SWISS INTELLIGENCE DEFENSELESS AGAINST HUGE KGB INTRUSION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100650002-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 20, 2011
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: March 17, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sl Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100650002-1
ARTICLE APPEAR D
ON PAGE. I
WASHINGTON TIMES
17 March 1987
Swiss intelligence defenseless
against huge KGB intrusion
S By Andrew Borowiec
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
GENEVA - Soviet spies have in-
filtrated neutral Switzerland on a
massive scale, with more KGB
agents in this Alpine country than
anywhere else in Europe, according
to a surprise admission by Swiss in-
telligence services yesterday.
They confirmed figures cited by
French author and journalist
Thierry Walton that there were an
estimated 700 Soviet agents and at
least twice as many locally recruited
Swiss "moles" or "sleepers" whose
tasks include possible cooperation
with special Soviet troops known as
"Spetsnaz."
Such troops prepared the ground
for the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan in 1979.
Officials in the capital of Bern
quoted by the conservative daily
"Tribune de Geneve" agreed that the
degree of infiltration was higher
than elsewhere in Europe and said
Switzerland lacked the means to
combat it.
Mr. Walton, who disclosed Soviet
penetration of French intelligence
services in a book titled "The KGB
in France" last year, divulged the
Swiss figures at a seminar attended
by some of Switzerland's leading in-
telligence officials and repeated
them in an interview with the
Tribune de Geneve.
His disclosures were headlined
"Soviet spies prefer Switzerland."
The article explained that the coun-
try's counterespionage service -
which has only 36 agents and 60 ana-
lysts - could do little to combat the
Soviets, forcing the federal govern-
ment to resort to unpublicized expul-
sions of Soviet citizens.
There are, at any given time, some
2,000 Soviet citizens in Switzerland,
most of them working in Geneva's
international organizations. Of these
700, or about one third, are de-
scribed as full-time spies.
They are backed by the intelli-
gence services of such Soviet bloc
countries as East Germany, Poland,
Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia, which
also have relatively large numbers
of legally recruited United Nations
employees here.
Mr. Walton was quoted as saying
that Switzerland's attraction for the
Soviet Union was in its character as
an "international crossroads,"
through which a myriad military,
economic and industrial secrets
pass daily.
"For the time being, Moscow is
mostly seeking to obtain information
and samples that would allow it to
reduce the technological gap," Mr.
Walton was quoted as saying. Swit-
zerland, as such, he added, interests
the Soviets "no more and no less"
than other countries.
According to Swiss experts, the
Soviets also have been placing stu-
dents in several institutions of
higher learning "not to spy, but to
befriend future officials and pre-
pare their psychological analyses."
Switzerland. according to Mr
Walton, is the only country besides
the United States that has four Soviet
"residents:' or chief spies - one
each for LheISGfl. and_the_military
intelligence agency QRLJ
neva and Bern.
Commenting on Mr. Walton's
statements, the Tribune de Geneve
explained that since 1948 some 200
spy cases involving Soviet citizens
have been exposed here, followed by
150 expulsions.
In most cases the Swiss Depart-
ment of the Interior preferred a
minimum of publicity. Mr. Walton
sharply criticized this policy, saying
that public exposure with a maxi-
mum of details "combats disinfor-
mation and alerts the population."
Mr. Walton added: "Let's not be
paranoid, there are certainly no
KGB agents under your bed.... But
it is essential to be lucid, to realize
that the Soviet Union relentlessly
craves power, that it considers itself
to be a country at war with the rest
of the world, and that the KGB is one'
of its main pillars."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100650002-1