CIA Analysis of the Warsaw Pact Forces: Book

7/30/2019 CIA Analysis of the Warsaw Pact Forces: Book

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Joan Bird & John B

Editors



C I A A N A L Y S I S O F T H E W A R S A W P A C T F O R C E S : T H E I M P O R T A N C E O F C L A N D E S T I N E R E P O R T I N G

Table of Contents

able o Contents ii

Scope Note 1

Introduction 2

Frequently Used Acronyms 3

Te Warsaw reaty 4

Te Statute o Unied Command 6

Chapter I: Early Khrushchev Period (1955–60) 9

Organizing and Managing the Warsaw Pact 10

Intelligence Sources and Analysis in the Early Years 11

Chapter II: Te Berlin Crisis – Col. Oleg Penkovskiy andWarsaw Pact Preparations or Associated Military Operations (1958–61) 13

Intelligence Sources and Analysis 14

Chapter III: Soviet Debate on Military Doctrine and Strategy:Te Contribution o Clandestine Source, Col. Oleg Penkovskiy (1955–64) 17

USSR Developments and the Warsaw Pact 17


Chapter IV: New Insights into the Warsaw Pact Forces and Doctrine –Te Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) 21

Khrushchev’s Gamble Provides an Intelligence Bonanza 21Intelligence Sources and Analysis 21

Chapter V: New Estimates o the Soviet Ground Forces (1963–68) 25

Dening the Problem 25

Revising the Estimates o the Strength o Soviet – Warsaw Pact Forces 25

Clariying the Estimate o Capabilities and Mobilization o Soviet – Warsaw Pact Forces 27

Chapter VI: urmoil in the Soviet Sphere (1962–68) 29

Te Demise o Khrushchev 29

Te Brezhnev-Kosygin eam 30

Managing the Warsaw Pact 30


Chapter VII: Clandestine Reporting and the Analysis and Estimates (1970–85) 33

Soviet-Warsaw Pact Developments and MBFR 33

Managing the Warsaw Pact 33





1


1

Scope Note

Tis study ocuses on the contribution o clandestine source

reporting to the production o nished intelligence on the WarsawPact’s military doctrine, strategy, capabilities, and intentions during

the period 1955–85. It examines products o CIA and national

intelligence estimates (NIEs) o the Intelligence Community (IC)

writ large. It includes more than 1,000 declassied CIA clandestine

reports and CIA nished intelligence publications. Some o the

nished intelligence publications were produced ater 1985, but

none o the clandestine reports. Although the ocus o the study is

on the contributions o clandestine human sources, the clandestine

and covert technical operations such as the U-2 and satellite

reconnaissance programs yielded a treasure trove o inormation

that was incorporated in CIA’s analysis. Chapter V illustrates

the special signicance o those reconnaissance programs or the

solution o some important problems in the 1960s but those

programs yielded essential inormation throughout the thirty year

period studied.

Te analytical reports eatured in the study are generally the

results o long-term research using all sources o inormation.

With some exceptions, the study excludes CIA current intelligence

reporting. Nor does it address intelligence on Warsaw Pact

naval orces or Soviet strategic orces, the great contributions o

signals intelligence (SIGIN), or intelligence rom the US Army,

Navy, or Air Force. Te services’ intelligence components played

important roles, or example, as the principal contributors to the

military-ocused NIEs or the period 1955–61, with the exception

o the military-related economic and scientic estimating and in

accord with the National Security Council Intelligence Directives

(NSCID)1 o the time. Tis study also does not specically

address the contributions o economic, political, weapons, or

scientic intelligence eorts, but it does, as appropriate attendto the operational and strategic consequences o those eorts. It

only generally discusses intelligence support or the Mutual and

Balanced Force Reductions (MBFR) negotiations.

Te study reers to many documents provided by clandestine

sources; these reerences are generally meant to be illustrative,

not exhaustive. Finally, the study includes historical material to

provide a general context or discussing the intelligence. It is not

intended, however, to be a denitive history o the times.

Te authors owe a debt o gratitude to the many intelligence

ocers who painstakingly sited through the not always well-

organized archives or documents sometimes 50 or more years

old. Tey especially note the assistance o ocers o the Deense

Intelligence Agency (DIA) or searching their archives or CIA

reports the authors were unable to locate in CIA archives.

Session o the Council o Ministers o the Warsaw reaty Member States, December 1981

1 See NSCID No.3, Coordination o Intelligence Production, 13 January 1948, and NSCID

No. 3, Coordination o Intelligence Production, 21 April 1958 or details o the responsibilities

o the CIA and other intelligence departments and agencies o the US government. NSCID

No. 3 limited the role o CIA to economic and scientic analysis, making the military services

responsible or all military intelligence. The 1958 revised version broadened the areas or

which the CIA could produce intelligence.

Tis essay was produced by Joan and John Bird.




2

Introduction

Te Soviet Union established itsel as a threat to the West by

its military occupation o Poland and other eastern Europeancountries at the end o World War II and through the unsuccessul

attempts by its armed proxies to capture Greece and South

Korea. Its unceasing attempts to subvert governments throughout

Western Europe and America, and later through the “wars o

national liberation” cast a shadow over everyday lie in the West.

Te massive Soviet armed orces stationed in central Europe stood

behind its political oensives such as the Berlin Crises. Te West

countered with the ormation o NAO and the acceptance into

NAO, and rebuilding o, West Germany. During the same period

that the West welcomed West Germany into NAO, the Soviets

established – through the Warsaw reaty o May 1955 – a ormal

military bloc o Communist nations.

Tis study continues CIA’s eort to provide the public with a

more detailed record o the intelligence derived rom clandestine

human and technical sources that was provided to US

policymakers and used to assess the political and military balances

and conrontations in Central Europe between the Warsaw Pact

and NAO during the Cold War. Finished intelligence 2, based

on human and technical sources, was the basis or personal

briengs o the President, Vice President, Secretary o Deense,

Secretary o State, and other cabinet members, and or broader

distribution through NIEs. It is the opinion o the authors that

the inormation considerably aided US eorts to preserve the

peace at a bearable cost.

Tis study showcases the importance o clandestine source

reporting to CIA’s analysis o the Warsaw Pact orces. Tis eort

complements the CIA’s release o the “Caesar” series o studies3

and other signicant CIA documents in 2007; and releases by

other IC agencies. It also complements ongoing projects, including

those o the Wilson Center o the Smithsonian Institution and

NAO that reexamine the Cold War in light o newly available

documentation released by several ormer members o the

Warsaw Pact.

Te clandestine reports by the predecessor organizations o CIA’s

current National Clandestine Service (NCS) are representativeo those that at the time made especially valuable contributions

to understanding the history, plans, and intentions o the Warsaw

Pact. Many o these documents are being released or the rst time.

Te clandestine source documents do not represent a complete

record o contemporary intelligence collection. Tere was much

inormation made available rom émigrés and deectors as well as

rom imagery and SIGIN that was essential in the estimative

process but is not the ocus o this study.

Te study includes NIEs that CIA has previously released. It

also includes nished intelligence documents produced by the

CIA’s Directorate o Intelligence (DI), some previously released,

and the clandestinely obtained inormation upon which those

reports were largely based. Te DI reports were selected inpart because they were the detailed basis o CIA contributions

to NIEs that ocused on the military aspects o the Warsaw

Pact. Te DI nished intelligence reports also provided the

background or uture current intelligence. Appended to this

study is a collection o declassied intelligence documents

relating to the Warsaw Pact’s military orces, operational

planning, and capabilities. Although many o the documents

were released in past years, new reviews have provided or the

restoration o text previously redacted. All o the documents

selected or this study are available on the attached DVD, on

CIA’s website at http://www.foia.cia.gov/special_collections.asp

or rom the CIA Records Search ool (CRES) located at the

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), College

Park, MD or contact us at [email protected] .

Te nished intelligence during this period seldom linked the

specic clandestine or other sources o evidence to the analysis

based on their inormation. For example, the early intelligence

documents oten described clandestine sources only in the most

general ashion. Rules to protect sources, especially the human

agents, rarely allowed analysts to acknowledge a clandestine

source, openly evaluate a source’s reliability, or describe a source’s

access to the inormation. Only in publications o extremely

limited distribution, or as ew as a handul o recipients, were

these rules relaxed. Tey changed little until the 1980s, when

analysts could provide evaluations that included some sense o

the source’s reliability and access.

Te study lists in the Catalogue o Documents on the DVD

important clandestine and covert source reports and nished

intelligence publications by chapter. Tese documents are

generally arrayed chronologically according to the dates o

dissemination within the IC, not the dates o publication by the

Soviets that sometimes were years earlier.

2 Finished Intelligence is the CIA term or the product resulting rom the collection, processing, integration, analysis, evaluation, and interpretation o available all source inormation. 3 The Caesar

Studies are analytic monographs and reerence aids produced by the DI through the 1950s to the mid-1970s. They provided in-depth research on Soviet internal politics primarily intended to give

insight on select political and economic issues and CIA analytic thinking o the period.

All of our Historical Collections are available

on the CIA Library Publication page located

at https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/

historical-collection-publications/ or contact us at

[email protected].




3

Frequently Used Acronyms

CPSU/CC Communist Party o the Soviet Union Central Committee

CSI Center or the Study o Intelligence

DCI Director o Central Intelligence

DIA Deense Intelligence Agency

DI Directorate o Intelligence (CIA)

DO Directorate o Operations, 1973–2005 (CIA)

DP Directorate o Plans, 1950s–1973 (CIA)

FBIS Foreign Broadcast Inormation Service

FRG Federal Republic o Germany (West Germany)

FRUS Foreign Relations o the United States (A US Department o State History Series)

GDR German Democratic Republic (East Germany)IC Intelligence Community

MBFR Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions

NARA National Archives and Records Administration

NCS National Clandestine Service, 2005–present (CIA)

NIC National Intelligence Council, established December 1979 (DCI)

NIC/WC National Indications Center/Watch Committee, pre-1979 (DCI)

NIE National Intelligence Estimate

NPIC National Photographic Interpretation Center

NSCID National Security Council Intelligence Directive

NSC National Security Council

NSWP Non-Soviet Warsaw Pact [countries]

NM National echnical Means

OCI Oce o Current Intelligence (CIA)

OER Oce o Economic Research (CIA)

ONE Oce o National Estimates (CIA)

OPA Oce o Political Analysis (CIA)

ORR Oce o Research and Reports (CIA)

OSR Oce o Strategic Research (CIA)

PCC Political Consultative Committee (Warsaw reaty Organization)

SOVA Oce o Soviet Analysis (CIA)

SHAPE Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe

SIGIN Signals Intelligence

SNIE Special National Intelligence Estimate

SRS Senior Research Sta

O&E able o Organization and Equipment

WMD Weapons o Mass Destruction




4

Te Warsaw reaty

Te ounding document o the Warsaw Pact organization

was signed in Warsaw on 14 May 1955, and came intoorce on 6 June 1955. At the time, CIA analysts judged

that Moscow had drated the treaty without consulting

its allies and had modeled it ater the 1949 North Atlantic

reaty (sometimes reerred to as the Washington reaty) that

established NAO. CIA analysis showed that some clauses o

the Warsaw reaty appeared to be almost direct translations rom

the Washington reaty and that both had similar provisions,

or example, or joint action in case one o the signatories was

attacked, recognition o the ultimate authority o the UN, and

settlement o all disputes without use or threat o orce. Te

combined military command seemed to be a acsimile o NAO’s

Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE).4 Te

treaty apparently was not crated to override existing bilateral

treaties o mutual assistance, riendship, and cooperation between

Moscow and its allies, which were the basis or addressing Soviet

security concerns in Europe at that time. CIA analysts believed

that the Warsaw reaty was set up primarily as a bargaining chip

to obtain the dissolution o NAO. Te ollowing text o the

treaty does not include the signature blocks.

reaty o Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance

between the People’s Republic o Albania, the People’s Republic

o Bulgaria, the Hungarian People’s Republic, the German

Democratic Republic, the Polish People’s Republic, the Romanian

Socialist Republic, the Union o Soviet Socialist Republics, andthe Czechoslovak Republic.5

Te Contracting Parties

Rearming their desire to create a system o collective security

in Europe based on the participation o all European States,

irrespective their social and political structure, whereby the

said States may be enabled to combine their eorts in the

interests o ensuring peace in Europe;

aking into consideration, at the same time, the situation

that has come about in Europe as a result o the ratication

o the Paris Agreements, which provide or the constitutiono a new military group in the orm o a “West European

Union”, with the participation o a remilitarized West

Germany and its inclusion in the North Atlantic bloc,

thereby increasing the danger o a new war and creating

a threat to the national security o peace-loving States;

Being convinced that in these circumstances the peace-loving

States o Europe must take the necessary steps to saeguard

their security and to promote the maintenance o peace

in Europe;

Being guided by the purposes and principles o the Charter o

the United Nations Organization;

In the interests o urther strengthening and development o

riendship, co-operation and mutual assistance in accordance

with the principles o respect or the independence and

sovereignty o States and o non-intervention in their domestic

aairs;

Have resolved to conclude the present reaty o Friendship,

Co-operation and Mutual Assistance and have appointed as

their plenipotentiaries: [not listed here]

who, having exhibited their ull powers, ound in good and due

orm, have agreed as ollows:

Article 1

Te Contracting Parties undertake, in accordance with the

Charter o the United Nations Organization, to rerain in their

international relations rom the threat or use o orce, and to settle

their international disputes by peaceul means in such a manner

that international peace and security are not endangered.

