Early Cold War Air Intelligence

SA-2 SAM

 SA-2 SAM site in Russia-now abandoned

For a decade after the end of World War II, the issue of Soviet strengths and intentions had been the top item on every Western political agenda, but the available information came almost exclusively from a combination of refugee interviews and oblique photography taken by aircraft flying along the Soviet periphery. While these flights eventually demonstrated that there had not been any threatening buildup of airstrips in locations that would bring the United States within range of a surprise first strike, there remained a significant problem that could only be overcome by flying directly over potential targets deep inside the Soviet Union. At the time, the nuclear deterrent consisted of free-fall atomic weapons that were to be dropped by U.S. Strategic Air Command and British Bomber Command aircraft. However, the effectiveness of the deterrent was entirely dependent on the weapons being delivered to their targets accurately, and the bombardiers’ aiming systems required radar ground-mapping of every site. This procedure demanded advance reconnaissance of each target, which in turn necessitated a vertical radar survey that could only be undertaken by long incursions into hostile air space. Thus, during the Cold War there were a variety of reasons for the many reconnaissance flights flown into Eastern Bloc airspace. There was the need to locate Warsaw Pact radar stations and air defense systems, then a requirement to map the Soviet Union and survey potential targets, and finally the long-term commitment to monitoring hostile communications channels as an early-warning precaution against a surprise first strike.

During the uneasy postwar period, American and British aircraft routinely penetrated the Soviet Bloc, and Red Air Force Tupolev-95 Bears constantly tested the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s air defenses. These risky provocations continued throughout the Cold War and between 1950 and 1970, 252 American aircrew were shot down by Soviet fighters. But as reliance on technical intelligence sources grew, and on signals in particular, the use of airborne platforms to intercept telemetry and other communications increased, especially in those parts of the world where safe land sites were unavailable. Although the National Security Agency established eavesdropping facilities in friendly countries such as Turkey, Japan, and Germany and developed relationships with the British and Norwegians, the U.S. Air Force was often required to fill the gaps when, for instance, the sites at Kagnew, Eritrea, and the three in Iran had to be evacuated because of changes in the local regime. In the absence of convenient ground sites in strategic locations, aircraft were deployed to intercept the target traffic.

The issue of Soviet strategic bombers and missiles was equally crucial, and until the U-2 began regular overflights of Red Air Force bases, the science of judging the Kremlin’s military capability became almost as arcane as the art of predicting the Politburo’s decisions. Soviet secrecy and the repressive nature of the regime effectively prevented use of the “Mark I Eyeball” to study production figures, accumulate published statistics, monitor factory output, watch airbases, or photograph naval installations. Indeed, in the absence of even Soviet roadmaps, the postwar intelligence analysts were obliged to rely on ancient prerevolutionary maps of Russia and aerial photographs taken by the Luftwaffe. Yet the need to find the submarines, aircraft, nuclear facilities, railway lines, test sites and training areas became increasingly important, and it was not until the U-2 imagery became available that analysts could grasp the scale of Nikita Khrushchev’s breathtakingly ambitious bluff, which culminated in the Cuban missile crisis. In November 1959, he had boasted that a single factory had produced 250 hydrogen warheads over the previous 12 months. It had seemed incredible that any responsible leader would blatantly lie about such an important issue yet the frequent claim that a “missile gap” had left the United States vulnerable to a more powerful potential enemy had a significant influence on American domestic politics, especially during the presidential campaign won by John F. Kennedy.

The mystery of the Kremlin’s true strength would eventually be solved by the U-2 and then by the deployment of satellites, but Khrushchev’s ingenious remedy to the relative weakness of his atomic arsenal was simply to move his short-range weapons closer to their target, and the result was the Cuban missile crisis, the catalyst for which was the discovery by U.S. air intelligence of his scheme. Although the resulting naval blockade of Cuba was enforced by warships, the whole confrontation was essentially about aircraft, with Soviet missiles detected by American aircraft. Indeed, the only fatality of the entire incident was a U.S. Air Force pilot, Major Rudolph Anderson, whose U-2 spy plane was shot down by a Soviet SA-2.

Many of the other conflicts fought during the Cold War, often proxy battles in which the adversaries were equipped by the superpowers, served to update intelligence analysts on the relative potency of air power. Following the invasion of South Korea, Soviet aircraft and pilots skillfully outmaneuvered and outgunned their U.S. counterparts until new equipment and tactics could be deployed in the skies over the peninsula. Initially, the MiG-15, powered with a reverse-engineered Rolls-Royce jet engine, proved invincible, at least until the F-86 Sabre evened the balance. This was to be the last time American fighter jocks would ever engage the Soviets in sustained aerial dogfights, leaving future confrontations to surrogates, apart from some suspected incidents over North Vietnam. In that war, overwhelming and permanent air superiority proved no substitute for political support at home and Vietnamese tactics in an environment that favored the insurgents and limited the effectiveness of comprehensive air cover.

