THE SILENT WAR CLAIMS A CASUALTY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807500017-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 10, 2012
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: March 31, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/10: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807500017-7
- nom, ' LOS ANGELES TIMES
31 March, 1985
The Silent War.
.Claims a Casualty
In Divided Germany, Spies
Come From East and West
By avid Wb.
WASHINGTON
The intelligence war constantly waged between East and West remains
unseen-and largely ignored-until there is a casualty. ~i
The shooting down of the U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union in 1960,
the seizure of the electronic spy ship Pueblo by North Korea in 1968 and last
week the slaying of a U.S. Army officer, Maj. Arthur D. Nicholson Jr., in
East Germany, are sharp reminders that silent war can be both dangerous
and deadly.
Nicholson, shot by a Soviet guard while in a white stucco villa in Potsdam. East
photographing Soviet military equipment Germany, two- or four-man intelligence-
ee
in East Germany, is the first casualty of the gathering teams usually set out by
peculiar "licensed espionage" carried on in from West Berlin. They are permitte to
Germany by the United States and the cross into East Berlin on the Glienicke
Soviet Union. Bridge-site of the 1962 exchange of U-2
A 1947 accord permits both sides to pilot Francis Gary Powers for Soviet
gat er intelligence about each other. Un- master spy Rudolf I. Abel-that is closed
der the terms of the agreement, t 7e U.S. to all other traffic. U.S. officers, equipped
mission's 14 members observe Soviet forc- with cameras, infrared film and high-pow-
es in East Germany, just as Soviets ered binoculars-some, presumably, for
maintain obseryyr teams at three locations night vision-are unarmed.f:,.,
in West Germany. Each side has declared The intelligence teams attempt to learn
specific restrictive zones out of bounds to as much as possible about Soviet military
liaison teams. equipment and troop disposition and
Although a U.S. group is headquartered movement. They try to observe Soviet and
East German military maneuvers in the
spring and fall, and it is then the work can
be most hazardous. American jeeps are
sometimes. rammed or bumped by East
German trucks. One. former member of the
U.S. mission tells of 90-mile-an-hour
midnight car rides into East Germany, to
prevent the Soviets from learning where
the Americans were going. And there is
the ever-present danger-at least for
Americans-of being shot. But the accord
offers unusual advantages to both sides.
Nowhere else in the world are intelligence
agents for Washington and Moscow legally
permitted to observe each other's hard-
ware and troops at close range. It is a sort
of permanent open season for spies.
ContinLied
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/10: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807500017-7
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/10: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807500017-7
This arrangement, though not secret,
was not widely known until Nicholson's
death last Sunday. There have been other
casualties in the unseen war. The most
publicized occured Aug. 31, 1983, when a
Soviet fighter shot down Korean Air Lines
Flight 007, killing all 269 persons aboard,
including 61 Americans. The Soviets
claimed that the plane resembled a
U.S. RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft
that had earlier flown near the
airliner.
The Americans who perished in
the KAL incident, however, were
not the first shot down by the
Soviets in peacetime. At least 52
Americans in eight reconnaissance
aircraft have been attacked and
killed by the Soviets since 1950.
Adding the 31 crew members of the
EC-121 downed by the North Kore-
ans in 1969, the count is 83 Ameri-
cans. Other casualties are less visi-
ble. On the white marble wall inside
the lobby of Central Intelligence Agency
headquarters are 46 stars, eac re resent-
ina an officer killed in the line of duty since
1947.
The spy war can be dangerous for the
world, not just for the players. In a nuclear
age, each incident, each clash by night,
carries with it the potential for disaster..
That potential was dramatically stated by
Lyndon B. Johnson, in a.1969 CBS inter
view after he left the presidency: "The real
horror was to be sleeping soundly about
3:30 or 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning and
have the telephone ring and the operator
say, 'Sorry to wake you, Mr. President'
.... Had we hit a Russian ship? Had an
accident occured? We have another Pueb-
lo? Someone made a mistake-were we. at
war?"
But as the recent shooting demonstrat-
ed, public fear varies'with the way each
side handles the episode.. The Reagan
Administration has responded to Nichol-
son's death in a low key. Gone was the
rhetoric and barrage of outrage that
accompanied the KAL incident. Though
Washington called the shooting. _totally_,
unjustified," President Reagan went out of
his way to say that it would not make him
abandon hope for an early summit meeting
with new Soviet leader Mikhail S. Got-
bachev. "It would make me more anxious
to go to one," he said.
Although both sides issued differing
versions of the incident when it became
known on Monday, by week's end the gap
between the Soviet and U.S. accounts had
narrowed substantially.
Nicholson. 37, a Russian linguist and an
intelligence officer by training, had been
attach tot S. Military Liaison
Mission since ebruaar 1982. Last Sun-
day, accompani3by hisdriver, Sgt.
Jessie G. Schatz, and dressed in a regular
military camouflage field uniform, Nich-
olson approached a Soviet military stor-
age building near Ludwigslust, East Ger-
many, and began taking pictures of
equipment through an open window. He
was shot by a Soviet guard, killed by one
bullet in the chest.
Senior State pepartment officials said
that the area had been temporarily re-
stricted-possibly to conceal military ma-
neuvers-but that the restriction had
been lifted, in writing, on Feb. 20. An
official explained that both sides routinely
carry cameras, although taking photo-
graphs is prohibited by. the U.S.-Soviet
agreement and film confiscated. Conced-
ing Nicholson was taking pictures, the
official insisted, "We feel the use of deadly
force is totally out of keeping with the
rule. They [the U.S. officers] are not in a
position to defend themselves."
The official admitted that "there is a
certain cat-and-mouse quality to this
operation." And it was clear from a list
provided by the Pentagon that there have
been previous clashes. In the wake of the
shooting, the United States was pushing
for a meeting with the Soviet military, for
improved ground rules, to avoid such
violent incidents in the future.
Nicholson, a Soviet specialist with a
master's degree in international relations,
is survived by his parents, his wife,
Karyn, and a daughter, Jennifer, S. No one
needs to tell them the human cost of
unseen war.
David Wise's most recent book about
intelligence is "The Children's Game: A
Novel of Espionage" (,St. Martin's Press).
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/10: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807500017-7