Article 2

Te Contracting Parties declare that they are prepared to

participate, in a spirit o sincere co-operation in all international

action or ensuring international peace and security, and will

devote their ull eorts to the realization o these aims.

In this connexion, the Contracting Parties shall endeavor to

secure, in agreement with other states desiring to co-operate in

this matter, the adoption o eective measures or the general

reduction o armaments and the prohibition o atomic, hydrogen

and other weapons o mass destruction

Article 3

Te Contracting Parties shall consult together on all important

international questions involving their common interests, with a

view to strengthening international peace and security.

Whenever any one o the Contracting Parties considers that a

threat o armed attack on one or more o the States Parties to the

reaty has arisen, they shall consult together immediately with a

view to providing or their joint deense and maintaining peace

and security.

4 A comparison o the Warsaw Treaty with the 1949 Washington Treaty establishing NATO can be ound in a study prepared by the CIA’s Oce o Current Intelligence 22 years later, The Warsaw

Pact: Its Role in Soviet Bloc Affairs from Its Origin to the Present Day , A Study or the Jackson Subcommittee, 5 May 1966 (See the Catalogue o Documents, Chapter VI, Document VI-13, Annex

B, p B-1. 5 The text o the treaty was available through the FBIS Daily Report on 14 May 1955, but we do not have a copy o that report. The text o the treaty here is a UN English translation o the

text o the treaty as r egistered at the UN by Poland on 10 October 1955.




5

Article 4

In the event o an armed attack in Europe on one or more o

the States Parties to the reaty by any state or group o States,

each State Party to the reaty, shall, in the exercise o the right

o individual or collective sel-deense, in accordance with Article51 o the United Nations Charter, aord the State or States so

attacked immediate assistance, individually and in agreement with

the other States Parties to the reaty, by all means it considers

necessary, including the use o armed orce. Te States Parties

to the reaty shall consult together immediately concerning the

joint measures necessary to restore and maintain international

peace and security.

Measures taken under this Article shall be reported to the

Security Council in accordance with the provisions o the United

Nations Charter. Tese measures shall be discontinued as soon

as the Security Council takes the necessary action to restore and

maintain international peace and security.

Article 5

Te Contracting Parties have agreed to establish a Unied

Command, to which certain elements o their armed orces

shall be allocated by agreement between the parties, and which

shall act in accordance with jointly established principles. Te

Parties shall likewise take such other concerted action as may be

necessary to reinorce their deensive strength, in order to deend

the peaceul labour o their peoples, guarantee the inviolability

o their rontiers and territories and aord protection against

possible aggression.

Article 6

For the purpose o carrying out the consultations provided or in

the present reaty between the States Parties thereto, and or the

consideration o matters arising in connexion with the application

o the present reaty, a Political Consultative Committee shall

be established, in which each State Party to the reaty shall be

represented by a member o the government or by some other

specially appointed representative.

Te Committee may establish such auxiliary organs as may prove

to be necessary.

Article 7 Te Contracting Parties undertake not to participate in any

coalitions or alliances and not to conclude any agreements the

purposes o which are incompatible with the purposes o the

present reaty.

Te Contracting Parties declare that their obligations under

international treaties at present in orce are not incompatible with

the provisions o the present reaty.

Article 8

Te Contracting Parties declare that they will act in a spirit o

riendship and co-operation to promote the urther development

and strengthening o the economic and cultural ties among them,

in accordance with the principles o respect or each other’sindependence and sovereignty and o non-intervention in each

other’s domestic aairs.

Article 9

Te present reaty shall be open or accession by other States,

irrespective o their social and political structure, which express

their readiness, by participating in the present reaty, to help in

combining the eorts o the peace-loving states to ensure the

peace and security o the peoples. Such accessions shall come

into eect with the consent o the States Parties to the reaty

ater the instruments o accession have been deposited with the

Government o the Polish People’s Republic.

Article 10

Te present reaty shall be subject to ratication, and

the instruments o ratication shall be deposited with the

Government o the Polish People’s Republic.

Te reaty shall come into orce on the date o deposit o the last

instrument o ratication. Te Government o the Polish People’s

Republic shall inorm the other States Parties to the reaty o the

deposit o each instrument o ratication.

Article 11

Te present reaty shall remain in orce or twenty years. For

contracting Parties which do not, one year beore the expiration

o that term, give notice o termination o the treaty to the

government o the Polish People’s Republic, the reaty shall

remain in orce or a urther ten years.

In the event o the establishment o a system o collective security

in Europe and the conclusion or that purpose o a General

European reaty concerning collective security, a goal which the

Contracting Parties shall steadastly strive to achieve, the reaty

shall cease to have eect as rom the date on which the General

European reaty comes into orce.

Done at Warsaw, this ourteenth day o May 1955, in one copy, inthe Russian, Polish, Czech and German languages, all texts being

equally authentic. Certied copies o the present reaty shall be

transmitted by the Government o the Polish People’s Republic

to all other Parties to the reaty.

In witness whereo the plenipotentiaries have signed the present

reaty and axed their seals.




6

Te Statute on Unied Command

A Statute on Unied Command was completed on 7 September

1955, but not approved, signed or ratied until March 18, 1980. Itwas kept secret by the USSR and was not available to CIA analysts

in 1955.

Te Establishment o a Combined Command o the Armed Forces

o the Signatories to the reaty o Friendship, Cooperation and

Mutual Assistance.6

In pursuance o the reaty o Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual

Assistance between the People’s Republic o Albania, the People’s

Republic o Bulgaria, the Hungarian People’s Republic, the German

Democratic Republic, the Polish People’s Republic, the Rumanian

People’s Republic, the Union o Soviet Socialist Republics and

the Czechoslovak Republic, the signatory states have decided to

establish a Combined Command o their armed orces.

Te decision provides that general questions relating to the

strengthening o the deensive power and the organization o

the Joint Armed Forces o the signatory states shall be subject

to examination by the Political Consultative Committee, which

shall adopt the necessary decisions.

Marshal o the Soviet Union I.S. Konev has been appointed

Commander-in-Chie o the Joint Armed Forces to be assigned

by the signatory states.

Te Ministers o Deense or other military leaders o the

signatory states are to serve as Deputy Commanders-in-Chie

o the Joint Armed Forces, and shall command the armed orces

assigned by their respective states to the Joint Armed Forces.

Te question o the participation o the German Democratic

Republic in measures concerning the armed orces o the Joint

Command will be examined at a later date.

A Sta o the Joint Armed Forces o the signatory states will

be set up under the Commander-in-Chie o the Joint Armed

Forces, and will include permanent representatives o the General

Stas o the signatory states.

Te Sta will have its headquarters in Moscow.

Te disposition o the Joint Armed Forces in the territories o the

signatory states will be eected by agreement among the states, in

accordance with the requirement o their mutual deense.7

6 Ibid, Catalogue, Document VI-13, see Annex A, p A-5. 7 For additional inormation about the

ate o this statute, see the Catalogue o Documents, Document VII-177.




7

Bulgaria

U . S . S . R

Romania

Hungary

slovakia

Poland

EastGermany

Czecho-

Albania

Moscow

Black Sea

Nor th

At lant i c

OceanNorth

Sea

Me di te rr ane an Se a

BarentsSea

Norwegian Sea

Baltic Sea

CaspianSea

Boundary representation isnot necessarily authoritative.

0 500 Kilometers

0 500 Miles

UNCLASSIFIED 788399AI (G00112) 10-09

Warsaw Pact

Albania*

BulgariaCzechoslovakiaEast Germany

Hungary

PolandRomaniaU.S.S.R.

*Albania withheld support in1961 over the China split and officially withdrew in 1968.

Warsaw Pact Countries, 1955–1991



9

Changes in Soviet relations with the West ater the death o

Stalin and the consolidation o power by Nikita Khrushchev8

initially characterized this period. By deed and word Moscow

oered prospects or détente. At the same time Khrushchev

attempted to bully the West by exploiting the purported strength

o Soviet military and economic superiority. Soviet actions

included the signing o the Vienna Agreement (known ormally

as the Austrian State reaty) reeing Austria o Soviet controls,

which contrasted with his threats to “bury” the West, and explicit

military conrontation over Berlin and Cuba between 1958 and

1962. Advances in military-related technologies as well as the

changing relationships between the Soviet and Western Blocs

also led to internal debates and changes in national military

strategies beginning rst in the West and later in and among the

Warsaw Pact countries and the Soviet Union.

Khrushchev’s policies aected Soviet internal, political, economic,

and military developments. Perhaps most important were his

responses to the looming disastrous economic eects o Stalin’s

legacy, the Sixth Five-Year Plan. o Khrushchev, Stalin’s military

programs alone required massive misallocation o economic

resources. aken together with the overconcentration o resources

or development o heavy industry and inattention to agricultural

production, the economy must have looked to Khrushchev like a

train heading or a wreck. He instituted a major reorganization

o the bureaucracy to control the economy including huge new

agricultural programs, and substituted a new Seven-Year Plan or

the doomed Sixth Five-Year Plan.9

On 15 May 1955, the United States, United Kingdom, France,

and the Soviet Union signed the Vienna Agreement, which

provided or the withdrawal o the Soviet and Western orces

rom Austria. Tis show o condence on the part o the Soviets

was ollowed by Khrushchev’s August 1955 announcement o

a reduction o 640,000 men rom the Soviet armed orces. In

May 1956 he called or another cutback o 1.2 million Soviet

troops. In 1957, in a climax to maneuvering by military and

political leadership or power, Khrushchev ousted Minister o

Deense Marshal Zhukov and reestablished party control o the

military. He also began retiring senior Soviet military ocers

who disagreed with his policies. Khrushchev reorganized the

Soviet military10 and promoted those ocers who supported

his pronouncements on the nature o a war with NAO. He

advocated military capabilities with which he believed wars

would be ought. Tese actions and his xation on missiles and

planning or nuclear war took center stage by 1961 when a debate

took place among Soviet military ocers that was refected in

special op Secret Editions o Military Tought.11

Khrushchev later announced additional unilateral troop

reductions including one o 300,000 troops in January 1958 and

another o 1.2 million in January 1960 in a speech to the Supreme

Soviet. All o the proposed decreases were meant to serve several

purposes: to shit unds into the production o missiles and long-

range bombers; to lessen the burden o ground orce requirements

on heavy industry; to ree labor or productive purposes in

the civilian economy; and to bring international pressure onthe United States to cut its orces. Te aim o the reductions

proposed in 1960 and in the years immediately ollowing

also may have been to compensate or the smaller numbers o

militarily acceptable men available to the armed services, because

o the low birth rate attendant to the tremendous losses suered

during World War II (WWII).

c h a p t e r i

Early Khrushchev Period (1955-1960)

8 Khrushchev became First Secretary o the CPSU/CC in March 1953 and Premier in March 1958. 9 The editors have drawn rom the documents listed in the Catalogue o Documents or each

chapter or much o the material in the chapter essays. Reerences in the essays to material drawn rom documents listed in other chapters are noted in ootnotes. 10 For more inormation on the

reorganization o the Soviet Army, see the Catalogue o Documents, Document VII-91, Organizational Development o the Soviet Ground Forces, 1957-1975, 7–14. 11 See FBIS Radio Propaganda

Reports addressing the debates among the military leadership that appeared in the open press ollowing the death o Stalin in 1953. The debates also were addressed in secret and top secret

versions o the Soviet military journal, Military Thought that are addressed in Chapter III.




10

Organizing and Managing the Warsaw Pact

Te wentieth CPSU Congress in February 1956, amous or

Khrushchev’s anti-Stalin speech, ushered in what would become

an era o many changes in Soviet–East European relations. Tecongress set orth new guidance or communist governance, implicit

and explicit, and dissolved the COMINFORM12 to “acilitate

cooperation with the socialist parties” o the noncommunist

world. Te resulting policy vacuum in Eastern Europe persisted

though the all o 1956 and probably was an important precipitant

o the Hungarian uprising and the riots in Poland. Intentionally

or not, Khrushchev’s condemnation o Stalinism unsettled the

communist governments o Eastern Europe, most o which were

run by unreconstructed Stalinists. Teir ousting rom oce was

accompanied by unintended disorder and some violent outbreaks

o worker discontent in Eastern Europe that the presence o Soviet

garrisons could not avert. Subsequent actions would illustrate that

Moscow’s guidance or communist governance notwithstanding,

the Warsaw reaty was providing a new vehicle or establishing

Soviet authority over intra-Bloc relations. Moscow dened this

authority even to include “legitimizing” physical intervention, a

vehicle that the Soviets would soon use.

