THE THREAT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000500070011-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 14, 2000
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: June 26, 1983
• Content Type: NSPR

o~;rQe~1 For Release 200~~b
TILE TREAT
Inside the Soviet Military Machine.
By Andrew Cockburn.
338 pp. New York:
Random House. $16.95.-
HE debate over America's defense policy and
budget is all too often conducted in hyperbole.
The Kennedy "missile gap" and the Reagan
"window of vulnerability":frightened Americans into
believing that the Soviet Union had leaped ahead of
the United States in military power. In both these
cases, as in Others, more sober investigation revealed
the facts to be considerably less threatening;-but only
after full political advantage .had beentaken--of_the.
public's fears.
The propersoleof intelligence sw glvean&ccurate
picture of potential adversariesmeithererated
nor minimized. iBut since the'easiest things to - cotmt
are tangible forces and weapons andthe hardest am
military readiness, effectiveness, .discipline and will
,to fight, the .tendency is to rely more -on the former
-than the latter.
In addition, the role of intelligence is generally as-
sumed to be to assess only the adversary, rather than
to compare his capabilities against our own. That
function, called "net assessment," has.had a very
hard time finding a hospitable home in American in-
telligence. The National Security Council did the job
for a short time in the early Nixon years ; then the Pen-
tagon took it over. Had net assessment evaluations
been entrusted to an independent body, the official
view of the balance of power might have differed from
the Defense Department's recitation of the "hard
`facts"-of Soviet weaponryand forces and the counter-
forces and counterweapons required byoour-side. "The
Threat" by Andrew Cockburn is a major contribution
to net assessment. ?
In the United States, any major strategic:question
must be discussed and settled in public. The debates
over the B-1 bomber, the MX missile, additional car-
rier task forces - all are examples-of Congress's par.
ticipation in basic strategic decisions. Thus net as-
sessment must be a public process that balances what
we know about our adversaries against our knowledge
of our own forces.
Mr. Cockburn, a journalist specializing inmilitary
affairs. adds greatly to public understanding of Soviet
strength by going beyond mere numerical evaluation
to the human factors behind the numbers. He has in-
terviewed former members of the Soviet military now
in the West and collected other information about the
performance of Soviet forces and weaponry. And he
? concludes that the Soviet armed forces are far less of a
menace than usually pictured. He reminds us that
Murphy's I.aw_can apply to the Russians as well as to
ourselves.
"The Threat" cites the abominable discipline and
widespread drunkenness of Soviet ground forces and
the lack of any substantial noncommissioned officer
class to provide battlefield leadership at the small unit
level. Instead, Soviet officers are expected to perform
many of the duties that Western armies, with great ef-
ficiency, delegate to sergeants. 'Moreover, deficien-
cies are covered up throughout Soviet ranks to prevent
word of weakness from rea
ing the top,
Mr. Cockburn dissects the for-
midable total figure for the
Soviet armed forces, some 5.8
million, to demonstrate that it is
not directly comparable to our
smaller number. Nearly a mil-
lion members of the Russian
armed forces are construction
and railroad personnel, jobs
that are not included in our de-
fense . establishment. Many
other pgsitions,. in categories
like .air defense, internal se-
I -curtty.and border controldoaot
appear in any -number 2n bur
dor+ces:~ltareover; the`Russlans"
PPtly Tequire''far greater
.numbers of people than we do to
accomplish the sametasks.'For
-example, there are 250,000 men
and women serving in theSoviet
Ministry of Defense, compared
to about 60,000 at our Washing-
ton headquarters level. By Mr.
Cockburn's calculations, about
two million men would actually
fight on each side in case of war.
Mr. Cockburn points to sub-
stantial weaknesses in the com-
bat effectiveness of Soviet
tanks, aircraft and ships. He
analyzes the Soviet Union's poor
maintenance and its emphasis
on parade-ground-ready equip-
':ment .at -the - expense of -opera-
tional readiness; aircraft and
tanks are parked when they
might be used for training, and
ships spend much time at an-
chor. -
WHILE Mr. Cockburn
sometimes overstates
the tendency of the
military establishments on both
sides to paint a frightening Pia
ture of each other and so insure
continued appropAations and
perquisites for themselves, his
analysis is a healthy antidote to
the usual hyperbole of our politi-
cal debate, which portrays the
Soviet Union as all powerful and
the United States as relatively
weak. This book can help move
us toward a more consistent and
sensitive process of net assess-
ment that will provide a more
realistic evaluation of the readi-
ness, effectiveness, discipline,
-will and training of the two
.sides.
