Duping the Soviets The Farewell Dossier Gus W. Weiss We communists have to string substantive topics. The Soviets along with the capitalists for a viewed detente as “peaceful coexist- while. We need their credits, ence” and as an avenue to improve their agriculture, and their tech- their inefficient, if not beleaguered nolagy. But we are going to economy using improved political continue massive milita y pro- relations to obtain grain, foreign grams and by the mid&e 1980s credits, and technology. ’ In pure sci- we will be in a position to return ence, the Soviets deserved their to a much more aggressive for- impressive reputation, and their eign policy designed to gain the space program demonstrated original- upper band in our relationship ity and accomplishment in rocket cc engineering-but they lacked pro- with the West. The Soviets viewed d&ente duction know-how necessary for long-term competition with the as “peaceful coexistence” Leonid Brezhnev. Remarks in United States. Soviet managers had 1971 to the Politburo at the and as an avenue to difficulty in translating laboratory beginning of detente. improve their inefficient, if results to products, quality control was poor, and plants were badly During the Cold War, and especially not beleaguered economy organized. Cost accounting, even in in the 1970s Soviet intelligence car- the defense sector, was hopelessly using improved political ried out a substantial and successful inadequate. In computers and micro- clandestine effort to obtain technical relations to obtain grain, electronics, the Soviets trailed and scientific knowledge from the Western standards by more than a foreign credits, and West. This effort was suspected by a decade. technology. few US Government officials but not documented until 198 1, when French intelligence obtained the ser- vices of Col. Vladimir I. Vetrov, Soviet S&T Espionage “Farewell,” who photographed and supplied 4,000 KGB documents on The leadership recognized these the program. In the summer of shortcomings. To address the lag in 198 1, President Mitterrand told Pres- technology, Soviet authorities in ident Reagan of the source, and, 1970 reconstituted and invigorated when the material was supplied, it the USSR’s intelligence collection for led to a potent counterintelligence science and technology. The Council response by CIA and the NATO of Ministers and the Central Com- intelligence services. mittee established a new unit, Directorate T of the KGB’s First President Nixon and Secretary of Chief Directorate, to plumb the State Kissinger conceived of detente R&D programs of Western econo- as the search for ways of easing mies. The State Committee on chronic strains in US-Soviet rela- Science and Technology and the Gus W. Weiss has served as a Spe- tions. They sought to engage the Military-Industrial Commission cial Assistant to the Secremry of USSR in arrangements that would were to provide Directorate T and Defense and as Director of Interna- move the superpowers from confron- its operating arm, called Line X, with tional Economics for the National tation to negotiation. Arms control, collection requirements. Military Security Council. trade, and investment were the main Intelligence (GRU), the Soviet 121 Farewell Dossier Academy of Sciences, and the State States to visit firms and laboratories higher grain prices for consumers, and Committee for External Relations associated with their commissions. taxpayers provided for a 25percent-a completed the list of participants. Line X, ever alert, populated these bushel export subsidy. Those of us The bulk of collection was to be delegations with its own people: in observing these arabesques began to done by the KGB and the GRU, an agricultural delegation of 100 question the USSR’s total commit- with extensive support from the East about one-third were known or sus- ment to the spirit of detente. European intelligence services. A for- pected intelligence officers. On a midable apparatus was set up for visit to Boeing, a Soviet guest scientific espionage; the scale of this applied adhesive to his shoes to US Computer Export Policy structure testified to its importance. obtain metal samples. In another epi- The coming of detente provided sode, the ranking scientists and In late 1973, President Nixon asked access for Line X and opened new managers of the Soviet computer and his Council on International Eco- avenues for exploitation. Soviet intel- electronics industry obtained a visa nomic Policy to determine which ligence took full advantage. for the specific purpose of visiting computers and associated production the Uranus Liquid Crystal Watch technology might be prudently sold In the early 1970s the Nixon admin- Company of Mineola, Long Island to Communist countries. This study istration had no comprehensive (a firm not among the Fortune 500). was necessary because detente policy for economic relations with Three days before the delegation’s implied the expansion of commercial the USSR. The