Talk:CIA activities in Russia and Europe

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[edit] Dubious claims following "Farewell dossier"

A successful counter-espionage program was created which involved giving defective technologies to Soviet agents.

Okay, the source (as well as the older By WILLIAM SAFIRE hat gets quoted a lot) is based on a story in At the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War by Thomas C. Reed— and since there is absolutely nothing to back that story in any article that's what it is: just a story — or Intelligence Legend if you will. Again, where is any information not based on that book for "the greatest non-nuclear explosion ever seen from space, rated at around three kilotons by the Air Force Chief of Intelligence" (claims Reed)? Or at least a better source for a successful operation. Lars T. (talk) 21:05, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Interesting as the source, because I can think of at least two explosions, probably in the kiloton range, since satellites were available. The Soviets did have a massive explosion and fire at an ammunition dump for the Red Banner Northern Fleet. IIRC, it was in Murmansk, but I will have to check.
There was at least one test done on a Pacific island, by the US, using massive amounts of conventional explosive to investigate some aspects of nuclear blast effect. Again, I'll have to get a reference. Another one, specifically planned in the US at 4KT or so, was cancelled.
The question, I suppose, is whether the Farewell Dossier story is credible. There's a Tom Clancy novel that deals with a massive blast and fire (mostly fire) in the petroleum industry, but that was deliberate human sabotage by people with access to control systems. With Clancy, you never know if he got an idea from the military, or vice versa; he has one novel with a suicide wide-body well before 9/11/2001.
I'm perfectly willing to drop the claimed explosion, although I might see if I can get a colleague in fire protection to comment. From my knowledge of fuel-air explosions and BLEVEs, it strikes me as implausible that a sufficiently large gas-air cloud would form and then be triggered at just the right time. I'll never say it couldn't happen, but it strikes me as unlikely. Also, the "seen from space" has an odd ring to it. The US, and possibly Russia, have staring, non-imaging infrared telescopes, which are designed to detect the exhaust plume from a rocket launch. "Seen from space", literally, implies an image, so either a manned vehicle or an IMINT satellite was over just at the right time. The DSP birds with the thermal detectors have orbits for continuous coverage. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 21:17, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stay-behind networks

It's accurate to say that various countries set up stay-behind networks against the contingency of being overrun by Soviet/Warsaw Pact forces. The term "Gladio", however, seems to be getting overloaded for everything that could be a stay-behind network, and possible right-wing spinoffs from it.

As I understand, there is one primary source on "Gladio": Ganser. A bit of thought should indicate that not all networks were under this name. For example, there are reports of a Swiss stay-behind network, and there is a fair bit of information about Switzerland's doctrine of using their regular military to give the reservists 48 hours or so to disperse, taking their preissued weapons with them. To stay Switzerland was part of a NATO program needs quite a bit of substantiation. Switzerland made such an issue of neutrality that for years, they avoided joining the UN.

There have been statements that the CIA set up the British network. It makes little sense to allege that the CIA "allegedly operated" something the Special Air Service was quite competent to do. Indeed, SAS was the inspiration for the US Delta Force, according to the founder of Delta, COL Charles Beckwith. In like manner, British SIS and SOE helped the OSS special operations units establish themselves in WWII.

10th Special Forces Group was specifically assigned for stay-behind in Germany.

Ganser seems to take the "FM 31-21B" forgery as truth. Without getting into specifics, I did have access to the classified "FM 31-21A", and know what a classified Field Manual looks like. Also, I have never seen or heard of an Army FM being classified at the TOP SECRET level. There certainly are TS documents, but they just aren't part of the Field Manual series.

