USSR/ANDROPOV DEATH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000201070003-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 27, 2008
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: February 15, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2008/06/27: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000201070003-7
15 February 1984
USSR/ANDROPOV BELL: In Moscow yesterday, Bush had what he called an
DEATH - excellent talk with the new Soviet leader Konstantin
Chernenko.
SIMPSON: Last week U.S. officials didn't learn that
Soviet leader Yuri Andropov had died until the Soviets
announced his death nearly 24 hours later. That
underscored U.S. problems with getting information on the
Soviet Union and its rulers. Rick Inderfurth reports.
INDERFURTH: The U.S. intelligence community, headed by
William Casey, and made up of 12 different departments
or agencies, including the super secret National Security
Agency, which listens in on worldwide communications, Air
Force intelligence, which takes those high-altitude spy
photographs, and the Central Intelligence Agency, with
its network of agents and spies. All told, an estimated
150,000 people work in U.S. intelligence at an operating
cost of over 412 billion a year. But when it comes to
the Soviet Union, specifically its leaders and their
policy deliberations, the .intelligence pickings are very
slim. One recent example. That woman is the widow of
Yuri Andropov. She came as a surprise to U.S.
intelligence, which didn't know she existed. The private
lives of Kremlin leaders are very private. A few years
ago things were a little ,better. U.S. intelligence was
able to eavesdrop on the radio conversations of Soviet
leaders as they rode around Moscow in their big
limousines, but no longer. Now those conversations are
scrambled. Today there is?an occasional glimpse behind
those Kremlin walls by a defector or a revealing comment
in the Soviet press, but only rarely. So U.S.
intelligence is left with what can best be described as
informed speculation about Soviet intentions. And that
leads to a disturbing conclusion. The nation we need to
know the most about, we know the least. Rick Inderfurth,
ABC News, the Pentagon.
Approved For Release 2008/06/27: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000201070003-7