SOVIETS ANGRY AT FRENCH LEAK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201630027-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 27
• Publication Date: April 2, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: Cl
v
/~FTIcL+s AFrW-
0Zi PdG
WASHINGTON POST
2 April 1985
A-RDP90-00965R000201630027-4
Soviets Angry at French Leal
Kremlin Report Noted Espionage Successes Franco-Soviet relations have improved somewhat
during the past few months after a period of severe
strain at the beginning of Mitterrand's seven-year term
It said that the country's Intel- in office when France sided firmly, with the United
ligence operatives abroad had man- States in the controversy over the deployment by
PARIS, April 1-The leaking by a 'III uire 156 technical "sam- NATO of American nuclear missiles in Western Eu?
and 3,896 documents-savin rope.
French intelligence services of se- r plii
Quiet military aircraft mdustr Today's meeting of the bilateral economic commis-
cret Kremlin documents indicating about its
the scone of Soviet industrial espi- , 48 .6 million rubles (about $65 mil- Sion was dominated by French complaints
onage activities in the West has loll ? large trade deficit with the Soviet Union.
provoked a diplomatic row between ruched in the dry bureaucratic In an`interview over the weekend, French Industry
France and the Soviet Union. jargon of Kremlin planners, the re- Minister Edith Cresson blamed political reasons for the
The influential Paris newspaper port hailed the achievement of'So- Soviet failure to buy as much capital equipment from
Le Monde went ahead today with viet spies in increasing their pro- France as from other western countries; notably West
the publication of a second article ductivity significantly over the pre- Germany.
devoted to Soviet intelligence-path- - vious year.. French officials have hinted that France could reduce
I ering operations despite warnings it said that; of the western se- its imports of Soviet gas unless measures are taken to
by t- he soviet En I here that crets stolen in 1979, 87 samples reduce the trade deficit with Moscow, now running at
such' a 'step could Jeopardize new and 346 documents had been more than $500 million .a year.
'1't use-as
a
prime minister, opened as sched-
uled in Paris today.
The documents, details of which
also were' leaked to the- govern-
ment-owned television station TF1,
illustrate the importance attached
by the Soviet Union to the collec-
tion of scientific information in the
West.
They were reportedly crucial in
persuading France's Socialist res-
ident Francois Mitterran , to expel
47 Soviet officials in Paris or al=
leged spying tw,o years ago.
economic negotiations between the
two countries. The talks, which are
being attended by a Soviet deputy
ry _ _
adapted to Soviet mi i
compared with only 64 samples and 316 -documents in
'1978.
Le Monde quoted French counterintelligence officials
as depicting the Soviet War Industry Commission
(VPK) as the coordinator of the Kremlin's technical
espionage activities.abroad. It said that the commission
distributed lists of western military patents that it
wanted to acquire among five agencies directly respon-
sible for intelligence gathering including the com-
mittee for state security), GRU (military intelligence ,
and the Soviet Academy of Sciences.
In a statement over the weekend, the Soviet Embas-
sy here called the .French media reports "flagrant dis-
information" and "a campaign of slander" against the
Soviet Union. It called on the French government to
ublication of further "fraudulent" docu-
event the
p
pr
Western diplomats here notedthat the publication of the docu- ments.
ments bolsters Mitterrand's claim . Among the Soviet fighter aircraft whose construction
to have taken a tougher line toward was accelerated thanks to stolen western technologies,
the Soviet Union than his conser- according to the documents cited by Le Monde, are the
vative predecessors. The docu- MiG25, the Su27, and the Su25. The Soviet report said
ments date back to the period be- that Soviet engineers had succeeded in using western
fore the Socialist' election victory-in techniques to overcome development problems on the
r,. May 1981' Su25 fighter, which was put into service at the begin-
The main document published by ning of the decade, by assisting in the construction of a
Le Monde and TF1 is a report by. high-performance-wing.
the Soviet government's war indus- Political analysts here said that the leaking of the So-
try commission summarizing espi- viet documents to Le Monde and TF1 appeared to re-
onage successes 'in the aeronautic flect a high-level French government decision, the mo-
sector for the year 1979. tives for which remained unclear.
By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Foreign Service
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201630027-4