all those who
will not remain there. Most of the fleet has left.
NAPOLEON.
2� Sherman to Grant, December 1 and 7, 1866. Sherman, despite his
reputation for hard-headedness, was not one of those who favored
military action by the United States in Mexico. He wrote Grant,
"I feel as bitter as you do about this meddling of Napoleon, but we
can bide our time and not punish ourselves by picking up a burden
[the French] can't afford to carry."
2' New York Herald, January 3, 1867; New York Evening Post, January
8, 1867; Frederick W. Seward, Reminiscences of a War-time States-
man and Diplomat (New York and London, 1916) , pp. 348-55.
Seward's project, a very closely kept secret, was the acquisition of
a harbor in San Domingo. A treaty was later concluded but buried
by the Senate.
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Napoleon III's "Bring the army home" message, and the one
by which General Sheridan transmitted it in translation to
General Grant. The notation on the Sheridan-to-Grant mes-
sage "Recd 230 PM In cipher" refers to its receipt and deci-
pherment in the War Department, and so does not bear on
Sheridan's later assertion that Napoleon's message was sent
in cipher.
The phrase "will not remain there" was a translation error.
It was corrected to "are not willing to remain" when Sheridan
forwarded a confirmation copy of his telegram by mail later
on January 12. "Most of the fleet has left" (referring to the
departure of transports for Mexico) would have been better
translated "Most of the ships have left."
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Here now was a conclusive answer to both of the pressing
questions, the French evacuation and Maximilian's future. The
entire French force must be leaving; else there would scarcely
be a question of compelling Maximilian to abdicate. And with
the French gone, Maximilian, even if he remained firm in his
decision to keep the throne, could hardly stand against the
rising Liberals very long. The European threat to American
soil could be considered virtually at an end.
How It Happened
Because of the historical importance attaching to the inter-
ception of this message and the Mexico-to-Paris message of a
month earlier, the circumstances surrounding the interception
are worth examining.
The two telegrams owed their existence to the successful in-
stallation of the Atlantic cable a few months before. The
cable's own history went back to August 1857, when the first
attempt to lay it ended in failure. A year later a connection
was completed and the cable was operated for eleven weeks
before it went dead, apparently because the use of a very high
voltage had broken down the insulation. Renewal of the at-
tempt awaited the development of better electrical techniques
and the end of the Civil War. In 1865 a new cable was laid
from Valentia, Ireland, but was lost six hundred miles short
of Newfoundland. Another was started July 13, 1866, and
brought ashore at Heart's Content, Newfoundland, on July 27.
The ill-starred steamer Great Eastern, which laid it, then picked
up the buried end of the 1865 cable and ran a second line to
Newfoundland. Service to the public opened August 26.28
Thus Napoleon's September message to Bazaine passed after
the permanent operation of a telegraph line across the Atlantic
had been a reality for only a few weeks, and it must be con-
ceded that the United States was reasonably prompt in avail-
ing itself of this source of intelligence despite Napoleon's
opinion to the contrary.
"Robert Luther Thompson, Wiring a Continent (Princeton, 1947) ,
pp. 299-301, 319-20, 323, 433-34; S. A. Garnham and Robert L. Had-
field, The Submarine Cable (London, 1934) , pp. 19-40. The cable
laying was the only success in the long career of the leviathan
Great Eastern, which bankrupted a succession of owners as a pas-
senger and cargo ship, as an exhibition ship, and finally as a gigan-
tic dismantling and salvage operation. Its history is told by James
Dugan in The Great Iron Ship (New York, 1953) .
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Although the first interception took place only a month after
the French Emperor had virtually invited this government to
read his mail, it appears that Napoleon's suggestion had noth-
ing to do with it. The author of the intercept scheme, in all
probability, was General Sheridan, and it is highly unlikely
that Napoleon's remarks would have been communicated to
him. In any case, no instructions for surveillance of the tele-
graph lines to obtain French messages appear in the corre-
spondence to the Gulf Department from Army Headquarters.29
Years later Sheridan explained how the job was done: his
telegraph operator and cipher clerk, Charles A. Keefer, one of
the numerous Canadians who entered the Union and Con-
federate telegraph services, had succeeded in "getting posses-
sion of the telegraph and managing [a] secret line," 30 which
presumably connected his office with the Western Union wires
in New Orleans.
Keefer's "secret line" may not have been so remarkable a
thing as Sheridan's cryptic account makes it seem, for there
was a high degree of integration between the Military Tele-
graph system to which Keefer belonged and the commercial
system over which the messages passed. Throughout the occu-
pied areas of the South during and after the Civil War, the
Military Telegraph service took over commercial and railroad
telegraph facilities wherever they existed. These Military Tele-
graph offices accepted commercial as well as government busi-
ness, and commercial offices of course sent and received thou-
sands of military telegrams; many a telegraph circuit had a
military office at one terminus and a commercial office at the
other.
As the Reconstruction period advanced, this integration be-
came even closer; when the wires were returned to the use of
the companies that owned them, Military Telegraph officers
remained on duty to take care of government business and
exercise a loose kind of supervision over the commercial opera-
Correspondence from August 1 to December 10, 1866, has been ex-
amined for evidence of such instructions. Sheridan's papers in the
Library of Congress appear to be incomplete for this period.
"Unaddressed official statement signed by Sheridan December 8,
1877 (sic). William R. Plum, The Military Telegraph During the
Civil War in the United States (2 vols., Chicago, 1882) , II, pp. 343
and 357, is authority for the information on Keefer's nationality.
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tions. At some places military and commercial operators
worked side by side. The fact that Keefer's copies of the
French telegrams were written on Western Union message
blanks makes it appear that New Orleans was one of the cities
where this arrangement was in effect. If it was not, and the
Military Telegraph and Western Union offices there were
located separately, they were nevertheless using the same wires
for communication with distant points, which would have made
it comparatively easy for Keefer to connect a "secret line."
This integration of operations went all the way to the top
of the two telegraph systems. General Thomas T. Eckert, who
had been the second-ranking member and active head of the
Military Telegraph service, continued to be closely connected
with it after becoming Assistant Secretary of War in 1866. In
the period now under study Eckert was apparently occupying
his War Department position and at the same time resuming
his activities in the industry as Eastern Division superintendent
for Western Union at New York.31
Sheridan also credited Keefer with having solved the French
"cipher," 32 but there is strong evidence to the contrary:
(1) The amount of material Keefer could have had to work
with was very small. The cable in its early years was used
sparingly because of the very high tolls (note the $1,979.25
charge, in gold, that the French Consulate paid for the Decem-
ber 3/9 message) . Thus Paris was still awaiting word from
Castelnau at the end of November,33 although he had been in
Mexico nearly two months. The only French messages referred
to in any of the documents examined in the present study are
the clear-text message that Napoleon said he sent Bazaine in
September,34 the message of December 3/9, and the message of
January 10. Accordingly, as the January message (to be dis-
cussed in detail below) was almost certainly sent in the clear,
Plum, op. cit., II, pp. 345-48. The War Department records for 1866
and 1867 contain frequent cipher telegrams to Secretary Stanton
from Eckert in New York; some of these messages bear dates sub-
sequent to Eckert's resignation from the Deparment.
"From Sheridan's statement of December 8, 1877, and his Memoirs,
vol. II, p. 226.
Bigelow to Seward, November 30, 1866.
" This message has not been found by the writer in either French or
United States records available in Washington.
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it is highly probable that the December 3/9 message from
Bazaine and Castelnau to Napoleon was the only encrypted
French telegram that passed between Mexico and France dur-
ing the entire period of the French intervention." It is ex-
tremely unlikely that the code � for the message was in code
and not cipher � could have been solved from this one mes-
sage of eighty-eight groups.