By midsummer 1956, riots in Poland threatened the uture

integrity and success o the year-old Warsaw Pact. Te Soviets

mobilized and prepared orces in response, but the crisis was

resolved short o Soviet military intervention. Instead, the Soviets

employed those orces to suppress the ar more serious situation

developing in Hungary, ater the Hungarians orcibly removed

the remnants o the oppressive Stalinist regime and installed the

mildly communist one o Imre Nagy. Nagy opted to lead Hungary

out o the Warsaw Pact, treason in the eyes o the Soviets. Ater

the garrison o Soviet orces in Hungary initially took a beating at

the hands o the revolutionaries, the Soviets unleashed the orces

mobilized to intervene in Poland. Te bloody suppression that

ensued reimposed Soviet control. In a declaration on 30 October

1956, Moscow hypocritically stated its readiness to respect the

sovereignty o its Warsaw Pact allies even as the Soviets already

were in the process o violating Hungary’s.

Outweighing the promise o a common deense o the Bloc,

the Soviet military threat to Poland and the aggression

against Hungary represented the downside o the Warsawreaty—that it was a ormal mechanism or Soviet control.

Te rocky start or the Warsaw Pact was ollowed by the growing

estrangement o Albania and Romania, and problems with China.

Yugoslavia had already bolted rom the Soviet orbit in 1948.

Nonetheless, the Soviets persevered, building the Warsaw

reaty Organization into an ever-tightening device or controlling

its satellite allies, and a source o additional military power.

In broad general terms, the Soviet General Sta created the

Warsaw Pact military plans even though the Warsaw reatyprovided ormal arrangements or the Soviets and their East

European allies to share management o their combined military

orces. Contrary to the Articles o the Warsaw reaty, particularly

Article 5, Soviet planning or the Warsaw Pact initially called or

the orces o non-Soviet Warsaw Pact (NSWP) countries to

remain under nominal national control, with the intention that

the Soviets would closely direct all orces during a crisis or war.

Nonetheless, throughout the lie o the Warsaw Pact, the NSWP

members, with varying degrees o success, resisted yielding

control o their own orces to Soviet unilateral command. Only

in the case o East German orces did the Soviets ully succeed.

During the 1950s CIA analysts assessed that the Warsaw Pact’s

orces were not integrated and jointly controlled and that only

the Soviets really managed them. Te IC in NIE 11-4-58, Main

rends in Soviet Capabilities and Policies, 1958-1963, judged

it unlikely that Soviet planners would count on East European

orces to make an important contribution to Soviet military

operations except perhaps or air deense. Soviet preparations

or military contingencies associated with Moscow’s projected

aggressive moves against West Berlin in the summer o 1961

called or putting all NSWP orces into Soviet eld armies, clearly

a plan to subordinate the ormer to Soviet control.

Ater the dissolution o the Warsaw Pact, archival documents

rom ormer members urther illustrated their unequal treatment

during this period. In a 1956 classied critique o the statute o

the Unied Command, Polish Gen. Jan Drzewiecki complained,

“Te document in its present orm grants the Supreme

Commander o the Unied Armed Forces certain rights and

obligations, which contradict the idea o the independence and

sovereignty o the member states o the Warsaw reaty.”13 In

a January 1957 Memorandum on Reorm o the Warsaw

Pact, General Drzewiecki urther stated, “Te authority o

the Supreme Commander [a Soviet ocer] on questions o

leadership in combat and strategic training is incompatible with

the national character o the armies o the corresponding states.” 14

In the latter hal o the 1970s Col. Ryszard Kuklinski, a CIAclandestine source, provided inormation revealing the NSWP

members nally signed and ratied the Statutes on 18 March

1978, except or the one on Unied Command or Wartime. Tat

one was not signed and ratied until 1980.15 Clearly the Soviets

had not achieved their aims at legal control or decades.

12 COMINFORM was the acronym or the “Inormation Bureau o the Communist and Worker’s Parties” that was ounded in 1947. Its purpose was to coordinate the oreign policy activities o the

East European communist parties under Soviet direction.13 A Cardboard Castle? An Inside History o the Warsaw Pact 1955-1991, edited by Vojtech Mastny and Malcolm Byrne, Central European

University Press, Budapest, New York, p.84–86. 14 Ibid, 87–90. 15 See Chapter VII, page 35 or more details on the statutes. For the documents, see the Catalogue o Documents, Chapter 7,

Section, “Formal Mechanisms to Manage the Warsaw Pact,” page 185.




11

Intelligence Sources and Analysis in the Early Years

Te Western Allies shared military and policy inormation to a

limited extent with the Soviet Union during WWII, but even that

all but ceased when the war ended. By 1949, the Soviet Unionand its allies were concealing much o their military activities and

policy decisions rom the outside world. Te police state that

Stalin established made recruiting human sources inside the USSR

extremely dicult16 and prevented Western diplomats and military

attachés rom traveling widely there. Tus, the central problem or

CIA analysts during this period o the Cold War in Europe was

the lack o direct and convincing evidence other than that derived

rom SIGIN, deectors, and the media. Eorts to ll the gaps in

collection with photography and other supporting inormation were

o limited success.

In the early 1950s military analysts based their understanding o

Soviet military organization, doctrine, capabilities, and tactics largely

on evidence rom World War II, SIGIN, inormation available

rom the Soviet press, military attaché reporting, deector and

émigré debriengs, and the observations o US military missions

in Austria and East Germany. Some German prisoners o the

Soviet Union rom the WWII period and some Spanish émigrés

rom the Spanish Civil War days who were returning to the West

provided valuable military-industrial inormation. For example, the

German prisoners, who had worked on Hitler’s missile program and

were orced to help the Soviet program, relayed useul data about

Soviet missile programs. Most Soviet military émigrés or deectors,

however, were generally low level and the military deectors could

report only on their experiences in the military units where they

served—typically located in Austria or East Germany.

During the period 1955–59, CIA had only two productive

clandestine sources o Soviet military inormation. One was a special

project, the Berlin unnel Operation, which yielded invaluable

inormation, or example, about deployed military orces, Soviet

political-military relationships, and the tactical-level organization

and manning o Soviet orces in East Germany through most o

1955 until spring 1956.17 Te other was Major (later promoted to

Lt. Colonel) Pyotr Popov, the CIA’s rst high-quality clandestine

Soviet military source.

Popov served in place and reported on Soviet military policy,doctrine, strategy, tactics and organization rom 1953 until the late

1950s. Richard Helms testied that “Lieutenant Colonel Pyotr

Popov, until he ell under suspicion, single-handedly supplied the

most valuable intelligence on Soviet military matters o any human

source available to the United States” during the period.18 He also

said Popov’s reporting had a “direct and signicant infuence on the

military organization o the United States, its doctrine and tactics,

and permitted the Pentagon to save at least 500 million dollars in

its scientic research program.”19 Te inormation and documentshe provided continued to inorm the CIA analysis years ater he

was arrested.

Popov provided the IC with unique classied documentary and

semi-documentary inormation otherwise unavailable ater the late

1940s, including extant Field Service Regulations o the Armed

Forces o the USSR and other manuals that provided new doctrine

and strategies or the armed orces.20 Te subjects o his reports

ranged rom routine unit locations to nuclear warare tactics,

strategic air operations, and guided missiles. He supplied the IC with

inormation on the organization and unctions o the Soviet General

Sta and technical specications o Soviet Army conventional

weapons, including the rst inormation about new weapons such as

the -10 heavy tank and P-76 amphibious light tank. Popov also

provided documents on Khrushchev’s reorganization o the Soviet

military and a number o unique and highly valuable classied

documents o the Communist Party o the Soviet Union Central

Committee (CPSU/CC), including those concerning Soviet policy

toward Berlin. Te inormation Popov supplied was important

or understanding the Soviet political and military establishments

ollowing the Stalinist years and at the startup o the Warsaw Pact.

And it provided a basis or understanding how the political and

military establishments o the satellite countries would operate with

the Soviet Union. Because o the tight control over disseminated

inormation rom the Popov operation, analysts made no reerences

in nished intelligence that might lead to his apprehension.

However, much later, a ormer ocer in the CIA’s Directorate o

Plans (DP), William Hood, in his 1982 book, Mole,21 extensively

discussed Popov’s contribution.

According to CIA records, Popov also supplied copies o the Soviet

military publication, Military Tought.22 We know rom the

author o a CIA study, Soviet Naval Strategy and the Eect on

the Development o the Naval Forces 1953-1963, that Military

Tought articles rom the 1953–59 period were available or his

analysis. Analysts who participated in the 1963 CIA/DIA joint

study, discussed in Chapter V,23 also had Popov-supplied documents

available to support their analysis. Te above testimony shows thathis eorts provided the IC with some o the best human-source

inormation on developing Soviet military tactics and doctrine

during the period.

16 For more inormation on the diculties in recruiting Soviet human sources during the early years, see William Hood, Mole, The True Story o the First Russian Intelligence Ofcer Recruited

by the CIA, (New York: W .W. Norton and Company, 1982). 17 For more inormation on the Berlin Tunnel project see Catalogue o Documents, Document I-34 the ocial Clandestine Services

History, The Berlin Tunnel Operation 1952-1956, 24 June 1968 ; or inormation on the intelligence derived rom the Berlin Project, see Annex B, “Recapitulation o the Intelligence Derived”.

Also see Donald P. Steury, ed., On the Front Lines o the Cold War: Documents on the Intelligence War in Berlin, 1946 to 1961 (Washington, DC: Center or the Study o Intelligence, 1999).

18 See Richard Helms, with William Hood, A Look over My Shoulder A Lie in the Central Intelligence Agency (New York: Random House, 2003), 105. 19 Ibid. Helms p.132. 20 See Catalogue o

Documents, Document III-11, Military Thought , Issue No.1, 1964, “The New Field Service Regulations o the Armed Forces o the USSR, or a discussion by Marshal Chuykov on the importance o

the Field Service Regulation Manuals or putting into eect new doctrine and strategies or the armed orces. 21 Hood, Mole . 22 NARA has available ourteen Russian-language issues o Military

Thought rom the period 1953–58, when Popov was active. 23 For reerences to documents provided by Popov that aided the Joint CIA/DIA study, See the Catalogue o Documents, Document

V-13, p. 54, A Study o the Soviet Ground Forces, An Interim Report o the CIA-DIA Panel or a Special Study o the Soviet Ground Forces or Secretary McNamara , 21 August 1963.



13

Te second Berlin crisis was a continuation o the disagreement

over the uture o Germany and Berlin that caused the rst crisis in

1948. Te seeds o both were sown in discussions during WWII

over who would eventually control Germany and Berlin. Te

Allied powers—the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet

Union—agreed in 1944 on joint occupation and administration

o the country and its capital. Tis arrangement was ormalized in

June 1945, ater Germany had surrendered, and a ourth sector o

occupation was established or France. Te agreement provided

the three Western powers with the right o access to Berlin,

located deep within the Soviet-controlled part o Germany that

later became the German Democratic Republic (GDR).24 In an

attempt to abrogate the agreement over the city, the Soviets walked

out o the rst Allied Control Council in 1948, declaring that the

Western powers no longer had any rights to administer Berlin. By

23 June, the Soviets had completely blocked deliveries o ood and

other supplies over land to the three Western-controlled sectors

o the city. Tus began the rst Berlin crisis. Te Western powers

responded with a huge operation, known as the Berlin Airlit,

fying in 4,000 tons o supplies a day to the city until the Soviets

lited the blockade in May 1949.

Ater the crisis subsided the Soviets continued to harass Allied

military truck convoys to West Berlin rom West Germany. In themeantime, the United States, France and the United Kingdom

began establishing a nucleus or a uture German government

that eventually became the Federal Republic o Germany (FRG).

Khrushchev instigated a second crisis on 10 November 1958.

At the Friendship Meeting o the Peoples o the Soviet Union

and Poland, he delivered what was in eect an ultimatum calling

or a separate peace treaty with the GDR that would terminate

the Western powers’ right o access to West Berlin. Ater the

speech, relations between the United States and the Soviet

Union deteriorated sharply, and a series o political and military

conrontations over the status o Berlin ollowed. Te crisis

culminated in the building o the Berlin Wall in August 1961

and with US and Soviet armored orces acing o directly against

each other at Checkpoint Charlie on the border between East and

West Berlin. As in the crisis o 1948, the Soviets sought to orce

the West to abandon control o the Western sectors o Berlin and

to stop the fow o East German reugees. CIA analysis judged

Khrushchev evidently also hoped that orcing the Western powers

to recognize East Germany and leave Berlin would discredit the

United States as the deender o the West and eventually cause

NAO to dissolve.

Te crisis proved to be an important milestone in the development

o both NAO and Warsaw Pact military thinking and planning.

Te strategic importance o what seemed to be overwhelmingly

strong Soviet conventional orces acing NAO in Europe became

starkly evident to the new US administration o John F. Kennedy.

