Inside soviet military intelligence

by Viktor Suvorov

  The head office of the GRU is a nine-storey extended rectangle. On all sides the building is surrounded by a two-storey structure, the windows of which give onto the central courtyard. The external walls have no windows at all. The fifteen-storey building adjacent to the area also belongs to the GRU, although it is situated outside its external walls. Many families of GRU officers live here, and the building has a completely normal appearance and looks like an ordinary block of flats. Only a certain number of the flats, however, are used for living purposes; the others are used by the service for official purposes. The whole of the area, centimetre by centimetre, is under surveillance from the tele-cameras and patrolled continuously by gentlemen with big, fat faces. But even if it were not thus, a stranger there would be apprehended immediately. Any of the little old men seated on benches (minimum twenty years' service in the GRU) would immediately inform the necessary people if he saw something untoward. Nobody is allowed to bring a car into the GRU's inner area, not even the Minister of Defence or General Secretary. One is only admitted after passing through a special inspection and sophisticated electronic equipment. Nobody may bring in so much as a cigarette lighter, still less a briefcase. There must be no metallic object on your person, not even a belt-buckle - the GRU recommends braces. All necessities for work and life are to be found inside, including cigarette lighters and fountain pens. The GRU gives them out - after they have been checked, of course.

  x x x

  The chief of the GRU is subordinate to the chief of the general staff and is his deputy. Directly subordinate to the chief of the GRU are the GRU's command point, the deputy chief and a group of advisers. The organisational units constituting the GRU are directorates, directions, and sections. In units which are not directly concerned with the acquisition and processing of information there exist the divisions of directorates, departments and sections. The military rank of the chief of the GRU is Army General. Under him are a first deputy and deputies. In the case where the deputy has several directorates under his command, his military rank will be colonel-general. If he only has one directorate, lieutenant-general. Chiefs of directorates are lieutenant-generals. The deputies of heads of directorates, heads of directions and departments are major-generals. The deputy heads of directions and departments, the heads of sections and their deputies are colonels. The rank-and-file members of sections are called senior operational officers and operational officers. The military rank of a senior operational officer is colonel, of an operational officer lieutenant-colonel.

  An overwhelming number of GRU officers hold the military rank of colonel. This, however, does not at all mean that they are equal amongst each other. Between the colonel who fulfils the duties of a senior operational officer and the deputy head of a direction who is also a colonel there is a wide gulf. The high service ranks existing in the GRU do not preclude the appointment of a very young captain or senior lieutenant to the post of senior operational officer, either. The system adopted by the Soviet Army permits this. A captain may be an acting major, or a senior lieutenant may be an acting colonel. Seniority is judged not by the pips on the officer's shoulder, but by the position he holds.

  In total the GRU has sixteen directorates: most of them have a number from one to twelve. Certain numbers do not exist and the directorate is simply called by its name, as for example the personnel directorate. Directions and departments forming parts of a directorate have numbers, for example '41 Direction' means the first direction of the fourth directorate. Directions and departments not forming part of a directorate have a single number with the letters GRU added, for example, the first department GRU. The hierarchy in the GRU is as follows. The chief of the GRU has one first deputy and seven deputies beneath him. He controls:

  i The Illegals Section. With the help of this section he personally directs effective illegals and agents about whom nobody knows. He also directs his own first deputy.

  ii First Deputy Chief of the GRU (colonel-general), beneath whom are all the procurement organs which provide information.

  iii The Chief of Information (colonel-general) in charge of all the processing organs of the GRU.

  iv The Chief of the Political Section (lieutenant-general).

  v The Chief of the Electronic Intelligence Directorate (lieutenant-general).

  vi The Chief of Fleet Intelligence (vice-admiral).

  vii The Chief of the Cosmic Intelligence Directorate (lieutenant-general).

  viii The Head of the Soviet Army Academy (colonel-general),

  ix The Head of the Personnel Directorate (lieutenant-general).