(2) An examination of all available United States records
that could reasonably be expected to contain such an item (if
it existed) fails to uncover a decrypted version of the December
3/9 message or any other evidence that the government during
the ensuing weeks had come into possession of the information
it contained.36
Somewhat surprising is the apparent fact that Sheridan did
not send the message to the War Department cryptographers
for study. On several occasions during the Civil War, these
men had been able to read enemy messages referred to them.
This experience (so far as it is recorded) was, however, limited
to the solution of certain ciphers (some of which were relatively
complex for that day) ,37 and the French code would have pre-
sented them with a strange and much more difficult problem.
Union cryptographers at New Orleans had also once solved a
captured message," a fact which may have induced Sheridan
to rely on his own headquarters' capability and not turn to
Washington.
85 This message and the French version of the January 10 message
are filed in the National Archives with telegrams sent from the
military headquarters at New Orleans during the years 1864-69.
This filing is clearly in error, for the messages are foreign to the
rest of the material in this file and they bear none of the marks
that an operator would have placed on them had he transmitted
them. War Department and Army Headquarters records do not
show their receipt.
Besides the government records cited elsewhere, the following col-
lections have been searched for such evidence: the Andrew John-
son MSS, Sheridan MSS, Grant MSS, Edwin M. Stanton MSS, all in
the Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress, and the contem-
porary correspondence between the War Department and State
Department in the National Archives. Despite the extreme im-
probability that the message contents were obtained by solving the
French code, this search took account of the possibility that the
developments reported in the message were learned by other means.
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It was the January 10 message from Napoleon, the only
message mentioned in Sheridan's account of this episode, that
the general said Keefer had solved. But there is every reason
to believe that the French clear-text of this message is the
message as received in New Orleans, and not a decoded version
of that message. Note:
(1) The message heading. It is filled out in precisely the
way that was standard procedure in telegraphic reception at
that period. A considerably different format was used for the
delivery of plain-text versions of friendly messages received in
cipher, and since Keefer was also a Military Telegraph cipher
clerk, he would probably have used that format or a similar
one in writing up the plain text of a foreign cipher or code
message. (This format is illustrated by the photostat of the
deciphered version of Sheridan's January 12 message, of which
Napoleon's message of the 10th was a part.)
(2) The difficulties that the copyist had with French spell-
ings (Castelnau, decembre, forcez, abdiquer, navires). These
are the difficulties of a telegraph operator receiving in a strange
language. A cryptographer in writing up a decoded message
would scarcely have made so many false strokes and misspell-
ings; and with such a poor knowledge of the French language,
he could scarcely have solved a coded message in French.
In addition to the above evidence, there is the extreme un-
likelihood that this message added to the earlier one would
have given Keefer enough material to have solved the code.
There is also reason to believe, from Napoleon's statement to
Bigelow regarding the message he sent Bazaine in September,
87
The Confederates used two kinds of cipher, both involving the sub-
stitution of one character for another. What appears to be a
representative if not a complete account of the cryptanalytic ex-
periences of the Washington cryptographers is given by David
Homer Bates, Lincoln in the Telegraph Office (New York, 1907) ,
pp. 66-85. Bates was in the War Department telegraph and cipher
office throughout the Civil War. The infrequency of such activity
was plainly the result of the difficulty in obtaining intercepts (ex-
cept at the front, where the traffic intercepted was almost always
visual) . All the cryptanalytic episodes reported by Bates involved
intercepted courier and mail dispatches rather than messages
obtained by wiretapping.
88 Plum, op. cit., I, pp. 36-39.
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that political considerations might well have induced the Em-
peror to send this message through the United States in the
clear.
Impact and Epilogue
Rare indeed is the single intelligence item that is at once
so important and so unmistakable in meaning as the intercept
of January 10. Its effect on events, however, can only be esti-
mated, for no reference to it appears in the records of the
developments that followed.
On the 17th the French Minister came to Seward proposing
that France and the United States enter into an agreement
for the governing of Mexico during the period that would fol-
low the departure of the French troops. France's only stipu-
lation was that the interim government exclude Juarez. The
United States, having consistently pursued a policy of recog-
nition of Juarez and nonrecognition of Maximilian, could never
have voluntarily accepted such a proposal. And since southern
Texas was well garrisoned with troops remaining from the
magnificent army that had subdued the Confederacy, involun-
tary acceptance was likewise out of the question. But Seward
might reasonably have entertained the proposal and then
engaged in time-consuming negotiations, awaiting news from
Mexico that the French were gone. Instead, he dismissed
Napoleon's Minister with little ceremony; 89 his firmness prob-
ably stemmed largely from knowledge that the French with-
drawal was already well advanced and the Emperor's proposal
could be only an effort to save face.
The effect that Sheridan's communications intelligence
enterprise had on international affairs, then, was probably this:
it did not induce a change in policy or any other positive action,
but it materially helped the government ride out a dangerous
situation simply by sitting tight.
The Administration's domestic position, however, was as
weak as its international position was strong. When the
Senate on the 15th got around to its foreign policy debate, an
earnest effort was made to embarrass the Administration (al-
though the threatened attempt to take foreign policy out of
Seward to Minister Berthemy, January 21, 1865 (memorandum of
conversation of January 17) .
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Its hands did not materialize). The debate continued into the
16th, when Senator Charles Sumner, chairman of the Foreign
Relations Committee, saw fit to announce that he had reliable
information (including a copy of a dispatch to the State De-
partment from the United States Consul at Vera Cruz) that
the French were withdrawing. That ended the matter."
Neither Seward nor the President seems to have said anything
to counter the unfriendly speechmaking, having in Sumner
a more direct means of silencing the opposition. Although
the senator was no friend of the Administration, at least some
of its intelligence information had been given to him for that
purpose. From the conviction with which Sumner addressed
his colleagues, one is tempted to believe that intelligence much
more sensitive � and more convincing � than the consular dis-
patch had been confided to him.
Seward's ability to close out the Mexican affair with firmness
and surehandedness must have substantially bolstered the
Presidential prestige, which in that year was at the lowest ebb
it has reached in the nation's history. Had the government's
resistance to the French intervention been anything but a
resounding success, Andrew Johnson might well have failed to
muster the one-vote margin by which the impeachment pro-
ceedings against him were defeated.
Before January ended, the intelligence conveyed by Na-
poleon's cablegram was supported by details of the French
withdrawal received from other sources, one of them an un-
named spy who was sent by Sheridan to the Vera Cruz area
and returned with convincing evidence of preparations for the
embarkation of the Army.41 Bazaine led the last remnants of
the French force out of Mexico City on February 5. Two weeks
later embarkation had begun at Vera Cruz, and by March 11
it was complete.
Maximilian's regime quickly collapsed. He foolishly bottled
up his small army of Mexicans, Austrians, and Belgians in
Queretaro, a hundred miles northwest of the capital. An agent
" Congressional Globe, January 16, 1867.
" Sheridan to J. A. Rawlins (Chief of Staff to Grant) , January 4,
1867. The ordinary period for transmittal of mail would have
caused this dispatch to arrive in Washington perhaps a week later
than the January 10 telegram from Paris via New Orleans.
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of Sheridan, with this army by permission, late in February
reported the Imperialists marching out of Queretaro and driv-
ing the enemy before them, but the offensive was shortlived.
