REPORT SHOWS HOW SOVIETS AMASS WESTERN TECHNOLOGY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807300014-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: September 19, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP9O-00965ROO0807300014-2
ARTICLE APWrAREP
ON PAGE a 93
WASHINGTON POST
19 September 1985
Report Shows How Soviets
Amass Western Technology
Details Apparently Came From KGB Agent
By Michael Weisskopf
Washington Post Staff Writer
The Defense Department re-
vealed yesterday that the West has
acquired highly sensitive informa-
tion, apparently from Soviet sources,
explaining in unprecedented detail
the Soviet system for obtaining
Western military and technological
secrets.
This information was contained
in a new Pentagon report released
by Defense Secretary Caspar W.
Weinberger, who told a news con-
ference that the leakage of Western
technology to the Soviet Union is "a
far more serious problem than we
had previously realized."
Among the Western technolog-
ical secrets acquired by the Soviets,
according to yesterday's report,
were the fire-control radar for the
F18 jet fighter, one of America's
most advanced, and numerous com-
puters and microchips, many of
them used by the Soviets to make
their own versions of Western elec-
tronic devices.
The report described a "Military
Industrial Commission" in Moscow
that coordinates efforts to beg, buy
or steal technology by targeting
American universities and U.S. de-
fense contractors and hiring West;
ern businessmen to assist in smug-
gling operations.
The report, which Weinberger
termed "deeply sobering," adds an-
other foreboding characterization of
Soviet behavior by the Reagan ad-
ministration as arms control talks
resume today in Geneva and the
president prepares for his meeting
Nov. 19-20 with Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev. Weinberger
said the report showed the need for
increased vigilance in the West to
try to frustrate Soviet espionage.
According to an informed source
in t e American intelligence com-
munity, muc o t e information in
the new Pentagon report came
from a Soviet KGB agent recruited
in the 1970s by F rench intelligence.
According tote source, t is -agent
was part o the a team
a out scienti tc s cta tsts
working for ovietinte igence who
have been sent abroad on technol-
h.ogy unting missions.
' Ito agent provided unprec-
edented information and documents
to the French for a number of
years, the source said. He was
transferred back to Moscow several
years ago, resumed contact with
the French but then disappeared
and is presumed dead, the source
added.
In late March the Paris newspa-
per Le Monde published the first
account of the documents on Soviet
technological espionage, which is
described in more detail in yester-
day's Pentagon report. Le Monde
said that information in the docu-
ments led to the French govern-
ment's decision to expel 47 Soviet
diplomats in 1983.
Compiled by the Defense Depart-
men , e Central Intelligence
other U.S. agencies,
20
gency an
yester ay 's report describes a o-
viet apparatus ea ed by the il-
i ary n ustria ommtssion, con-
sisting of executives of top military
m ustries who select specific items
or co ection, designate inte i-
gence agencies for eac an ear-
mar c un s or each ac uisition a
o a o million rubes per year
in the late 1970s, the report said.
ester ay s report trans ated
that 5 00 million rubles into .4
billion in "1980 purchase power
equiva en s, but other specialists
c a 1en e that conversion. The
oviets o icia exchange rate pegs
t e ru a at about but on
free currency markets it sells for
about 25 cents. According to an
economist who works on such is-
sues for the , t e i ure in the
rea overstates
Pentagon report
the value othe rule.
acquired by
The information
Western intelligence suggests that
Soviet bureaucrats brag formally
about how much money and re-
search time is saved thanks to tech-
the West. The
no ogy acquire MITI
new report cites Soviet estimates of
t ese savin s- or exam le nearl
5 million rubles-worth of re-
search saved between 1976 and
dust by two ministries, de-
fense and aviation.
oviet-bloc intelligence opera-
tivesves managed ever year in the
1ate 1970s and early 1980s to ob-
tain up to 10,000 pieces of military
ar ware an engineering
an research documents the ovi-
ets ragge , t e report said.
Ninety percent o t e documents
acquired were unclassified, accord-
ing to the report, providing the So-
viets with, among other things, Na-
tional Aeronautics and Space Ad-
ministration studies of airframe de-
sign and flight computer systems
for the space shuttle.
Altogether, the Defense Depart-
ment report said, the Soviets have
been able to improve thousands of
weapons systems and research pro-
jects using Western technology.
Asked why the Pentagon re-
leased the report just days before
Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard
Shevardnadze is to visit Washington
to prepare for the November sum-
mit, Assistant Defense Secretary
Richard N. Perle replied: "Nothing
is to be gained either in coping with
this very serious problem or ... in
the larger dimension of Soviet-
-American relations by an artificially
imposed silence on our own con-
cerns."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP9O-00965ROO0807300014-2