The parliamentary bypass operation

by Labour MP Robert Sheldon - reported to This is the story of a scandal. The government has failed to account to Parliament that they wished to 'reaffirm the Parliament for expenditure of half a billion pounds on a secret 'spy' satellite, importance' they attached to the statement 'as a due to be positioned over the Soviet Union. In doing so, it has flagrantly breached means of keeping Parliament reliably informed about the costs and progress of major Defence a solemn promise to inform Parliament, through its public Accounts Committee, projects' . of all major defence expenditure. This was to be the subject of the first At the time the agreement was made in 1982, Sheldon's predecessor as chair of the PAC, Lord programme in a forthcoming BBC2 series Secret Society, written and presented Barnett, wrote that 'full accountability to by New Statesman writer DUN CAN CAMPBELL. Last Thursday, BBC Parliament in future is imperative'. Yet within a year, the government was breaking that agreement director general Alasdair Milne banned the programme. Here, for the first time, by secretly developing Zircon. Campbell is able to tell the story of official deceit. (Additional research by Lord Barnett, ironically, is now the Deputy Chairman of the BBC. The man who made the Jolyon Jenkins and Patrick Forbes) agreement with Barnett was Sir Frank Cooper - then the Ministry of Defence Permanent PROJECT ZIRCON is the secret codename for Permanent Secretaries' Committee on the Secretary, but now a late convert to campaigning Britain's first ever spy satellite. Zircon, originally Intelligence Services (PSIS), and would have then for Freedom of Information and better planned to be launched in 1988, will be a 'signals been passed to the Prime Minister. government accountability. intelligence' (Sigint) satellite - an electronic The agreement with Parliament undermined by Robert Sheldon and his Committee should have listening post in space, able to eavesdrop on the continuing secrecy of Zircon is known as the been informed about the project as soon as Soviet, European and Middle Eastern Major Projects Statement, an annual and approval was given. But last October, Sheldon communications and beam them back to GCHQ, confidential list of defence projects sent to the told me during an interview that he'd never heard the government monitoring centre at Cheltenham. Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee of Zircon. It wasn't included in the Defence Its real utility remains doubtful: but there is no (BAC). Only six months ago, the PAC - chaired Ministry's Major Project Statement to his doubt as to the status it is deemed to confer on the government. One former defence chief told me that its launch is a matter of 'macho politics' - of keeping up with the Americans. The satellite's existence and huge cost has, till now, remained completely secret from Parliament - despite a solemn undertaking in 1982 that, after both Labour and Conservative governments had deceived MPs about £1 billion secretly spent on modernising Polaris nuclear warheads - the Chevaline programme - the Commons' Public Accounts Committee would always receive advance information about expenditure on major defence projects. Four senior defence officials and one former member of GCHQ last year gave me off-the- record details of the satellite plan. It has been one of Whitehall's most closelyguarded secrets for the past fiveyears. But the need to make extra defence cuts to accommodate it has meant that rather more civilservants know about Zircon than intelligence chiefs would have preferred. Normally, intelligence projects like Zircon would be paid for by the intelligence budget, now nearly £1 billion a year. About half of this goes to GCHQ, much of it 'laundered' by being misleadingly presented to Parliament as expenditure on such diverse but innocuous items as 'RAF electronics' or 'Army barracks services'. But with Zircon costing an entire year's budget for the whole of GCHQ, it was decided in 1983that it had to be funded directly inside the real defence budget. As a result, Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine had to agree the project at a time when normal defence expenditure was already being cut to meet the costs of the Trident programme. The project was also approved by the top level committee. He added that if, on investigation, he beside the Americans and maintain a special going on in an independent way.' found that Zircon had been deliberately concealed relationship on intelligence and nuclear policy. Sir Ronald Mason, who was Defence Chie from him it would be 'a most serious matter ... a The intelligence link, now dominated by signals Scientific Adviser from 1977 to 1983, also told nu matter to which I would give very serious intelligence ('sigint'), was critical - and to keep that he regarded sigint satellites as vital. But, a consideration indeed, in view