BOSTON GLOBE PUBLISHES DETAILS OF SEVERAL SECRET NSA PROJECTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100120013-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 3, 2012
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: June 6, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/03: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100120013-4
411114 _5AO6
WASHINGTON TIMES
6 June 1986
Boston Globe details
publishes of several secret NSA projects
BOSTON (UPI) - The Boston
Globe published details yesterday of
several projects convicted spy Ron-
ald Pelton alluded to during his espi-
onage trial in Baltimore.
The article appeared despite gov-
ernment threats of prosecution
under a 1950 law forbidding publica-
tion of communications intelligence.
The Globe said the information
was "aWall previously in the Public do-
main." the newspaper said it omit-
ted "a num r o important tech-
nical e s about [Project A and
has escn o ers only in general
terms" under an agreement with
"senior U.S. intelligence officials"
cite as sources.
Excerpts from the Globe article
follow:
"Project A," or "Ivy Bells" - "Ac-
cording to sources, the program in-
volved the use of U.S. Navy subma-
rines, creeping into Soviet waters at
great risk, to facilitate eavesdrop-
ping on an undersea communica-
tions system."
"With the help of a high-
technology device, identified by
Pelton in trial testimony this week as
a 'recording system,' U.S. satellites
orbiting in space were privy to top-
secret Soviet communications.
"[It] allowed the United States to
intercept messages that Soviet sub-
marines sent to military command
posts ashore when they returned to
their harbors after sea cruises.
Among other things, the messages
included information about where
the Soviet subs had been and what
they had done.
"The descriptions [of 'Project A
previously disclosed] by NBC and
the [Washington] Post are similar in
some respects to those of a forerun-
ner program, code-named 'Holy-
stone; that was detailed in 1975 by
The New York Times ... involving
the use of Navy submarines inside
the Soviet Union's 3-mile limit to col-
lect vital data on the capabilities and
missile-firing abilities of Soviet sub-
marines.
"According to the Times, the U.S.
subs 'were able to plug into Soviet
land communication cables strewn
across the ocean bottom and thus
were able to intercept high-level
military messages and other com-
munications considered too impor-
tant to be, sent by radio or other less
secure means'
breakthroughs, however, such com-
munications can now be intercepted
and relayed back to the United states
without U.S. submarines having to
remain in the area. The marriage of
existing technology to advances in
electronics and the growing sophis-
tication of U.S. satellites orbiting far
above the Earth led to development
of the project Pelton compromised.
"Pelton, according to Globe
sources, told the Soviets how the
messages were intercepted and re-
layed to the high technology device,
which in turn relayed the informa-
tion to a satellite, which transmitted
it to NSA [National Security
Agency].
"Also, according to Globe sources,
and as the Post has already reported,
the Soviet debriefing of Pelton led
them to retrieve the device and com-
promise the program.
"Like Holystone, its predecessor
program, the project compromised
by Pelton required U.S. submarines
to enter Soviet waters. In the later
program, the subs did not have to
stay."
"Project B" - "According to the
sources, the second program in-
volves a supercomputer so well
known that its capability has been
accurately detailed in a best-selling
novel, and an intelligence-collection
satellite. But that satellite was re-
placed last year by a newer model.
"It has been referred to at the trial
only as 'valuable information about
how quickly the United States is able
to process and evaluate information'
and 'the upgrading of the actual
equipment that collects Soviet sig-
nals.'
"According to the sources, those
are references to the satellite that
has been replaced and to the Cray
supercomputer that millions of
readers have learned about from
Tbm Clancy's 1984 novel, 'The Hunt
For Red October'... [and] through
the large number of unclassified
publications Clancy used in his re-
search.
"The Cray, according to these
widely available publications, is
used by the Navy as well as by the
NSA to integrate and process data
from disparate systems that include
intercepted communications and the
'SOSUS' underwater sensor system
that is designed to detect and track
Soviet submarines.
"Thanks to that technology, much
of which the government considers
highly classified, the U.S. Navy is
able to locate the wayward Soviet
submarine and bring it, along with
its classifed Soviet secrets, to port,
while the Soviet Navy is frustrated
in efforts to find its own submarine,
"Among other elements of the un-
dersea surveillance system, Clancy
cites the existence of the Cray, so
powerful that it can process and ana-
lyze millions of bits of data from
oceans that have been seeded with
sophisticated sensing devices to de-
tect Soviet submarine movements"
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/03: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100120013-4