Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Sample article from... INTELLIGENCE ISSN 1245-2122 N. 45 New Series, 7 October 1996 Publishing since 1980 Editor Olivier Schmidt (email intelligence-adi@wanadoo.fr web http://www.blythe.org/Intelligence tel/fax 33 1 40 51 85 19 post ADI, 16 rue des Ecoles, 75005 Paris, France) FRONTPAGE: U.S.A./GREAT BRITAIN "JOINED AT THE HIP" INTELLIGENCE COOPERATION We have mentioned numerous times the extremely close -- "joined at the hip" -- intelligence cooperation between the United States and Great Britain, in particular the secret UKUSA agreement on code, decryption and electronic espionage between the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and its "junior partner", the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) whose budget is partially paid for by the NSA which also has a hand in GCHQ personnel tasking. Although this arrangement was well-known among intelligence specialists as a cornerstone of the Cold War, a recent flurry of joint NSA-GCHQ activity shows that the arrangement is alive and kicking in the post-Cold War period. The latter development promises to cause trouble in the near future for "integrated" European Union security and intelligence, but that is another story. Let's look at recent NSA-GCHQ activities which have gone completely unnoticed in the mainstream press. Little has been written about GCHQ since the 1984 banning of trade unions, with the exception of the exposure of the planned Zircon signal intelligence satellite. A recently published book on British intelligence states that Zircon was scrapped in favour of a =9C500 million contribution to NSA's next generation of satellites. For their money, the British obtain access to the satellites' "intelligence take" and the right to "task" one of the three satellites. The book also confirms that GCHQ has invested huge sums in developing methods of tapping fiber-optic cables, widely but incorrectly believed to be "untappable". The latter effort is very likely a joint NSA-GCHQ project. The shadow of the NSA was also at the annual conference of the latest British Trades Union Congress when the subject of GCHQ came up. Ever since Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher suddenly banned trade unions from GCHQ in February 1984, the issue has been a cause celebre for the British labour movement. And for once, the "new" Labour Party is unequivocal in its support for the trade unions' principal demand: the restoration of full union rights at GCHQ. Senior Labour politicians have repeatedly declared that this will be among the first actions of a Labour government. But this will bring them into immediate conflict with Britain's intelligence mandarins, who are absolutely determined that trade unionism will never again sully their organizations, principally because it would upset the NSA which would, in turn, give the mandarins a humiliating "dressing down". A solution may exist in the form of the British Government Communications Staff Federation, a body set up by GCHQ management after the 1984 ban and given limited powers to represent GCHQ workers and negotiate on their behalf. The Federation has been repeatedly refused certification as a proper trade union on the grounds that it is not independent of management. However, if the certification officer could be persuaded to change his mind, then "everybody would be happy" with Labour keeping its pledge, avoiding a confrontation with intelligence bosses and sidestepping a "showdown" with the NSA and Washington. This explains the qualified comment by Labour spokesman, Peter Hain, that the Federation could be granted sole negotiating rights (making GCHQ effectively a "closed shop") if it represents more than half the workforce -- which it already does. Discreet discussions along these lines are apparently under way in Whitehall. Although we did not mention intelligence cooperation explicitly in an article in our preceding issue on public support for intelligence service-associated media-monitoring services ("Radio Broadcasts - Spies Get Public Support"; INT, N. 44/7), this is also part of the "joined at the hip" deal. The BBC Monitoring Service (BBCMS), based at Caversham Park near Reading, is part of the BBC World Service mentioned in our previous article. It is financed partly by subscriptions to its "Summary of World Broadcasts", and partly by a Treasury grant. Under the terms of a formal agreement with the CIA's U.S. FBIS, the two outfits carve up the job of monitoring the world's public TV and radio broadcasts -- somewhat analogous to the UKUSA agreement between GCHQ and NSA. Broadly speaking, the FBIS covers the New World, the Far East, Australasia and West Africa. The BBCMS is responsible for Europe, Russia and the rest of Africa. Middle East coverage is shared. The two organisations make translated, transcribed broadcasts available to each other and their associated intelligence services. The BBCMS sends its product to the Foreign Office and the Cabinet Office (presumably to the intelligence assessment staff). An official relationship between the Monitoring Service and the intelligence establishment existed only during World War II when Caversham was under the control of the Political Warfare Executive, but intelligence specialists often describe the BBCMS as a component of the British intelligence complex. Although the FBIS "deals across the table" with the general public, there has been no secret about its CIA affiliation which was discovered by anti-CIA activists over ten years ago. The most publicly apparent product of British-American intelligence cooperation has been on front pages on both sides of the Atlantic for two weeks without any media "intelligence specialist" underscoring the fact that it results from a coordinate NSA-GCHQ campaign. We announced in our last issue that on 3-4 October