Te attempted US responses to the crisis revealed the lack o

readiness o the Western orces and underscored the dangers to

the West o US reliance on the massive retaliation doctrine or

inter-Bloc conrontations short o general (total) war. Te crisis

was perhaps the greatest test o the solidarity and meaning o

NAO since the Berlin Airlit.25 It threatened to lead to direct

conventional military hostilities between NAO and the Warsaw

Pact ground orces that could easily escalate to nuclear warare.

c h a p t e r I i

Te Berlin Crisis—Col. Oleg Penkovskiy and Warsaw PactPreparations or Associated Military Operations (1958–1961)

24 Op cit. On the Front Lines , Preace and Introduction, pp iii, v, 131-135. See also Foreign Relations o the United States (FRUS) , 1948, Germany and Austria, Volume II, Chapter IV, “The Berlin

Crisis”, pages 867–1284, or more detailed inormation on this period o post-WWII Four Power occupation and administration o Germany and the ensuing crisis. The early FRUS volumes are

available through the Library website o the University o Wisconsin. 25 For a brie summary o the discussions in August 1961 o how Western countries saw uture developments o the Berlin

situation and how they proposed to handle it, see Foreign Relations o the United States (FRUS) Vol. XIV, 372–73. The term, “Live Oak”, which appears in the FRUS discussion, was the code name

or Western Quadripartite Powers’ planning or a military conrontation within the larger context o NATO war planning.




14

Intelligence Sources and Analysis

Col. Oleg Penkovskiy, a Soviet ocer who

became a clandestine source o CIA and the

British MI-6, began reporting in April 1961about Khrushchev’s views o the Kennedy

administration, and subsequently supplied

invaluable insights into Khrushchev’s plans

and military capabilities or conronting the

West over Berlin.

Khrushchev implicitly threatened to use the massive array o

Soviet armored ground orces to prevent the West rom protecting

its interests in Berlin. He reinorced this threat through large-

scale Warsaw Pact exercises conducted in October and November

1961. At the same time, Penkovskiy’s reporting indicated the

growing concern among the Soviet elite that Khrushchev’s threats

risked uncontrolled war. Indeed, Penkovskiy reported that the

Soviet military hierarchy strongly believed that the Red Army was

not ready or a war with NAO over Berlin. 26

During the summer and all o 1961 CIA continued to disseminate

reports based on inormation surreptitiously passed by Penkovskiy

and elicited at clandestine meetings during his trips to England

and France. Te reports almost certainly bolstered the President’s

resolve to take strong military actions to counter any Soviet

attempts to orce change in the status o Berlin. Te reports also

showed growing Soviet concern about US and NAO intentions

toward Berlin. According to the clandestine inormation, Moscow

ordered Soviet embassies in all capitalist countries to determine

the degree o participation o each NAO country in decisionsabout Berlin.

Because o the extreme sensitivity o the source, little was

written down about the precise communication o Penkovskiy’s

inormation to the President. Circumstantial evidence suggests

Penkovskiy’s reporting was an important unrecorded motivation

in US policy councils. It was certainly prescient regarding Soviet

reaction to the US decisions. CIA does have evidence that DCI

Allen Dulles brieed the President on 14 July 1961 and that

Penkovskiy’s reporting was read by the President as he prepared

his 25 July speech to the American people. CIA also has evidence

that Penkovskiy’s reporting was sent to the White House or

a morning brieng on 22 August and that his reporting was

pouched to the President in Newport, RI, in September 1961.

Penkovskiy’s suggestions or appropriate reactions to Soviet

moves basically paralleled what actually happened. Tey were

the basis or a special national intelligence estimate (SNIE) on

20 September 1961 that was passed to US decision makers as

part o the planning process or US and Allied responses to

Khrushchev’s demands. Penkovskiy’s reporting in September

was the subject o another SNIE, 11-10/1-61, dated 5 October

1961. Whatever the actual eects o US and other western

actions, in the end, Khrushchev did not order the access to West

Berlin closed and the more serious military scenarios did not

play out.

Te whole episode gradually receded until Khrushchev was

removed rom power in 1964. In the meantime, his actions served

to ocus Western attention on the conventional military threat

posed by the Warsaw Pact orces in Europe. In the USSR, the

military began to raise questions about a doctrine dependent on

massive nuclear-missile strikes. In a sense, the Soviets were a ew

years behind changes underway in the United States that were

oreshadowed by General Maxwell aylor’s infuential 1959 book,

Te Uncertain rumpet.27

Te seriousness o the conrontations notwithstanding, the Sovietmilitary preparations and movements associated with the crisis

provided Western intelligence valuable inormation about the

organization and strength o the Warsaw Pact ground orces—

Penkovskiy’s reporting provided urther understanding o the

potential oe.

US Announced Responses

to Khrushchev’s Moves in Berlin

o demonstrate US intentions not to abandon

Berlin, President Kennedy announced by radio and

television on 25 July 1961 that his administration

was beginning a program to enlarge the US Army

and mobilize Reserve and National Guard orces

to strengthen US orces in Europe and to send

additional orces to West Berlin.

Deputy Secretary o Deense, Roswell Gilpatric,

ollowed up the President’s 25 September 1961

speech to the UN General Assembly by telling the

US Business Council on 21 October 1961 thatthe United States not only would signicantly

improve its orces protecting Europe but would

urther augment them should the USSR pursue an

aggressive course in Berlin.

26 See the Catalogue o Documents, Chapter II, Document II-13 or the Penkovskiy report exposing Khrushchev’s threats to use ICBMs as unounded. 27 General Maxwell D. Taylor U.S.A. (Ret.),

The Uncertain Trumpet (New York: Harper Bothers, Publishers, 1959).



Penkovskiy’s Comments on wo op Secret Articles fromMilitary Thought *

“Lieutenant General Gastilovich [probably Col.

Gen A. I Gastilovich], deputy commandant o the

Military Academy o the General Sta (1958-64)

sets the theme or the entire series. In ‘Te Teory

o Military Art Needs Review,’ ound in the op

Secret Military Tought Special Collection Issue

No.1, 1960, he discusses the need or a new Soviet

military doctrine based on the availability o

missiles to deliver weapons thousands o kilometers.

He describes how wars conducted with nuclear

weapons will reduce industrialized countries to

wastelands in a brie period, thus eliminating the

necessity o maintaining large ground orces.”

“Te article by General o the Engineering-

echnical Service Makar F. Goryainov, titled

‘Nuclear Missile Armament and Some Principles

o Military Doctrine,’ Military Tought Special

Collection Issue No.2, 1960, compares the views o

Soviet, American and British generals on the roles

o nuclear weapons and missiles in war. Goryainov

states, or example, that the Americans require

nuclear weapons to be used in ways that minimizeradioactive contamination. In contrast, Goryainov

champions maximum radioactive contamination

o industrial and population centers to shorten the

duration o war and lessen the need or massive

ground troops.”

* The Penkovskiy Papers (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1965), 243–45.



17

Stalin’s death ended proscriptions against discussion o nuclear

strategy. Te Soviet military soon initiated a debate on military

doctrine, a debate that centered on the eect o the rapidly

advancing weapons technologies, especially the development

o nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems. Early debate

demonstrated a surprisingly unsophisticated appreciation o

the impact o nuclear weapons by placing emphasis on adapting

the new weapons to traditional battleeld concepts. As more

and better weapons became available and their potency better

understood, the ocus shited to modiying traditional concepts

to suit contemporary trends in military science and art. By the

end o the 1950s, the Soviets addressed the questions o whether

all crises would require the use o nuclear weapons, would the

conventional phase precede nuclear attacks, would conventional

military means be useul in some crises, and whether antagonists

could prevent limited wars rom escalating to a general war.

USSR Developments and the Warsaw Pact

Te historical prime mission o the Soviet military was the

strategic deense o the homeland, ocused on massive ground

orces and supported by a clearly subordinate navy and air

orce. Soviet experience during World War II reinorced this

concept o military mission.28 Ater the elimination o German

and Japanese military, the United States stood as the Soviets’

principal source o opposition. o bring military power to bear

against the United States, Stalin launched a major program to

build medium and long range bombers and naval orces. He

believed the basic nature o war would remain unchanged. US

military analysts as early as 1947 assessed this belie would

dominate Soviet military strategy. Until Stalin died in March

1953, his position eectively choked o theoretical discussion in

the Soviet military press about integrating nuclear weapons into

military doctrine.

As change swept through the Soviet hierarchy in 1953, the

military must have seen that the time was ripe or throwing o

Stalin’s straightjacket on military thinking. Te November 1953

issue o Military Tought contained an excellent illustration o

the intellectual erment. Te editor urged contributors to attend

to the times. “Te military art o the Soviet Army must take into

account a whole series o new phenomena which have arisen in

the postwar period.” By May 1954 the Ministry o Deense had

enunciated a new doctrine addressing the role o nuclear weapons

and missiles in its Manual on the Characteristics o the Conduct

o Combat Operations under Conditions o the Employment

o Nuclear Weapons. Te Soviet military press undertook a

systematic eort to inorm military ocers o the character,

potential, and eect on the military o the new weapons and

rapidly advancing weapon technologies, and to induce responsible

ocers to write about adapting the new weapons to traditional

concepts o military science and military art. Te debate continued

throughout the 1950s.

During the latter 1950s, Khrushchev pursued a new military

doctrine consistent with new weapon capabilities and his

economic priorities. Articles appearing in the Soviet military

press began to indicate a divergence in opinion among the military

leadership about Soviet doctrine or the uture. While their

ground orces remained huge by US standards, the Soviets lagged

in the production o both intercontinental-delivery systems and

nuclear weapons, although their capabilities to make both were

improving. No matter what was the actual cause behind the drive

or a new military doctrine, Khrushchev and the Soviet military

were certainly infuenced by the implicit threat rom the massive

c h a p t e r I I i

Soviet Debate on Military Doctrine and Strategy:Te Contribution o Col. Oleg Penkovskiy (1955–1964)

28 The material in this section on history ater WWII and into early 1950s is drawn rom several sources. The main source o this inormation is contained in the Catalogue o Documents, Chapter

III, Document III-5 “Historical Background Since World War II,” Section I, Soviet Naval Strategy and Its eect on the Development o Naval Forces 1953-63 , 22 October 1963, 23–30.




18

American nuclear orces, the accession o West Germany into

NAO, and a West German rearmament program. During this

period the Soviet military did reach an uneasy consensus on the

place o nuclear weapons in its operational doctrine. Te Field

Services Regulations issued on 2 March 1959—and passed to theWest by Penkovskiy in 1961—represented the culmination o the

line o military thought evident ater the death o Stalin. Almost

as soon as it was published, however, it was overtaken by agitation

or a dramatically new direction in military theory.

Seeing the potential o the nuclear arms as a cheap and fexible

means o providing greater security and prominence or the

USSR, Khrushchev outlined a new military policy in his report

to the Supreme Soviet in January 1960. His plan in essence was to

rely mainly on nuclear-missile orces, to reduce military manpower

substantially, and to accelerate the retirement o older weapons.

Tis, he asserted, was the orce structure best suited both to

advance Soviet political and economic interests, and to ght a

war when necessary. Khrushchev’s speech set o an impassioned

debate among the Soviet military in open-source and classied

publications.

In 1960 the Soviets began publishing a op Secret “Special

Collection” o Military Tought29 that had limited distribution.

It provided a orum or high-ranking military ocers to debate

the problems o ghting a uture war in the context o orces

equipped with a multitude o long-range nuclear weapons.

Under Khrushchev’s apparent tutelage, several well-placed Soviet

general ocers proposed a doctrine or conquering Europe that

relied heavily on massive nuclear strikes. It assigned little role toconventional ground orces or to the Warsaw Pact allies except

perhaps or air deense o the approaches to the Soviet Union. Te

more conservative elements o the military opposed much o this

new thinking. Tese “traditionalists” began to question reliance on

a military doctrine dependent almost solely on massive nuclear-

missile strikes and instead posited the need or large armored

orces as well. Beginning in 1961, Colonel Penkovskiy passed this

series o classied articles to the West.

In addition to the Military Tought articles, Penkovskiy drew

on his ties to some o the most senior ocers in the Ministry

o Deense and related organizations to supply priceless

commentary about Soviet intentions, Soviet military leadershipthinking on the character o war, Soviet and Warsaw Pact

capabilities, and the organization o Warsaw Pact orces or

war. He reported Soviet ocers were concerned about the

readiness o the military to ace a conrontation with the United

States and NAO that might result rom Khrushchev’s threats

to sign a separate treaty with East Germany. He provided

invaluable insight into Khrushchev’s inclination to use a massive

concentration o conventional weapons, especially tanks, in

conrontations with the West, notwithstanding his championing

o a doctrine that denigrated their signicance. Penkovskiy

presented the West with the Soviet idealized view o military

doctrine as well as the practical consequence o contemporary

Soviet reality. For example, he explained the Soviets had deployed

no intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in 1960 and

1961, despite statements implying they had massive numbers

o intercontinental strike systems. Penkovskiy’s inormation

on Khrushchev’s military contingency plan or the Berlin crisis

illustrated again the gap between the new doctrinal positions

and military realities in the early 1960s.