of the assurances up with the Americans in this area, Britain's sigint present, Britain effectively depended entirely or that we've been given in the past'. organisation, GCHQ Cheltenham, badly wanted the United States for strategic intelligence. "The According to another former MoD official its own spy satellite. dependence is total,' he explained. concerned with defence budgeting, the Zircon The satellite would, he said, 'give us a standing I asked Sir Ronald what difference the Zircor project had indeed caused defence civil servants in our relations particularly with the United States satellite would make to the situation for Britair considerable anxiety because of the promises to 'and ... our European allies.' It would 'give us a and NATO. His mouth fell open for severa the P AC. It was therefore proposed that a senior national capability . . . so we knew what was 'seconds. Then he replied carefully: 'I can't talk tc ministry official have 'a word in the ear' of the you about that, I'm afraid'. He was sorry, bUI Comptroller and Auditor General, Sir Gordon everything about Zircon was classified. He was Downey, who is supposed to investigate 'flabbergasted' that the name had been government departments on behalf of the PAC. The BBC's 'national mentioned: Sir Gordon, it was proposed, should be told that security' ban the security considerations surrounding Zircon I just can't talk about it. I didn't know that was out were so exceptional that details of the project The BBC announced last week that five of six ... you surprised me. should be suppressed. This week Sir Gordon Secret Society programmes, written and admitted he had been informed when the project .presented by Duncan Campbell, will be The listening dish transmitted on BBC-2 from late March began. But he didn't tell Robert Sheldon until Sigint Satellites don't take pictures, unlike the first onwards. But the first programme in the series, after Sheldon had first learned of the project generation of spy satellites. Instead they intercept about the Zircon satellite project and the during the BBC interview. radio and other signals - signals that aren't breach of parliamentary accountability Neither Mr Sheldon nor his predecessor Lord supposed to be picked up from space. The targets involved, is not be to shown. The Corporation Barnett are in any doubt that the agreement include telephone calls sent by radio, offically stated that: between the Defence Ministry and the Public communications from military, police and Accounts Committee has no exceptions or loop- The series was referred to the Director-General as government vehicles, and computer links.' The holes of any kind. This particularly applies to Editor-in-Chief and five programmes will be most modern US sigint satellites, similar to arguments about national security or 'sensitive' transmitted. The sixth will not. The Director- Zircon, hover in a fixed position over the equator, projects, since this was the very argument used the General was advised that its transmission would 24,000 miles above the earth. Untiltheearly 1970s, last time to justify misleading Parliament about be against national security. it was believed impossible to use satellites so far up Chevaline, the Polaris modernisation The BBC would not say who had given advice to pick up weak signals from inside difficult areas, programme. to the Director-General about the Zircon like the Soviet Union. But in 1973, the CIA proved According to Sir Frank Cooper, GCHQ first programme. The series was originally due to be that this could be done, with an 'electronic asked for a satellite in the early 1970s. But the transmitted in November 1986, but was vacuum cleaner in space' , codenamed ~overnment of the day turned them down. It took delayed so that it could be cleared by BBC RHYOLITE. 1decade before approval was, finally, given - in Assistant Director-General Alan Protheroe . The special feature of such satellites is a gigantic .he summer of 1983. According to two Protheroe cleared all six programmes for umbrella-like dish, as wide as a hundred feet ndependent Defence Ministry sources, the Zircon transmission in December 1986, and the series across. Initially stowed on board the satellite like a iroject will cost about £400-£500 million. One said was rescheduled for transmission earlier this delicate compressed metal lace, the giant dish hat it would cost 'about five per cent of the cost of month. Then transmission was again suddenly unfolds in orbit, pointing down at the target area he Trident programme' . suspended, until last week. on earth. From such 'geostationary' orbits, each Sir Frank told me in a filmed interview that the Secret Society was produced by Brian Barr of listening satellite can select targets across about a rew GCHQ satellite was a matter of 'macho BBC TV Scotland, and directed by Dennis quarter of the earth's surface, sifting out valuable iolitics'. Britain's international