Soon Maximilian was back in Queretaro under siege, and on
May 19, as a result of treachery by a Mexican Imperialist
officer related by marriage to Bazaine, the garrison was
captured.42
Seward had literally "scolded Napoleon out of Mexico," but
if the final issue of l'affaire Maximilien was a triumph for
American diplomacy, the fate of the unhappy sovereign himself
was a sorry story of nonperformance of duty by an American
diplomat. After Sherman had been excused from further par-
ticipation in the mission, Minister Campbell stationed himself
at New Orleans and determinedly resisted repeated efforts by
Seward to get him into Mexico. In April, when it had become
plain that the siege of Queretaro would end in the capture of
Maximilian, Seward sent an urgent plea for Maximilian's life,
instructing Campbell to find Juarez and deliver the message in
person. It was delivered to the head of the Mexican govern-
ment not by Campbell, ex-colonel, ex-senator, but by James
White, sergeant. Such pleas delivered later on by a diplo-
matic Chief of Mission were heeded, but this one was of no
avail, and Maximilian lost his life before a firing squad at
Queretaro on June 19, 1867. Four days earlier, too late to
affect the fate of the misguided prince, Seward had given
Campbell a new title: ex-Minister.43
"Martin, op. cit., 295-97; unsigned letter to Sheridan from his agent
in Queretaro, February 26.
"New York Herald, December 7, 1866; Seward to Campbell, December
25, 1866, January 2, 8, 23, April 6, June 1, 5, 8, 11, 15, 1867; Campbell
to Seward, December 24, 1866, January 2, 7, February 9, March 12,
and June 3, 6, 10, 15, and 16, 1867; Martin, op. cit., pp. 408, 411; Sheri-
dan, op. cit., II, p. 227.
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COMMUNICATION TO THE EDITORS
Dear Sirs:
I should like to comment critically on Lewis R. Long's article,
"Concepts for a Philosophy of Air Intelligence," that appeared
in Studies in Intelligence, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 31-50. Air intelli-
gence is a subject with which I can claim some familiarity.
In World War II, I served as Chief of the Target Intelligence
Division in a combat Air Force headquarters, as commanding
officer of an OSS-type organization that provided intelligence
to air units for close support of ground forces, and as Chief of
the Intelligence Division of Theater G-2 Section.
Colonel Long advocates a greatly expanded mission for air
intelligence, one that far exceeds the requirements of the air
commander because it includes areas where the air commander
has no assigned decision-making or operational competence.
The article builds up its case from the proposition (p. 40) that
"air intelligence must encompass all aspects of power in foreign
nations." By "encompass," the author means that the Air
Force command must, in effect, have its own estimates of "all
aspects of power in foreign nations (political, economic and
psychological as well as military)," prepared by its own experts
on the basis of information collected through its own opera-
tions (including covert operations), and that the Air Force
should act offensively through political, economic and psy-
chological warfare, both in cold and hot war situations, pre-
sumably deriving its inspiration for these activities from its
own estimates. He also postulates as a proper function of air
intelligence (p. 49) informing the American public "on a
planned basis" about Soviet activities.
No one can argue that the air commander should be unin-
formed about "aspects of power in foreign nations," and all will
agree that he must know everything possible about that part
of the total enemy situation directly concerned with his as-
signed operational mission. However, the assigned mission
does not impinge directly on all aspects of the enemy situation,
but only on a discrete sector thereof. That his own people do
not overtly and covertly collect and process intelligence on the
aspects lying outside his assigned operational responsibilities
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does not mean that the commander has to remain ignorant of
the larger picture. He can draw on the intelligence com-
munity, where he is represented, for this information, and he
need not duplicate existing facilities.
Colonel Long's contention that the air arm should engage
in political, economic and psychological warfare in hot and
cold war situations is hard to take seriously. One could equally
well argue that Treasury and Commerce, having operational
responsibilities relating to the economies of Communist coun-
tries, should have their own air photo recon organization for
Communist country overflights to get the information on in-
dustrial establishments that they need to meet their responsi-
bilities. For the air arm to engage in these three activities
would mean duplicating facilities already in existence and in
use, and it would mean going far beyond the assigned Air Force
mission, assuming roles already allocated and assigned to other
agencies of the government.
Colonel Long supports his claim for greatly expanded re-
sponsibilities for air intelligence by an appeal to Clausewitz'
statement that war is an extension of policy by other means,
and by the argument that the Marxists have shown how "the
line of demarcation between politics and military action is
extremely nebulous." He says that the Air Force "will have
to carry the brunt of any initial contacts with the enemy," and
"seek out and destroy all aspects of warmaking potential and
will to fight." Even were these truisms, it would not logically
follow that air intelligence should be what he would have it.
Indeed the only logical justification for his position would have
to come from a demonstration that the Air Force is the para-
mount element in the executive branch of the Government,
with all other elements, including the office of the Chief Execu-
tive, subordinate to it. In this situation the air command
would need an intelligence service such as that described.
In conclusion, air intelligence is a very difficult business to
do well. I suspect that Colonel Long himself knows that there
has always been more to it than the concentration on (p. 41)
"strengths and weaknesses of foreign air forces" which he pos-
tulates as the alternative to his expanded role. Even at its
highest stage of development in WW II�witness, for example,
the incredibly bad intelligence preparation for the XXth
Bomber Command strikes on Yawata and Anshan�there was
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always room for great improvement. I submit that air intelli-
gence has enough to do to support the air commander in his
assigned responsibilities without seeking to encompass the re-
sponsibilities of other organizations.
Yours truly,
R. A. RANDOM
CONFIDENTIAL 105
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MILITARY INTELLIGENCE BEHIND ENEMY LINES
The history of intelligence activities during World War II
includes many chapters on adventures and accomplishments
in the German-occupied countries, but nothing to equal in
scale and in organization the systematic intelligence collection
effort carried out in Poland under the direction of the Home
Army's Intelligence Division. Before describing this effort let
us recall the circumstances in which Poland then found herself
and the conditions under which the intelligence service was
organized.
On 1 September 1939, without declaration of war, Hitler fell
upon Poland and from the first day, even the first hour, carried
out a ruthless bombing of the whole country, destroying cities
and railway stations and even villages and the columns of
refugees on the roads. On the seventeenth day of this cam-
paign the Red Army invaded, seizing almost one-third of
Poland. German-Russian cooperation was established by the
Ribbentrop-Molotov pact of 23 September 1939. After the de-
feat inflicted by these two great neighboring powers with which
she had firm non-aggression pacts, Poland lay stunned and
despairing; in the course of her thousand-year history she had
survived defeats and partitions, but never on the scale of these
in 1939. Yet on the other hand her people were now stronger
in number, more conscious of themselves as a nation, and im-
passioned in their love of country.
What had happened to their fatherland they felt above all
as a terrible betrayal, and it is not strange that hatred for the
aggressors, particularly the Germans, swelled high in the hearts
of all Poles. As early as the fall of 1939 it was apparent that
both occupying powers intended to use ruthless measures aimed
at the destruction of Poland as a nation. Their first victims
were the scientists, university professors, writers, engineers,
and political and social leaders. From the Soviet zone Polish
residents were deported in mass, under miserable conditions.
The remaining population, including those who escaped from
imprisonment, began to organize themselves into an army,
primarily for purposes of self-defense. The new organization
developed rapidly in central Poland, more slowly on the pc-
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ripheries. A central command was created, and then regional
and lower commands, including a complement of personnel for
collecting information and for maintaining contact among
commands, the rudiments of an intelligence and liaison service.
This Polish service, like all such organizations everywhere,
was a child of necessity: one had to know where the enemy
was and in what strength, what he was doing and intending
to do, whether his forces were increasing or diminishing, what
dispositions he was making of his men. Since the enemy was
in almost every big city, the need for gathering information
about him automatically embraced the whole country. This
information was utilized immediately by the local secret mili-
tary authorities and was then transmitted to the highest
echelons of command.
