Introduction
When World War II in Europe finally came to an end on May 7, 1945, a new war was just
beginning. The Cold War: denoting the open yet restricted rivalry that developed between
the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, a war fought on
political, economic, and propaganda fronts, with limited recourse to weapons, largely
because of fear of a nuclear holocaust. This term, The Cold War, was first used by
presidential advisor Bernard Baruch during a congressional debate in 1947. Intelligence
operations dominating this war have been conducted by the Soviet State Security Service
(KGB) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), representing the two power blocs, East
and West respectively, that arose from the aftermath of World War II. Both have conducted
a variety of operations from large scale military intervention and subversion to covert
spying and surveillance missions. They have known success and failure. The Bay of Pigs
debacle was soon followed by Kennedy's deft handling of the Cuban missile crisis. The
decisions he made were helped immeasurably by intelligence gathered from reconnaissance
photos of the high altitude plane U-2. In understanding these agencies today I will show
you how these agencies came about, discuss past and present operations, and talk about
some of their tools of the trade.
Origin of the CIA and KGB
The CIA was a direct result of American intelligence operations during World War II.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt recognized the need to coordinate intelligence to protect
the interests of the United States. In 1941, he appointed William J. Donovan to the head
of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) with headquarters in London. Four departments
made up the OSS: Support, Secretariat, Planning, and Overseas Missions. Each of these
departments directed an array of sections known as 'operation groups'. This organization
had fallen into the disfavor of many involved in the federal administration at this time.
This included the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), J. Edgar Hoover,
who did not like competition from a rival intelligence organization. With the death of
Roosevelt in April of 1945, the OSS was disbanded under Truman and departments were
either relocated or completely dissolved.
Soviet intelligence began with the formation of the Cheka, secret police, under Feliks
Dzerzhinsky at the time of the revolution. By 1946, this agency had evolved into the
Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), and the Ministry of State Security (MGB) both ruled
by Lavrenti Beria. This man was undoubtedly the most powerful man in the Soviet Union
with a vast empire of prison camps, and informants to crush any traces of dissent. Of
considerable importance to Beria was the race for the atomic bomb. The Soviet Union and
the United States both plundered the German V-2 rocket sites for materials and personnel.
In 1946 the MVD was responsible for the rounding up of 6000 scientists from the Soviet
zone of Germany and taking them and their dependents to the Soviet Union.
The political conflicts of the 1930's and World War II left many educated people with
the impression that only communism could combat economic depression and fascism. It was
easy for Soviet agents to recruit men who would later rise to positions of power with
access to sensitive information. 'Atom spies' were well positioned to keep the Soviets
informed of every American development on the bomb. Of considerable importance was a man
by the name of Klaus Fuchs, a German communist who fled Hitler's purge and whose ability
as a nuclear physicist earned him a place on the Manhattan Project. Fuchs passed
information to the Soviets beginning in 1941, and was not arrested until 1950. Also
passing secrets to the Soviets were Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, executed in the United
States in 1953. The latter two were probably among the first who believed in nuclear
deterrence, whereby neither country would use nuclear weapons because the other would use
his in response, therefore there would be no possible winner. It is generally believed
that with such scientists as Andrei Sakharov, the Soviets were capable of working it out
for themselves without the help of intelligence.
(better transition) The National Security Act of 1947 gave birth to the CIA, and in 1949
the CIA Act was formally passed. "The act exempted the CIA from all Federal laws that
required the disclosure of 'functions, names, official titles, and salaries or number of
personnel employed by the agency'. The director was awarded staggering powers, including
the right to 'spend money without regard to the provisions of law and regulations
relating to the expenditure of government funds'. The act also allowed the director to
bring in 100 aliens a year secretly." The 1949 charter is essentially the same one that
the CIA uses to carry out covert operations today.
The U-2 Incident
In 1953, the CIA contracted Lockheed Aircraft Corporation of Burbank CA to build a plane
that would go higher and farther than any yet produced. Kelly Johnson came up with the
design for the U-2, a plane that would fly with a record high ceiling of 90,000 ft. and a
range of 4,000 ft. The U-2 flights are possibly the greatest triumph achieved by the CIA
since its founding. This is because of the planes success at evading detection for such a
long time and the vast amounts of information gathered. "We'll never be able to match
that one. Those flights were intelligence work on a mass production basis."
