SATELLITE UNCHANGED FROM MANUAL BOUGHT BY SOVIET, U.S. OFFICIALS SAY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403710035-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 35
• Publication Date: October 10, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

3
WASHINGTON POST
10 October 1985
Satellite Unchanged From Manual
Bought by Soviets, U.S. Officials Say
Testimony Maintains That Publication,of Photos Was Damaging
By George Lardner Jr.
Wishinpia Pat Staff Writer
BALTIMORE, Oct. 9-The top
secret KH-11 spy satellite is still
operating lust as it was supposed t
work when a Soviet agent bought
its official manual from a CIA officer
in Athens 7y years ago.
close in federal court here toda .
This confirmation came from a
government prosecutor, with elab-
orations from a high-ranking CIA
official, at the espionage trial of for-
mer Navy intelligence analyst Sa -
uel Loring-M orison on charges o
Igaking three K H-11 photos to
British magazine last year
Richard meman, a uty CIA
director for fence and technology,
said he still regar a Morison 's dis-
closures to Jane's Defence Weekly
as "potentially" damaging to the
United States and potentially
helpful to the Soviets. -
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403710035-2
Under cross-examination by de-
fense lawyer Mark Lynch, Hineman
acknowledged that all the details
that could be gleaned from the pic-
tures about the KH-11's capabili-
ties, including its ability to single
out tiny details from distances of
hundreds of miles, were set out in
the original 1976 manual that was
sold to the KGB two years later.
But he testified that the Soviets
could not have been sure of the sat-
ellite's capabilities without "con-
firming evidence," such as the pho-
tos of the nuclear carrier in the
Black Sea shipyard.
The computer-enhanced KH-11
photos published in Jane's, showing a
nuclear-powered Soviet aircraft car-
rier under construction, were taken
on a slanting angle and from as far
away as 504 miles, Hinman dis-
closed. Surface-to-air missile sites
and much smaller details were plain-
ly visible. It was the equivalent, as
U.S. District Court Judge Joseph H.
Young observed, of watching the
"the Colts play in Indianapolis" from
a seat in Baltimore.
The testimony at Morison's es-
pionage trial here amounted to an
unprecedented series of official rev-
elations about the KH-11. Hineman
confirmed, for instance, that a 1981
shot published in the Dec. 14, 1981,
editions of Aviation Week of Ra-
menskoye airfield near Moscow had
been taken by a KH/11 only a few
days earlier, on Nov. 25. It showed
three Soviet aircraft, one of them a
new swing wing Blackjack bomber.
The CIA official also indicated
that the KH-11, which transmits
electronic images back to earth in
"near real time," usually a matter of
seconds, is used "against active mil-
ur-
itary tar ets for early warning
poses, and not simply to veri y
arms control a reements.
The oung CIA official who sold
the K -11 manual tote Russians,
William Kam iles was sentenced in
1978 to 40 years in prison, but after
a trial that contained only vague al-
lusions to what the uss~ ans had
learned.
Hineman, by contrast, said the
document included detailed descrip-
tions of the satellite system's "cov-
erage capacity," the quality of its
photographs, its timeliness, and its
responsiveness to assignments from
the U.S. intelligence community. He
said the manual set out the "planned-
for and hoped-for capabilities of the
system" since it was written before
the satellite became operational. Hi-
neman added the KH-11 "turned out"
just as planned.
Added government prosecutor
Michael Schatzow: "We will ac-
knowledge that the [1976] manual
describes the system as it is oper-
ating today."
Hineman conceded under cross-
examination that much the same con-
firmation could have come from the
Aviation Week photo and from a
whole series of KH-11 photos that
were left behind in the abortive 1980
mission to rescue the American hos-
tages in Tehran. They were subse-
quently published by Iranian students
in a magazine sold on the streets.
The CIA official took the posi-
tion, however, that it was still po-
tentially helpful to the Soviets to
know that the system was still oo-
erating in 1984 and being targeted
so freouently on such slow-moving
projects as the aircraft carrier code-
named "Black Com II."
Morison's lawyers are contending
that the pictures published in Jane's
told the Russians nothing they didn't
already know and are still apparently
powerless to prevent.
Morison, who worked at the Na-
val Intelligence Support Center in
Suitland, had official approval for
his part-time job as American editor
of Jane's Fighting Ships since 1976,
according to some testimony. Bur
John R. Lewis, Morison's supervi-
sor at the NISC, said, "I felt that it
was immoral" for Morison to use
NISC facilities for the work. It was
largely because of his difficulties
with Lewis that Morison had been
hoping for a full-time job with Jane's
when he sent them the KH-11 pho-.
tos in the summer of 1984.
Morison told of taking the pictures
from a colleague's desk and mailing
them to the magazine in a statement
to the FBI and the Naval Investiga-
tive Service immediately after his
Oct. 1, 1984, arrest.
NIS agent David W. Swindle took
the stand today to recount Mori-
son's statements to the jury. He
said he informed Morison in the
Oct. 1, 1984, interview that scru-
tiny of his typewriter ribbon had
shown a letter to a Jane's executive
in which Morison said that "the pub-
lic should be made aware of what is
going on on the other side."
At that, Swindle said, Morison
told him "you hit it" and that "this
was the reason he stole the classi-
fied photos and mailed them to
Jane's Defence Weekly."
V
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403710035-2