The emigre Polish government, located at first in France,
moved after the fall of France in the summer of 1940 to London,
where it remained to the end of the war, joining forces with
the rest of the free world in its struggle with the totalitarian
powers. When the home organization crystallized, the emigre
government was able to assign it tasks of importance not only
for Poland but for the whole allied camp, and its work got
briskly under way, with even the lowliest of those employed in
gathering information about the enemy aware of the value of
their activity.
Positive Intelligence
Intelligence work has a long tradition, and its organization
is no less an art than the art of strategy. But it was not after
the pattern of classical models that this work was improvised
in Poland. The circumstances were altogether exceptional,
both extraordinarily hazardous and extraordinarily advan-
tageous. The opportunities were clearly demonstrated when
the Germans began to prepare their offensive against the
USSR; this was evident to the Home Army intelligence service
more than half a year before the attack which came on 22 June
1941. There are few cases in the history of warfare where an
intelligence service directed against the enemy has been able
to work from inside his military positions, at the very front,
behind the front, and far to the rear deep in his homeland.
The Polish service was able to report daily to London on such
German preparations as the building of airfields, the gradual
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concentration of commands and divisions, and finally their
mass movement forward. Before the attack on the USSR
occurred, London had ready at hand a plan of the German
order of battle, comprising over 100 divisions on the San, Bug
and Narew rivers, whereon was marked the position not only
of each division but even of the minor units of the huge con-
centration of forces which was to demolish the Soviet armies
in the course of a few weeks' campaign. Never before had a
military intelligence service spied out the enemy with tens of
thousands of inspired agents, unpaid but devoted patriots, con-
scious of the purpose of their work.
Organizationally, the Polish service dispensed with the cus-
tomary distinction between command organs and executive
components. The Intelligence Division, constituting one ele-
ment of the staff of the High Command, functioned less as
directing organ for the country-wide network than as the
center for correlation and evaluation of reports, transmission
of information to London, and receipt of instructions from
abroad. It had the following components:
Chief, with secretariat and communications unit;
Deputy;
Area intelligence units, such as for the German Reich, the
eastern front, the seacoast and Baltic ports, and a mobile
team for special missions;
Reports Center, subdivided into two sections, the Bureau for
Military, Air and Naval Problems, and the Bureau for
Economic Problems;
A Technical and Documentary Services Section;
A Finance Section, with a unit for the care of arrested per-
sonnel and the families of those killed.
For research on complex economic problems the service
availed itself of scientists and experts in the various branches
of industry who were loosely affiliated with the Bureau for Eco-
nomic Problems. Such research was done to develop estimates
on coal extraction, petroleum yields, synthetic gasoline produc-
tion, progress in the construction and testing of the new secret
weapons (V-1 and V-2), and similar intelligence problems.
Within the German Reich the mission of the service was not
defined by geographical area, but concentrated on certain sea-
port and industrial objectives designated by higher authority.
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For this purpose several dozen specialists in naval and air prob-
lems were sent from London. Poles were employed in the most
variegated positions in many German establishments, ranging
from railroads to business houses, and so had widespread oppor-
tunities for making observations. Reports often reached the
intelligence center from several different sources at the same
time, facilitating evaluation of the reliability of incoming
material.
The required penetration of the North Sea ports met with
a great deal of difficulty on account of the severe screening
process the Germans used in taking on workers there and the
alert activity of German counterintelligence. In this sector
the work of the intelligence service was subject to frequent
interruption. The Baltic ports, on the other hand, remained
under uninterrupted control.
The rear areas of the eastern front were unevenly controlled.
Only the Ukrainian sector was kept thoroughly in hand. In
the whole stretch south from Polesia there was a regular agent
network. Intelligence teams advanced in the wake of the Ger-
man armies, reaching as far as the Volga and the Caucasus.
The intelligence reports from this sector were complete and
gave a clear picture of the state of the German ground and air
forces and of their economic exploitation of occupied territory.
The Reports Center organized and correlated the informa-
tion received, checked its validity by various methods, and pre-
pared ad hoc and weekly reports. These reports sent abroad
presented a synthesis of the current situation, particularly on
the eastern front. Another important product of the intelli-
gence activity were studies of the German tables of organiza-
tion and equipment; these constituted a useful training aid
for the Home Army.
After diplomatic relations were established between the
Polish emigre government and the USSR and a Polish military
mission had arrived in Moscow in 1941, the Soviet authorities
proposed collaboration with the Polish intelligence services.
The proposal envisioned direct transmission of information re-
ports from Poland to the Soviet staff through the establish-
ment of radio and air courier communications between Warsaw
and the Soviet intelligence center. The Poles accepted only
the proposed radio link. A Polish liaison post was thus actu-
ally established near Moscow on 2 April 1942, but for various
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reasons it continued to function only until July 1942. This
was the period when the Polish divisions which had been form-
ing in the USSR were evacuated to Iran. One of the reasons
why the collaboration was broken off was that the Russians
did not give the Poles the certifications which they had
promised.
Communications between Warsaw and London were main-
tained by radio and by courier. The most urgent reports on
military, air, naval and economic subjects were transmitted
coded by direct radio. The number of such reports reached
300 per month. Less urgent reports were forwarded, also en-
ciphered, to the base in Budapest and relayed to bases in
Switzerland and Sweden, whence they were transmitted by
radio to London. Reports by courier were made once a month
beginning in 1941; these were compendious, comprising the
entirety of the elaborated information organized according to
London's instructions. To each section were attached the
pertinent original documents, such as construction blueprints
or plans of industrial installations and airfields. These re-
ports, amounting generally to some 200 typewritten pages with
100 pages of attachments, were microfilmed and packed in safe
containers.
Certain Polish achievements had special significance for the
general war effort. In the spring of 1943, for example, the
home intelligence service received information that the Ger-
mans were carrying out tests of some new secret weapon at
their experimental station in Peenemiinde. London ordered
the service to get a detailed plan of the station, and one was
obtained within a couple of weeks. With this plan for guid-
ance, the Royal Air Force was able to carry out on the night
of 17-18 August 1943 a raid in which part of the station was
destroyed and the Chief of Staff of the Luftwaffe, General
Jeschonek, was killed along with several members of the experi-
mental team. As a result the "V" rockets which were being
tested at Peenemiinde were several months late getting into
operation.
In the spring of 1944 the Germans transferred their experi-
mental activity to Polish soil. Rockets shot from launching
ramps at the SS training camp in Blizna-Pustkow near Mielec
would at first hit widely scattered points over a range of several
hundred kilometers. As the experiments progressed, however,
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the hits became concentrated in the neighborhood of Sarnaka
on the Bug, north of Wyszkow. A special agent network
established by the Polish service for that purpose kept each shot
under observation, recording meteorological and ballistic data
and other details of the operation. Other teams collected frag-
ments and component parts of the rockets after they fell,
getting there ahead of the German motorized patrols sent out
to find the pieces. A commission of engineers, assembled in
Warsaw for this sole purpose, undertook research on the char-
acteristics of the new weapon. Its characteristics were reported
immediately to London as they were identified; and later, after
assembly of all the most important components of a rocket,
when photographs and technical drawings of the fragments
had been made, the whole thing was forwarded by air to Lon-
don, together with the results of the commission's research.
The intelligence collection operations were conducted on
Polish territory by the regional commands. The organization
of the intelligence components of regional staffs was modeled
on that given above for the Intelligence Division of the High
Command. The agent networks, employing thousands of peo-
ple in each region, were responsible to the regional commanders.
