KGB: MULTINATIONAL CORPORATION OF ESPIONAGE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100440038-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 28, 2011
• Sequence Number: 38
• Publication Date: July 8, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

L I I I , ' l l I 1 ! I I 1 I I I I I I II IIIIII~IIII 11111 1111111 1 P I I' II 1 I I 1 1
ST Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/28: Cl
ARTISI.E' APPEARED
ON PAGE _.-.
WASHINGTON TIMES
8 July 1985
A-RDP90-00965R000100440038-5
KGB: Multinational Corporation
of Espionage
he theme of this latest book
on the Soviet secret vohce
by two former officers in
in the intr uctron:
"[T]here can be no rational anal-
ysis of the Soviet state that orbits
consideration of the over-
whelming authority of the Soviet
secret police - the secret that
drives the engine of Soviet power:;'
If proof is needed of that opin-
ion, one need but remember that
the head of the Soviet KGB for 15
years, Yuri V Andropov, became in
1982 head of the Soviet Communist
Party and then head of the Soviet
state, an event until then without
precedent in Soviet history.
Stalin used to eat his secret
police chiefs for breakfast, and it
wasn't much different in the post-
Stalin era. Lavrenti Beria was
assassinated by his Politburo col-
leagues, and several of his succes-
sors were ousted in disgrace. With
Mr. Andropov's accession to the
top spot in the KGB, all that
changed.
Every stitution in the U.S.S.R.
serves Soviet-,-In te rgence.
whether foreign or domestic. And
that goes as well for the Soviet
Institute for the Study of the
United States and Canada, whose
head, -the ineffable "disinfo
mattonist" Georgi Arbatov, is so
admired by leading American for-
eign policy academicians.
The KGB (and its predecessors)
was feared by Stalin because of the
possibility that, like the Red Army,
it might become an imperium in
imperio, a state within a state.
'Ibday the KGB is the imperium. It
makes totalitarianism work at
home and prepares the way for
Soviet conquest abroad. And if
anything, the KGB will be
strengthened by the selection of
Mikhail Gorbachev as Soviet party
leader.
Much in this book can be found
in earlier studies of the KGB and
its precursors, from the volume by
David Dallin to the continuously
updated work. by John Barron.
However, it does no harm to have
the story repeated at a time when:
? There have never been so
many Americans awaiting trial for
espionage on behalf of the Soviet
Union.
? Some 4 million people are han-
dling classified information.
. ? The number of Soviet agents
in the United States, both legal and
illegal, both active and "sleepers;"
has never been greater.
? The United States govern-
ment's counter-intelligence ser-
vices are still suffering from the
blitzkrieg directed against them in
the mid-1970s by the Church and
Pike Committees.
Read for sheer pleasure, "The
New KGB" contains some excel-
Iv,, .zories. Those about Isaac Don
Levine, a journalist who became
one of the best-informed probers
into Soviet intelligence, especially
come to'mind, as does the sum-
mary of how former West German
Chancellor Willy Brandt was sub-
orned by an agent of the KGB-run
East German secret police.
There is a first-rate analysis of
a phenomenon only now being rec-
ognized by students of intelli-
gence: the use by the KGB of
surrogate intelligence services. In
fact, say the authors, the KGB
might be regarded as a kind of
multinational corporation,
because it has incorporated the
East European intelligence agen-
cies, as branch plants, into its
worldwide espionage network.
Satellite police agencies, each spe-
cializing in a particular espionage
task, are now routinely entrusted
with KGB missions.
Whether this operational doc-
trine could prove a weakness to the
KGB has yet to be determined.
However, continued study of what
has been called "the orchestration
of Soviet proxy assets" is essential
in learning how to confront the
KGB, undoubtedly the most pow-
erful and most dangerous intelli-
gence agency in the world today.
Arnold Beichman, visiting
scholar at the Hoover Institution,
recently participated in a Washing-
ton conference on Soviet surrogate
intelligence operations. He is a
founding member of the Consor-
tium for the Study of Intelligence.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100440038-5