SCIENTIFIC EXCHANGES AND U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84B00049R001002450016-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Sequence Number: 16
• Content Type: LETTER

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DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
Committee on Exchanges
COMEX-C-119
8 January 1982
SUBJECT: Scientific Exchanges and U.S. National Security
Attached for your information and review is a recent exchange
of letters between the Executive Officer of Science Magazine and
Deputy Secretary of Defense Carlucci. The original letter was
prompted by the technology transfer section of the mid-1981 Defense
brochure on Soviet Military Power. The exchange of letters was
printed in the 8 January 1982 edition of Science.
STAT
Executive Secretary
NO.fi?? ' ,r? "; ?z P:~~
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"President Nixon and continued 1-=: :is
successors, Whether the Defense:7c-
partment likes them or not, they consti-
tute the present foreign policy of the
United States. As to the merits, it is very
important to U.S. interests to be wcil-
posted on the quality of Soviet scientific
research. The contact we have through
the hilaterals has left no doubt as to
Soviet excellence in fields that matter to
its, including metallurgy, condensed
matter physics, theoretical physics. as-
trophysics, geophysics, and cancer re-
search. Nobody is arguing that the ex-
changes should involve security-related
fields of science. Elsewhere, in fields
where both sides are equally good, it is
to our country's advantage to pursue the
exchanges. The DOD paper shows an
extremely disappointing grasp of what
the exchanges are all about.
If I seem exercised by the position
taken by the Defense Department in So-
viet Military Power it is because 1 am
exercised. In particular, that position
strikes in a deadly way at the depen-
dence of scientific progress on open
communication and shared information.
Our own military power will he dimin-
ished, not enhanced, if the wellheads of'
scientific communication are scaled and
new knowledge confined in silos of se-
crecy and prior restraint.
Mr. Carlucci's reply
This is in reply to your recent letter in
which you state that the Department of
Defense MOD) views the inter-Acade-
my exchanges, student exchanges. sci-
entific conferences and symposia, and
the entire professional and open litera-
ture as inherently adverse to U.S. mili
tary security interests.
Be assured the DOD is well aware of
how scientific practice is conducted and
fully recognizes the importance of unim-
paired scientific communications to the
mutual benefit of all parties concerned.
In our considered view, however, the
exchanges to date. in the main, have not
been reciprocal. Rather, it is quite appar-
ent the Soviets exploit scientific ex-
changes as well as it variety of other
means in a highly orchestrated, centrally
directed effort aimed at gailici-ing, tile
technical information required to en-
hance their military posture.
Because of the importance I attach to
this complex issue. I want to respond in
some detail and thus ask your indul-
gence. Illustrative examples follow
which, at least in part, indicate the basis
for our concern.
The energy bilateral agreement began
with 14 subtopics. The U.S. promised
and delivered the large magnet and mag-
nelohydrodynamics (MI-ID) channel de-
tails as well as a great deal of information
on other topics. The Soviets promised
but did not deliver data on geothermal
energy' and energy resources, consump-
tion, production, and forecasting. Con-
sequently, the U.S. Department of Ener-
gy hats been curtailing its participation.
'I'hc only topic still active is the one on
M1-I D.
Under the S&'I' Bilateral agreement,
the Soviets had been sending large num-
hers of' scientists to the U.S. in the field
of chemical catalysis. but the U.S. was
gaining virtually nothing in return. Con-
sequently, in 1980 the U.S. terminated
the one-sided exchange. It now appears,
however. the Soviets will try to use the
inter-Academy exchange or other means
to acquire the information they deem
vital.
Another example o1' their persistence
was demonstrated in the electrometallur-
gy subtopic of the science and technolo-
gy bilateral agreement. The Soviets
wanted to establish an exchange in the
fields of supcrplastieity and fracture me-
chanics. A concerned U.S. government
scientist succeeded in stopping the ex-
change in these militarily related topics.
