CIA HAS NEW LISTENING IN SOUTHERN AFRICA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000605830007-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2010
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: April 7, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/24: CIA-RDP90-00552R000605830007-4
A,.T 1 CLE PPE D
Oki PAGE /? .
GUkvIAN (U. S,)
7 Apr?i-1 1982
CIA has new Iistenin
bwath"puft
By STEVEN YEGH post's receiving equipment. Steel told the.
The. CIA has a new listening post in Herald the station was being? set. up
Southern Africa. The facility, based on because "his government was interested
Mbabane, Swaziland, will give Washing- in knowing what.is going on in ttte world
ton increased access , to inte lligerce i in general, and interested in what is going
information about the region's progres- j on in Southern Africa in particular."
.sive frontline states. According ? to editor Louis . Wolf of
The monitoring station will operate CovertActionInformation Bulletin (CRIB),
under the aegis of a U.S. Commerce De-, a watch-dog publicaton that- closely
partment organ called the Foreign Broad- monitors the CIA's covert operations, "the
castlnformationService (FBIS), the stated! : implication is that FBIS [i.e., the CIA] is not
task of which is to "report. on behalf of the
U.S. . government, information openly
collected from public information media"
in other countries. Despite this U.S. State
Department description of FBIS work, the
outfit has long been suspected of being a,
.cover for the CIA. and the-connection was
confirmed to the Guardian last week by a
.CIA spokeswoman.. . .
'."We really don't seek to 'get any kind of
high profile for FBIS [employes]...."
.explained the CIA's Cathy Pherson when
contacted by this correspondent, "be-!
,cause FBIS is part of CIA. When [thec
employes] are overseas they are identi.
fied as FBIS and really for their own
safety," she continued, "we try not to give'
them a big profile since they are
.pretty vulnerable."
The Mbabane station discreetly began
operations in late 1981, under an
agreement signed last August between
U.S. and Swaziland officials. Not until
Jan. 14. 1982. however. when Zimbab-
we's Salisbury Herald ran a piece about
what it believed was the impending setup
of the listening post, was there any notice
of the event in the region's -media.
FIRST OF ITS KIND IN REGION
In the Herald account, a U.S. em-
bassy spokesman' in Mbabane, John.
Steel. was reported as saying the FBIS
office would be "the first of its kind in the
entire Southern African region. The
staff would include ."eight or ten"
.Southern African nationals responsible
for reading area publications and "listen-
ing in" on radio and television broad-
costs. The post's administrative head, his
deputy.- and the broadcast engincer~
u
aunn ng 6 - . e .. --?specialist for the CIA within the embassy.
be U.S. FBIS employes, he said. The intelligence these U.S. embassy
"[The station] Is only for receiving. not
for broadcasting or transmission,? em- officers collected was, said Mozambique.
phasized Steel. It is difficult to say how also passed on to South African army and
.. intelligence agencies. This. according to
many countries?will be covered.. he said.
but all Snnthorn African countries are i Maputo, directly aided Pretoria in its Jan.
_
able to cover Southern. Africa as well as it
would. like." ? ' ..; .. .1 .. . . .
The CIA has a vast communications
headquarters for Africa located at the
U.S. embassy An Monrovia. Liberia:
another, smaller station is located at the
embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. Apparently
the long distances separating these two
facilities from Southern Africa had
prevented U.S. intelligence officers from
listening in on transmissions-public and
nonpublic-made in that region. Esta-
blishment of an FBJS station gives acre-m
to all telecommunications activity in the.
area.
{FBIS is] a perfect front to have the
kind of monitoring antennas that might
otherwise be somewhat suspicious,"
observes CAIB coeditor William Schapp,
who further pointed out that "microwave
interception is a giant field." Microwave
interception involves eavesdropping on
telephone. telegraph and other facili-
ties-communications which, in violation
of FBIS's purported role. are nonpublic in
nature.
One particular target of the CIA's new
P015 post may well be neighboring
Mozambique. The distance between
Mbabane and Mozambique's capital at
Maputo is 'less than 120 miles and
alternate. intelligence facilities. like the I
Mbabane station. are no doubt needed by
the CIA in the aftermath of its,abruptlyi
terminated. Mozambican operation last
year.
DATA PASSED TO SOUTH AFRICA
At that time, six CIA agents were!
expelled from Mozambique March 4 on
espionage charges. Among the six wasl
Arth
r F. Russell, telecommunications!
den
caps
. '1
wor
hay
the current consitim,
Embassy in Swaziland, Wilford J.
Scharctt. has an established background
as a CIA officer.
As outlined in CAIB. No. 9. Scharctt I
was posted at the U.S. Embassy in Addis
Ababa. Ethiopia. as of November 1976 in
an attache position. As of November 1977
he teas assigned it the embassy in Accra,
Ghana. Though his official diplomatic
title was "attache political." he was
actually serving its the CIA deputy chief
of staff-the number two CIA position in
Accra. according to Covert Action
research.
Scharctt has been at his Mbabane
location as of February 1980 and
functions as CIA chief of station in
Sw:tciland, CAIB reports. It is possible
that, between the dates listed here he
served in other embassies, but generally
the CIA's officers stay two to three years
in one place.
FBIS staffs and facilities are separate
entities from Washington's Voice of
America (VOA) stations that do broadcast
programs with radio transmitting equip-
nient. Interestingly, a Southern Africa
Voice of America station was recently
established in Selebi-Phikwe. Botswana..
As'stated by a VOA spokesperson. -a.1
3-year agreement with the government of';
Botswana was signed on March 28. 1980: '?
construction began Dec. 15. 1980 and the
station went on the air Sept. 13. 1981."
U.S. intelligence agents have sometimes
used VOA employment as convenient
cover for covert intelligence gathering.
A puzzle remains as to why the
presence of the Mbabane FBIS station
was confirmed by the embassy. "They
rarely. if ever. announce that they're
setting tip an operation." observed Wolf.
Public knowledge of the FBIS post caught
even the CIA main office in Langley. Va..
unawares. "It sort of takes me by
surprise that Ithe Mbabane embassy(
would give numbers of people :utd
figures." said CIA spokeswoman Pher-
san.
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/24: CIA-RDP90-00552R000605830007-4