standing, he Cosgrove. signals from the dross that surrounds them. The xplained, was essentially based on trying to stand latest sigint satellites can pick up signals from walkie-talkie radios on Soviet streets, or even faced a major problem with Zircon - hiding tons select a third British astronaut - thus taking one secretly planted bugs. of sophisticated electronics that, to operate at all, from each of the three armed services. Many American sigint satellites are already has to be launched into space and left in orbit - An even odder feature of the announcement controlled, and their intercepts analysed, in where everyone can seeit. So, from 1982onwards, was the intended position of the new satellite. This Britain. The US National Security Agency's according to MoD sources, it was clear to GCHQ was announced by mistake. British Aerospace's listening station at Menwith Hill in Yorkshire, and defence planners that there would have to be a release explained that 'The new satellite is due to appears to control several generations of US specially devised cover story for public and be launched in 1988 and be positioned 53°E'. But listening satellites. In 1975, Menwith Hill became international consumption. But the cover story 53 degreeseast is the longitude of the centralSoviet the ground link station for a new series of satellites plan has already fallen apart. Union. not Britain. the other European NA TO called JUMPSEA T, which hover over the When any object is launched into space, its member countries or the United States. The northern and polar regions of the USSR. New existence must be announced under the terms of a Defence Ministry told journalists that British satellite tracking domes were added in the early United Nations treaty. So you can't pretend it Aerospace should not have published that 1980s, apparently for a new series of satellites doesn't exist. But you can lieor dissemble about its information: 'If the press release had been called CHALET, which are positioned over the functions, in order to disguise its real job as properly approved they wouldn't have had that Indian Ocean - from which they can best look something innocuous. This is easy for the fact in it' . Then they tried, literally, to cover up the down on much Soviet territory. The information Americans to do - their spy satellites have been mistake. picked up is sent back on a narrow radio beam to routinely announced as 'communications' or The release was followed up two weeks later by the ground. 'data relay' satellites, or just launched without an industry press release from the Society of The latest generation of US intelligence comment. The first American photographic British Aerospace Companies. The wording was satellites are called MAGNUM. MAGNUM was intelligence satellites were launched amid a almost identical with that from British Aerospace launched, supposedly in great secrecy, aboard the panoply of distracting publicity about biomedical - but not quite. Correction fluid had been applied space shuttle in January 1985. But clumsy experiments on monkeys in orbit. to remove the reference to the 53°E position, and attempts by the US administration to intimidate But Britain has a problem: there are no British new words were typed on top: tell-tale extra space newspapers provoked public attention. A month military satellites now operating. It does, in the retyped words showed that the release had before the satellite was launched, US Air Force however, plan to launch a new series of defence been altered at the last moment (see diagram). General Richard Abel called a press conference satellites, called Skynet 4. Until the delay caused The hasty cover-up appears to "have been and threatened that any newspaper which by the space shuttle disaster, two Skynet 4 necessitated by the premature release of a 'speculated' on the nature of the shuttle's secret communications satellites were supposed to be difficult-to-explain fact - the.positioning of the payload would be 'investigated' for 'national launched by the space shuttle last year. new satellite over the Soviet Union and Indian security' . If Britain launches a satellite and doesn't say Ocean, not the NATO area. With no forces The threats had the predictable effect - the what its function is, that's the same as saying that further east than the Gulf, there is no need for a press took an immediate interest. The next day the it's an intelligence satellite. So any cover story, to British communications satellite there. According Washington Post, using experts and published be effective, would have to involve Skynet. to former MoD official Clive Ponting - whose sources, announced that the US was launching its last job was head of the division planning latest and biggest-ever electronic spy satellite. A SKYNET, the British military satellite operations outside the NATO area - there was gigantic new control centre, codenamed communications