Te eorts o CIA to understand the Soviet–Warsaw Pact

orces increased steadily during this period, as Secretary o

Deense McNamara and other ocials o the Kennedy and

Johnson administrations asked CIA to address a broader array

o questions about Soviet military capabilities. Analysts rom

the DI’s Oce o Research and Reports (ORR) and the DI

Research Sta in 1964 contributed to the rst NIE devoted

exclusively to Soviet and East European theater orces. CIA

29 The Soviets continued to publish a secret edition o Military Thought.

US Discussions

Following Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration in January 1953, his administration reviewed the

US military and ormulated a policy it called

the “New Look.” Tis policy sought to deter

communist aggression o any sort by threatening

prompt nuclear reprisal. Te resulting doctrine

o “massive retaliation” ocused on the delivery, by

bombers and later by missiles, o hundreds, i not

thousands, o nuclear weapons against an enemy.

Accordingly, the United States sharply increased

the size and capability o its nuclear armed air

orces and drastically reduced resources allocated

to US ground orces. It also accorded low priority

in military doctrine and strategy to tactical air

orces that did not deliver nuclear weapons.*

In 1961, however, the Kennedy administration

shited US doctrine toward a ull spectrum o

nonnuclear and nuclear capabilities, especially

ater the experience o the Berlin crisis.

* For more on this policy, see History o the Oce o the Secretary o

Deense, “Strategy , Money and the New Look,” 1953-1956, Volume

III, Richard M. Leighton, Historical Oce o the Secretary o Deense,

Washington, D.C. 20001.




19

Documents written by Marshal o the Soviet Union R. Ya. Malinovskiy, obtained or the United States by Oleg Penkovskiy.

devoted more analytic resources to these issues, but not until

1967 did it establish the Oce o Strategic Research (OSR)

in the DI to ocus on military analysis o the Soviet–Warsaw

Pact orces, and other target military orces, capabilities,

and intentions.

During the same period CIA and other IC analysts gained two

new tools with which to develop estimates o Soviet military

capabilities and intentions:

→ Photography rom the Corona satellite program supplied

inormation on orce locations and new developments with

much greater accuracy than any previous system.

→ Clandestine reporting by Colonel Penkovskiy provided the

rst high-level insight into the development o Soviet military

hardware and strategy and a wealth o data about the military

establishment.

Analysts now could determine how the Soviets envisioned their

total orce rom intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs)

to inantry and tank regiments would operate against NAO

in Europe. Analysts began to understand, moreover, some o the

discontinuities that characterized developments in the Sovietorces and as they were implied by Soviet military doctrine.

Penkovskiy’s clandestine reporting remained relevant long

ater the KGB apprehended him in 1962 because much o it

represented the discussion by senior ocers o major issues in

Soviet military thinking or the uture development o weapons

and strategy. For more than 10 years, the IC continued to base

analyses on his reporting about Warsaw Pact plans, capabilities

and intentions about developments in Soviet strategic thought,

even as other, more circumstantial evidence became available.

When key East European clandestine sources began supplying

inormation in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Penkovskiy

collection helped validate the relevance o the new evidence or

evaluating the Warsaw Pact, proving the enduring value o the

work o this remarkable Russian.



F r o m C o l d W a r I n t e r n a

t i o n a l H i s t o r y P r o j e c t, C W I H P. o

r g, u s e d w i t h p e r

m i s s i o n.



21

Tis chapter highlights the importance o the clandestine

reporting beore and during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the

relationship o the reporting to the general NAO–Warsaw

Pact equation, and the impact o analytic experience gained

during the crisis in evaluating the reporting.

Khrushchev’s Gamble Provides an Intelligence Bonanza

Ater the ailure o his Berlin gambit and with the US advantage

in intercontinental attack capabilities growing, Khrushchev in

a break with precedent launched the rst major expeditionary

orce outside the Soviet orbit since WWII. Te Soviet plans in

May 1962 called or the deploying to Cuba a large number o

strategic-range guided missiles with an integrated military orce

to protect them.30

In their discussions o Soviet military doctrine in 1960–61, the

Soviets hotly contested the role o medium-range ballistic missiles

(MRBMs) and IRBMs in Soviet strategy and operations against

NAO. Most participants in the internal high-level military

debates posited the decisive importance o having those missiles to

destroy the enemy’s nuclear weapons located deep in the theater,

beyond the range o tactical aviation. Tey argued or leaving thedestruction o US-based nuclear delivery systems to the ICBMs

and long-range bombers o the Supreme High Command. Some

protagonists insisted that the nuclear orces, especially MRBMS

and IRBMs, could deeat NAO without much assistance

rom the ground orces beyond some minor mopping up and

occupation tasks. By early 1962, the principals seemed to be

reaching a consensus that combining missile and conventional

land orces was the correct operational solution.

Te mix o orces involved in Khrushchev’s Cuban adventure—

missile, ground, air, air deense, coastal deense, and naval—

generally copied those deployed against NAO. Indeed, the

specic orces sent to Cuba came rom larger groupings in

the western USSR, whose contingent mission had been the

destruction o NAO in Europe. Te special op Secret series

o Military Tought described various proposals to integrate

long-range missiles into theater war planning and utilize the

shorter range nuclear-armed rockets known as FROGs that were

deployed with the Soviet and other Warsaw Pact ground armies

in Europe. Te composition o the Soviet Group o Forces sent

to Cuba refected real preerences o the military leadership when

conronted with an unrehearsed potential combat situation.

Te deployment to Cuba o a virtual cross section o these orces

provided military intelligence analysts, or the rst time, an

important example o what Soviet orces looked like when they

were out o garrison and away rom the supporting inrastructure

o their Warsaw Pact Allies. It also allowed analysts to actor out

other conusing aspects o military operations like mobilization.


Not evident in contemporary intelligence publications because o

its sensitivity was the real contribution o Col. Oleg Penkovskiy.

Even though he was unable to provide any inormation about

the actual Soviet deployment o orces to Cuba, he had already

delivered technical specications and detailed operational

inormation on the types o missiles that the USSR sent in the all

o 1962. Penkovskiy had managed to photograph and pass highly

sensitive documents that proved invaluable during the crisis. Tey

were the source or most o the understanding analysts had o eld

c h a p t e r I V

New Insights into the Warsaw Pact Forces and Doctrine –Te Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)

30 See Mary S McAulie, ed., Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 (Washington, DC: Center or the Study o Intelligence, 1992) or many o the intelligence documents issued during the crisis period as

well as a sample o the clandestine reporting rom the CIA’s Cuban sources. This study is available on CIA’s website, www.cia.gov. 31 FROG is the acronym or “Free Rocket over Ground,” the

name or large unguided missiles.




22

deployment and standard operating procedures or missile orces,

the time required to achieve dierent levels o readiness, and

the camoufage the Soviets prescribed to hide their orces, all o

which contributed to US response decisions during the Cuban

Missile Crisis.

Other inormation rom Penkovskiy provided the basis or the

analytical judgments that allowed the United States to calculate

reaction times, capabilities, and limitations o the deployed Soviet

air deense missile systems. Te descriptions and the technical

specications o the “V-75” or SA-2, a surace-to-air missile, and

the discussions in the op Secret 1960–61 special collection

Military Tought series about the limitations o the SA-2 and

the overall air deense organization disclosed critical Soviet

vulnerabilities to high-speed low-level air attack. Tis inormation

enabled US tactical reconnaissance planes to fy requently over

Cuba and monitor the status o Soviet missile deployments and

other militarily important targets without the loss o a single

low fying reconnaissance aircrat. Tis inormation would have

been even more critical had the United States implemented

plans calling or more than 500 sorties in the rst day or the

neutralization or destruction o Soviet missiles, the invasion o

Cuba, and the destruction or capture o the Soviet ground and air

orces deployed there.32 Ater Khrushchev agreed to remove the

missiles and light bombers rom Cuba, analysts relied on imagery,

clandestine reporting, and inormation rom Cuban immigrants

to veriy that no MRBMs remained and the agreement was met. 33

In addition to the Military Tought articles, Penkovskiy supplied

invaluable commentary about general Soviet intentions, the Sovietmilitary leadership’s thoughts about the nature o war, Soviet and

Warsaw Pact military capabilities, and the organization o the

Warsaw Pact orces or war. All o this contributed to Kennedy’s

condence in the judgments reached by the intelligence analysts.

Although Penkovskiy talked earlier with US intelligence ocers

about Soviet military aid to Cuba ollowing the April 1961 Bay

o Pigs disaster, he was unable to warn or give any details o the

buildup o orces in Cuba. Clandestine sources in Cuba, however,

supplied enough timely inormation about developments on

the ground to prompt the United States to launch the U-2

reconnaissance fights that yielded detailed, incontrovertible

evidence o the Soviet deployment.

In sum, there were three major types o human intelligence

sources during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Te inside source, Colonel Oleg Penkovskiy, who provided

Soviet classied documents that greatly helped militaryanalysts understand how the Soviets set up and conducted

missile operations.

Cuban refugees, who described being displaced rom their

arms, and thus urnished clues about where Soviet deployed

the missiles.

Clandestine sources inside Cuba, who delivered inormation

that cued US fight plans or reconnaissance aircrat.

32 See FRUS 1961-1963 Volume XI, p. 267, The Cuban Missile Crisis and Atermath, Department o State, Washington, DC, 1996. 33 Ibid.

Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962SA-2 Air Deense Missiles




23

U-2 Overfights o Cuba, October 1962



25

In early 1963, Secretary o Deense McNamara wrote DCI John

McCone to convey his concern that US national intelligence

estimates about Soviet orces and capabilities34 were “causing

NAO Allies and many Americans to despair o the possibility o

achieving adequate non-nuclear orces.” Te Secretary o Deense

stated that he believed “the estimates o the strength o the Soviet

ground orces…contained in NIE 11-14-62 were overstated.”

Reerring to the NIE, he wrote that he “could not understand

how the Soviets, with the resources available to them, could

have the number o ‘well-trained divisions equipped with the

excellent materiel’ that the IC was estimating they had, when the

United States could not aord even hal that number o orces.”

McNamara requested the DCI and the Director o the Deense

Intelligence Agency (D/DIA) to reexamine the estimates. In the

spring o 1963, a team o CIA and DIA intelligence analysts was

ormed to address these concerns and to produce a joint study.

Defning the Problem

According to the ocer in charge o the CIA eort, Dr. Edward

Proctor, estimating the size and capabilities o Soviet orces in

general posed problems; a Soviet division, or example, was not

like a US division.35

Analysts had assessed the ground orces on thebasis o captured Soviet documents, observations and statements

by deectors, and bits and pieces o additional inormation. Tey

had little opportunity to conrm the continued existence o many

o the units known in the time o Stalin.

Te 1962 estimate,36 based on the contributions o the US

Army and the new DIA, had described a Soviet orce o some 80

combat-ready divisions, with an additional 65 divisions “requiring

substantial augmentation beore commitment to combat.” It

also calculated that, given 30 days to mobilize beore hostilities

began, the Soviets could expand their total orces to about 100

combat-ready divisions and 125 others less well prepared. Earlier

estimates had calculated a Soviet Army o 175 active divisions

and an additional 125 available in 30 days.37 It is no wonder the

Secretary o Deense wanted a better appraisal. Te joint team o

CIA and DIA analysts was instructed to discard all past positions

and to start rom scratch to determine the number o divisions the

Soviets actually had in 1962. New intelligence rom Penkovskiy

and satellite photography38 made possible a critical review and

revision o the previous estimates.

Revising the Estimates o the Strength

o Soviet–Warsaw Pact Forces

By the time the Secretary o Deense made his request or a new

study, the analysts had accumulated much inormation about

Soviet ground orces:

Te reductions39 and reorganizations in the 1950s provided

insight into the modications o the organization o the combat

divisions o the ground orces to about 1960.

Inormation rom Popov, Penkovskiy, and other sources o

military writings provided insights into the changes in the

ground orces on an aggregate level.

Te 1961 Berlin and 1962 Cuban crises provided additional

insights into the organization, size and operational planning or

the Warsaw Pact Ground Forces.

c h a p t e r V

New Estimates o the Soviet Ground Forces (1963–1968)

34 Ibid. Catalogue o Documents, Chapter V, Document V-13. p 3, reported that Soviet ground orces were dened to include “those Soviet military personnel perorming unctions similar to most

o those perormed by the US Army with the principal exception o continental air deenses.” 35 Edward Proctor interview with John Bird, 22 April 2008. 36 See Catalogue o Documents, Chapter

V, Document V-8a or the 1962 NIE 11-14-62, Capabilities o Soviet Theater Forces. 37 See Catalogue o Documents, Chapter I, Document I-78, NIE 11-4-58, page 43. 38 Low-resolution satellite

photography began covering military installations in 1960.39

See Catalogue o Documents, Chapter VI, Document VI-7, page 4, Caesar XXVI, Warsaw Pact Military Strategy: A Compromise in Soviet Strategic Thinking , or a summary o various Soviet announcements o reductions in orces and reassignments rom the Warsaw Pact countries during the period 1958–65.