the NSA and the CIA were organizing a conference on the Cold War Venona decryption program of KGB communications on the occasion of the fourth public release of Venona material (INT, N. 44/29). The NSA releases were "joined at the hip" with similar GCHQ releases in Great Britain. These previously classified documents, which give a unique insight into the former Soviet espionage network in Great Britain and the U.S., were also released on 1 October via the Internet by the Public Record Office, London. The MI5 and MI6 documents identify some of the Cold War's most efficient spies and provide more details than previously known about how the Soviets managed their covert operations. In one document, the KGB ordered Harold "Kim" Philby -- codenamed "Stanley" -- to restrict direct contact with his KGB handler to one meeting per month. Kim Philby was recruited in 1934, worked for MI6 and was its liaison officer with the CIA and the FBI while stationed in Washington in the early 1950s. He defected in 1963 and died in Moscow in May 1988. He was in line to become "C" -- the head of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) -- when he came under suspicion, and has been described by British historians as "the most remarkable spy in the history of espionage". Another document shows how Guy Burgess, a friend of Philby, known as "Hicks", passed on dates of meetings with senior politicians to Moscow Central, while a third requests details of specific British defence systems. Burgess was recruited by the KGB while a student at Cambridge University. He worked with the the BBC, MI5 and MI6, and partnered with Anthony Blunt in pro-Soviet espionage during World War II. He joined the Foreign Office in 1947 and served in Washington before defecting in 1951. He died in Moscow in 1963. The declassified reports not only disclose how much top secret information the "Cambridge spies", recruited during the "climate of treason" in the 1930s, passed to the KGB and the GRU, they also reveal other spies never heard of before -- including an agent, codenamed "Little", who sold highly- classified military information and "successful"agent "Leaf". The documents tend to indicate that Andre "Jerome" Labarthe and Martha Lecoutre, working with General Charles de Gaulle in London during the war, were also passing information to Moscow. According to Tory MP, Rupert Allason (alias Nigel West), interviewed while downloading the material from the Internet, "these documents are enormously significant (...) the bottom line on a whole series of prosecutions where people have claimed innocence (...) now we can see the evidence which was too secret to be shown in court (...) this is material which has only ever been scrutanised by very senior intelligence officers". Indications of intelligence leaks to Moscow concerning the U.S. atomic bomb Manhattan Project was a reason given for launching the Venona decryption project and the real beginning of "joint at the hip" cooperation since a British cryptographer was integrated into the U.S. team and the GCHQ was set up soon afterwards. * Also in this issue... TABLE OF CONTENTS, N. 45, 7 October 1996 FRONTPAGE U.S.A./GREAT BRITAIN - "JOINED AT THE HIP" INTELLIGENCE COOPERATION p.1 TECHNOLOGY AND TECHNIQUES SECURITY LAPSES AND OTHER PROBLEMS ON THE INTERNET p.2 TROUBLE WITH GQ360 ULTRA HIGH ALTITUDE PARACHUTE p.3 PEPPER SPRAY AND CS-CN TEAR GAS CONFUSION p.4 PARCEL BOMBS - New U.S. Postal Service Rules. p.5 GANGS - "Reasonable" and "Conservative" Statistics. p.6 BOMB SNIFFERS - Congressional "Consumers' Report". p.7 TELEPHONE SCAMS - New Paying Number Tactics. p.8 RECONVERSION - Ecological "Bombs Away". p.9 SOUND - A Virtual "Quack Box". p.10 PRIVACY - Beyond Lexis P-Trak Trouble. p.11 IMAGERY - Cheap Digital Maps for War Games. p.12 ECONOMIC INTELLIGENCE - French and English Manuals. p.13 SELF-DESTRUCT TAPS - Israeli Devices Analyzed. p.14 DEBIT CARDS - Japan Pays North Korea Via Poor Security. p.15 PEOPLE U.S.A. - FREDERIC WHITEHURST p.16 ROBERT CHAEGON KIM p.17 GREAT BRITAIN/INDIA - PETER BLEACH p.18 BULGARIA - ANDREY LUKANOV p.19 U.S.A. - Kevin D. Mitnick. p.20 Clark Hager. p.21 Henry Billingsley. p.22 John W. DeCamp. p.23 GREAT BRITAIN - Officer "T". p.24 Fitzroy Maclean. p.25 Diarmuid O'Neil. p.26 RUSSIA - Alexander Nikitin. p.27 MEXICO/U.S.A. - Celestino Castillo. p.28 CUBA/U.S.A. - Carlos Fleites. p.29 COLOMBIA/U.S.A. - Farouk Yanine Diaz. p.30 COLOMBIA/GREAT BRITAIN - Philip Halden. p.31 ARGENTINA/U.S.A. - Jose Siderman. p.32 ISRAEL - David Ivry. p.33 Mordechai Vanunu. p.34 AGENDA COMING EVENTS FROM NOW TO 15 NOVEMBER 1996 p.35 INTELLIGENCE AROUND THE WORLD U.S.A. - GULF WAR SYNDROME GETS A MILITARY EXPLANATION p.36 FBI NCIC 2000 ALIVE AND KICKING p.37 U.S.A./ISRAEL - Election Time Roll Call & Collection. p.38 GREAT BRITAIN - BETTER CRIMINAL INTELLIGENCE WITH VICTIMOLOGY p.39 PSA MEETING FINDS FAULTS WITH EVERYBODY p.40 SECRECY LIFTED ON DOUNREAY NUCLEAR ACCIDENT p.41 Civvies Train Military Copter Pilots. p.42 NORTHERN IRELAND - THE FALSE PEACE FALLS APART p.43 FRANCE - SECURE NATIONAL E-CASH SERVICE GOES ONLINE p.44 BELGIUM - AGUSTA BACK ON THE AGENDA p.45 ANOTHER MAJOR SCANDAL INVOLVING HIGH OFFICIALS p.46 GERMANY - HOME-GROWN SATELLITE AND SIGINT CONFLICTS p.47 SWITZERLAND - Archives Find Nazi Agents in Red Cross. p.48 NORWAY - THE "OSLO/ANC" CONNECTION REVEALED p.49 SWEDEN - E.U. FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ON TRIAL p.50 CENTRAL EUROPE - "BRASS TACKS" SECURITY ANALYSIS p.51 UGANDA - DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS SHARED WITH THE BRITS p.52 Copyright ADI 1996, reproduction in any form forbidden without explicit authorization from the ADI. A one year subscription (23 issues with full index) is US $315. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org =================================================================