The regional commands utilized the resulting information in
formulating their own security and war plans in addition to
forwarding it to the High Command for study of the enemy
dispositions as a whole. The tasks of the service were to de-
velop and report information on: a) the German garrisons,
army and police, airfields, military stores, repair shops, army
transport, equipment and materiel, with special attention to
fuel supplies, along all communication routes to and from the
front; b) the transfer of units, changes in their billeting, and
the smallest particulars of their conduct; c) the operations of
industry in every detail.
Agents of the service reported every observed change not only
in the disposition of the German units but also in their daily
life. The service took full advantage of the help of the civilian
population unconnected with the military organization. In
time, as resistance became the established attitude in the
civilian community, people spontaneously reported the most
minute observations in every sphere of activity. They auto-
matically reinforced the network in areas made particularly
important by events and in periods pregnant with military
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developments like June 1941 and the time of the German
retreat through Poland.
The results of the work created a detailed and frequently
colorful picture of the situation; in particular, information on
industry, more difficult to obtain than purely military infor-
mation, was imposing in its breadth and precision. New or-
ders and the time of starting new production led to inferences
about the plans of the occupying power. The effects of each
bombing on the production of the industrial establishment
were reported, and the selection of future targets was made on
the basis of these reports rather than on the evidence of air
photographs at the time of bombardment, which told only a
part of the story.
Counterintelligence Activities
If the organization of positive intelligence activities was a
departure from classical forms, counterintelligence was even
more exclusively based on its own ingenuity and the adapta-
tion of its organization and work to local needs. It was never
directed centrally from the top; initial attempts to form a
country-wide organization modeled after the unit in the High
Command turned out rather badly, and day-to-day practical
activity demanded complete autonomy for regional counter-
intelligence units. There was mutual sharing of information
only on Polish collaborators with the Gestapo.
This part of the work is more difficult than intelligence
proper. It requires the employment of outstandingly intelli-
gent people and the application of more highly perfected tech-
niques; it requires individual enterprise and excellent internal
liaison. In an enemy-occupied country counterintelligence
can operate only when the whole mechanism of conspiratorial
activity begins to operate flawlessly; and the construction and
operation of such a mechanism cannot be treated in this article.
The effectiveness of the Polish counterintelligence can be
measured by the security of the secret high political and mili-
tary authorities in Warsaw, their capital. The Germans never
succeeded in developing information on the Polish military
organization, as witness Von dem Bach's testimony at the
Nuremberg trials. Bach was the German commander during
the two-month Battle of Warsaw, whose mission it was to de-
stroy the Polish units in the uprising. Before he took over
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the Warsaw command he had had access to the files of the
German intelligence service. Yet he testified in 1945 that there
was no single commander on the Polish side who could be con-
sidered his own opposite number. Thus he was in error not
only at the time of the battle but even a year afterward; he
had no idea whatever of the organization and deployment of
the Polish forces. That is proof that the Polish counterintelli-
gence effort against enemy penetration was above normal
standards. The fact that the Germans were better acquainted
with the command structure of the Home Army than with its
Warsaw regional command, which prepared and directed the
uprising, is a function of special circumstances.
The Germans likewise never succeeded, in the course of this
battle or at any other time during their entire occupation of
Polish soil, in getting the key to the Polish cipher. That is the
only way they could have got information about the military
organization and its functioning. Today, when the cards are
long since all on the table, any assertion to the contrary would
be invalid.
The mission of counterintelligence is simple to define; it is
charged with learning in advance what measures are planned
against the secret organization by the adversary, in this case
the German secret police, security police, and military and
administrative authorities. It often happened that this kind
of information was derived from the questions the Germans
put to persons arrested and imprisoned in the local jails; it
could be obtained immediately after the prisoner was taken to
his cell, and in the early period was the principal source of
guidance for the Polish dispositions.
It must be emphasized in this connection that the secret
organization was threatened not only by the danger of com-
promising its command structure, its leading personalities, its
communications or the operations of its secret press, but by
every shift and resettlement of area populations, which often
ruptured its organizational links and threw to the winds the
exertions of many months' work.
The regional counterintelligence organizations were made
up of the following elements:
Directing organ, subordinate to the regional command;
Several observation groups working independently of each
other;
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A headquarters operation to correlate and evaluate the ma-
terial sent in by the observation groups, to do research on
German penetration techniques, and to supply material
to the director of the Special Court;
Collaborators in the prisons;
A liaison unit;
An administrative unit; and
Groups for the liquidation of traitors.
The counterintelligence organization never effectively ex-
tended its work into the concentration camps and never got
its people into the German secret police organs; it didn't have
the financial resources to effect such penetrations. That does
not mean, however, that it didn't get information, and valuable
information, from these sources without the employment of
regular agents there.
Next after the interrogation of arrested persons, the best
source of counterintelligence information was developed in the
off-duty hangouts of the Germans, their restaurants, coffee
shops and private homes. The Germans were permitted to
visit only the public places reserved "Nur fur Deutsche," and
the Polish service had to introduce its own people into these
places. It became customary there for the Germans to grow
garrulous, certain that they were among their own people whom
they could trust, and to talk openly about all kinds of things.
Thus information was obtained about whom they might sus-
pect under what pseudonym, whether and when they were
planning "grabs," 1 resettlements, or round-ups for work in
the Reich, which public houses, districts and dwellings were
under observation, and the like.
The Polish commanders also got from their counterintelli-
gence workers data on the behavior of their own service per-
sonnel, on whether they were observing in every respect the
carefully worked-out principles of conspiratorial activity. Vio-
lations such as garrulousness, frequenting public places, and
The Germans staged mass raids in the larger cities and on the
railroads; since other methods were unsuccessful they calculated
that in these mass grabs some individuals active in the secret or-
ganizations would by the laws of probability fall into their hands.
After each grab there was a cursory interrogation followed by a de-
tailed one. Often individuals were released immediately.
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group excursions of young people out of town were censured
at hearings, and those so censured were demoted to the lowest
ranks of the organization. Considering, however, that organi-
zation personnel were selected for their high patriotism and
trustworthiness, counterintelligence had little work in this
field; there was no question of continuing investigation or un-
certainty about their moral caliber.
One sensitive segment of the Home Army's work required
special precautions�the production of weapons like hand
grenades, incendiary flares, automatic pistols, etc. Those who
worked constantly in this sector usually began after a time
to disregard security considerations, and it was necessary to
put these places under counterintelligence protection in addi-
tion to the regular security guards assigned to all places where
production or secret printing was going on.
In extreme cases of danger to the secret organization, when
there was no other way to avoid losses, the commander would
order an attack on the German units. Such attacks were
carried out by combat units of the so-called diversionary forces
held in constant readiness, well armed and thirsting for
revenge.
If one may draw morals from this Polish story, there are
three of them here. One, that it is possible to accomplish a
great deal without money and under difficult conditions, if
only some high purpose inspires those at work. Two, that
collaboration with allies gives one the necessary confidence
that he is contributing to a broad effective effort. Three, that
resistance and intelligence activity take on significance pro-
portionate to the sensitivity of their locale with respect to the
enemy's military positions: Poland was more important than
France in World War II in relation to German communica-
tions, the rear areas of the front, and staging for strategic
action.
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The profound changes which have occurred in the Soviet
Union in the five years since Stalin's death have been accom-
panied by many surprising events. It is useful to consider
certain means by which Western observers might have reduced
the element of surprise.
Some events, such as the arrest of Beria, happened so sud-
denly that they probably surprised important groups within
the Soviet leadership. Sometimes the outcome of protracted
conflicts among the leaders probably could not have been pre-
dicted long in advance even by the protagonists themselves.
But frequently Western observers have learned of the existence
of such conflicts only when Moscow announced their outcome.