26

Nonetheless, determining the details o the changes unit by unit

had still been beyond what the evidence would bear. Moreover,

because o the lack o specic inormation about the Soviet

reorganizations o the early 1960s, analysts were less certain about

current organizational standards. In the words o the authors o the Joint CIA-DIA Panel Study in 1963: “In the mid-1950s good

insights into divisional and other O&Es [tables o organization

and equipment] were obtained rom clandestine and documentary

sources. Tus ar, inormation o similar quality is not available or

the O&Es o divisions reorganized since the 1960s.”40

Te Joint Study authors described the problem they needed

to address and the process they devised to accomplish the

assessments as they saw them at the time:

“For the assessment o the personnel strength o

the Soviet ground orces by unit or in the aggregate

there is no unique type o intelligence source that

has as yet become available. Te process is one

o gathering ragmentary bits o inormation in

print rom which inerences can be drawn with

varying degrees o condence. In general, the

statements that are made regarding the quality

o each source o inormation are applicable to

questions o Soviet personnel strengths. Attachés

and military liaison ofcers can gain general

appreciations o manning levels at the various

installations they observe, but the presence o

reservists in training or the co-location o units

usually obscures the meaningulness o such

appreciations. In East Germany approximate

head counts could be made or small units when

such units were en route as units. Similarly,

deectors and repatriates, covert sources and

inormants can provide reasonably trustworthy

indications with respect to the small units in

which they have served. However, more broadly

knowledgeable sources had been rare.” 41

Te satellite photographic coverage o the whole USSR made

it possible or the rst time to ascertain the existence o most o

the division sized units in 1963. Questions did remain, however,

because o the rudimentary quality typical o the early satellitephotography.

In the Second Panel Report—on Soviet Ground orces—

completed in 1965, the authors noted that or assessing production

and inventory o land armaments:

Te collective output rom [all] sources [to 1963]

has proved disappointing in quality, timeliness

and comprehensiveness. In addition none o the

sources has provided consistent coverage over the

period since World War II. Tis situation is notsurprising in view o the nature o the problem.

Land combat equipment and ammunition

represent a wide variety o comparatively small

items. Production can be dispersed widely in a

number o dierent types o plants. Storage can

be accomplished in a variety o ways with little

difculty. Dierent models may appear identical

to all but trained observers.

Even Penkovskiy, with his access in the highest levels in the

Ministry o Deense, was unable to provide inormation on the

rates o production or inventories o land armaments.

Te CIA/DIA team analyzed each division o ground orces

by combining Penkovskiy’s inormation on the Soviet theory

o mobilization and peacetime readiness o orces with newly

available satellite photography. Even though the satellite photos

were o poor quality or this task, the classied Soviet military

documents supplied by Penkovskiy and the evidence provided by

other human sources enabled the estimative process to proceed.

Te Joint Study concluded that:

With a high degree o condence between 115–135 Soviet

ground orces divisions, including 22–45 cadre (skeleton)

divisions existed in the rst hal o 1963.

Te total number could be as low as 100 or as high as 150.

Te cadre divisions had ew troops but could be feshed out

with reservists in order to participate in a subsequent stage o

the war.

Te study ound no basis or the 125 additional divisions to be

mobilized in 30 days mentioned in earlier estimates. Clearly,

however, the Soviet army was larger in many respects than theground orces o NAO but signicantly smaller than the analysts

previously thought. Unanswered questions about the quality o

those orces remained. Nonetheless, the doctrinal discussions in

the documents Penkovskiy passed to the West put the seemingly

conusing picture o the whole ground orces’ establishment into

meaningul perspective.

40 This reers to the TO&Es Popov provided in the mid-1950, see Catalogue o Documents, Chapter I, Documents I-15, I-67, I-68, I-69, I-70, I-71, I-72. 41 Ibid. Catalogue o Documents, Chapter

V, Document V-13, page 55.




27

Clariying the Estimate o Capabilities

and Mobilization o Soviet–Warsaw Pact Forces

Ater addressing the questions about the quantity o orces,

the next all-source analytic challenge was to understand thequalitative distinctions between theory and practice. Secretary

McNamara again requested a CIA-DIA team o analysts

be brought together. Troughout 1967 and 1968, this team

sought better estimates o the capabilities o the Warsaw Pact

to mobilize orces and strengthen the area opposite NAO in

the central region o Europe. Te important question was how

well the Soviets could carry out the intentions described in their

writings—specically, how well the divisions were manned and

equipped and how well the rear echelons could transport and

supply war materiel to combat units in order to meet Soviet

requirements or a war with NAO.

Studying the 1962 Soviet expedition to Cuba increased the

condence o military analysts in estimates o what a ull regiment

might look like. Soviet Ministry o Deense classied documents,

such as the 1959 Field Service Regulations o the Armed

Forces o the USSR and the 1962 drat o the revised version,

inormed them on how the orces generally would be used. Pieces

o evidence about the process o mobilization and reinorcement,

ound within numerous Soviet classied documents copied by

Penkovskiy, provided an increasingly clear picture o the Soviet

orces aimed at NAO. Nonetheless, it was also clear that the

observations and other evidence o Soviet military units suggested

a gap between what the theoretical journals described and the

actual condition o typical Soviet units on the ground.

Te analysis improved signicantly once high resolution imagery

rom KH-7 satellites became available during the period 1965–

68. Analysts combined this inormation with the evidence rom

human sources, reconstructed their view o the organization o the

Soviet divisions, and judged their actual size and readiness. Tere

were, o course, many more ingredients involved in the all-source

analysis, but the synergistic eects o the documentary and other

human source evidence with the new higher resolution imagery o

the KH-7 system constituted the basis o major improvements inthe analysis o Warsaw Pact ground orces. Tese improvements

were evident in the marked dierences, or example, between the

contributions to NIE 11-14-67 and NIE 11-14-68. Te latter

estimate contained a much more detailed assessment o the orces,

including their overall size and intended use in operations against

the West, than had existed since the end o WWII.

By 1969 the CIA assessed that military analysis during the

1960s had made strides in understanding Soviet capabilities or

conducting a war against NAO in the Central Region, but it had

not answered all o Secretary McNamara’s questions:

Major areas o uncertainty about the capabilities

o the Soviet ground orces remain. Te most

signicant gap is in the understanding o service-

support organization and capabilities above

the level o the division. Te detailed study o

Soviet logistical capabilities requires dierent

methodologies than have been applied to the

study o the combat orces, and depends to a

greater degree on sources o inormation other

than overhead photography. Considerable

uncertainty also remains about the peacetime

personnel strengths o combat support units

inside the USSR.42

Te two studies, however, had not addressed the Soviet plan or

conducting a war with NAO in the Central Region o Europe.

Tat study did not occur until June 1968.

42 See Catalogue o Documents, Chapter V, Document V-61. Warsaw Pact Ground Forces Facing NATO, CIA/DI/OSR Intelligence Report, September 1969.

Warsaw pact general purpose orces available or early commitment in central Europe. From NIE 11-14-69 Soviet and East European General Purpose Force. 4 December 1969.



29

Te Demise o Khrushchev

Te Soviet Communist Party expelled Khrushchev rom oce

in October 1964. During his last two years in power, many o

his policies were halted or reversed. His tactics during the Berlin

crisis had ailed to bring about control o West Berlin, and he

had to abandon his proposal or a separate peace treaty with East

Germany.43 Worse, the Berlin crisis drew the NAO countries

closer together and motivated the Western alliance to improve its

deenses. Khrushchev’s Cuban gamble, moreover, ended in retreat

when the United States orced him to remove the missiles. Tese

ailures humiliated him and the other Soviet leaders and exposed

Soviet strategic ineriority to the world. Te hangover rom the

two debacles would aect Soviet political and military policies

well into the ollowing decades.

In the atermath o the two crises many o Khrushchev’s oreign

policy goals tied to the German question obstructed his desire

to improve East-West relations, including avorable stability in

Europe. Although the USSR concluded the Limited est Ban

reaty with the United States and the United Kingdom in 1963,

urther eorts to manage the race in strategic weapons and ground

orces and to obtain nonaggression agreements stalled. Had he

achieved these goals, Khrushchev could have pressed orwardwith economic, agricultural, and resource allocation reorms at

home and could have perceived opportunities to infuence political

changes in Western Europe to Soviet advantage, including the

USSR’s relationship with West Germany.

During the same period, allout rom the Sino-Soviet dispute

caused Khrushchev political problems in Europe and military

problems along the border with China. China initiated a

propaganda and diplomatic campaign in Europe that used

Khrushchev’s plan to visit West Germany as evidence o Soviet

intent to “sell out” East Germany in avor o West Germany.

China also made claims to some Soviet territory, prompting

Soviet military concern about the need to move troops there

rom Europe. Te latter threat had implications or Khrushchev’s

goals to reduce Soviet orces and reallocate resources. Khrushchev

seemed to calculate that the need to maintain orces in Europe

and also along the Sino-Soviet border would prevent him rom

shiting resources to the nonmilitary sector. All o which added

urgency to achieving his objectives in Europe.

Internal Warsaw Pact issues also plagued the Soviets. Albania

severed diplomatic relations with the USSR in December 1961

and expelled Soviet naval ships rom the base they occupied.

Romania began to take a separate road on oreign policy, especially

with West Germany, culminating in its recognition o the Federal

Republic o Germany two months ater Khrushchev’s ouster. East

Germany eared that rapprochement between West Germany and

Moscow would weaken the position o Moscow on consolidating

the status quo in Germany. Bonn made overtures to the Soviet

Union or recognition, but clandestine reports indicated that,

beore dismissing Khrushchev, the Politburo cancelled a plan or

him to visit Bonn.

According to CIA analysis at the time, in addition to the continuing

repercussions rom his ailed policies on Berlin and Cuba, the many

reported charges against Khrushchev at his “trial” by the CPSU

Central Committee included his personal mishandling o the

Sino-Soviet dispute, the total ailure o his agriculture polices, and

the ostering o a personality cult. Te analysis also indicated that

an immediate reason or Khrushchev’s ouster was the allout rom

his continued mishandling o German aairs during the period

1963 and 1964 and the plans he had or a plenum he had called

or November 1964. Despite his removal, however, Soviet–West

German policy, problems with East European allies, and internal

problems raised during the nal two years o Khrushchev’s tenure

did not change undamentally until later in the decade.

c h a p t e r V I

urmoil in the Soviet Sphere (1962–1968)

43 The treaty was ratied in September 1964. Moscow had settled or a Friendship and Mutual Assistance Treaty as a panacea or East Germany in place o the unattainable Peace Treaty in June1964, about our months prior to Khrushchev’s ouster. The treaty was ratied in September 1964.




30

Te Brezhnev-Kosygin eam

Following the selection o Brezhnev as general secretary and

Kosygin as premier to succeed Khrushchev in 1964, CIA

analysts characterized the new “collective” leadership as cautiousand conservative, one consumed by internal debates and political

maneuvering to consolidate their positions. Astutely and in

contrast to his predecessor, Brezhnev relied on the military or

advice on strategic deense policy issues. His policies emphasized

persistent international dangers, such as the 1966 US military

expansion in Vietnam. He backed the military on the utility

o conventional orces and supported increasing the strategic

orces. He deended the interests o the military by buttressing

investment in heavy industry and the deense sector o the Soviet

economy. In contrast, apparently out o optimism on long-term

international trends, Kosygin pursued policies that the military

leadership opposed. He supported arms control talks, increased

trade with the West, and more investment in agriculture and

non-military industry.

Managing the Warsaw Pact

In 1966, Brezhnev moved to reorganize the military o the

Warsaw Pact by ocusing on the 1955 Statute o Unied

Command and the creation o new military institutions. Te

NSWP members, however, had resisted agreeing to the ull set

o statutes because they granted the Soviets virtual control over

the NSWP orces.

Te Political Consultative Committee (PCC) o the Warsaw

Pact continued to work on the Statutes to the Warsaw Pact

reaty. At a meeting in Budapest in March 1969, all member

states except Romania adopted our statutes. Te statutes

established the Unied Armed Forces and Unied Command

o the Warsaw Pact or Peace ime, the Committee o Deense

Ministers, the Military Council, and the Unied Air Deense

System, as well as the Sta and echnical Committee o the

Combined Armed Forces. However, the members ailed to agree

on a Statute o Unied Command o the Warsaw Pact or War

ime and did not announce the content or implementation

o the statutes. In the mid-1970s, a well-placed clandestine

source provided inormation about the content, approval, andratication o the statutes.

Te Soviets’ diculties with managing their Warsaw Pact

allies notwithstanding, by the end o the 1960s CIA analysts

retrospectively assessed that Brezhnev could look at the oreign

policy o his rst years as a success. Te Soviet leadership kept

large, well-equipped orces in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and East

Germany. It also maintained its alliance with the East Europeans,

whose territories and orces buered the Soviet Union rom

NAO. Both achievements protected Soviet vital interests.