  Chapter Nine

  The Procurement Organs

  All units of the GRU are divided in their designations into procurement, processing and support. The great majority of the procurement organs, the providers of information, are controlled by the first deputy chief of the GRU. They include the first directorate, which carries out agent intelligence on European territory, and consists of five directions, each of which carries out agent intelligence on the territories of several countries (each direction consists of sections which direct undercover residencies in one of the countries concerned); the second directorate with an analogous organisation carrying out agent intelligence in America, both North and South; the third directorate, which carries out agent intelligence in Asia; and the fourth directorate, dealing with agent intelligence in Africa, and the Middle East. Each directorate contains about 300 high-ranking officers in the Moscow centre, and about 300 abroad. Besides these four directorates, there are also four directions which undertake the same duties. These directions do not form parts of directorates but are answerable to the first deputy chief. The first GRU direction carries out agent intelligence in the Moscow area and it has its influential representatives in all Soviet official institutions used by the GRU as cover: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of External Trade, Aeroflot, the Merchant Navy, the Academy of Sciences and so forth. These representatives fit their young officers into slots in the institution serving as cover and guarantee their smooth progress in their future activities. In addition some GRU officers, on their return from overseas, continue to work in their covering organisation and not in the head office. Using these officers, the first direction recruits foreign military attaches, members of military delegations, businessmen and representatives of aviation and steamship companies. The second direction carries out agent intelligence in the area of East and West Berlin, a gigantic organisation which again does not form part of a directorate. The third direction is concerned with agent intelligence in national liberation movements and terrorist organisations. Its favourite child until recently was the Palestine Liberation Organisation. The fourth department carries out agent intelligence work from Cuban territory against many countries, including the United States. In many respects the fourth direction duplicates the activity of the second directorate. It has unlimited power in the ranks of the Cuban intelligence service and with its help actively penetrates and endeavours to direct the activities of unaligned movements.

  The GRU adheres to a different principle in running its illegals from the principle adopted by the KGB. Among its procurement organs there is no separate unit for directing illegals, and the GRU does not consider such a unit necessary. Each of the directorate heads and several of the direction heads have under their command sections of illegals. This permits them to run illegals and residencies under cover at the same time in the territories of groups of countries or entire continents. The directorate or direction head may at any moment use his illegals for carrying out a secret check of the undercover residencies. The first deputy to the chief of the GRU also has an analogous section under his command. Naturally, he has very high-quality illegals. The first deputy may use his own illegals for secret checks on undercover residencies, and also the illegals under the command of directorate and direction heads. Finally, the absolute cream of the illegals are run personally by the chief of the GRU through his own illegals section. He can use his i
llegals for the checking of everything and everybody, including illegals under the command of the first deputy.

  There is a fifth GRU directorate, which is also concerned with procurement and controlled by the first deputy. However, its functions differ from those on the four directorates and four directions listed above. The fifth directorate does not carry out independent agent intelligence work but directs the activities of the intelligence directorates of military districts, groups of forces and fleets. This directorate is a kind of controller of vassals. Directly under its control are twenty intelligence directorates belonging to the military districts, groups of forces and fleet intelligence, the latter having in its turn four more fleet intelligence directorates beneath it. The number of secret agents and diversionary agents ultimately controlled by the fifth directorate exceeds the number of all the agents controlled by the first four directorates and four directions, and these agents operate on all the same territories where illegals, undercover residencies and agents of the above-mentioned directorates and departments operate. With their help the first deputy, or indeed the chief himself, may secretly check on the activities of his directorate. This arrangement works in reverse too: with the help of agents of the first four directorates and four directions he can check the activities of the secret agents of military districts, fleets and groups of forces.

  In addition to the proliferation of units outlined above, there are two more GRU directorates which are concerned with the procurement of information: the sixth directorate and the cosmic intelligence directorate. These directorates procure and partly process information, but they do not go in for agent intelligence, so they are not considered as purely procurement directorates and are not subordinate to the first deputy chief of the GRU. The chiefs of both these directorates answer to the chief of the GRU and are his deputies, but not first deputies.

  The GRU sixth directorate is concerned with electronic intelligence. For this purpose its officers are posted to undercover residencies in the capitals of foreign states and there form groups which intercept and decipher transmissions on governmental and military networks. There are also many regiments of electronic intelligence on the territories of the Eastern bloc and Soviet Union, and these are integral parts of the sixth directorate. Furthermore, this directorate controls the electronic intelligence services of the military districts, groups of forces and fleets which in their turn have their own regiments, special ships, aircraft and helicopters for electronic espionage. The electronic espionage services of each military district, group and fleet correspondingly control similar services in the armies and flotillas, and these in their turn control those of the divisions. And so it goes on. All the information acquired from the electronic companies of divisions, electronic battalions of armies, regiments of military districts and groups of forces and spy ships of the fleet, is collected in the sixth directorate and analysed there.

  The GRU cosmic intelligence directorate is no less powerful. It has its own cosmodromes, a number of research institutes, a co-ordinating computer centre and huge resources. It works out the technical details for spy satellites independently and prepares them in its own works. The Soviet Union has sent into orbit more than 2,000 cosmic objects for different purposes, and one in three of them belongs to the GRU. The vast majority of Soviet cosmonauts, with the exception of those who undertake only demonstration flights, work for half their time in space in the interests of the GRU. The KGB lies far behind the GRU in this respect.