On the fateful day of May 1, 1960, Gary Powers was sent up in his U-2 over the Soviet
Union from the United States Air Force Base at Peshawar, Pakistan. His mission was to
photograph areas of military and economic signifigance and record radio transmissions.
The plane he flew was equipped with cameras, radio receivers and tape recorders to
accomplish this mission. In addition to these devices, the plane was also equipped with
self destruction capabilities to blow up the U-2 if it was forced to land, and a blasting
mechanism fitted to the tape recorder to destroy any evidence of the CIA's monitoring of
radio signals. As his plane flew over the Soviet Union, the cameras recorded ammunition
depots, oil storage installations, the number and type of aircraft at military airports,
and electric transmission lines. When the plane did not return to its base after a
reasonable allowance of time, it was assumed it had crashed for some reason or another.
The circumstances surrounding the crash of the plane Powers flew on this is a still a
mystery today, depending on whether you believe the Soviets or the Americans. The Soviets
claim that "in view of the fact that this was a case of the deliberate invasion of Soviet
airspace with hostile aggressive intent, the Soviet Government gave orders to shoot down
the plane" , and that they shot it out of the air with an SA-2 missile at 8:53 A.M. at
the altitude of 68,000 ft. The Americans declared that the U-2 was disabled by a flameout
in its jet engine. Whatever the truth maybe, or combination of truths, the fact remains
that Powers survived the encounter by parachute in the vicinity of Sverdlovsk. Upon
landing, he was apprehended, disarmed, and escorted to the security police by four
residents of the small town.
The fault of the incident lay with the American administration's handling of the
situation, not with the flight itself. It was assumed that Powers had died in the crash,
and this was the mistake. The initial story released was not widely reported and only
told of a missing pilot near the Soviet border who's oxygen equipment was out of order.
"From an intelligence point of view, the original cover story seemed to be particularly
inept... A cover story has certain requirements. It must be credible. It must be a story
that can be maintained [no live pilots knocking about] and it should not have too much
detail. Anything that's missing in a cover story can be taken care of by saying the
matter is being investigated."
The further lies the State Department released about the incident only strained U.S. and
Soviet relations. These included reports of an unarmed weather research plane, piloted by
a civilian, that had trouble with oxygen equipment going down over the Soviet Union.
Under questioning by the press, Information Officer, Walt Bonney, admitted that the U-2
had cameras aboard, but they were not reconnaissance cameras. Rather, the cameras were
"to take cloud cover". When it became publicly known that Khrushchev had known what had
taken place all along and had known for some years, President Eisenhower justified the
presence of a spy plane over the Soviet Union with it being "in the interest of the free
world." Khrushchev saw through the ploy and revoked his invitation for Eisenhower to
visit the Soviet Union for a summit.
Bay of Pigs
By 1959, Fidel Castro and his rebels were able to establish their own regime in Cuba.
Americans soon became hostile to this new government when it became apparent that Castro
endorsed the Soviets. He declared his intentions of supporting guerrilla movements
against US backed dictatorships throughout Latin America and seized US assets in Cuba. He
also established friendly relations with the Soviet Union although he was not communist.
The US recognized this threat to their interests and proceeded to form a special CIA task
force that was create an armed force of exiled Cubans, form a subversive organizations
within Cuba, and if possible assassinate Castro.
The initial plan was to discredit the charismatic man in front of his nation. Some ideas
that were considered to accomplish the task were ludicrous in the least. The first was to
spray Cuban TV studios with LSD prior to Castro broadcasting a speech in hopes of him
making a complete fool of himself. The agency had been experimenting with the acid for
some time. However, the idea was quickly abandoned because no one could guarantee with
any certainty that the drug would have the desired effect. Further attempts were stabs at
the look of Castro himself. One idea was to doctor his famous insignia, the cigars he is
always seen with. This idea was discontinued because no one could figure out how to get
the cigars to him. From an angle of more a chemical nature, the agency planned at one
time to make his beard fall out. Scientists at the agency knew that when thallium salts
contact skin, they act as a depilatory and make hair fall out. The idea goes further into
reasoning that when Castro traveled he would leave his shoes outside of his hotel bedroom
and the salts could be sprinkled in then. This idea became impossible when Castro
announced that all forthcoming foreign trips were to be cancelled. With these failures,
the US felt that it had no choice but to continue with the organization of partisans and
help them usurp the dictatorship of Cuba.