However, it was dismaying later to find
that the Soviets had acquired the infor-
mation under the auspices of a new sub-
topic on corrosion,
One of' the provisions common to
many of' the government-to-government
bilateral agreements encourages the es-
tablishment of' separate agreements be-
tween individual companies in the west
and entities of the Soviet government,
primarily the State Committee for Sci-
ence and Technology and the Ministry of
Power Engineering. These are sonic-
times referred to as the "Article IV"
Agreements and in the case of the U.S.
involve it large number of companies that
arc among the world's leaders in areas in
which we know the Soviets to be defi-
cient. The degree of concern with this
situation was such that previous policy
was altered to the extent that the Export
Administration Act of 1979 now requires
that companies file notice with the Do-
partmcnt of Commerce when such agree-
ments are signed.
We also have evidence that the Sovi-
ets au-c misusing scholarly exchanges'. In
the area of graduate student and young
faculty exchanges, administered by the
International Research and Exchange
Board (IRF.X), the U.S. sends young
master's and doctoral level students,
mostly in humanities, primarily to two
universities, Moscow State and Lenin-
grad State. For the most part, the USSR
?rids senior, experienced. technical
:-1 .icople. Almost all possess Kanclir/at de-
grees; sonic come from closed military
research institutes, and attend -any of' a
hundred or so U.S. universities, in ac-
cordance with the openness of our socie-
ty, Soviet students are granted academic
freedom and, with almost automatic gov-
ernment approval, can travel practically
at will. Conversely, American students
in the Soviet Union are much more iso-
lated and restricted in their travel and
professional contacts.
Soviet weakness is not in basic re-
search, which. as you point out, is on the
whole excellent. Rather their weakness
is in putting technology into production.
It is therefore not surprising to us that
the scientists the Soviets nominate are
often directly involved in applied mili-
tary research. For example, in 1976-77
S. A. (iubin's course of study involved
the technology of fuel-air explosives.
Mr. Gubin studied this topic at one of
our leading universities under a profes-
sor who was it consultant to the U.S.
Navy on fuel-air military explosive de-
vices. As a+ parenthetical comment. one
must admire their ability to determine so
precisely where to send their "stu-
denls." Guhin, incidentally, during his
stay ordered numerous documents per-
taining to fuel-air explosives from the
U.S. National Technical informal ion
Service. When he finished his study, he
returned to his work in the USSR devel-
oping Rated-air explosive weapons.
In the rase of K. H. Rozhdestvcnsky.
it was not until several months after his
departure that we learned his research
paper was concerned Willi the "wing-in-
ground efl'ect" aerodynamic vehicle.
This vehicle has significant potential mil-
itary applications and indeed. the Sovi-
eis have been attempting to develop a
wing-in-ground effect machine for quite a
nr.tmher of years.
T. K. Bachman, it psychologist, carne
to study the interface between man and
machine. In the opinion of U.S. re-
searchers. this field was directly applica-
ble to the design of heads-up displays
which optimize the amount of data pre-
sented visually to a military weapon sys-
tem operator. Bachman attended several
very significant conferences on this topic
and was able to observe state of the art
demonstrations of such work funded by
the Department of Defense.
This graduate student/young faculty
exchange is such that each year it is
recommended that at least one-half the
Soviet nominees not be allowed to pur-
sue their desired topic of study at all or
that significant modifications be made in
their study program. This. is because the
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information the Soviets seek i%`--''-her
the Soviets during 1980, 11 topics pro-::_ I would also point out that it is and has
posed offered a significant potential fogr been for many yearc 1 i C
oll
t., .,,.,r?.,
p
y
embargoed by law or militarily sci;r,;rive.
Hence our concern.
