"An exhibition - and especially a major international trade show - is a battlefield for the GRU. It is also a field from which the GRU can gather a rich harvest. In the last half century there has not been a single exhibition on our little planet which the GRU has not attended."

METHODS

Part 1, Section 3 of "Counterintelligence Awareness Primer", circa 1987

In 1976 Edwin G. Moore II, a retired CIA employee, was arrested by the FBI and charged with espionage. A day earlier an employee at a residence for Soviet personnel had found a package and, fearing it was a bomb, he turned it over to the police. The police opened the package and found classified CIA documents and a note requesting that $3,000 be dropped at a specific location. The note offered more documents in exchange for $197,000. Moore was arrested after picking up what he thought to be $3,000 at the drop site. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

The Soviet Union acquires defense critical western technologies and hardware by a variety of methods, most of which fall into one of three categories - open literature, technical intelligence, and human intelligence.

Although Soviet intelligence activities are usually associated with clandestine human and technical collection operations, a large part - some say as much as 90% - of the intelligence information is gathered from open sources.

Open sources include the newspapers, newsletters, magazines, trade and technical journals, as well as government and contractor reports available to the public.

The Soviets systematically study hundreds of publications, searching for information about plans, programs, organizations, and new weapons systems. From publications anyone can buy, the Soviets generate a list of new targets for clandestine collection activities.

From open sources, hostile intelligence services not only collect information about technologies and programs, but also names and information about the personnel involved in them.

Open source information is the first step to building the character profile of an individual who may later be approached for recruitment.

Unclassified and commercial computer data bases are a valued source of information for hostile intelligence services.

From the mid 1970's to the early 1980's, NASA documents and NASA-funded contractor studies provided the Soviets with their most important source of unclassified material in the aerospace area. Soviet interest in NASA activities focused on virtually all aspects of the space shuttle. Documents acquired dealt with airframe designs (including computer programs on design analysis), materials, flight computer systems, and propulsion systems. This information allowed Soviet military industries to save years of scientific research and testing time as well as millions of dollars as they developed their own very similar space shuttle.

Numerous unclassified U.S. Department of Defense and contractor documents are sought by the Soviets from the Commerce Department's National Technical Information Service. Documents dealing with design, evaluation, and testing of U.S. weapon systems - the Sidewinder air-to-air missile, the Redeye shoulder-fired antiaircraft missile, the B-52, and others - are in the NTIS data base.

In recent years, the growing use of electronic data bases has provided the Soviets with an efficient means of identifying and procuring unclassified technical information needed by Soviet weapons designers.

To a large degree scientific and technical conferences are open sources of information for the KGB and GRU.

"An exhibition or international trade show is a place where it is very easy to make contacts," writes Viktor Suvorov, former GRU officer and author of Inside the Aquarium. "The GRU never goes to work on the first day of an exhibition. The first day is the opening - speeches, toasts, crowds, officials and an over-anxious police guard. But the exhibition is ours from the second day. None the less, the opening day of an exhibition is important for each one of us, like the day before an attack. That day officers spend exhausting hours scanning the battlefield through their binoculars: a ravine to avoid, a group to be protected by a smoke screen, a scarcely visible bog where the men might sink in, and over there space for a barrage of a dozen batteries to head off the counter-attack."

The KGB and GRU regularly attend professional and academic conferences on applied science and technology.

At least 35 conferences worldwide have been identified in the VPK program as potential sources of militarily significant technology.

These include conferences on materials, missiles, engines, lasers, computers, marine technology, space, microelectronics, chemical engineering, radars, armaments, and optical communications.

Among the most important conferences are: the International Radar Conference, the Conference on Integrated Optics, the Conference of the Aerospace and Electronics Systems Society of IEEE, and the Conference on Radar.

Technical intelligence is simply gathering intelligence information by technical means. Technical intelligence includes imagery intelligence and signals intelligence (Sigint).

Imagery intelligence is gathering information by an imaging system, such as infrared photography or imaging radar carried by a satellite.

Signals intelligence is the interception of electronic communications (communications intelligence - Comint), as well as the signals or electronic emanations (electronic intelligence - Elint) from missiles, radars, and aircraft.

Within the realms of technical intelligence is the greatest threat to sensitive information - the telephone.

Ninety percent of all calls, and practically all long-distance calls, are carried by microwave radio transmission.

Because microwave transmissions can be easily intercepted and monitored, talking on the telephone today is like talking on the radio.

Within the United States the GRU conducts signals intelligence collection operations from a number of legal Soviet residencies, employing antennae on top of the Soviet mission to the United Nations; the Soviet embassy; the Soviet consulate in San Francisco, and residential complexes on Chesapeake Bay, in Riverdale, N.Y., and Glen Cove, Long Island. Each installation's antennae intercept and record on a daily basis hundreds of thousands of telephone conversations that are transmitted by microwave, including signals from the State Department, the CIA, and the Pentagon. The harvest is rich. According to Jay Tuck (High-Tech Espionage), “The top secret blueprints of the atomic submarine Trident were known to have fallen into Soviet hands when a careless employee transmitted them to his office via tele-fax."