Most future tests of relative equipment, personnel, and avionics would occur in simulated environments over secret airbases in the western United States or in real conditions, with Israelis pitted against Syrian, Egyptian, Jordanian, and Iraqi aircrews. For decades, the Middle East provided a highly realistic scenario for American manufacturers to bench test new jets and electronic countermeasures against Eastern Bloc interceptors and ground defenses. Captured Warsaw Pact military equipment, ranging from an entire Egyptian radar station to a defecting Iraqi MiG Fishbed, ended up in American laboratories, so all their most secret components could be examined and the appropriate countermeasures devised. While politicians picked over the consequences of 1967’s Six Day War and the participants on both sides reexamined the strategic lessons, the air intelligence analysts were assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the opposing forces, confident that the outcome of the next clash again would be decided in the air.

Intelligence Gathering – Cold War

Naturally in the atmosphere of hostility and mistrust, espionage was seen as a vital tool of the Cold War by both sides. Initially at least, the Soviet Union enjoyed some crucial advantages. Given the conspiratorial background of the Bolsheviks, and their fears of foreign attack, they had lavished far more resources on foreign intelligence in the inter-war years than the west. Under the banners of international revolution and anti-Nazism, they had recruited a number of idealistic young men during the 1930s.

Well-educated and well-connected men, which in Britain included Donald Maclean, Kim Philby and Guy Burgess, became deeply committed agents. They were to rise to important positions in government service. In America and across Europe others like them were recruited. During the war, when the Soviet Union was doing most of the fighting, the urge to help an ally in difficulty attracted more like them. By the beginning of the Cold War the USSR had elaborate and well-established networks of agents in the west. The First Chief Directorate of the KGB was able to divide its responsibilities into areas that reflected Moscow’s priorities. Department 4 concentrated on East and West Germany and Austria, symptomatic of Moscow’s obsession with the wartime enemy. North America naturally warranted its own department. The whole of Latin America, Francophone and Anglophone Africa had only three departments between them. Department 11, which spied on WPO allies, was euphemistically named ‘Liaison with Socialist Countries’. Departments 17 and 18 were later created, reflecting the rising importance of the Arab world and of south Asia.

The west initially had nothing comparable. Not only was little priority given to foreign intelligence, the USSR was a far more hostile environment in which to operate than the west. There were very few spies in the USSR, which is ironic given the vast numbers executed for spying during the purges.

In 1945 much of the wartime intelligence organisations of Britain and America were run down. When the CIA was established in 1947, it had to begin building an intelligence system from virtually nothing. In the early years of the Cold War western intelligence services were to stagger from a series of humiliations. Britain’s SIS was fooled into sending a number of agents into the east to contact nonexistent resistance groups, where they were captured. The CIA provided arms, radios and money to another such mythical group. Faith in these organisations was eroded by sensational spying scandals in the west. In America Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were controversially executed for spying on American nuclear secrets. In Britain Klaus Fuchs and Allan Nunn May were imprisoned for the same offence. Even more painful for Britain was the humiliatingly long list of senior intelligence agents exposed as Soviet spies. It seemed as if British Intelligence was being run from Moscow. Similarly highly placed spies were uncovered throughout NATO. In America a depressing list of middle-rank agents proved willing to accept Soviet money. One, Aldrich Ames, reputedly received $2.7 million for betraying 25 agents, ten of whom were shot.

Of course the west had its successes. Oleg Penkovsky provided valuable information on Soviet weapons systems during the Cuban Missile Crisis – for which he was tortured and shot. Oleg Gordievsky informed the west of near-hysteria in the Kremlin in the belief that Ronald Reagan was about to launch a pre-emptive nuclear attack. A shocked Reagan moderated his anti-Soviet rhetoric.

Occasionally vital, the role of the spy has been given an overly glamorous image. Perhaps 90 per cent of the information intelligence agencies require comes from published sources. Newspapers are a valuable intelligence source – sometimes presented by agents as from highly confidential sources. Analysis of foreign media could consider both its content and what was absent. What the state was not willing to report could indicate weaknesses or priorities. Questioning émigrés is another routine source of information. The west’s greatest advantage, however, was through its use of technology. A valuable source of information was signals intelligence. Intercepting and deciphering Soviet radio traffic became a routine task. The USSR struggled to keep up with western computer technology capable of such tasks.

Surveillance satellites would eventually allow both sides to observe each other freely. Technology also allowed them both to get reliable information from China. The PRC was extremely hostile and dangerous territory for spies. By 1967 both the USA and the USSR had intelligence gathering satellites in orbit. Henceforth it would be possible to observe the disposition, structure and movement of the opposition’s military – subject mainly to weather conditions. A surprise attack was becoming an ever more remote possibility.

Perhaps this should have supplied a greater sense of security during the Cold War. But intelligence is of little value if it is not believed. In the early 1980s no amount of negative reports from the KGB could convince the Soviet leadership that Reagan was not preparing for war. At the same time the CIA was unable to convince Reagan that the USSR was not behind all international terrorism. The Cold War, in short, engendered attitudes and assumptions that simple information could not change.