Te early years o the Brezhnev-Kosygin regime coincided

with one o the driest periods or clandestinely obtained Soviet

military inormation. From Penkovskiy’s apprehension in 1962until the Soviet-Warsaw Pact invasion o Czechoslovakia in

1968, the IC lacked any important clandestine sources o Soviet

military inormation. As events unolded, some classied Soviet

military documents rom Penkovskiy that indicated doctrinal

changes provided the basis or understanding the rationale or

changes in doctrine and orces revealed in the open press and

by other intelligence sources. For example, satellite photography

supplied inormation about the quantity and quality o Soviet

orces that was consistent with Penkovskiy’s reporting and

ultimately improved the IC’s military estimates.

Even so, intelligence collection and analysis during the 1960s

suered rom a number o shortcomings. Te IC did not know

at the beginning o the decade how the Soviets would conduct

war with the West, how well they were prepared or such a war,

how well their divisions were manned and equipped, how well

their rear services transportation capabilities matched wartime

requirements, and how well their supplies o war materiel

matched their perceptions o the requirements o war with

NAO. Moreover, while the Penkovskiy documents provided

signicant insights into Soviet thinking about operations and

mobilization, they neither revealed contingency plans or war

with NAO nor supplied a sucient guide or the changes

in the military organization and planning o the Warsaw Pact

coincident with Brezhnev’s initiatives.

Other clandestine inormation, however, did corroborate

circumstantial or less comprehensive inormation about the

organization and operation o orces in the war planning o the

Warsaw Pact. Te new inormation greatly claried, or example,

the changed roles o NSWP orces in these plans. Finished

intelligence produced in 1968 was based on this inormation.

Still, the Penkovskiy documents provided the broader theoretical

basis or extrapolating rom a basic war plan o the Warsaw Pact

against NAO to conditions dierent rom those assumed in

that plan. When the Czech crisis was peaking in August 1968,

analytical breakthroughs at the time and some excellent analysis

and material rom FBIS laid the oundation or concluding thatthe Soviets were preparing a orce to invade Czechoslovakia

that was larger than any amassed theretoore in peacetime. Te

Soviet and other Warsaw Pact nations’ gross violation o Czech

sovereignty ollowed.

Ater the invasion o Czechoslovakia, excellent military sources

virtually fooded out o Warsaw Pact countries, and the CIA

clandestine service recruited many o them. Dissatisaction with

the communist regimes controlling the Pact countries inspired

these sources to work or the West. Some were extraordinarily




31

well placed. Te most important was Col. Ryszard Kuklinski o

the Polish General Sta, who began his plans to work with the

United States at about this time and ultimately established contact

in 1972. Kuklinski and other sources provided inormation

on the Warsaw Pact that corroborated and expanded uponPenkovskiy’s reporting. Te new inormation, when combined

with Western observations o the Group o Soviet Forces in

East Germany (GSFG) and the more theoretical and predictive

military discussions in special editions o Military Tought

between 1960 and 1962, allowed analysts to extrapolate rom

the documentary materials o the early 1960s to the status o the Warsaw Pact orces and doctrine in late 1960s and beyond.

Key Statements on Sovereigntyand Communist Independence*

Soviet-Yugoslav Declaration (Pravda, 3

June 1955)“Te two governments decided

to proceed rom the ollowing principles:

Respect or sovereignty, independence,

integrity, and equality among states in mutual

relations and relations with other countries…

Adherence to the principle o mutual respect

and nonintererence in internal aairs or

any reason whatsoever, be it or economic,

political, or ideological nature, since questions

o international order, o dierent social

systems, and dierent orms o development

o socialism are the exclusive business o the

peoples o the respective countries.”

General Secretary Brezhnev (Pravda, 13

November 1968): “It is known, comrades,that there are common laws governing socialist

construction, a deviation rom which might

lead to a deviation rom socialism as such. And

when the internal and external orces hostile

to socialism seek to reverse the development o

any socialist country toward the restoration o

the capitalist order, when a threat to the cause

o socialism in that country emerges, a threat

to the security o the socialist community as

a whole exists; this is no longer a problem o

the people o that country but also a common

problem, a concern or all socialist states.

“It goes without saying that such an action

as military aid to a raternal country to cut

short a threat to the socialist order is an

extraordinary enorced step; it can be sparked

o only by direct actions o the enemies o

socialism inside the country and beyond its

boundaries, actions creating a threat to the

common interest o the camp o socialism.”

Soviet-Yugoslav Joint Declarations (Pravda,

19 March 1988): “Te USSR and SFRY

underscore the historical role and abiding

value o the universal principles contained

in the Belgrade (1955) and Moscow (1956)

declarations, and in particular: mutual respect

or independence, sovereignty, and territorialintegrity, equality, and impermissibility o

intererence in internal aairs under any

pretext whatever…

“Te USSR and SFRY conrm their

commitment to the policy o peace and

independence o peoples and countries, to

their equal rights and the equal security o

all countries irrespective o their size and

potential, sociopolitical system. Te ideas

by which they are guided and the orms and

character o their associations with other

states, or their geographical position…

“Te sides attach special signicance to

the strict observance o the UN Charter,

the Helsinki Final Act, other undamental

international legal documents prohibiting

aggression, the violation o borders, the seizure

o other countries’ territories, all orms o the

threat or use o orce, and intererence in other

countries’ internal aairs on whatever pretext.”

Te “Brezhnev Doctrine”

Brezhnev, at a July 1968 meeting with the

Czech leadership, claimed a common Warsaw

Pact responsibility or Czech deense. Ater

the invasion the Soviets issued a proclamation

known as the “Brezhnev Doctrine” that

claimed Moscow’s right to intervene when,

in its opinion, “socialism” in any country o

its “commonwealth” might be in danger (See

Brezhnev in Pravda, 13 November

1968 above)

Te ollowing two documents were released at

the end o the Cold War.

At a 24 July 1968 meeting in Budapest

the Soviets told the Hungarians to begin

preparations to invade Czechoslovakia.

Tis was revealed in a memorandum o aconversation between Hungarian and Soviet

military ocials on the state o the nal

military planning or the invasion–code-

named Operation Danube.**

On 17 August 1968 at the conclusion o

a three-day meeting, the Soviet Politburo

decided to intervene in Czechoslovakia with

military orce and unanimously approved a

resolution to that end. Te invasion took place

20/21 August 1968. Te Resolution and

attachments were released at the end o the

Cold War.***

* See “Gorbachev Renounces Brezhnev Doctrine during Yugoslav

Visit,” FBIS Trends, 6 April 1988 pages 11-1

** In 1968 CIA analysts did not know about the July 1968 meeting.

The inormation was not revealed until ater the end o the Cold War,

reported in Mastny and Byrne, A Cardboard Castle, xxxii.

*** For text o the memorandum, see Document No. 62 in The Prague

Spring ’68 , National Security Archive Documents Reader, compiled

and edited by Jaromir Navratil, The Prague Spring Foundation,

(Budapest: Central European University Press, 1998). Ibid. For text o

the resolution and accompanying documents, see Document No. 88

31



33

Soviet-Warsaw Pact Developments and MBFR

Troughout the 1960s and into the 1980s, the decisiveness o

strategic nuclear weapons was undisputed among Soviet military

theorists. However, by the late 1960s and early 1970s discussions

relating to the evolution o military doctrine elaborated on the

increased probability that nuclear weapons would not be used in

the initial or even later stages o a war with NAO in Europe.

As new doctrine or conventional war evolved, so did demands

or qualitative and quantitative changes or new weapons and

orces in Europe. Nonetheless, the Soviets were constrained by

the costs o building new divisions and armies opposite China,investing heavily in strategic weapons and the Navy, and trying to

manage a foundering economy. In this context, even more than

in the 1960s, the NSWP orces were an increasingly important

component o the orce opposite NAO in the central region o

Europe. As the Soviets strove to meet all their perceived require-

ments, they demanded their reluctant allies participate more in

the increased deense eorts. During this period the records o

Soviet successes and ailures prodding their Warsaw Pact allies

to invest more in the military were oten chronicled in clandes-

tine services’ disseminated intelligence inormation reports. Less

precise refections o the resulting strains appeared in various

open sources.

Te Soviets expanded and reequipped their ground orces to

address the problems posed by a strategy to ght a war only

with conventional weapons. Tey added tanks to the divisional

structure, expanded artillery units and outtted them with sel-

propelled weapons, and deployed new antiaircrat and antitank

systems. Tey also expanded rear echelon support units. Finally,

they developed new operational doctrine and established the

Operational Maneuver Group as an important orm o organi-

zation within plans or war in Europe. Clandestinely acquired

writings exposed the thinking behind these changes and oretold

much o what was to come.

By the 1970s, the Soviets also reacted to the potentially crippling

impact o NAO airpower on Soviet ability to execute their war

plan.44 Soviet classied military theoretical journals and deec-

tor reports illustrated how the devastating eect o the Israeli

Air Force in the 1967 Middle East War and the dominance o

US tactical airpower in Vietnam seriously infuenced Soviet

military leaders. In response, the Soviets started developing new

operational-strategic doctrine, strategy, and plans or massive airoperations in Europe at the outset o hostilities. In the 1970s,

they began to deploy more capable tactical aircrat that partially

remedied the existing shortcomings in range, payload, and all-

weather capability.

Managing the Warsaw Pact

Te Warsaw Pact opened the 1980s with almost every member

having “approved” virtually all o the Warsaw reaty Statutes

and having established new institutions to manage the alli-

ance. Only Romania had not signed and ratied the statutes on

21 March 1978, and only the Statute on Unied Command

or War ime had not been endorsed. Te Pact, again minusRomania, nally approved, signed, and ratied that statute on

18 March 1980. Nonetheless, Soviet control o the alliance’s

orces continued to be a problem.

Te authors o NIE 12/11-83 judged that, in Soviet eyes, the

participation o East European orces would be crucial to success

in a war with NAO in Europe. Tey noted the Soviets had tak-

en a number o political and military actions to ensure coopera-

tion but did not entirely control the eectiveness o these actions

c h a p t e r V I I

Clandestine Reporting and the Analysis and Estimateso the Warsaw Pact (1970–1985)

44 As reported in Chapters I and II, the Soviets, under Khrushchev, dramatically reduced the size o their tactical aviation orces in the late 1950s and early 1960s. At that time, Khrushchev and

his military supporters expressed little interest in traditional massive land orces and associated aviation. They posited nuclear-armed missiles and long-range bombers as the decisive weapons o

modern confict. They reduced the light or tactical bomber orce, or example, to about one-sixth o its ormer size. Other tactical aviation also suered considerable decrements.




34

and remained concerned. Te authors acknowledged they had

no concrete evidence on the reliability o the East European orc-

es. For the most part, they based their judgments on perceptions

o the probable views o the NSWP countries, observations o

precautionary actions by these countries, and estimates o prob-able behavior o NSWP orces under various circumstances.

Troughout this period the Soviets aced a persistent problem.

Tey had to balance the policy o détente and the need or eco-

nomic reorm in the USSR and the NSWP member countries

on the one hand against the political unrest in Eastern Europe

and the need to maintain Warsaw Pact security on the other.

Te Soviets remained apprehensive about Romania’s wayward

course and its potential to contaminate the other members o

the Warsaw Pact. rouble was brewing again in Poland by the

mid-1970s, and warming relations between East and West

Germany posed potential problems or the Soviet Union. Te

Sino-Soviet dispute continued, and the Soviet puppet govern-

ment in Aghanistan was ailing. While the 1970s had begun

with successul completion o the ABM reaty and the SAL

I agreement, the Soviet arms control agenda started to unravel

a ew years later. First, the United States cancelled the SAL II

negotiations, and the policy o détente went belly up as the in-

ternational community denounced Soviet military intervention

in Aghanistan. Moreover, in 1979, the US administration, with

concurrence o its NAO allies, moved to begin deployment o

intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe by 1983 to deter

or protect against potential Soviet nuclear attack.


In the years ollowing the Soviet invasion o Czechoslovakia, the

quantity and ullness o clandestinely obtained inormation about

the Warsaw Pact military establishments increased at unprec-

edented rates. Tese new streams o reporting enabled analysts to

develop assessments about the extent o cooperation among the

Warsaw Pact members and the level o their uture investment in

military equipment. Te Warsaw Pact war plans became clearer

through the mosaic o evidence gleaned bit by bit rom the wealth

o classied documents clandestinely obtained rom several o the

Warsaw Pact members. Collection o technical intelligence blos-

somed as well, yielding a true bonanza or analysis and ultimately

or all deense-related policymakers in the US government. CIA

produced new assessments o Pact orces’ readiness, logistical ca-pabilities, mobilization and reinorcement capabilities, peacetime

and wartime postures, and plans or wartime employment. Te

IC in general, especially DIA, also made good use o the mass o

evidence rom the clandestine eorts. Many o the more impor-

tant CIA analytic publications are represented in the Catalogue

o Documents.