The Soviet Union maintains a huge listening post at Loudes, Cuba where more than 2,000 Soviet technicians in fifty buildings intercept and analyze civilian and military communications throughout the eastern United States.

In addition to land-based collection sites, ships in U.S. harbors or in coastal waters or even beyond the territorial limit will often be in position to intercept important microwave telecommunications links.

An intercept operation can be set up almost anywhere. A parabolic dish antenna that could be concealed in a van or apartment house is the only bulky item required to intercept a microwave transmission. The equipment cost for an intercept operation is approximately $30,000.

In proximity to the transmitting tower less expensive and less bulky equipment can be used. In some instances, the necessary equipment may be carried in a couple of suitcases.

Once the microwave communications has been "vacuumed up" computers can then search for key words and phrases and specific telephone numbers.

Short of encrypting telephone communications, only one measure effectively thwarts the interception of information transmitted by microwave. It is short and simple. Never discuss classified or other sensitive information over the telephone.

Human intelligence (Humint) is the arena of the human agent, the spy. Because the human agent is the only means of collection which can penetrate imposing physical safeguards and circumvent rigid security regulations, he or she remains the most dangerous weapon in the arsenal of hostile intelligence services.

The KGB, GRU, their East European surrogates, and the intelligence of the PRC continue to place heavy emphasis upon clandestine collection by human agents.

KGB and GRU officers work in cover positions provided by such diplomatic missions and organizations as TASS, the Novosti Press Agency, trade missions, Aeroflot, Morflot (Soviet Shipping), Sovexport film, and New Times, Amtorg (American Trade Organization), SOCIAC (Singapore - Soviet Shipping Company), the World Health Organization, and the United Nations.

Stanislav Levchenko, a former KGB major who defected to the U.S. in 1979, said, "There are no 'clean' Soviets in the United States”, whether they are stationed here for years or just visiting for a short time. The KGB “is one of the major power centers of the Soviet dictatorship, which makes it easy for the KGB to require every Soviet citizen visiting the United States to collect intelligence information."

Hostile intelligence officers are stationed within the United States undertaking both direct collection and recruitment operations against Americans. They target the more than four million people who work on classified, secret, or top secret defense projects for the government.

The Soviet Union acquires western technology not only through the VPK program, but also through a worldwide trade diversion program to illegally acquire export-controlled weapons and dual-use hardware.

Administered by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Soviet intelligence services, the trade diversion program seeks from the U.S. export-controlled microelectronics, computer, communications, machining, and robotics hardware to increase the capabilities of their weapons manufacturing.

Using unscrupulous western traders who employ license falsifications, deceptive equipment descriptions, dummy firms, false end users for illegal purchases, and smuggling, the Soviet Union has diverted thousands of dual-use, high-technology items in the past two decades. The cost of the diverted hardware alone is estimated to total billions of dollars.

The equipment illegally acquired through trade diversion is largely responsible for the significant advances the Soviet microelectronics industry has made in the last several years.

The Soviets have arranged most diversion through Europe, but their use of Asia as a diversion route is growing.

Over 300 firms in more than 30 countries have engaged in trade diversion operations. Many more have done so, but have not been identified. Frequently, small companies will be involved in only a few operations before disbanding and disappearing.

Enforcement of export controls is primarily the joint responsibility of the U.S. Commerce Department's Office of Export Enforcement and the U.S. Custom Service's "Operation Exodus."

“The task of the KGB case officer in the field is to meet people, to single out prospects, to determine the vulnerability of intellect and character, of needs and loyalties, that might lead him or her to accept a foreigner's invitation to commit a crime against his own country."

In 1980 David H. Barnett, a former CIA officer, pleaded guilty to having sold to the Soviet Union details of a successful CIA undercover operation code named "Habrink." Additionally, Barnett delivered to Soviet agents CIA information on the Soviet SA-2 surface-to-air missile, and the Whiskey class diesel-powered submarine. Barnett also transmitted information about other Soviet weapons systems that were supplied to Indonesia by the U.S.S.R. and later resold to the CIA. He was sentenced to 18 years.

Wy do seemingly decent people in positions of trust betray their country?

It is commonly believed that the motivating factor for espionage is blackmail. Popular spy novels are filled with blackmail and treachery.

People arrested for espionage frequently admit that they were entrapped or coerced.

According to FBI special agent Dave Majors, "A person who betrays his country either volunteers his services or he is consciously and willingly recruited, but he is rarely coerced."

Some people simply volunteer. They walk into a Soviet mission, for example, and offer their services.

