C.I.A. SEEKS TO READ MOSCOW AUGURIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000301300009-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: February 13, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

k~STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/24: CIA-RDP99-01448R000301300009-3
ARi APPS R~T NEW YORK TIi.TS
0:; PAGE 13 February 1984
C.I.li. Seeks to Read Moscow ugurres;
By PHILIP TAUBMAN
Sperial W I Oe New YorlrSmes
WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 - When
the Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev
died 15 months ago, the Reagan Ad.
ministration was ready. In a memo to
President Reagan, William J. Casey,
the Director of Central Intelligence,-
picked Yuri V. Andropov as a dark
horse closing fast at the finish to sun
ceed Mr. Brezhnev.
Mr. Casey and the Soviet experts at
the Central Intelligence Agency ap-.
parently were not as prescient on this
occasion. When Mr. Andropov died
Thursday, the C.I.A. dismissed the
first news reports about the death,.
saying they were unfounded.
After acknowledging that the
Soviet leader was dead, intelligence
officials said Friday that Mikhail S.
Gorbachev, a member of both the
Soviet Communist Party Politburo
and the Secretariat, seemed to be the
most likely candidate to succeed Mr.
Andropov as General Secretary of the.
Communist Party. Those- officials
said Mr. Gorbachev was followed, in
order, by Grigory V. Romano, also a
member of the Politburo and the
Secretariat; Defense Minister Dmitri
F. Ustinov; and Konstantin U. Cher-
nenko, the last of the three men who
are members of the Politburo and the
Secretariat.
By today, the consensus in the
C.I.A. and the Reagan Administra-
tion was that Mr.. Chernenko, a
Brezhnev protege who was out-
maneuvered by Mr. Andropov in 1982,
would emerge at least temporarily as
the new Soviet leader.
The initial betting on Mr. Gorba-
chev illustrated the difficulty of
trying to analyze, much less predict,
the decisions and actions of the Soviet
leadership, intelligence officials said.
Mr. Gorbachev, .although the young-
est member of the Politburo at 52,
was widely believed to be Mr. Andro.
pav's personal choice for a successor.
Passed Over Once
cials said, would probably reflect a.
reluctance among older Soviet lead.
ers to turn over power to younger
men like Mr. Gorbachev who might
rule for 20 years or more.
As the C.I.A.'s Soviet analysts
scrambled over the weekend to keep
up with developments in Moscow,
they could appreciate the assessment
of Richard Helms a former C IA di-
specific individuals-as the new Gen,
eral Secretary.
Chairman of Commission
The growing consensus that Mr.-.
Chernenko will succeed Mr. Andro-
pav, intelligence officials said, was
based primarily on his selection as
chairman of .the funeral commission
and on-his appearance at the head of,
Mr. Cbernenko was not only passed
over once for the top spot, but was
also associated with an old-guard
leadership that Mr. Andropov had
indirectly criticized. He is 72 years
old. His selection, intellirence offi-
STAT
rector, who described the Kremlin " the line when Soviet leaders passed
leadership as "the toughest target of Within days Hof Mr. Brezhne "j" all" for American intelligence agdn+ death in November "1982, the .CI.A
des. produced a 29-page classified.report
named in the next 24 hours, we'll
know there's a donnybrook going on
in the leadership," one intelligence
-official said.
p
kin cannot be photographed by Ameri- ,
I . an Ad
t
-
can satellites. Nor can the conversa- ? . In a summary, according to
th
rt
r
An
e repo
Con-
tios and politicking
cking in the Politburo ciuded that "Andropov will be a for'-
dropping equipment, intelligence offi-
cials say. They said the United States
was once able to collect information
by intercepting the radio conversa-
tions of Soviet leaders as they rode
around Moscow in limousines. The
Soviets eventually learned about that
practice and ended it by encoding the
communications.
The C.I.A. depends on information
gathered by agents and collected
from sources both inside the Soviet
Union and abroad. "It's old-fashioned
intelligence," one C.I.A. official said.
'"The Kremlin is one place where we
can't depend on high technology to
penetrate the.target."
This weekend the C.I.A.'s experts
on the Soviet Union, directed by Rob-
ert Gates, the Deputy Director for
Intellice who is a Soviet authority
himself, -pored through volumes of
computerized information about
Soviet leaders.
Working in -a nondescript office
building in Vienna, Va., a Washington
suburb, the staff of the Soviet depart-
ment prepared papers for Adminis-
tration officials about the succession
process itself, compiled profiles of
on Mr. Andropov that included a de-=
tailed account of agency reports on
his background, his ascent to power,
an assessment of his likely impactcn, I
the Soviet Government-and-relations
with the West,-and a?description of his
ersonal life and health. -
midable adversary." The report
added: "He is perhaps the most com-
plicated and puzzling of all the cur-
rent Soviet leaders. He -is ruthless,
clever, well-informed, a tough in-,
fighter and cunning."
? Much of the report, intelligence of-
ficials said, was drawn from the
Soviet press, interviews with Soviet
defectors and emigres and observa-
tions by American intelligence agents
and diplomats in Moscow. The lack of
inside sources, the officials said, was
evident in the report's Comment that
Mr. Andropov had married twice but
it was unclear whether his second
-wife was alive. On Saturday intelli-
gence officials in Washington felt the
confusion about that issue had been
resolved when Mr.. Andropov's
widow, Tatyana, appeared beside the
bier in Moscow.
Intelligence officials declined to de=
scribe in detail this weekend's C.I.A.
reports about the policies and health
of Mr. Chernenko, Mr. Gorbachev or
other Soviet leaders,, except to-say
that Mr. Chernenko might prove to be
a interim leader. They said Mr. Cher-
nenko has suffered for years from
emphysema-
The key power brokerin the succes-
sion, as he was when Mr. Brezhnev
implications for the Soviet Union and died, is probably Marshal Ustinov,
the United States of the selection of the officials said.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/24: CIA-RDP99-01448R000301300009-3