system, began in 1969. The first 'absolutely no requirement' for a STEEPLEBUSH, was built at Menwith Hill two Skynet systems are no longer in operation. communications satellite in that area. If ships shortly before MAGNUM was launched, and may Skynet 3was cancelled before it began. Skynet 4- occasionally went further west, existing American now receive information from the new satellite. a system of two satellites over the Atlantic Ocean communications satellites would provide the links Britain's Zircon satellite is based on US communicating with NATO countries, ships in required. technology, used in satellites like CHALET and the Atlantic, the United States, and the Falklands At first, the Defence Ministry told journalists MAGNUM. One former senior defence official, - was announced in July 1981. In 1983, the that the satellite would save money on telephone who has access to technical details of every secret government decided to launch Skynet using the calls to Hong Kong. But Britain is withdrawing defence project, told me last year that Zircon was, US space shuttle, in order to. ge) the public from Hong Kong in the mid 1990s, and existing in his view: relations boost of two British astronauts taken civil communications satellites already provide A superb system - it has got a superb capability. But - aboard free of charge. numerous links. BBC officials were later told that even the name was highly classified. . . more highly But the Skynet 4 system consisted of only two classified than the Trident programme. the satellite would cover Australasia. But the new _satellites, each of which would be launched with Contracts from Zircon have been placed with- satellite is too far west to reach all but the tip of one British astronaut on board. Disguising Zircon Australia. British Aerospace (BAe) and GEC-Marconi. But as a Skynet satellite would mean quietly inserting a Another suspicious pointer concerns the most of the knowhow is coming on 'technology third satellite into the programme. That's what ground station for the real Skynet system. Last transfer' from an American corporation, TRW. happened next. year, the Plessey company installed a new tracking The Americans have found that costs for In April 1985, RAF Squadron Leader Nigel and control centre for Skynet at RAF Oakhanger intelligence satellites are always high and usually Wood was selected to be the first Briton in space. in Hampshire. But the new centre is equipped to overrun. Britain's difficulties with such high A Defence Ministry release stated that 'It is technology projects are already controversial, in planned to launch two satellites ... the first in communicate only with two Skynet satellites - suggesting that the third satellite may indeed be the wake of the loss of £1billion on GEC's Nimrod June 1986, the second in December 1986'. Then controlled from elsewhere, and have a quite radar aircraft. four days after the RAF magazine, RAF News different function. Plessey were unwilling to The same companies are now working on celebrated this success, a third 'Skynet 4' satellite explain the absence of equipment for a third Zircon, but - unlike Nimrod - without was suddenly announced - not by the Defence satellite and told us: 'We're hardly allowed to say .parliamentary knowledge. The former senior Ministry, but by British Aerospace. anything on this.' defence official acknowledged this anxiety: 'I just Their press release, oddly worded, did not hope that BAe and Marconi can get it right'. actually say that the newly announced 'satellite in Finally, pressed to give a satisfactory Asked about the propriety of deceiving the Skynet series' was actually a Skynet explanation of the purpose of a third satellite, Parliament about expenditure on the project, he communications satellite, identical to the previous MoD press officers said that: 'The military said: pair. It would just be: mission for which it has been ordered is secret.' It's one thing getting the MoD to [stick to an The result is that there is no plausible story as to Part of the growing 'constellation' of United the purpose ofthe planned satellite over the Indian agreement to disclose costs] - quite another with Kingdom military communications satellites. GCHQ. Ocean, ifit isto be a communications satellite. But It was particularly striking that the Defence the position mistakenly announced by British The unworkable cover Ministry failed to take advantage of the third Areospace is an ideal position for a listening GCHQ's directors have, from the beginning, satellite - if it really was a Skynet satellite - to satellite like Zircon. r But this cover story couldn't work anyway. Sir Frank was thinking of a celebrated group of Using radar and optical scanners, and simple British schoolchildren and their teachers at physics, it isquite possible for one side to work out Kettering Grammar School. For more than 20' what the other's satellites are doing. The first years they've tracked and analysed the functions giveaway, according to Dr John Pike, Director of of every Soviet satellite launched, using only basic Space Policy at the Federation of American radio equipment. It is reliably assumed that the Scientists, is that radar signals reflected from a KGB can bring more sophisticated methods into sigint satellite mark it out immediately, because of use to analyse Western intelligence satellites. its huge listening dish. On an enemy radar screen 'it's the difference between a car and a medium- A perfectly clear sized building' . 