Such an instance was Malenkov's resignation as head of the
government, in February 1955, and Khrushchev's nomination
of Bulganin to succeed him. Need this event have caused
astonishment? Were the Soviet leaders really able to stake
their political careers, if not their lives, in factional struggle
without leaving evident traces of their mutual opposition?
Actually there was clear evidence of the contention which
issued in Malenkov's resignation, and other surprising events
as well might have been anticipated by examining the traces
left by the contending leaders. These traces lie principally in
published texts whose surface meaning does not reveal their
political significance. They are "esoteric communications,"
hidden messages, which enable factional leaders to communi-
cate quickly, safely, and decisively with the sub-elites whose
support they solicit.1
Serious students of the Soviet Union, aware that esoteric
communications play some role in Soviet politics, scrutinize
Soviet publications for hidden messages and try to elicit their
meaning. On the other side, Soviet leaders and publicists
employ their ingenuity to screen such messages from eyes for
which they are not intended. That they have succeeded
rather well is indicated by the surprise with which the world
has greeted a number of events announced from Moscow.
' The role of esoteric communication in Soviet politics is discussed
at some length in The Rise of Khrushchev, pp. 88-94.
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An important reason for their success is that Western ob-
servers underestimate the refinement and subtlety of Soviet
esoteric communications. Only the most obtrusive messages,
designed for a wide Soviet audience, are generally noted. Let
Beria not attend an opera with his Presidium colleagues and
even our morning newspaper will ponder his fate. But let
Khrushchev's party title of pervi sekretar (first secretary) be-
come Pervi sekretar, and, though hundreds of copies of Pravda
are read in the West for signs of Khrushchev's status, the
change may go unnoticed.
The first impulse of one unaccustomed to take such minute
variations seriously is revulsion as from a kind of talmudism.
The Soviet politicians and publicists do engage in a kind of
talmudism, probably not learned from studying the Talmud
but absorbed from their political environment. The tradition
of esoteric communication developed early in the Soviet regime,
being a direct offspring of bolshevik practices in evading the
czarist censorship. Malenkov, Kaganovich, and Molotov have
been officially designated talmudists; Khrushchev, be it noted,
deserves this epithet as much as they. So to be a talmudist
is to be in good company if one's purpose is to understand
Soviet politics. At any rate it is a fact, talmudic or not, that
the Central Committee of the CPSU elected Khrushchev first
secretary in 1953 and First secretary in 1956; and this fact
must either be explained or accepted without interpretation.
Facts which are accepted without interpretation�especially
seemingly trivial facts like the capitalization of an initial let-
ter�have little value. They acquire value when they are ex-
plained, and only in the degree that the explanation has politi-
cal significance. Besides, some facts are so egregious that they
demand to be explained. And if one's business is the serious
and difficult one of trying to analyze Soviet politics with in-
sufficient facts, can one disregard so intriguing a fact as
Pravda's decision in 1955 to capitalize the initial letter in Khru-
shchev's party title?
In this case it is probably the enormity of the explanation
which causes the student of the USSR to balk. The dispro-
portion between the minuteness of the evidence�pervi changed
to Pervi�and the conclusion drawn from it in my book�that
the change magnified the authority of the senior secre-
tary�could hardly be greater. Yet one cannot reject the in-
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ference out of hand, since Khrushchev's authority rose appre-
ciably in the months after Pravda introduced the change, in
May 1955; and it is difficult to dismiss the symbolic change as
trivial, since it was subsequently confirmed by an action of the
Central Committee.2
One of my experiences as I was preparing material for The
Rise of Khrushchev may illustrate why I take such apparently
inconsequential changes seriously.
On November 3, 1955, the Soviet press published a telegram
from a New Zealand official, Holyoake, which wrongly ad-
dressed Khrushchev by Stalin's title of "general secretary."
Not Holyoake's mistake, but the Soviet publicity for it, sug-
gested that Khrushchev might be making a bold bid for Stalin's
old title, and therefore for the powers which had been associ-
ated with it. I decided to test this hypothesis by examining
the evidence more closely, at the same time investigating the
general proposition that minute symbolic changes bearing on
sensitive political questions embody hidden messages, and can
therefore be made to yield important evidence about the Soviet
leadership. A few weeks of research led to a series of dis-
coveries:
(1) When I examined Stalin's obituaries to see how they
treated his famous title of general secretary, I was surprised
to learn that they did not even mention it.
(2) Further investigation showed that Soviet newspapers
had not mentioned the title of party general secretary once in
the two-and-a-half years from Stalin's death until the Holyoake
telegram.
(3) The articles on Stalin in Soviet reference works pub-
lished since his death disagreed remarkably as to whether
Stalin had remained general secretary until his death in 1953
or had abandoned the post in October, 1952.
2 it is noteworthy that in discussing my book in the last issue of this
journal the reviewer evades this difficulty through an inadvertence.
In treating this evidence he grows inattentive and misrepresents
the conclusion which was drawn from it. According to the review:
"Initially [Khrushchev] was designated 'first secretary,' then 'First
Secretary,' and finally 'First secretary,' all of this purportedly re-
flecting the ups and downs of his political fortunes." The book,
however, does not infer ups and downs but only two rises in his
power; the form First Secretary was used only twice, a few days
apart.
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(4) A few weeks after publication of the Holyoake telegram
which initiated this research, the journal Kommunist men-
tioned, for the first time since Stalin's death, his incumbency
as general secretary.
(5) Further attention to Khrushchev's official party title
developed the minute fact which we have been using as an
illustration, that just a few months previous to publication of
the Holyoake telegram Pravda had changed Khrushchev's title
by capitalizing its initial letter.
All of these discoveries, it will be noted, involve unobtrusive
facts which are pregnant with political symbolism. They be-
long to a world of meaning which is largely closed to the ordi-
nary reader of Soviet publications. To detect the most elusive
of these symbolic facts a reader must anticipate them. He
must expect to find something relevant to the object of his
inquiry, although not necessarily the particular discovery
which actually turns up. It follows that a Soviet specialist
ought not simply to sit by the stream of Soviet communica-
tions and hope to fish out their hidden messages; he must cast
into it at confluences where he believes a hidden message lies
concealed. One is led to these confluences by reflection founded
in knowledge of Soviet politics and an understanding of the
current situation.
A pregnant symbolic fact may provide the stimulus to such
reflection. One symbolic fact leads to another. That is why,
when we stumble upon such a fact, we should not accept it
uninterpreted, but ought to pursue its explanation. The first
step in the pursuit, however, is not a frenzied search for more
symbolic facts; it is rather to explain by means of a hypothesis
the one we already have. Once the hypothesis is articulated,
deductions can be drawn from it in order to test it. In order
to form fruitful hypotheses and to make verifiable deductions
from them, an assessment of the political situation is required.3
Without making some assessment of the political situation it is
logically impossible to draw any inference from symbolic evidence;
one cannot draw valid inferences without taking account of the
many complex factors which influence Soviet developments. It is
an error, then, to suppose that there is a method (the reviewer
chooses to call it "content analysis") which makes it possible for
inferences to be developed independently from the symbols and then
"placed side by side with inferences developed by other means."
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To illustrate the process of reflection set off by a suggestive
symbolic fact, let us return to the telegram addressing Khru-
shchev as general secretary. The hypothesis set up to explain
its publication is that Khrushchev used Holyoake's error in his
effort to acquire Stalin's old office and the powers asso-
ciated with it. From this hypothesis one can deduce the fol-
lowing: (1) Stalin's famous office of party general secretary
was probably a highly sensitive topic at the time of his death
and afterward; (2) Khrushchev's title as the senior secretary
in the party Secretariat must have been even more sensitive.
