AN EAVESDROPPER FOR THE SOVIETS?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505220032-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 26, 2010
• Sequence Number: 32
• Publication Date: August 2, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/26: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505220032-4
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE 3~
NEWSWEEK
2 AUGUST 1982
An Eavesdropper
For the Soviets?
Britain's Government Communications
Headquarters at Cheltenham is one of the
world's biggest eavesdroppers. Working to-
gether with the U.S. National Security
Agency, Cheltenham decodes and analyzes
thousands of messages intercepted at listen-
ing posts all over the world. It is the nerve
center of Britain's security network and a
critical link in NATO's intelligence appara-
tus. So top spies throughout the East and
West shuddered last week after British po-
lice arrested Geoffrey Arthur Prime, a Rus-
sian-language expert at Cheltenham for
nine years, and charged him with espionage.
Margaret Thatcher refused to tell Par-
liament many details of the case, saying
that she did not want to prejudice Prime's
trial in November. She insisted that no
other government employees were in-
volved, and hinted that Prime, a quiet,
44-year-old family man, was too much of
the loner to be involved in a spy ring. But
privately, her aides told reporters not to
underestimate the case, and some members
of Parliament said that Prime might have
seriously damaged national security over a
thirteen-year period-even after he left
Cheltenham in 1977.
If that is true, the implications are enor-
mous. Prime could have told the Soviets
which of their codes had been broken. With
that knowledge, Moscow could use those
communications channels to plant disinfor-
mation. As a result, NATO might have
based some intelligence analyses on mis-
leading data. Of course, disinformation
works both ways: some U.S. experts won-
dered whether Britain was overdramatizing
the case to convince the Russians that the
information they allegedly received from
Prime really was prime-when maybe it
was a few cuts below.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/26: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505220032-4