ARMS-D-Request@MIT-MC.ARPA (Moderator) (12/13/85)
Arms-Discussion Digest Thursday, December 12, 1985 5:35PM
Volume 5, Issue 57
Today's Topics:
Reply to Hoffman
consequences of nuclear accident
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Date: Tue, 10 Dec 85 9:25:13 EST
From: Jeff Miller AMSTE-TEI 4675 <jmiller@apg-1>
Subject: Reply to Hoffman
You ask whether I really think the USA could possibly be equivalent to
the KGB in effective disinformation. Frankly, yes. I doubt that the
KGB's disinformation reaches as many people worldwide as the Great
Communicator. Further, Reagan is believed and trusted by more people
than is any other person or government. (Unjustifiably, in my opinion.)
The problem here is apples and oranges. I have been addressing
disinformation, which an art and a science unto itself, not that which any
commentator would like it to be. It would seem you need to study the
difference between propaganda and disinformation.
You say "The information [about KGB internal organization] is
available." I've seen only a little. Would you care to recommend a
good source?
See below.
You further say "most non-techspec data is made available in
unclassified form". Well, we couldn't disagree more, and I can't think
of anything you or I could say to one another to change the other's
mind, so I won't pursue the point.
You are right. We probably won't agree. I assume you are a scientist or an
engineer who might work with government research and therefore may have some
familiarity with handling classified information of a narrow scope. I am an
intelligence professional and have worked with a broad range of data,
collateral and compartmentalized. I don't require anyone to confirm my own
experience in which, conservatively, approx. 85% of what I have seen has been
available unclas, with lowered detail and other techniques of source
protection. Techspec data, i.e. "How To Build A Mk25A2 H-Bomb" is a quite
justifiable exception.
re: "I will assume something in my examples touched upon one of your
personal beliefs." Only my belief that most governments and politicians
(ours AND theirs) are liars not to be believed, and I do get tired of
your examples assuming only the other side lies and manipulates people.
Again, no argument that most governments and politicians lie. In this world,
any that didn't would be recklessly throwing away needed tactical options.
I'm very sorry to hear that you are tired. Perhaps if you rested the vendetta
you seem to have against Reagan and did a little research, you would discover
that there is tremendous difference of proportion between an American
president or general or congressman slanting the truth to score propaganda
points, and a machinery of thousands of agents engaged in deception practices
with often tragic consequences.
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My first recommendation is that you peruse "The Deception Game" by Ladislav
Bittmann, a defector from the Czech Stani Tajna Bezpecnost (STB). The Czechs
are the recognized masters of dezinformatsiya, and taught the KGB all they
know.
Testimony of Ladislav Bittmann, Subcommitee to Investigate the Administration
of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Laws, Committee of
the Judiciary, US Senate.(SSIS) 1971 (Hearings)
Testimony of Yevgeny Runge. SSIS 1970 (Hearings)
Soviet Intelligence and Security Services 1964-67 Selected Bibliography of
Soviet Publications. SSIS 1972 (Report)
Soviet Covert Action; The Forgery Offensive. SSIS 1980 (Hearings)
Surveillance Technology SSIS 1975 (Hearings)
Communist Bloc Activities in the US Parts I and II SSIS 1975-76 (Hearings)
Organized Subversion in the US Armed Forces Part I 1975 (Staff Study)
Testimony of Peter Deriabin, Murder and Kidnapping as an Instrument of Soviet
Policy. SSIS 1965 (Hearings)
The Communist Internatonal Youth and Student Apparatus. SSIS 1963 (Report)
The Soviet Approach to Negotiation SSIS 1969 (Selected Writings)
Richard Pipes, International Negotiation: Some Operational Principles of
Soviet Foreign Policy. Senate Subcommittee on National Security and
International Operations of the Committee on Government Operations. 1972
(Memorandum)
KGB, John Barron
KGB Today, John Barron.
Inside Soviet Military Intelligence, Victor Suvarov
The Chornovil Papers, Vyacheslav Chornovil
Peacetime Strategy of the Soviet Union, Brian Crozier
KGB, Brian Freemantle
Watchdogs of Terror, Peter Deriabin
The Secret World, Peter Deriabin and Frank Gibney
The Czech Black Book, published as Sedm Prazskych Dnu by the Czech Institute
of History, Frederick A. Praeger
Inside a Soviet Embassy, Aleksandr Kaznachiev
Science and Technology as an Instrument of Soviet Policy, M.L. Harvey and V.
Prokofiev
My Testimony, Anatoly Marchenko
The Plight of Soviet Science Today, Zhores Medvedev
The Penkovsky Papers, Oleg Penkovsky
Education of Foreign Revolutionaries in the Soviet Union, Aclan Sayilgan
Soviet Spies in the Scientific and Technical Fields, Wavre, Belgium
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There are more, believe me (if you dare).
Please note that I have omitted the many publications put out over the years
by various agencies of the Executive Branch, as I expect you might consider
them to be "disinformation".
J. Miller
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Date: Thu, 12 Dec 85 14:10:13 PST
From: ihnp4!ihuxl!dcn@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: consequences of nuclear accident
Excerpt from Chicago Tribune, December 9, 1985: Village Radiates Bomb Fear.
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PALOMARES, Spain [Reuters] - Two decades after a bizarre accident
in which three American nuclear bombs fell - but failed to explode -
on this Mediterranean hamlet, the worried villagers still fear they
are being kept in the dark.
The sleepy backwater entered the 20th Century with a jolt when
a U.S. Air Force bomber and a refueling plane were involved in an
aerial collision, dropping three hydrogen bombs on the village. A
fourth bomb fell into the sea.
The bombs' safety devices prevented an explosion which could
have obliterated most of southern Spain, but the impact of the collision
caused a shower of radioactive plutomium and uranium to fall over the
village, 125 miles south of Alicante.
Despite the huge clean-up operation undertaken by the U.S.
Air Force - burning crops, killing animals and removing some 2000 tons
of topsoil - the villagers were told by the American and Spanish doctors
that they were in no danger from plutonium poisoning.
"We were told to burn our clothes and take showers," Isabel
Portillo remembers. "I scrubbed my children ... but I couldn't afford
to burn our clothes."
"We have detected plutonium in 10 percent of the population,
but these are well below danger levels," nuclear physicist Francisco
Mingot said at an interview. "One would have to eat thousands of tons
of local produce before the risk from radioactivity became serious."
Dr. Eduardo Farre said that, once plutonium comes in to contact
with the air, it forms a compound with oxygen which is deposited in the
lungs, bones and liver when inhaled. He said cancer was the most common
consequence of plutonium poisoning, but it could take 15 to 30 years to
develop. "We are looking for funds to conduct our own environmental
tests," said Farre. "This is the worst case of plutonium contamination
known in the world and not onw study of the disaster has been published
in Spain."
Farre said the U.S. Air Force had conducted its own research
and financed the Nuclear Energy Board's work, but the results were the
property of the U.S. government and classified as military secrets.
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I can understand why the Air Force classified the results. They don't
want the general public to know how hydrogen bombs are constructed, and
how great a part the fission reaction plays in the hydrogen bomb. But
this might be the only data we have on what might happen if SDI weapons
disable a warhead in flight, leaving a dead bomb to continue its ballistic
path toward us.
Dave Newkirk, ihnp4!ihuxl!dcn
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End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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