In the senior scholar exchange pro-
gram also administered by IREX, each
side sends a number of scholars for a
total of 50 man-months per year. As with
the graduate student/young faculty pro-
gram, the Soviets nominate physical sci-
entists, while the U.S. nominates schol-
ars specializing in the arts, literature and
history. Until a few years ago, most
Soviets in this program conducted very
basic research. No objections were
voiced to such courses of study. Cur-
rently, practically all the Soviet nomi-
nees propose to study in fields having
military application. Some examples of
proposed research topics in 1981 are:
? Properties of adhesive joints of poly-
mers.
o Macromolecular materials and corn-
posite materials (two nominees).
o Preparation of micro-tunnel diodes
in gallium arsenide by annealing and/or
molecular beam epitaxy.
o Theory of computer science and
programming methodology.
o Thin-film metals in semiconductor
technology.
? Semiconductor and infrared tcchnol-
ogy, ion implantation, radiation defect
analysis and infrared detector techniques
and materials.
o Machinability of difficult to machine
materials.
Largely as a result of dissident physi-
cist Andrei Sakharov's ill Ireatnictit, tile
U.S. Academy of Sciences imposed a
moratorium on joint symposia and other
high level contact with the Soviet Acade-
my of Sciences. Nonetheless, individual
exchanges are still permitted and the
Soviets continue to nominate scientists
to study and conduct research in topics
that are either embargoed or militarily
sensitive. Of 25 scientists nominated by
loss of critical U.S. technology. There
was a somewhat lesser, but nevertheless
real, degree of' concern over the remain-
ing 14 topics.
With regard to scientific conferences
and symposia, the Department of De-
fen.. e has become increasingly con-
cerned over the type and volume of
defense-related information openly pro-
vided. As you will undoubtedly recall,
the concern has been such that Soviet
Bloc scientists were prevented from at-
tending the First International Confer-
ence on Bubble Memory Materials and
Process'1'echrrology, and the Conference
on Laser and Flectro-optical systems/
Inertial Confinement Fusion early in
1980. This denial was precipitated by the
revelation that Hungarian physicist.
Gyorgy /_,irnmcr, provided the Soviets
the scientific knowledge on magnetic
bubble. memories gained as it result of his
frequent visits to U.S. laboratories. A
thorough review then followed which
resulted in an official U.S. policy re-
stricting Soviet attendance at U.S. con-
ferences and symposia. This policy was
widely publicized in a number of scien-
tific journals.
With regard to professional and open
literature, U.S. and western applied and
basic research papers are usually quite
explicit in explaining their purpose and
are published promptly and without cen-
sorship. 'Fhe author's affiliation and the
sponsor of the research are alniost al-
ways provided. This is contrasted with
Soviet and other Communist country
publications where the purpose and goal
are usually not mentioned or deliberately
obfuscated. Authors' affiliations fre-
quently arc not provided and the sponsor
of the research is rarely identified. In
addition all articles are subject to censor-
ship.
sponsored research to anyone in the
world at very nominal cost through the
National Technical Information Services
(NTIS) of the Department of Commerce.
Similar Soviet research holdings are
maintained by the All-Union Institute of
Scientific and Technical Information
(VINITI) which is jointly administered
by the State Committee for Science and
Technology and the Soviet Academy of
Sciences. The NTIS assisted the Soviets
in setting up VINITI tinder the auspices
of the bilateral agreement on Science and
't'echnology, yet the holdings of VINITI
are not released to anyone outside the
Soviet Union.
Other examples abound, but I trust
that these will suffice to provide you with
the context within which our views were
framed. The Department of Defense fa-
vors scientific, technical and educational
exchanges and the free exchange of ideas
in basic and fundamental science. flow-
ever, since the military posture of this
nation relics so heavily on its technical
leadership, the Defense Department
views with alarm the blatant and persist-
ent attempts, some of which have just
been described, to siphon away our mili-
tarily related critical technologies. I note
his is precisely your point when you
state "nobody is arguing that the ex-
changes should involve security-related
fields of science.'' By the very nature of
our open and free society. we recognize
that we will never be able to halt fully the
flow of militarily critical technology to
the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, we be-
lieve that it is possible to inhibit this flow
without infringing upon legitimate scien-
tific discourse. I hope that this letter has
allayed your concerns and look forward
to additional views you May wish to
offer.
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