-
- There are many strange aspects to American-Russian relations.
Like the enabler of an addicted friend, the US will once again provide
Russia with another money fix. No matter that prior US credit, loans, and
other funds vanished before our eyes to mysteriously reappear in Western
banks in the private accounts of so-called new Russians. As approved by
the International Monetary Fund this present loan of $4.5 billion will
come by way of credits from the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction
and Development, and other Western financial institutions. And this latest
score by Russia will likely vanish just as quickly.
-
- But while being showered with billions from the US taxpayer,
the Russian Federation (RF) continues to intensify its intelligence operations
against the US as well as against US friends and allies. This espionage
activity, according to some US officials, has already reached Cold War
levels. The Russian spy business has become so aggressive that last spring,
for the first time since the collapse of the USSR, US officials had to
expel a Russian intelligence officer who was working undercover at the
United Nations and engaged in accessing classified US documents. It was
the second incident of Russian spying to surface in six months. In the
first incident a Russian officer, though not officially expelled, was denied
re-entry to the US while away on vacation.
-
- In retaliation the FSB (the Federal Security Service,
successor to KGB domestic spying) expelled the US military attaché
and curtailed contacts between Russian military and civilian personnel
and Western officials. In addition, the FSB and SVR (successor to KGB foreign
intelligence) organized a propaganda campaign accusing the US of spying
more on Moscow than Moscow spies on the US - perhaps not realizing that
this is itself a rather telling admission of guilt.
-
- The Russian spy activity has reached such intensity that
American officials met with former Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, who
visited Washington at the end of July. As for his background, Stepashin
is a former fire-fighter (his Master's dissertation was entitled "The
Role of the Communist Party in Fire-Fighting") and is a past director
general of the Federal Counter-Intelligence Service (predecessor to the
FSB) as well as the ex-minister of interior. At the meeting he openly admitted
the espionage problem, exclaiming, "as long as states exist, there
will always be special services, intelligence communities."
-
- Stepashin did, then, have the courage to admit the problem
and even proposed a dialogue between US officials and Vladimir Putin, then
head of the Russian FSB and secretary of the Russian National Security
Council. In so doing, however, Stepashin had trespassed into the arena
of strategic affairs, the exclusive domain of the RF president. As a result,
the president summarily fired Stepashin and replaced him with Putin, who
is also chief initiator of the current anti-US espionage campaign.
-
- Again, it cannot be over-emphasized or repeated enough
that Russia has been pursuing its aggressive espionage against the US while
it receives US aid and assistance. According to recent reports (Washington
Times, 7/26/99) the FBI estimated that during the Cold War at least half
the Soviet diplomats in Washington, New York, and San Francisco were spies.
In terms of present numbers this means that half the 124 diplomats posted
to the Russian Embassy in the US is engaged in intelligence. Official reports
also indicate that scores more are operating out of the Russian mission
to the UN. Russian agents also operate out of consulates in San Francisco
and Seattle.
-
- In a Washington newspaper, an unidentified US official
accurately summarizes the situation, "They [Russian intelligence]
are operating in full swing without missing a beat... In some cases they
have the same KGB personnel here now who were working against us during
the Soviet period."
-
- And this espionage is not the result of unauthorized
activities by the intelligence community. It is high-priority policy by
the Russian government under personal direction of Pres. Boris Yeltsin
himself, who in his official statements pretends to be a "best friend"
to the US.
-
- It is well known that during the Cold War Soviet intelligence
worked hard to penetrate American security by recruiting US citizens both
here and abroad. At the same time, the KGB and GRU planted so-called agents
of influence in the US. Agents of influence are not real spies but served
to influence US policy toward the former USSR, and they still serve now
to do the same for Russia. Usually they are not privy to inside information
about the secret operations of which they are part - operations, by the
way, which are also under the direct command of Moscow and are designed
to undermine American society from within.
-
- Soviet intelligence used their own agents for their primary
missions and assigned them to the KGB and GRU field offices in Washington,
D.C., New York, and San Francisco. The KGB agents worked under civilian
cover as diplomats, trade specialists, press correspondents, university
students, and members of various Soviet delegations. Additionally, the
GRU agents worked in the US as Soviet military attaches and their deputies
and assistants.
-
- During the Cold War every third Soviet official in the
US was, in reality, a KGB officer, and every other third official was a
GRU officer. The remaining third was a so-called clean person, one who
before coming to the US had signed a special agreement to cooperate with
the KGB and GRU. This special ratio in the apportionment of agents in the
US was ordered by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in the early 1950s and
has been continued by all his successors.
-
- In 1992 the same method was approved by President Yeltsin,
who inherited the Soviet machinery and understood the effectiveness of
its operation. Moreover, in a secret message to the Russian ambassador
to the US, Yeltsin requested the ambassador's cooperation with Russian
special services as well as that of other "clean" embassy personnel.
-
- It was also Yeltsin who ordered Russian agents to intensify
their spy activity and to provide Moscow with even more information on
US political and military operations. His order was issued as an official
government directive.
-
- But not only were there no reductions in the number of
agents in this country after the fall of the USSR, but the number has increased.
During the last several years new Russian consulates have been opened which
accommodate an increased intelligence presence. Then, too, "improved"
relations between the two countries have afforded Russia an almost unlimited
entry of agents under the cover of businessmen, students, technicians,
immigrants...
-
- Furthermore, in response to an RF presidential order
of Feb. 7, 1996, there has been a substantial increase in industrial espionage
in the US. This has, of course, entailed the widespread recruitment of
people engaged in US commercial, banking, and other civilian enterprises.
Recruitment for such espionage is easier than that for military espionage
because no serious penalties are involved and obtaining the secrets is
usually less difficult (except when military secrets are virtually handed
to you by US policy and presidential directives).
-
- It is important to note that Russian intelligence does
not have a great interest in commercial secrets. The Russian criminal syndicates,
however, desperately need this information and use their own people in
government to bring about Russian intelligence activity in those US enterprises
attractive to the Russian mobsters.
-
- In view of these factors, the current Russian intelligence
attack on America is more dangerous than ever before. Instead of moving
forward to greater friendship with America, the RF is moving backward.
The age of the false friendship is over, and the age of espionage once
more dominates relations between the two countries. It is vital to US security
to stop these dangerous developments as soon as possible. And there is
an effective solution for doing this.
-
- The usual proposal is to put a stop to the Russian intelligence
assault by expelling all Russian officials known by American counterintelligence
to be agents. However, this would prove ineffective because, first of all,
the expelled agents would soon be replaced by new ones. Thus American counterintelligence
would have to spend extra time and resources to rediscover who is and who
isn't an agent among the new diplomats, journalists, engineers, etc.
-
- Second of all, The GRU and SVR field offices in the US
have contingency plans especially designed to keep their intelligence business
going in the event of such expulsions. Expulsion would, then, merely lead
to a temporary setback in the Russian espionage but not to its termination.
-
- The only real solution can come from within Russia itself.
The Russian government and its president are the only ones who can order
a halt to the espionage assault. If Russia cannot exist without information
from the US, then it must obtain this information by legal means. And America
has a magic tool to accomplish this purpose if it will only use it. It
need only say to Russia, and mean it: Stop the espionage, implement democratic
reforms, crack down on the mafia, or else no money! It couldn't be simpler.
US leaders must know this. Why do they hesitate?
-
- ____________
-
- Biography of Colonel Stanislav Lunev <http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=1999/6/15/124657
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