Te classied theoretical articles oten betrayed misgivings—

careully—about the contemporary doctrine and strategy or

Soviet orces. Other documents—eld service manuals and Gen-

eral Sta Academy manuals and lectures—thoroughly described

extant operational and tactical doctrine. Another group o docu-

ments describing and critiquing major exercises provided insight

into the practical application o strategy and doctrine. Te quan-

tity and quality o all o these documents available rom the end o

the 1960s to 1985 provided the rmest basis yet or analysis andestimating Warsaw Pact military capabilities.

In the 1960s, much o the added impetus or producing more and

better intelligence on the Warsaw Pact orces came rom the Sec-

retary o Deense, while in the early 1970s it came initially rom

National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and his sta. In the

1960s the IC had reached a consensus about the size o the War-

saw Pact ground orces in terms o divisions and their equipment.

Tere was not, however, enough known about above-division

support, especially service support, to provide the basis or much

more than gross extrapolations. In the 1970s the improved techni-

cal intelligence collection eorts yielded evidence o organization-

al and equipment changes in the deployed orces at all echelons

as well as in production o new armaments. Tose eorts and

clandestine reporting o change in Soviet military thinking and

o the demands being made by the Soviet leadership in Warsaw

Pact councils provided a broader and rmer basis or assessing the

rising conventional threat to NAO. Clandestine reporting pro-

vided a condent basis or new orce readiness studies clearly more

relevant than previously possible.

Trough clandestine reporting, CIA military analysts were able

to piece together the main elements o Soviet planning or a ma-

jor air operation at the outset o hostilities with NAO. Classi-

ed military journals indicated Soviet military thinkers were on

a quest or change in concepts or theater air operations as they

sought to evaluate the ull signicance o the successes o the

Israeli and US theater air operations. Later in the decade more

evidence became available indicating which changes were actually

incorporated in Soviet theater warare doctrine or air operations.

Previously, the Soviets had mainly viewed their tactical air orces

as supporting the ground orces and delivering nuclear weapons.

Consistent with long-held doctrinal views, the generally limited

range and payloads o Soviet tactical aircrat as o 1970 restricted

their useulness to areas relatively close to the battleront. Opera-

tions to the depth o the theater were the preserve o the missile

orces and Long-Range Aviation, a strategic arm o the air orces

analogous to the US Strategic Air Command (SAC).

Soviet classied writings refected an evolution in military think-ing that ended in a consensus about how to conduct initial air

operations in the European theater, with the concept o a major

theater-wide strategic air operation involving all theater aviation.

Te new strategy called or tactical aviation and strategic bomb-

ers to carry out missions massively at the outset o hostilities that

were designed to achieve early air supremacy. Te strategy empha-

sized the importance o such an operation in nonnuclear warare

when the Soviets saw their missiles, with limited payload and

accuracy, to be o little value beyond the immediate battle area.

Soviet aviation theorists also saw achievement o air supremacy




35

in the initial stage o confict as essential or the success o the

ground operations.

CIA analysis based on Soviet classied writings and subsequent

inormation described an intellectual erment. Te writings o air

operations theorists suggested a certain sense o desperation in-

herent in the Soviet Air Operation Plan. In contrast, articles by

Soviet ground orces ocers refected a condence that NAO

air orces would not make a critical dierence in the outcome o a

war in Europe. Te latter view might have resulted rom hubris or

merely refected the long-held primacy o ground orces doctrine

in Soviet military thinking. For whatever reason, Soviet air orces,

including Long-Range Aviation, were reorganized during the pe-

riod 1978–81.

During approximately the same time period, the US national

security establishment had added conventional arms control—

Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions (MBFR)—to interests

that required more o the IC than ever beore. Policymakers de-manded assessments o actual quantities o signature component

parts o the orces, not extrapolated estimates. And they wanted

more denitive assessments o the qualitative aspects o orces

such as training, support, and materiel stocks. Interest in enhanc-

ing NAO deenses was also building. Some o the intelligence

collection and analysis produced in support o the MBFR eort

in eect overturned old assumptions about the Warsaw Pact

orces, revealing opportunities or improving NAO deenses.

Although there was political and military resistance among the

Western allies to the changed appraisals o the balance between

NAO and Warsaw Pact conventional orces, the IC’s increas-

ingly rened data and estimates during the 1970s provided

the oundation or major changes in the deense posture o the

United States and NAO allies. In particular, these new esti-

mates ormed a basis or infuencing NAO eorts toward more

secure deenses against the Warsaw Pact massed tank orces.

Te changes in NAO equipment, orce posture and mobiliza-

tion capabilities resonated with the Soviet military leadership and

had repercussions or the uture, as oretold in clandestinely ob-

tained classied reporting.

In the course o preparing the basic data or MBFR negotiating

positions, the NSC aggregated data on NAO rom the Joint

Chies o Sta (JCS) and on the Warsaw Pact orces rom CIA

and DIA and compared the two orces under several scenarios.

Tese eorts exposed shortcomings in inormation the IC hadnot yet resolved. High-resolution satellite imagery was a great

advancement, especially or revealing the extent o deployed orces

and the technical characteristics (mensuration, etc.) o many

weapons systems, but it did not provide the kind o evidence need-

ed to support the more rened estimates required by the MBFR

eort. New clandestine sources in the 1970s, by contrast, did yield

a breakthrough in such evidence.

Te wealth o material provided by clandestine sources, especially

Colonel Kuklinski, provided other insights. It ormed the basis

o new judgments about the logistical capabilities to support the

Pact’s ambitious war plans. Shortalls in training and readiness

o Warsaw Pact orces became evident. Te evidence also illus-

trated the dierences in quality among the Warsaw Pact orces.

Te analysis o this evidence was refected in numerous ormalCIA publications and in unpublished replies to requests by the

NSC sta, samples o which

are reproduced in this study.

Tat same evidence inormed

the production o other com-

ponent agencies o the IC.

Intelligence studies produced

during the decade, based

on the increasing quantity

and quality o the collected

evidence, refected a growing

analytic sophistication and a

more comprehensive under-standing o the Warsaw Pact

orces building nally to the

watershed 1979 National In-

telligence Estimate: Warsaw

Pact Forces Opposite NAO

(NIE 11-14-79). Te DO

disseminated a virtual bliz-

zard o reports during the pe-

riod 1973–85, including more

than 100 just on Warsaw

Pact exercises. Te reports

also contained more than 60

documents, manuals, or lec-

ture notes rom the USSR

General Sta Academy and

other higher military acad-

emies. Summaries o these

documents are located in the

Catalogue o Documents.




36

Following is an excerpt rom Chapter 4 o How Much is Enough?

by Alain C. Enthoven.

For the complete chapter see How Much is Enough? contained in the attached DVD.

© 1971, Alain C. Enthoven, K. Wayne Smith; 2005, Rand Corporation.

Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.




37

Tis is an excerpt rom Chapter 4 o How Much is Enough? by Alain C. Enthoven.

For the complete chapter see How Much is Enough? contained in the attached DVD.




38

How Much is Enough? Chapter 4 – NAO Strategy and Forces, pg. 132–156




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Acknowledgments

Te CIA Historical Collections Division grateully acknowledges the ollowing

or their courtesy and assistance in providing material or this collection: National Security Agency or their thorough review and assistance toward

the declassication o documents or this study.

Defense Intelligence Agency or the assistance o (DIA) ocers who searched

their archives or CIA reports not ound in CIA archives.

National Geospatial Intelligence Agency or their thorough review and

assistance toward the declassication o documents or this study.

Alain C. Enthoven or granting permission to include in this study, the

chapter on “NAO Strategy and Forces” rom his book – How Much Is

Enough: Shaping the Deense Program, 1961–1969.

We note the critical contribution to this project by the late James (Les)

Griggs (Colonel, US ARMY, Retired) who brought his deep knowledge o

the Warsaw Pact military to bear in evaluating and preparing or release the

complex documents in this study.

CIA’s Imaging and Publishing Support (IPS) graphic artists

John Bassett, Robert Karyshyn, and Mary Alexander.

Principal Contributors

A special thank you to those who searched or, located, reviewed and redacted

more than 1,000 classied documents or the study:

John C. Guzzardo

James H. Noren

Anthony Williams

erry A. Bender

and the two persons who initiated the project more than ten years ago:

Michael J. Sulick former Deputy Director of Operations

Herbert O. Briick former Chief of the Information and Review Group, IMS

Agency Disclaimer

All statements o acts, opinion, and analysis expressed in this booklet are those o the authors. Tey do not necessarily

refect ocial positions or views o the Central Intelligence Agency or any other US Government entity, past or present.

Nothing in the contents should be construed as asserting or implying US Government endorsement o an article’s

statements or interpretations.




54

Col Oleg Penkovskiy (top); Col Ryszard Kuklinski(middle right), Col Kuklinski assisting Minister o Deense o the Soviet Union

signing the Wartime Statutes o the Warsaw Pact in 1979.(lower let); Maj (later Lt Col) Pyotr Popov (lower right)




55




56

Te Historical Collections Division (HCD) o CIA’s

Inormation Management Services is responsible or

executing the Agency’s Historical Review Program.

Tis program seeks to identiy and declassiy

collections o documents that detail the Agency’s

analysis and activities relating to historically signicant

topics and events. HCD’s goals include increasing the usability and accessibility o historical collections.

HCD also develops release events and partnerships to

highlight each collection and make it available to the

broadest audience possible.

Te mission o HCD is to:

Promote an accurate, objective understanding o

the inormation and intelligence that has helped

shape major US oreign policy decisions.

Broaden access to lessons-learned, presenting

historical material that gives greater understanding to the scope and context o past actions.

Improve current decision-making and analysis by

acilitating refection on the impacts and eects

arising rom past oreign policy decisions.

Showcase CIA’s contributions to national security

and provide the American public with valuable

insight into the workings o its government.

Demonstrate the CIA’s commitment to the Open

Government Initiative and its three core values:ransparency, Participation, and Collaboration.

Te mission o the National War College is to

educate uture leaders o the Armed Forces, State

Department, and other civilian agencies or high-

level policy, command, and sta responsibilities by

conducting a senior-level course o study in national

security strategy.

Te National War College (NWC) provides a single-

phase Joint Proessional Military Education (JPME)

program or mid-career US military ocers, civilian

US government ocials, and oreign military ocers.

We achieve our mission by oering a proessional,

rigorous, multi-disciplinary curriculum emphasizing

active-learning and immersion in a joint environment.

Tis joint experience is urther enriched by the

inclusion o interagency and multinational partners

in all aspects o the program. Te NWC program

is accredited by the Middle States Commission

on Higher Education, and qualied graduates are

awarded a Masters o National Security Strategy.



DVD Contents

Te Historical Collections Division and the Inormation Review Division o the

Central Intelligence Agency’s Inormation Management Services has reviewed,

redacted, and released more than 1,000 documents highlighting CIA’s analysis

o the Warsaw Pact orces and the importance o clandestine reporting. Almost

all o those documents were previously classied, some declassied earlier

redacted with text now restored and released or this study. Te accompanying

DVD contains those documents as well as more than 500 previously releaseddeclassied documents, videos about the U-2 reconnaissance aircrat and

CORONA satellite programs, and a gallery o related photos. Te DVD also

contains the essays in this booklet.

Tis DVD will work on most computers

and the documents are in .PDF format.

Te material is organized into the ollowing categories:

→ Te two essays printed in the booklet including the chapter 4 o Alain C.

Enthoven’s book How Much Is Enough? rom which his essay is excerpted.;

→ Document Catalogue and Collection—Features intelligence assessments,

National Intelligence Estimates, high-level memos, DCI talking points, andother reporting. o help put this material in perspective, we have also included

related non-CIA documents rom the Ofce o the Secretary o Deense, the

National Security Council Sta and the Department o State and rom the

Wilson Center’s Parallel History project replicating Soviet documents;

Previously released related declassied documents;

→ Videos—lms showing some o the development o the U-2 reconnaissance

aircrat and the CORONA reconnaissance satellite programs;

→ Other Multimedia—includes a gallery o photos including clandestine

photos o Soviet maps showing variants o invasion plans used in a major

Warsaw Pact exercise.

2



Te Historical Review Program part o the CIA Inormation Management Services

Te Warsaw Pact contingency plan or war with NAO in the Central Region o Europe – as

revised by the Soviets in the early 1960s – assigns the initial ofensive missions to the orces

already deployed in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. In addition, it gives both the

Czechs and Poles command over their own national orces. Ater the initial objectives have been

gained, Soviet orces in the western USSR would move quickly into the Central Region and

take over the ofensive against NAO.

Under the previous plan, the initial ofensive would have been conducted mainly by Soviet

orces, including those based in the western USSR, with the East European orces integrated

into Soviet-led Fronts. Tis concept, to be efective, required a high level o combat readiness

or the Soviet orces in the western USSR. Te reduction o Soviet ground orce strength in the

early 1960’s probably made this plan ineasible and stimulated concurrent improvements in the

East European ground orces to permit them to assume greater responsibilities.

Warsaw Pact War Plan for Central Regionof Europe

Summary

Intelligence Memorandum

Directorate of Intelligence

18 June 1968

CIA Analysis of the Warsaw Pact Forces: Book

Documents

Transcript of CIA Analysis of the Warsaw Pact Forces: Book