In most cases, however, people become willing partners in their own recruitment. "Their motivations," according to Stanislav Levchenko, a former KGB major, "are money, ideology, compromise, and ego." Of these, money and ego are the driving forces that compel most individuals to become spies.

Recruitment, for purposes of espionage, is a series of planned interrelated events to create a clandestine relationship.

The events in a recruitment scenario follow a planned progression.

To the hostile intelligence service there are two kinds of targets, or candidates, for recruitment: targets by design and targets of opportunity.

Hostile intelligence services carefully select some individuals for recruitment because they are known to have access to desired classified information and known to have personal problems - financial problems or problems with drugs or alcohol - which make them more vulnerable to recruitment. This individual is a target by design.

To collect information officers of hostile intelligence services overtly or covertly attend technical meetings, conventions, and events frequented by cleared individuals. The intelligence officer knows that sooner or later he will find an individual who is alone in the crowd and looking for conversation. The intelligence officer (IO) is a skilled conversationalist. His new friend is a target of opportunity.

"Any person from a Soviet bloc country who holds a casual discussion at a chance meeting with a scientist or engineer will prepare and submit to the KGB a very detailed report," Mr. Levchenko stated.

The first step in the recruitment scenario is for the IO to establish a new friendship. He does this in two ways. First, his conversation is friendly, even humorous. Second, an IO is trained to tell people what they want to hear.

The IO listens carefully to what is said. He may criticize his own government. He does not ask anything about your job or classified documents. You think he is a very nice person with good ideas. It may not cross your mind that he is in the business of being nice and that he is purposefully telling you what you want to hear because your friendship with him is the first major step toward your recruitment.

A chance meeting with a hostile intelligence officer will lead to conversation and the discovery that you have much in common.

If you have small children, he has small children. If you love mountain climbing, he loves mountain climbing. If you love the Dodgers, he has great seats at the next game. If you love Chinese food, he knows a great Chinese restaurant that he would love to take you to.

Diplomatic personnel from Soviet bloc countries, with the exception of the ambassadors, are paid very little money - too little to take Americans out to lunch and dinner. If you are having lunch with a Soviet diplomatic official, the bill is most probably being paid by a hostile intelligence service.

The intelligence officer not only wishes to become your friend, he wishes to know the private side of your personality - who you really are and what do you really want. During your meetings, your new friend will continue to be his congenial, affable self. He will listen carefully to everything you say.

The IO's purpose is to slip your relationship from a professional relationship to a social relationship, then finally to a private relationship, something only you and he can completely and thoroughly understand.

According to Harry Rositzke, author of The KGB-The Eyes of Russia, "Most men have a hidden crack in their head, and it is the KGB's job to find that crack and widen it."

What does the KGB look for? "Among the countless frailties of human nature are greed, loneliness, ambition, and sexual desire," writes Rositzke. "A weak ego with low self-esteem seeks reassurance. A strong ego demands gratification. Some men are deeply frustrated, some are natural rebels, 'angry men' eager to vent their anger. Most men fear loss: the loss of their jobs, their status, or their wives. That fear Is often stronger than the fear of jail. These are the cracks the KGB looks for."

What may appear to be pleasant conversation and good friendship is, in fact, a complex recruitment campaign to allow the intelligence officer to know everything about you, and to beat you mentally.

From a trusted friendship come candid conversations.

Over a period of months, the friendship moves forward in a very natural way. The meetings are pleasant. The conversation is enjoyable. Never does the conversation touch on classified or technical information.

Now the intelligence officer wishes to move your relationship from the professional to the private. He wants something more than just a friendship. Not that much more - just an acknowledgement from you that you have a relationship with him that few people would understand.

A common misconception that persists in the free world is the attitude that nothing is wrong with having a friendship with a foreigner from a designated country, if there is no exchange of classified information. The problem is that people from these countries are not permitted to have casual relationships with Americans. If caught, they are recalled by their government.

"An intelligence officer creates the illusion that the relationship is trustworthy. He professes, for example, that he hasn't reported his contact to his embassy, deceiving the American into an equal commitment of confidentiality on behalf of their friendship," Majors stated.

Once you make the decision not to report these meetings, you acknowledge that no one, not even your security personnel, could fully understand your friendship.

The friendship moves from the overt to the covert. It is now a clandestine relationship. For the intelligence officer, the end is now in sight.

Still the intelligence officer holds off making any request that might be refused.

Time is now on the side of your “friend.” He knows you. He knows what you want and what you need. He knows that people commit espionage for money because they are greedy, and for revenge because of lack of personal recognition.

He waits for the right time. By now there is no mystery about the true purpose of the friendship.

There is no coercion. No blackmail. Everything is carefully arranged to let the individual willingly recruit himself.

Should you ever hear that someone was too nice of a person to be a spy, you know differently. It is their business to be very nice.

Even a chance meeting, a few minutes of friendly conversation, with a person from a designated country should be reported to your facility security officer (FSO).

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