But that s_ssessment must
-also. include-
nclude an awareness,
missing from --"Tree --Threat,"' -
that the weaknesses Mr. Cock-
burn finds an-the Soviet forces
were there ,during their bloody
campaigns against Hitler,
whose brilliant officers, spenn_
did noncommissioned officers
and perfect-discipline could not
in the end withstand the raw
power of the Soviet onslaught.
Debunking the Pentagon's more
extreme assessments of the
Soviet threat does not remove
the need to meet real strength -
but -with the right weapons, not
carbon copies of the enemy's
arms and armor. ^ _
William E. Colby was Director of the Central Intelli-
gence Agency from 1973 to 1976.
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:Colby and the freeze
You don't have to." .cooing white dove to be
against nuclear madness. William E. Colby pro-
claims himself "an unreconstructed cold warrior."
And Colby advocates a bilateral nuclear freeze.
Colby was director of thakfrom 1973 to 1975.
"At the CIA," he told The New York Times, "it
became obvious to me that the real function of
intelligence is not to win battles but to help with the
peace, to avoid the kind of destabilizing sure
that can occur. . _
"It is clear to me," Colby said, "that the arms
race has us on the verge of another one of these
terrible destabilizing steps that is moving us toward
a hair-trigger world with all this talk of launch
under attack. My God, we're talking about the fate
of the world."
To Colby, nuclear war is not a political issue; it
is a practical matter of staying alive. He has not
aligned himself with organizations that promote the
freeze, although he assisted U.S. Catholic bishops in
drafting their freeze endorsement. Instead, Colby
conducts his own speaking tours and writes news-
paper columns on the -subject. At the same time, he
supports the Reagan administration's stand in El
.Salvador and staunchly defends the propriety of
U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
It. is not the first time that Colby has strayed
from the party line to support a principle. In 1975,
Colby went to the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence and exposed "the family jewels," the
CIA's supersecret domestic spying operations. He
also turned over to the committee evidence that
former CIA director Richard Helms had lied to
Congress about the extent of CIA involvement in
the overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Al-
lende.
As a result of those actions, Congress tightened
the reins on the CIA's heretofore independent oper-
ations. Helms was prosecuted for his lies. He
pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of
false testimony and slipped silently from public
life.
Colby has made numerous Washington enemies
as he battles for personal principles, but he retains
their respect. Unlike too many people in govern-
ment, one never has to doubt.Colby's sincerity in
what he says.
"I think it's time for people to take this (nuclear)
matter away from the (government) priesthood
that has gotten us into this mess," Colby told a
Georgetown University audience recently, "and to
simply insist that we, stop building these things."
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14 June 19S -
Ex-C.LA.. Head Now Works fo
a Nuclear Freeze
By PHIL GAILEY
Spe aitoTDeNewYorkT1mea
WASHINGTON, June 13 - Eight
years ago, while this city was under-
going its post-Watergate cleansing,
William E. Colby did something un-
usual for a director of Central InteW-
gence.
He disclosed the agency's "family
jewels," as its dark secrets and illegal
activities were called by insiders, be-
fore a Senate committee. At the same
time he turned over to the Justice De-
partment the findings of an internal
inquiry that led to the prosecution of
Richard Helms, one of his predeces-
sors, for lying to Congress about
C.I.A. activities in Chile. -
The agency's old guard reacted with
harsh accusations and innuendoes.
Some, including James J. Angleton,
who had been ousted as head of coun-
terintelligence by Mr.. Colby, sug-
gested at the time that he might be a
Soviet mole; others accused Mr.
Colby of paralyzing the agency's abil-
ity to conduct covert operations by
kneeling before the Senate Select
Committee on intelligence as if it
were, in the words of one former
G.I.A. director, "a mourner's bench."
President Ford asked for Mr. Colby's
resignation in late 1975.
These days Mr. Colby, who prac-
tices international law here, is again
playing a surprising role for a former
director of Central Intelligence. He
has joined the public debate on nu-
clear arms control on the side of the
Catholic bishops and the nuclear
freeze movement, and this has
brought a new round of criticism of
Mr. Colby by some of his old C:I.A.
colleagues who never forgave him for
opening the agency's black bag to the
world.
