GORBACHEV'S COMMANDOS...

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706940050-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 15, 2011
• Sequence Number: 50
• Publication Date: May 25, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2011/12/15: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706940050-4
APPE RED I; ASHINGTON POST
E CI
25 MIav 1986
Jack Anderson and Dale Jun Atta
Gorbachev's Commandos...
Mikhail Gorbachev's charm and easygoing
manner have impressed some wishful Western
European leaders who hope he may be the
reasonable Soviet boss who will finally remove
the specter of East-West war that has haunted
them for 40 years.
But before they're swept off their feet by the
Soviet leader's wViles, our NATO allies should
consider this: Gorbachev's underlings have drawn
up detailed contingency plans that call for the
elimination of the very dignitaries who are mak-
ing excuses for him.
According to our intelligence sources, during
his relatively short tenure as head man in the
Purpose orces mission is o a or
assassins a the ea ers of countries in
the urs before. a viet blitzkrieg is lau-n-cYeT
against Western huro22.
Our sources tell us that the Soviet military
intelligence service, the GRU, now has 20
"Spetsnaz" compardes whose job is to disrupt
NATO governments with behind-the-lines com-
mando strikes that would include killing the top
leadership. The contingency plans even call for
kidnapping the Swedish royal family to make sure
Sweden doesn't decide to drop its historic neu-
trality and join NATO forces against the Soviets
in the event of war.
Each Spetsnaz company consists of 115 men
and women, all of them professional soldiers,
linguists and expertly trained assassins.
The infiltration technique is part of an auda-
cious Soviet strategy for a lightning-fast, non-nu-
clear victory over NATO troops. The clandestine
Spetsnaz missions would be followed up by regu-
lar army forces attacking in lightly armed, highly
mobile units called Operational Maneuver
Groups.
A crucial factor in the Soviet strategy is the
difference betwee& the monolithic Warsaw Pact
command structure and NATO's confederation of
16 sovereign members. It would take at least 96
hours for NATO, to mobilize its Forward De-
fense, not counting, the time it would take for
consultation among the member nations.
The Pentagon is all too grimly aware of the
situation. A few years ago, in a Top Secret report
to President Reagan, the Joint Chiefs of Staff
described the results of "dynamic war games
[which) dealt with hypothetical conventional bat-
tles projected for 1986 between NATO and the
Warsaw Pact or Central Europe and Northern
Norway." The results were appalling.
"The war games assumed that the Warsaw
Pact had 15 days for mobilization and NATO had
10 days ... and that all members [plus France) of
each alliance participated....
in addition, the war games posited a U.S.-So-
viet conflict in the Persian Gulf that had been in
progress for 60 days at the time of NATO
D-Day. Finally, throughout the conflict neither
chemical nor nuclear weapons were used by
either NATO or the Warsaw Pact."
Even with the deck stacked in NATO's favor
this way, "by the end of Day 5, the Warsaw Pact
attack had penetrated past the NATO forward
general defense positions," the joint Chiefs' re-
port continued. "On Day 19, the Warsaw Pact
broke through NATO's rear defensive line and
started moving rapidly westward. Finally, the
war game was terminated on Day 24, when
NATO was unable to maintain a cohesive de-
fense."
In a real war, it is unlikely that NATO',
nonnuclear defense would last even 24 days.
That's because the Soviets would almost certain-
ly use chemical weapons early in the conflict.
fact, the entire U.S. intelligence community,
led by the CIA, st)ecifi ca warned about t
likelihood of "Soviet use of chemical weapons
coupled with surpnse," un a specia national
intelligence estimate.
Even worse, though the Joint Chiefs didn't tell
Reagan, the Pentagon's computer whizzes hadn't
factored in the Spetsnaz chaos-and-confusion
operations. Yet according to recent intelligence
reports, many of these commando teams have
been specially trained in the use of chemical and
biological weapons as well as standard arms.
The devastating damage that special forces
can do was described to us recently by Deputy
Assistant Defense Secretary Noel Koch, who is in
charge of American special forces:
"Imagine a guy who drives a truck right into
the general's bivouac, ostensibly to deliver the
general's port-a-potty," Koch said. "He's in dun-
garees, got two days' worth of beard, looks the
part. The truck's got the right markings, even
has the potties. And the guy gets out, walks up
and hangs a little 'Gotcha!' on the general, telling
him he is no longer among us."
Koch has argued for more of this kind of
exercise, "because our conventional forces need
to know what it's going to be like in real life if
they have to cope with Spetsnaz, '
?1986, United FeBiurc Syndicate, Inc.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2011/12/15: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706940050-4