These deductions suggest where to look for hidden messages as
well as what kind to expect.
One test of the validity of a hypothesis is its capacity to bring
the researcher to important new evidence. If the search re-
sulting from these deductions had disclosed nothing of politi-
cal import�if Stalin's title of general secretary had been
treated after his death in the same way as before, and if Khru-
shchev's party title had not been tampered with�then the
hypothesis from which they were derived would have become
less credible. Instead, by leading to the discovery of important
political facts, the hypothesis gained a measure of confirma-
tion. These discoveries also lent credence to the general thesis
under examination, that esoteric communications play a key
role in Soviet politics.
Another, and in some ways a better, test of a hypothesis is
whether subsequent events support it, and particularly whether
predictions deduced from it are confirmed. The predictions
deduced from my interpretation of the Holyoake telegram and
related evidence were, in my opinion, largely substantiated by
subsequent events, including some which have followed publi-
cation of The Rise of Khrushchev. Khrushchev's assumption
of the premiership in March 1958, for example, provides fur-
ther evidence of his boundless ambition and his continuing
need for authority as well as power. Moreover, the manner in
which he has chosen to juxtapose his party and government
titles is congruent with his personal strategy as the book re-
constructs it. While the previous joint holders of the top party
and government posts, Stalin and Malenkov, were designated
"Chairman of the Council of Ministers and Secretary of the
Central Committee," Khrushchev has reversed the order. By
thus subordinating his government to his party office he has
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displayed his continuing concern to maintain the supremacy
of the party apparatus. Again, his distinctive party title re-
mains an important symbol of his special position: while
Soviet publications usually referred to Stalin as "secretary,"
not "general secretary," they designate Khrushchev "First
secretary."
The evidence that Soviet leaders commonly employ esoteric
communications seems conclusive, however strange the prac-
tice may appear to Western observers. Men whose understand-
ing of political reality has been formed by a free society find
it difficult to suppose that piddling with stereotyped formulas
can be an important mode of political behavior for powerful
leaders. Even in default of the customary data used in politi-
cal analysis, they are understandably reluctant to accept far-
reaching conclusions drawn from this elusive evidence. Yet
the fact remains: these minutiae�no less than purges and
policy debates�are the very stuff of Soviet politics. The fre-
quency of esoteric communications, and the ends served by
them, may vary widely. But they will remain a necessary link
between leaders and followers until such time as men are al-
lowed to go openly into the Soviet political arena to seek sup-
port for their views. When politics, in this sense, ceases to be
"anti-party" activity, the Soviet political system will have be-
come something different from what Stalin made it, and what
it remains today.
If esoteric communications play this vital role, then study-
ing them should enable us to extend our knowledge of Soviet
politics. Two questions arise in connection with such studies:
what kinds of knowledge can they provide, and how should
they be conducted?
The particular knowledge which can be obtained necessarily
depends upon the content of the hidden messages which can
be uncovered. In recent years, when factional conflict has
permeated Soviet politics under cover of "collective leadership,"
hidden messages have chiefly served factional ends. But this
has not always been true. In Stalin's last years, for example,
although contending subordinate leaders used their limited
access to publications for factional purposes, the most impor-
tant esoteric communications were the dictator's program-
matic pronouncements, which he delivered in an appropriately
oracular style. Thus it should not be supposed that esoteric
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communications can be made to yield conclusions only about
dissension among the leaders: important information on other
intelligence problems can also be derived from them.
Until now, Soviet specialists have for the most part limited
their search for hidden messages to current Soviet publica-
tions, hoping to find there clues to future developments. How-
ever, the uses of esoteric communication in research are not
limited to short-run predictions.4 Retrospective examination
of Soviet publications in the light of subsequent events fre-
quently reveals hidden messages which eluded contemporary
investigation. Such esoteric communications, when consid-
ered in the light of the events which they helped bring about,
can enhance our understanding of the situation in which they
appeared. By such means, for example, the use of key institu-
tions as power bases by contending leaders during the Stalin
succession crisis might be considerably illuminated.
The second question which arises regarding studies of eso-
teric communication is how they should be conducted. The
researcher who makes extensive use of symbolic evidence adopts
special procedures, develops uncommon skills, and accumulates
abundant data. These can usefully be passed on to researchers
who have had less experience in using such evidence. But
such by-products of specialization should not be cultivated and
exaggerated so as to produce a "methodology" to be set along-
side other "methodologies." Esoteric communications are
simply one kind of evidence to be woven in with other data in
analyzing Soviet politics. The rigorous and exhaustive analy-
sis of such minutiae can produce significant results only if the
researcher maintains a broad political outlook and considers
other relevant evidence in arriving at his conclusions.
If, as we have emphasized, an assessment of the political
situation enters into every inference drawn from symbolic
facts, how can an evaluator engaged in making a departmental
or national estimate take such inferences into account unless
he fully shares the specialist's estimate of the political situa-
tion? All that is required is that the specialist's inference be
fitted into the evaluator's estimate of the political situation.
This fitting-in may make necessary some modification of the
An important historical study based on such evidence is The Ritual
of Liquidation, by N. Leites and E. Bernaut.
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evaluator's earlier views, and therein lies the specialist's con-
tribution to finished intelligence. Few of our beliefs about the
current Soviet political situation are so firmly based that they
cannot benefit from new evidence.
To illustrate, imagine that a specialist skilled in the inter-
pretation of symbolic evidence brings this Holyoake telegram
to the generalist evaluator in December 1955. The specialist,
having analyzed the telegram and related symbolic evidence
in the light of his concept of Soviet politics and of the par-
ticular situation in late 1955, has concluded that Khrushchev
is actively engaged in destroying the collective leadership.
After being presented with this conclusion and with the argu-
ment on which it is based, the evaluator, who may believe that
Khrushchev is satisfied to act simply as the spokesman for a
collective leadership, must set these views against his own.
He must then inquire into the grounds for his own belief: it
has been reported that Khrushchev's colleagues show him no
special deference in the presence of Western officials; Soviet
propaganda extols collective leadership and criticizes the "cult
of the individual"; Khrushchev lacks a dictator's bearing and
self-control; and so forth.
Are these grounds adequate to maintain the view that Khru-
shchev's power and ambitions are no threat to collective lead-
ership, despite the symbolic evidence which has been inter-
preted to support the opposite view? The evaluator may be-
lieve so; but he ought not simply to dismiss the symbolic facts
which have been brought to his attention. If he rejects the
specialist's explanation of them, he should try himself to pro-
vide an interpretation which is not inconsistent with his esti-
mate of Khrushchev's political position. His explanation of
the symbolic evidence must be a plausible one, as the special-
ist's is. If he is unable to develop such an interpretation, the
evaluator should recognize that his estimate has become less
credible. He must be prepared to alter it if subsequent events
(e.g., Khrushchev's secret speech) cast fresh doubt upon it.
By this or some similar procedure the researches of "tal-
mudists," as of Soviet specialists generally, can be more widely
exploited by those who must estimate future political develop-
ments in the U.S.S.R. These researches can provide new evi-
dence on important problems; they can bring plausible hy-
potheses to areas of admitted ignorance; they can raise pro-
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vocative objections to views held uncritically. More generally,
in minds which have not been closed to their influence, they
can stimulate reflection about the very nature of the Soviet
political system.
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WE SPIED . . .
The past months have been rather lean ones for first-class
books on intelligence, but we have spied out a few which cer-
tainly should be called to your attention.