After he ;%,n ated C.I.A. Di- can occur. It is clear to me that the
rector in 19tiwar groups tacked arms race has us on the verge of -an-
up posters in Washington labeling Mr. other one of these terrible destabiliz-
Colby a "murderer" and war criminal ing steps that is moving us toward a
for his role in directing operation hair-trigger world with all this talk of
Phoenix, an effort to identify and re- launch under attack. My God, we're
cruit or imprison leaders of the Viet- talking about the fate of the world."
cong,in South Vietnam. Some 20,000 If Mr. Colby's former colleagues in
Vietcong "suspects" were killed dur- ' the intelligence community are per
ing the .operation. Mr. Colby told a plexed by the latest public role of this
House-committee that there had been man who calls himself "an unrecon-
some "excesses" despite his rules
.against illegal killings, but he insisted
that the program had, on the whole,
been successful. :
Still, Mr: Colby was shaken by sug-
gestions that he had condoned politi-
cal assassinations. "How does it feel
to be married to a war criminal?" he
asked his wife when the posters went
up. -
,$is public tribulations were
matched by his personal grief. In 1971
his eldest daughter died in Washing-
ton after a long illness, and friends say
Mr. Colby, who was stationed in Viet-
nam during the years her health was
deteriorating, felt a sense of guilt for
not having spent more time with her.
Practical and Moral Aspects
Mr. Colby, whose poker player's
face rarely betrays his emotions or
private thoughts, nodded slightly as a
reporter repeated this speculation
about why he went from the cold to the
freeze.
"If I were taking the other side, no-
body would bat an eyebrow about it,"
he said. "I felt this way long before
the bishops' letter came out and, in
fact, I helped to some degree in ex-
plaining the issue to Catholic groups. I
figure the priests can take care of the
moral aspects and I'll talk about the
practical aspects."
Mr. Colby, who is waging his per-
sonal freeze campaign on the speak-
ing circuit and in newspaper columns,
contends that 'his antinuclear activi-
ties are "a logical extention of what I
was doing in the intelligence busi-
ness."
He goes on: "At the C.I.A. it be-
came obvious to me that the real func-
tion of intelligence is not to win battles
but to help with the peace, to avoid the
kind of destabilizing surprises that
structed cold warrior," so are some
liberals who-have welcomed him into
the ranks of the nuclear freeze move-
ment despite his support for the Rea-
gan Administration's policies in El
Salvador and his unwavering defense
of American involvement in Vietnam.
James R. Schlesinger, a former
G.I.A. director, said that the freeze
movement, "if anything but a political
gesture, could be detrimental to the
overall military balance." He said he
did not doubt his former colleague's
sincerity, but, like .some other mem-
bers of the national security com-
munity, said he felt that Mr. Colby's
words were taking a turn toward stri-
dency.
Mr. Schlesinger, Secretary of De-
fense in the Nixon and Ford Adminis-
trations, said he read with dismay Mr.
Colby's recent remarks to an antinu- -
clear group at Georgetown Universi-
ty. Mr. Colby told that audience: "I
think it's time for people to take this
matter away from the priesthood that
has gotten us into this mess and to
simply insist that we stop building
these things."
In an interview, Mr. Schlesinger
said: "I get restless, and I. suspect
others do too, over firebrand com-
ments about . a supposed nuclear
priesthood. Bill knows better than
that. Discussions regarding nuclear -
strategv have been ouite open, more .
meat to his Roman Catholic faith and
a sense of guilt from some of the most .
paintul periods of his life.
Known as a'Soldier-Priest'
"My position is a little incongruous
for a former C.I.A. man, and I under-
stand that," he said, adding that, con-
trary to what some are saying, neither
religion nor guilt brought him' to his
present view.
Still, friends and critics alike, -in-
cluding two former directors of Cen-
tral Intelligence, suggest privately
that Mr. Colby, known around the
C.I.A. as the "soldier-priest," may be
motivated in part by his deep commit-
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UIi PLC
B --
WASHINGTON POST -
This President
Wants Silence
By Cthsors
. ... officials for .life.
''By Frank Snepp
TVt THEN THE SUPREME Court ruled against me' in
t 7M1980 and upheld the enforceability of government
secrecy agreements, my father - who is a conservative
superior court judge - predicted that "one of these days
some patriot in'the White House will realize the power the
Brethren have given him," and saddle us with a system of
censorship such as we've never seen in this country.
My father has been proven right. President Reagan, cit-
ing Snepp u. U.S., has decreed that every bureaucrat
"with authorized access to classified information shall be
required to sign a nondisclosure agreement.....- .
? This order will obligate some bureaucrats to submit all
work-related writings for government censorship for the
rest of their lives. And the Supreme Court made clear in
_?my case that these government workers won't given have
Ito sign secrecy agreement to become censorship candi-
dates. All they have to do is get assigned to an official
"position of trust" with "conceded access to confidential
sources and materials."From that point on, .they're Vim-
plicitly obligated not to publish anything, classified or
not, about their work, without official approval. Forever;
In a "fact sheet" attached to the Reagan order, the Jus-
tice Department reminds all bureaucrats of this implicit
"fiduciary duty." This clears'the way for a censorship sys
tem that is virtually open-ended.