sale of strategic arrival, they requested an expansion opportunities with Eastern Europe goods to Communist countries was of the itinerary to include nearly all and the USSR, a new and more lib- governed by the Coordinating Com- US computer and semiconductor eral set of COCOM rules was mittee of NATO (COCOM), which firms. This maneuver was done to required to fit these prospects, how- administered an Alliance-agreed list observe (that is, collect) the latest ever illusory they may have been. of products and data embargoed for technology, and it was executed at Data processing was the most impor- sale. Nixon’s policy worked within the last minute so that the Defense tant product requiring review. I was this system, and, for the export of Department would not have time to put in charge of the project, and I products exceeding the approved list, object. It was legal-Line X had stud- was also made responsible for the special exceptions were necessary. ied our regulations and turned them broader problem of technology trans- And, in a new set of commercial and to its advantage. fer. The computer study was the first scientific arrangements, the United review of technology policy within States and the USSR set up joint To acquire the latest aircraft technol- detente; it sought to assess the eco- technical commissions to assess pros- ogy, the Soviets in 1973 proposed nomic gain to the United States pects for cooperation. Topics purchasing 50 Lockheed transports if from computer sales set against the included agriculture, nuclear energy, the firm, then in financial difficulty, national security risk from those sales. computers, and the environment. would build and equip a modern “air- As Kissinger noted: craft city” in the USSR. A similar proposition was put to Boeing (it Not surprisingly, the study concluded that the USSR was short of comput- Over time, trade and investment besieges the imagination to ponder Brezhnev appearing from the cabin of ers and the means to pay for may Leaven the autarkic tenden- an Aeroflot 747). Line X practiced the substantial computer imports. Our cies of the Soviet system, invite venerable capitalist technique of play- analysis presumed that the Soviets gradual association of the Soviet ing off competitors, and, from this intended to use their foreign exchange economy with the world econ- bidding, the Soviets sought to gain to best advantage by purchasing the omy, and foster a degree of technical data for use at home. On most powerful computers, those that interdependence that adds an ele- a less lofty technical plane, in 1972 also held the most national security ment of stability to the political the Soviets surreptitiously bought risk (large computers were used for relationship. 2 25 percent of the US grain harvest, nuclear weapons calculations and using phone intercepts of the grain cryptography). The report concluded Beginning in 1972, delegations of dealers’ network to listen to both sides that the export potential for American Soviet specialists came to the United of the market. The purchase led to data processing to the USSR was 122 Farewell Dossier In the early 1 WOs, there were no US intelligence collection requirements for no evidence does not mean it is not small and the risk great if the more technology transfer and powerful computers were allowed for true. The system defied movement. sale. The study recommended raising scientific espionage, and moderately the power of machines few, if any, reporting A few alert colleagues were dispersed allowed for COCOM release, while at among the executive departments. In the same time restricting the sale of sources. one episode, the Department of technology. Export of the largest com- Commerce discovered a Line X puters was to be prohibited. In effort to obtain an embargoed com- National Security Decision Memoran- puter through a dummy corporation dum (NSDM) 247, 14 March 1974, set up for this one transaction; U. S. Policy on the Export of Computers dotal clues were at hand. In their officials intercepted the shipping to Communist Countries, President intelligence history, the Soviets could container and substituted sandbags. Nixon approved these recommenda- point to the success of the atom (A note was enclosed, but it would tions, and they became the new bomb spies, and they also had to not be politically correct to quote it.) export guidelines. As a result, the Sovi- their credit collection against indus- In 1975, the Apollo-Soyuz spacecraft ets were excluded from importing trial technology in Germany during docking was used to gain intelligence significantly powerful Western com- the 1920s. After World War II, the access to the US space program. This puters, detente notwithstanding. Soviets copied the American B-29 project was conceived by the Nixon and the Rolls-Royce Nene administration as part of detente, If the Soviets were to reach compara- jet engine (the copy powered the and President Ford had no choice bility with the United States in MiG-15).