CONSIDERING THE RECORD, IT'S HARD TO BUY A CIA ESTIMATE OF SOVIETS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605300016-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: December 4, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605300016-4
ORLANDO SENTINEL (FL)
4 December 1985
Considering the record, it's hard to
buy a CIA estimate of Soviets
T om Polgar accused me of ignorance in a letter to
the editor for suggesting that the Soviet Union
is not a superpower in any but a military sense.
Ordinarily, letter writers get a free shot. Only
because Polgar is both a published writer and a for-
mer Central Intelligence Agency man does he earn a
reply.
A career with the Central Intelligence Agency is
certainly no recommendation as a Soviet expert.
CIA misinformation about the Soviet Union is leg-
endary. The record shows that the CIA is to accurate
information about the Soviet Union what the Tampa
Bay Burs are to Super Bowl competition.
Edward Luttwak, a defense analyst, and others
share the contention that the Soviet Union is a
superpower only in the sense of its military power.
Polgar contends that the Soviet Union is the second-
largest economy in the world.
Lev Navrosov, a Soviet emigre and writer, once
analyzed every published word by the CIA on the
Soviet Union, including all of its testimony to Con-
gress that had been declassified. His conclusion: The
CIA knows practically nothing about the Soviet
Charley Reese
OF THE SENTINEL STAFF
Union. Navrosov found, for example, that CIA esti-
mates of Soviet agricultural production given to
Congress in testimony were identical to agricultural
production figures published by the Soviet Union
and available in Marxist bookstores in Washington.
Navrosov found that the CIA could not account for
the end use of a sizable amount of its claimed Soviet
steel production. Either the estimate was wrong or
the Soviets were successful in hiding a lot of steel.
We all remember, of course, the CIA study in 1977
on Soviet oil production that predicted a major oil
crisis for the Soviet Union. Like so many other CIA
predictions, this one proved embarrassingly inaccu-
rate and was drastically revised in 1981.
The CIA, for example, contended the Soviet Union
would not place offensive weapons in Cuba, would
not invade Third World countries, that the Shah of
Iran would not fall and that the Soviet Union was
not involved in world terrorism. The CIA's underes-
timates of Soviet military power from 1960-1976 and
from 1976-1980 are well-documented.
Gen. George Keegan, former head of the Defense
Intelligence Agency, said that no one has to worry
about a mole (a Soviet spy) in the CIA because the
CIA, as an institution, is a mole. Certainly the evi-
dence bears that out, although the CIA also has had
far more of its share of individual moles than most
intelligence agencies.
No better evidence of Institutional stupidity can
be found than the CIA's complaints when Israeli
agents assassinated a top PLO official in Beirut. He
was, the CIA complained, their source of informa-
tion on the area. Not only was the man a sworn
enemy of an American ally and a key figure in the
Munich massacre, but the PLO is virtually a branch
office of the Soviet KGB as anyone can see simply
by visiting a PLO office and reading their published
literature. What a wonderful source of information.
No wonder the CIA was so wrong so often.
Perhaps Polgar and I have a different definition of
superpower. If we use the contraries of Polgar's
arguments for Soviet non-military superpower status
- that the United States is not the world's largest
producer of oil, steel, cement, wheat, gold, diamonds
and is far behind the Soviet Union in merchant ship-
ping, fishing, and railroad transport, then the United
States, according to Polgar's definition, is not a
superpower.
The Soviet empire, spanning two continents, does
of course possess enormous resources, but its fail-
ures are evidenced by the fact that it must hold its
empire together by military force, that it achieves its
military power at the price of enormous sacrifices on
the part of the civilian sector, that it must act as a
parasite on the East European economies and that it.
relies so heavily on Western technology, stolen or.
purchased, as well as Western credits.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn correctly characterized
the Soviet Union - it is a large and dangerous dino-
saur - but nevertheless, a dinosaur. An empire
deathly afraid of Xerox machines and poets may be
a military giant, but a superpower it is not.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605300016-4