  Chapter Ten

  Fleet Intelligence

  The GRU fifth directorate directs twenty intelligence directorates of military districts and groups of forces directly, and four intelligence directorates of fleets co-ordinated by an organisation known as fleet intelligence. Fleet intelligence was introduced because each military district and group of forces has a very strictly denned sphere of responsibility in time of war, whereas the ships of the four Soviet fleets operate in widely scattered areas of the world's oceans and each ship must continuously have full information on the enemy. The chief of fleet intelligence comes under the GRU chief as a deputy, and he controls the four intelligence directorates of naval staff- Northern, Pacific, Black Sea and Baltic- and the fleet cosmic intelligence directorate and information service. In his day-to-day activities he is under the orders of the GRU fifth directorate.

  Fleet intelligence directorates have a structure similar to that of the directorates of military districts. There are small differences caused by maritime factors, which for our purposes are insignificant, and the fleet intelligence directorates together with those belonging to military districts will be examined in detail in Part II under the heading of 'Operational Intelligence'.

  The GRU chief has at his disposal two independent cosmic intelligence services. One is beneath him directly, the GRU cosmic intelligence directorate, and the other through the chief of fleet intelligence. The Soviet High Command quite reasonably considers that, bearing in mind the tasks to be fulfilled, the fleet must have its own cosmic intelligence service. This of course does not exclude the GRU chief controlling his own cosmic intelligence service with the help of the other and vice-versa. Considering that not only the GRU cosmic intelligence service, but also that of the fleets has its own spy satellites, we may say that out of all the satellites put into orbit by the Soviet Union, about half are directly or indirectly subordinated to the GRU.

  Chapter Eleven

  The GRU Processing Organs

  The GRU processing organs are sometimes called the information service or more frequently simply 'information'. The chief of information has the rank of colonel-general and is a deputy to the GRU chief. The following are under his control:

  i the information command point; ii six information directorates; iii the institute of information; iv the information services of fleet intelligence; v the information services of intelligence directorates of military districts and groups; vi all the organisations of military intelligence listed below which are concerned with the processing of secret material acquired.

  The information command point is second only to the GRU central command point. It receives all intelligence material coming from illegals, undercover residencies, agents, from cosmic and electronic intelligence and also from the intelligence directorates of military districts, fleets, groups of forces, and from the military intelligence services of the satellite countries. It has full power to ask any resident, agent or illegal, in fact any source of intelligence information, to give more precise details or to re-check information submitted. The information command point works without breaks, without days off, without holidays. It carries out all preliminary processing of all the material submitted; each morning at six o'clock it publishes a top secret 'Intelligence Summary' destined for members of the Politburo and the higher military command, and in the morning all material which has come to hand during the previous twenty-four hours is transmitted to the informational directorates of the GRU for detailed analysis.

  In all, there are six directorates plus the information institute on the strength of the information service. The numbering begins of course with the seventh directorate which is concerned with a study of NATO in all its aspects. The directorate consists of six departments, each of which consists of sections. Each department and each section carries responsibility for the study of individual trends or aspects of NATO activities. The eighth directorate carries out studies of individual countries worldwide, irrespective of whether that country belongs to NATO or not. Special attention is paid to questions of political structure, armed forces and economies, and special emphasis is put on a study of the personal activities of statesmen and military leaders. The ninth directorate studies military technology. It is very tightly connected with the Soviet design offices and with the armaments industry, as a whole. It is the only link between the Soviet armaments factories copying foreign weapons and the residents of Soviet intelligence who obtain the necessary secrets. The tenth directorate studies military economics worldwide,
carefully watching arms sales, studying production and technological developments, strategic resources and vulnerable points. The idea of an oil embargo first saw the light of day in this directorate as a suggestion in the 'Locomotive Report' of 1954, when it was pointed out that, to wreck the 'locomotive of capitalism' it was not necessary to smash the engine, only to deprive it of a crucial ingredient. Immediately after this the Soviet penetration of the Arab nations began. Happily this stunning idea of the tenth directorate has not as yet been put into practice. The eleventh studies strategic concepts and strategic nuclear forces of all countries who possess such capabilities, or may in the future possess them. This directorate carefully monitors any signs of increased activity, any change in emphasis in the activities of strategic nuclear forces in any region of the globe. The officers of this directorate form the backbone of Soviet delegations to the SALT talks. Unfortunately we do not possess reliable information on the activities of the twelfth directorate.