In other words, can we restrict Gladio to the entries that can be verified as "Gladio", rather than use it as a catch-all term? Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 16:30, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hungary

Ernx,

I absolutely, positively agree with you in your assessment

There is sloppy scholarship at the very least in the recounting of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, which in Weiner’s hands becomes a tragicomedy, with Frank Wisner ordering Radio Free Europe (RFE) to incite violence against the communist regime and against invading Soviet troops—only to see the uprising crushed. One of Weiner’s major sources for his assertion of CIA’s culpability is an RFE New York memo, allegedly the result of Wisner’s “exhortations” to violence, telling the radio’s Hungarian staff in Munich that “All restraints have gone off. No holds barred.” It’s a significant problem for Weiner’s thesis that Wisner in 1956 actually had no direct involvement in RFE and that the memo was produced after the uprising was effectively over and dealt with rhetoric, not violence.

That's not my words it's a blockquote from CIA's review of Weiner, the reference is just before the blockquote. I'll add " signs to make it clearer.Erxnmedia (talk) 20:26, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

If I may take a wild leap for a historical parallel, I think a fine argument can be made that the first intelligence analysts might have been the Muslim scholars that wrote the Hadiths in the 7th century; see the article Science of hadith, and compare the logic to Intelligence collection management#Ratings by the Collection Department. This is just the sort of thing you are doing here. You look neutrally at a claim and its source, and then ask such questions as:

  • Does the source have first-hand knowledge?
  • Could the source have first-hand knowledge? (i.e., if the source claims to have seen something in location A, and you have other evidence he was in location B at the time, the credibility goes down).
  • As in this case, do all the relevant timelines work together?

This is something I've faced myself, and have had my knuckles rapped for OR, or at least original synthesis. In articles like this, how do we avoid that? That's not a rhetorical question. For example, let's say you can cite sources that show Wisner's duty at the time had nothing to do with RFE. You then cite Weiner's assertion that the RFE memo justifies Weiner's claim. Is it OR to point out that the two sourced statements are inconsistent? Personally, I don't think it is, but others may disagree.

IIRC without checking, Wisner was DDP in 1956, and a Psychological Operations unit was in the Directorate. They might well have had some input into RFE; I simply don't know enough about RFE management at the time. Some propaganda operations are under very tight control, while others consciously let the people most familiar with the situation use their own creativity, which often leads to unexpected good results. If you are not familiar with Sefton Delmer, a WWII British propagandist, he had a wonderful way of not getting scripts approved, and delivering memorable messages.

In this case, I think the "smoking gun", or, more precisely, the gun that's cold and not smoking, is the date of the RFE memo. What you say vaguely reminds me of comments in Michener's The Bridge at Andau, told mostly from a Hungarian or humanitarian assistance perspective; I don't think the ownership of RFE was public at the time. The Clandestine Service history I cite also strikes me as plausible...the tragicomedy that the Soviet Politburo had double the staff of the CIA in Budapest has a ring of truth.

Anyway, good work; I just hope that it can be made unchallengeable. If anyone else has ideas on how to present conflicting claims without violating OR guidelines, I'd be delighted to hear them. Surely there has to be some level of editorial judgment in presenting claims, or the editor simply becomes a transcriber. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 20:19, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Possible French DGSE activity in Quebec

Does anyone have the book The Gaullist Attack on Canada, 1967-1997 by J. F. Bosher? It's the most explicit reference I've seen so far to such possibilities. I don't read French, so there may be things I missed. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 19:48, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

You don't have to read French, it's in English, on Amazon for $33, here's what one reader thought of i:
French Imperialism in North America, October 19, 2000
By A Customer
Having lived in Quebec, and talking to Quebeckers and French ex-pats, one of the things that struck me was the difficult relationship Quebeckers have with France. This book reveals to what extent the connexions between the Quebec elite and the French governments has been fruitful for the nationalist movement. Whether you think it is a natural relationship or foreign meddling, that depends on your position, but this makes for fascinating reading.
LOL...I speak reasonable Canadian as well as USAian. When in Canada, I often make my Anglophone friends nervous by telling topical Canadian political jokes, and I've been known to sound Canadian while on the continent of Europe. When I've given seminars in Quebec, however, I'm apt to drop into the worst New Jersey accent of my boyhood, so they don't confuse me with a "damned Anglophone".
I was hoping someone had the book; it's not a topic of $33 of interest to me. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 22:11, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Turkey, Chechniya, and CIA

May I suggest some discussion here regarding cause-and-effect, as well as sourcing, of some recent additions that I found short on citations?