Steven Garfinkel, the official responsible for monitoring
governmentwide security programs, has conceded to`Con. .
gress that though he can't say for sure how many buiresu-
crats traffic in classified information, at least 65=official
departments and agencies do. The mind boggles at the
potential number of gag victims this estimate implies. The
11 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence communi-
ty, by themselves, are 200,000-strong.
In practical terms, if the Reagan order is enforced,
many of the turnstile bureaucrats who come and.go with
Will thel
look favors
former reps
partment c
the State U
:Would- ti
atGeorgeto,
brace such r
Patrick or R
Would th t" V- rronn the STATINTL
Heritage Foundation who've served the Rea-
gaii Vhite House be happy about being cen-
sored.;by the liberal constituents of a Mon-
da'1e, Tenn or Cranston!administration'
.;Xoudon't need a :definitive answers to
these-questions to view the Reagan order as.
ill-conceived and dangerous.
.3c
-;Predictably, the administration has had a
problem selling its scheme. Deputy Assistant
Attorney General Richard Willard, principal
author of the Reagan directive, initially
claimed that the secrecy agreements were
needed to stem a flood tide of leaks which
"has, .increased in severity over the past dec-
ade.,.But then Garfinkel, the government's
designated auditor of leaks, conceded to a
congressional subcommittee that only a half-
dozen. leaks had been reported to his office in
the,-past three years.
--,Willard tried to recoup. In a TV interview,
he said it wasn't the quantity or severity of
leaks that necessitated the gag rule. Rather, it
was the worries of our allies - their "lack of
confidence in our government's ability to
keep secret important information...."
.,;Since most of our allies (witness the Brit-
ish) have far more stringent secrecy regula-
tions than we do - and far more serious se-
curity problems - Willard's attempt to jus-.
tify:the Reagan directive is a token of how
desperate his case has become. And no won-
der..Numerous authoritative voices have been
raised against its assumptions.
. 'Writing in Foreign Policy last fall, former
CIA .;Director Stansfield Turner ? declared:
"Fortunately, while several leaks about actual
espionage in the past six or seven years have
involved serious breaches of security, very lit-
tle-information harmful to U.S. intelligence
interests has been revealed. In short, the im-
pression that intelligence agencies cannot
keep secrets is highly exaggerated."
. -Former Deputy CIA Director Bobby
Inman has also cast doubt on the wisdom of
the administration crackdown. Last winter he
told .U.S. News & World Report that the
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ON PAGE
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Angelo Codevilla is a professional staff
member with the Senate Intelligence
Committee. Previously, he was a foreign
service officer and a fellow at the Hoover
Institution, Stanford University. Dr.
Codevilla has written widely on European
politics and in the field of intelligence and
military policy.
STATINTL
States expects of its intelligence
services or what they are to t
accomplish in order to meet the
STATINTL
By focusing so exclusively on
rules and standards of
operations, the intelligence
debate of the mid-1970s did no
answer the fundamental
question of what the United
challenges of the 1980s.
STATINTL
The Substance and
the Rules
Since the early 1970s, this country's intel-
ligence agencies have been asking, "What
does the country expect of us?" That ques.
tion had not arisen in the postwar period be-
cause the American political system had left
the agencies to the total discretion of those
appointed to lead them. In the early 1970s,
factional conflict among those leaders spilled
over into a national debate about what
America's practitioners of intelligence ought
to have foremost in, mind. That debate con-
tinues.
Recently, Admiral Stansfield Turner,
President Carter's Director of Central Intelli-
gence, and his former special assistant,
George Thibault, published an attempt both
to answer that question and to indict the Rea-
gan administration's handling of intelli-
gence. The author's answer seems to be that
the American people expect their intelligence
agencies to be as innocuous as possible.
They charge that the Reagan administration
is undermining the agencies by loosening too
many restrictions. The authors thus contend
that for our civil liberties' sake, and for the
sake of the agencies' own standing in the
country, the agencies ought to concentrate on
formulating for themselves the right kinds of
rules and restrictions. However, tine would
not suspect from Turner and Thibault's arti-
cle,that the rules by which intelligence offi-
cers live ought to flow from the intelligence
profession's substantive requirements.
Nevertheless, in intelligence as in other
areas of government, the American people
rightly want their employees to accomplish
the functions for which they are paid. This
author will argue that Stansfield Turner is
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