Resistance
Two excellent books on the French Resistance during World
War II and one on resistance in Italy have been added to the
literature in this field. The Story of the Italian Resistance, by
Roberto Battaglia, will be reviewed in a later issue of the
Studies. Here we especially commend for good reading They
Fought Alone: The Story of British Agents in France, by Mau-
rice Buckmaster.' Col. Buckmaster, who headed the French
section of the British Special Operations Executive, had already
written one excellent book on S. 0. E. activities in France,2 and
his new one is no less well done. They Fought Alone relates the
activities of British S. 0. E. agents dropped into France, de-
scribes their successes and their failures, and tells how they or-
ganized their nets. For the period after D-Day, it shows how
countless German troops were immobilized by the activities of
the S. 0. E.-led Maquis, by sabotage, the destruction of bridges
and rolling stock, and other means. With pride the author
quotes General Eisenhower's affirmation that the operations of
the S. 0. E. and the Maquis had shortened the war in Europe
by nine months. The book covers many aspects of tradecraft:
personnel recruiting and training, communications, documen-
tation, sabotage, escape and evasion, security. Col. Buckmaster
can write on these topics with authority, and he writes inter-
estingly and well.
Ten Thousand Eyes, by Richard Collier,3 is devoted to the
activities of those Resistance agent nets under the control of
1London: Odhams Press Ltd., 1958. 256 p. 18s
2 Specially Employed: The Story of British Aid to French Patriots of
the Resistance. London: The Batchworth Press, 1952. 200 p.
�London: Collins, 1958. 320 p. 18s. Also New York: E. P. Dutton
& Co., 1958. 320 p. $4.00.
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General de Gaulle's Free French Headquarters in London which
were primarily engaged in securing intelligence on Hitler's
Atlantic Wall from Cherbourg to Le Havre, where the D-Day
landings were to be made. The author tells how in 1940 Capt.
Andre Dewavrin escaped from France and joined General de
Gaulle in London, where he established the Free French intel-
ligence set-up and became known to the Resistance as Colonel
Passy. For Colonel Passy's own story, one should refer to his
three volumes of Souvenirs.4
Ten Thousand Eyes also gives the story of some of Dewavrin's
liaison with Gilbert Renault-Roulier, known throughout the
French Resistance as Remy, who has described his own Resist-
ance activities in five volumes, two of which have been trans-
lated into English. 5 Among the many tradecraft subjects treat-
ed in Ten Thousand Eyes are the establishment of agent nets,
communications, air/maritime support of agent personnel, and
escape and evasion. Primarily, however, the book deals with the
clandestine collection of intelligence information on beach and
inland defenses which was essential to the planners of the inva-
sion and the invasion forces themselves. London needed this
information in minute detail, and it was up to the Resistance
to collect it. Ten Thousand Eyes tells how the members of the
Resistance would sketch this information in on sector maps and
pass it on to their cartographic service, run by an ex-mechanic
in Caen. There the information was consolidated on master
maps to be sent on to England. Spine-tingling stories of how
this information was secured make the book a fascinating one.
Intelligence in Psychological Warfare
A Psychological Warfare Casebook, compiled by William E.
Daugherty in collaboration with Morris Janowitz,6 was pub-
lished just in time for this column to review its intelligence as-
pects. Daugherty is an operations analyst with the Johns Hop-
2' Bureau Londres. Monte-Carlo: Raoul Solar, 1947. 236 p.
10, Duke Street Londres. Monte-Carlo: Raoul Solar, 1947. 387 p.
Missions Secretes En France. Paris: Plon, 1951. 439 p.
5 Memoirs of a Secret Agent of Free France. New York: McGraw-
Hill, 1948. 406 p.
Courage and Fear. London: Arthur Barker Ltd., 1950. 320 p.
'Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1958. 880 p. $12.50.
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kins Operations Research Office, which usually performs its
functions under contract with the Department of the Army,
and Dr. Janowitz is Associate Professor of Sociology at the
University of Michigan. Both of them saw intelligence serv-
ice during World War II. Their voluminous work � almost
900 pages � is exactly what its title implies, a casebook; the
compiler/editors are introducing into the psychological war-
fare field the casebook method long used as a method of instruc-
tion in the law schools.
The editors define psychological warfare as "the planned
use of propaganda and other actions designed to influence the
opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of enemy, neutral,
and friendly foreign groups in such a way as to support the
accomplishment of national aims and objectives." In addition
to treating the policy, doctrine, organization, objectives, and
methods of psychological warfare, they include chapters on the
role of intelligence, research, and analysis, on evaluation of
effectiveness, and on Soviet psychological warfare. At the end
of each of the 10 chapters there are lists of references and addi-
tional collateral reading, constituting in aggregate an excel-
lent basic psychological warfare bibliography. Each chapter
consists of articles or extracts on its subject by various authors
or by the editors themselves. The editors have been able to cull
through many official files, and some of the material comes
from unpublished manuscripts or reports. This work, which
was several years in preparation, appears to be not only an in-
dispensable tool for the beginner in psychological warfare and
a good refresher and reference work for the expert, but also a
source for the study of how intelligence impinges on this field.
It does, however, have the shortcoming of being too much con-
cerned with the military aspects of psychological warfare and
slighting its non-military role in the cold war.
This reviewer believes that the casebook method has much to
commend it for use in more than one field of intelligence. Some
day such a casebook might well be published on aspects of the
collection and production of intelligence and in such special-
ized fields as escape and evasion. A serious gap in intelligence
literature would then be filled.
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Brief Mention
Here are some other books on various aspects of intelligence
which should be called briefly to your attention:
BROME, Vincent. The Way Back. New York: W. W. Norton
& Co., 1958. 249 P. $3.75. Also London: Cassell & Co.
Ltd., 1957. 267 p.
This is the story of Dr. Albert Guerisse, a doctor in the Bel-
gian Army who escaped to England after the fall of France
in 1940. Under the pseudonym of Pat O'Leary he was re-
turned to the south of France to work for British intelli-
gence, transporting out of Europe those British airmen who
had been shot down and had evaded or escaped confine-
ment.
BROWN, Ralph S., Jr. Loyalty and Security: Employment
Tests in the United States. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1958. 524 p. $6.00.
Professor Brown here reviews the security programs for
screening civil servants � federal, state, and local � as
well as loyalty tests administered by private employers and
labor unions, and recommends improvements. Although
this is probably the best book to date on this subject by an
author not connected with the government, it still lacks
the objectivity and competence which characterized the
1956 report of the Special Committee on the Federal Loy-
alty-Security Program of the Association of the Bar of the
City of New York 7 and the 1957 report of the President's
Commission on Government Security.8
COWLES, Virginia. The Phantom Major. New York: Har-
per & Brothers, 1958. 320 p. $3.95. Also London: Collins,
1958.
Virginia Cowles was a war correspondent for the London
Sunday Times who covered the North African campaign.
This book tells the story of David Stirling and his Special
Air Service unit which operated behind Rommel's lines in
North Africa. Stirling was finally captured and imprisoned
at Colditz.
New York: Dodd, Mead, 1956. 301 p.
Washington: U. S. Govt. Print. Off., 1957. 807 p.
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I
TIAL
Articles and book reviews on the following
pages are printed without classification and with-
out identification a the writers, for the conven-
ience of readers who may wish to detach them
from the classified body of the Studies.
Page
Military Intelligence Behind Enemy Lines
Stefan Borowy 107
An officer of the former Polish Home Army authori-
tatively describes its intelligence activities under
Occupation conditions.
A Neglected Source of Evidence . . . . Myron Rush 117
An expert on the symbolism of Soviet political formu-
lae explains his serious concern with their incon-
spicuous mutations.
We Spied Walter Pforzheimer 127
Th,e curator of CIA's Historical Intelligence Collec-
tion evaluates additions to the intelligence bibli-
ography.
late-as& CONFIDENTIAL
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