It was easy to find major sources such as CNN reporting on the support of certain sub-groups of the Turkish Grey Wolves being in support of Chechen independence. This doesn't seem to be in question. CNN described the strongest subgroup as being something of a split-off from the Grey Wolves, which now are a recognized political movement.

There seemed, however, very little recent linkage between the Turkish groups and the CIA. There were reports that in the sixties and seventies, a Turkish counterguerilla organization occupied the same building as a US organization with not-implausible CIA ties. Beyond that, I couldn't find English-language sources that had any specifics. There were sites including Counterpunch and a LaRouche outlet that stated there were relationships, but, at best, citing people in the US foreign policy establishment being involved with Turkish organizations. The best reference appears to be http://www.xs4all.nl/~afa/alert/2_7/henze.html

A US Secretary of State or President might indeed be having negotiations with a right-wing Turkish organization, and that would be perfectly appropriate in an article on US-Turkish policy. This article, however, is about CIA activities, and I'd like to see some detail about the relationship of the policies to CIA operations.

Fully recognizing that OR doesn't belong in a Wikipedia article, I was concerned to see all Gladio references, and, in particular, emphasis on the US Army Field Manual 30-31B as "proof". When I say OR here, I can only say that I have had access to US Army publications in the special operations area, and this is a bad forgery. I'd suggest, for example, anyone questioning this to try to find any Army Field Manual with a TOP SECRET classification. FM's go to SECRET and not above. If this were a DoD Instruction, a European Command contingency plan, or a document of quite a number of types, TS would make sense. There are generous examples at the George Washington University National Security Archive.

Can anyone get a more recent substantive linkage than the sixties and seventies? There's also a cui bono issue as why the US would support a Chechen organization; if anything, there's some evidence that NSA helped the Russians intercept and shoot down Dudayev's aircraft. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 00:00, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Another apparently reputable source, the Turkish Daily News of 14 May 1997, http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/archives.php?id=2782 comments about a report issued by # SAIC report on Turkey is prepared by participation of current and former CIA analysts
  1. Fuller: Islam will remain a permanent but not a dominant part of Turkish politicsBy Ugur Akinci / Turkish Daily News
WASHINGTON -- An American think-tank report on Turkey, entitled "Turkey Futures Workshop Final Report," which grew out of a December 1996 conference attended by senior current and former members of the U.S. intelligence community, plus Administration officials and scholars, concluded that, "Islam will not dominate Turkey."
The report, underwritten by a grant supplied by U.S. Department of Defense, and prepared by The Strategic Assessment Center of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in Virginia are as follows..."SAIC is a think-tank not formally related to any known U.S. intelligence organizations, like the Central Intelligence Organization (CIA), for example. But the reason why the SAIC report could be characterized as a "strategic assessment" is due to the contribution of professional analysts who evaluate Turkey's future from a strategic point of view."
Several contributors to the report are listed as present or former CIA analysts (i.e., not covert operators). At least one other is identified with the RAND Corporation, who has been reported to have been a CIA employee, under diplomatic cover, while at the Ankara Embassy.
Now, I commend the Turkish Daily News for, if anything, being conservative about not referring to anything other than acknowledged CIA affiliations. It does not characterize the report as a "CIA document". Unfortunately, there is a tendency, in some Wikipedia articles, to suggest that anyone who has ever had an intelligence community connection must be a witting tool of that community, no matter what they do. Since Julia Child was a self-admitted OSS officer during the Second World War, does this logic extend to assuming Mastering the Art of French Cooking is a plot of American intelligence? Remember, she was obviously adept with knives, which are known to be tools of assassins. quad erat demonstratum, eh wot? Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 13:04, 7 February 2008 (UTC)