By the time John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960, the development of the
invasion was already in full force. Eisenhower had earmarked $13 million and a force of
1300 men had been assembled. Cuban pilots were being trained how to fly B-26 bombers by
National Guardsmen. The operation was massive, enough so that the public took notice.
Kennedy was extremely wary of any direct US involvement and set about a series of
compromises for the Cuban exiles. The air cover was reduced and the landings were shifted
from a more favorable site to the Bay of Pigs where it was determined that the landing
force could get ashore with a minimum of naval and air force back up.
Escorted by US naval vessels, the force landed in the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961. The
six B-26s assigned to the operation were clearly inadequate and the support from within
the country never fully materialized. Completely exposed to counterattacks of the Cuban
air and land forces, the whole invasion force was either killed or taken prisoner.
When Kennedy's statement that "the armed forces of this country would not intervene in
any way" was an outright lie. The exiles uses American equipment. They were trained by
American servicemen, and the planes flown were Americans. The ships that carried the men
to the invasion were American, with American naval units for support. Americans were
killed in operation. When caught in his lie, Kennedy was forced to cover the US by
extending the Monroe Doctrine to cover communism. He declared that the US would remain
free of all Central and Latin American affair as long as they were not communist. This
fiasco undoubtedly led to Khrushchev's belief that he could deploy missiles to his
newfound ally without any tangible reprisal from the Americans.
Practices of Spies
Some of the devices used seem to come straight from a James Bond movie. Hollow rings or
talcum powder cans with false bottoms were some of the items used for hiding microfilm.
An interesting method involves the use of a microdot whereby pages of information is
reduced to the size of a colon and used in an appropriate place on a document. The
process is reversed for the extraction of information and the dot is enlarged to display
all the information. Hiding places for secret packages were imaginative to say the least
and ranged from trees, to ruined walls, to mail boxes.
Listening devices were not restricted to telephone bugs, and on one occasion there was a
handcarved Great Seal of the United States presented to the US ambassador in Moscow by
the Soviet Union. It turned out that hidden inside was a listening device. Microwave
receivers exist all over the world for the interception of messages, the Soviet embassy
in San Francisco has its own battery of dishes erected on top of its building.
In 1978, a Bulgarian exile by the name Georgi Markov who was working for the Radio Free
Europe was fatally poisoned with a pellet most likely hidden in an umbrella. Vladimir
Kostov was killed under very similar circumstances in 1978, and it is believed that the
toxin used was ricin. This is an extremely toxic substance derived from castor oil.
Political and intelligence related assassinations have abounded in the twentieth century
with the advent of the Cold War. The public will never know when one of murders takes
place by reason of secrecy unless it is a public figure.
Conclusion
The agencies discussed above are integral to the peace that exists today. There is no
other way in the age we live in today to monitor the enemy and ally alike so as to be
able to understand their capabilities and shortcomings without intelligence agencies. The
CIA and KGB by themselves cannot assure peace. With the knowledge supplied by each to its
leaders, intelligent decisions can be made in the world's best interest. Moreover, the
status quo and power base remains relatively stable with the East and West on opposing
sides. There can never be true and utterly complete peace, these organizations will
continue to exist contrary ignorant ideals of the public for peaceful coexistence.
Encyclopedia Britannia index page 237
KGB/CIA, Jonathon Bloch page 12
KGB/CIA, Jonathon Bloch page 21
CIA: The Inside Story, Andrew Tully page 113
CIA: The Inside Story, Andrew Tully page 119
General Thomas R. Phillips, U.S. Army, retired.
Bay of Pigs, Peter Wyden page 59
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