'That difference is readily detectable,' says Pike. agreement ... Dr Jeff Richelson of the American University in The day when Zircon is to be launched is now Washington, a prominent writer on space uncertain, because of the space shuttle disaster a intelligence, pointed out that the very fact that a year ago. The first 'Skynet' launch on the shuttle satellite like Zircon is listening and not has now been put back to 1990,attheearliest. Two communicating gives it away from the very Skynet satellites will also be launched on the beginning. If Zircon was a communications European 'Ariane' rocket. But which satellite will satellite connecting to places like Hong Kong and be which? The Ministry of Defence now seems to Australia, the Russians would be able to hear the be playing a sort of shell game with Skynet. signals sent to Hong Kong. If they heard nothing, Defence Minister Norman Lamont has recently the Russians would know that the satellite was suggested that there are 'long-term plans' forjive listening to them. Skynet satellites, not just three. Soviet experts have never concealed their But the delay does not affect the importance of awareness of the presence and activities of western the agreement with Parliament that the sigint satellites. The most prominent government has now broken. This is a matter of demonstration of this kind followed the shooting considerable importance to the House, the Public down of the KAL Korean airliner flight 007 in Accounts Committee, and its chair, Robert September 1983. The Soviet Defence Ministry Sheldon. Last year I asked him if the Ministry of then published maps showing the tracks and Defence were permitted to leave anything at all off timing of American 'ferret' electronic monitoring the list. He told me: satellites. Much more specific information has reached No. We make sure that everything is on that list. I, the Soviet Union from recent spy cases in Britain through repeated assertions, make sure that that is so ... I've made sure that there is no question that that and the United States. The former GCHQ analyst is not going to happen again. Geoffrey Prime, convicted of spying five years ago, held clearances to see the most secret US But Zircon was 'not one of the major projects at satellite intelligence information, and gave it this moment'. away. In the 1970s,two spiesin California sold the The Zircon affair is thus almost a direct rerun of Russians details of the first RHYOLITE satellite, the Chevaline row, which so angered Lord Barnett and its successors. .and the Public Accounts Committee. The So in practice, there is no secrecy about the Committee told Parliament in a March 1982 nature of such a satellite. When spy satellites like report that: Zircon are launched, any hostile intelligence agency that wants to, will know in a matter of Our criticism is that the costs were not disclosed, and that there was no requirement that they should be hours what Zircon really is. Sir Frank Cooper told disclosed ... me last year that: The agreement required the Defence Ministry and Everybody knows where everybody's satellite is ... Treasury to inform the PAC about projects Lists are published in Defence journals of who's costing a threshold of £150 million - now £250 launched what, where, what its orbit is ... I think million. Security problems did not affect the need you can probably do this using school children in to tell Parliament: Milton Keynes these days. Clearly the public disclosure of information on a project such as Chevaline may present significant security problems. But provision should be made to supply this Committee and the Defence Committee from an early stage with broad information on the nature, costs, and progress of such a programme or project; and as soon as it is well established, Parliament must be fully informed ... Sir Frank Cooper told me last year that GCHQ's ultimate sponsorship of such a project could not be grounds for flouting the agreement he made with Lord Barnett: 'As far as the Ministry of Defence is concerned I think there was a perfectly clear agreement', he said. Sir Frank made his agreement with the Public Accounts Committee in 1982. He left office the same year. The very next year the agreement was broken and half a billion pounds is now to be siphoned out of the Defence budget with Parliament left in the dark. 0