е - 1 1 Approved for Release 2022 04115 СО6914245 Published in Foreign Relations of the United States 1981–1988 Volume IV Soviet Union January 1983–March 1985 pp 1426-1429 - b 1 --­ PErENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCV Ь З NatSecAct Ь 1 Ь З NatSecAct WA$MINGTON D C JO�O• 9 January 1989 1-89 0R HEМ0RдNDUl1 F'OR SUSJECT Ь 1 Ь З NatSecAct End of Tour Report Addend11m The enc1 osed memorandum documen ts а cha1 n of even ts and an important analytical proЫem that I belfeve the U S Intellfgence Communfty has nev er adeчuately addressed 1 raist 1t now once aga n as I Jqave the service because it remains one of the fmportant loose-ends on my plate that has never been covered to my sHisfaction and because I belfeve there may ье some 111portant lessons 1earned as relates to our l W capaЫ ity and exercise planning 1 Enclosure Memo Ь 1 --- Ь З NatSecAct се SECDEF CJCS NSC дТТN мr Pau1 Stevens Spec1al Assistant to the President and Executive Secretary PFIAB АТТN Ms Anne Annstrong Chainnan President's Foreign Intelligence дdvi sory Board ��- Lieutenant Genera1 USAF Retired Ь 1 Ь З NatSecAct Ь 1 Ь З NatSecAct 106-89 Сору Д - of J _ 8 9 V t � 1 _· j ч по Ь 1 Ь З NatSecAct �ystc_ j r�nюval of enclosure th1s 1 ··• document Unclassified Сору L of l - Copies ----------- - -- - Approved - for Release 2022104115 СО6914245 Сору 1 The PFIAB report also cited а January 1989 End ofTour Report Addendum Ьу Lieutenant General Leonard Н Perroots who had served as Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence US Air Forces Europe during the 1983 АЫе Archer exercise to emphasize the potential conse-quences of the intelligence gap during the АЫе Archer exercise Per-roots addressed АЫе Archer as well as Gordiyevskiy's reporting in that memorandum 1426 Foreign Relations 1981-1988 Volume IV Approved for Release 2022 04 15 СО6914245 Ь 1 l Ь З NatSecAct 1 1 U In 1983 I was assigned as the DCS for Intelligence US Air Forces Europe Ramstein АВ Germany The annual NATO Command and Control exercise ABLE ARCHER was scheduled to begin during the first week of November The context of this nuclear command and control exercise was relatively benign the scenario had been purposely chosen to Ье non­controversial and the exercise itself was а routine annual event This exerdse closely followed the bomblng of air defense sites in Lebanon and directly followed the invasion of Grenada As I recall however there was no particular feeling of tension in the Euro-pean Theater beyond that which is normal 2 portion marking not declassified Only the fact that Soviet Intelli-gence collection assets primarily low level signals intercept units had failed to return to garrison after their normal concentrated coverage of NATO's AUTUMN FORGE exerdse series could Ье reckoned strange at all As the kickoff date of ABLE ARCHER neared it was clear that there was а great deal of Soviet interest in the forthcoming events Again this seemed nothing out of the ordinary W е knew that there was а history of intensive Soviet collection against practice Emergency Action Messages ЕАМ's related to nuclear release 3 portion marking not declassified ABLE ARCHER started in the morning of 3 November and progressed immediately in the scenario to NATO STATE ORANGE At 2100Z on 04 November NSA issued an electrical product report G 00 3083-83 entitled SOVIET AIR FORCES GSFG PLACED ON HEIGHTENED READINESS 2 NOVEMBER 1983 I saw this message on the morning of 5 November and discussed it with my air analysts It stated that as of l 900Z on 02 November the fighter-bomber divisions of the air force of Group Soviet Forces Germany had been placed in а status of heightened alert All divisional and regimental command posts and supporting command and control elements were to Ье manned around-the-clock Ьу aug­mented teams Approved for Release �022 04 15 СО6914245 4 portion marking not declassified In addition to the directed com­ mand and control changes the fighter-bomber divisions were also ordered to load out one squadron of aircraft in each regiment if this order applied equally across GSFG the result would have Ъееn at least 108 fighter-bombers on alert Тhese aircraft were to Ье armed and placed at readiness 3 30 minute alert to destroy firstline enemy targets Тhе alert aircraft were to Ье equipped with а self-protection jamming pod We knew from subsequent NSA reporting that а squad-ron at Neuruppin East Germany sought and was apparently granted permission to configure its aircraft without the ЕСМ pod because of an unexpected weight and balance proЫem Му air analysts opined that this message meant that at least this particular squadron was loading а munitions configuration that they had never actually loaded before i e а warload 5 portion marking not declassified At this point I spoke to CinC­ USAFE General Billy Minter I told him we had some unusual activity in East Germany that was рrоЬаЫу а reaction to the ongoing АВLЕ ARCHER Не asked if I thought we should increase the real force generation I said that we would carefully watch the situation but there was insuffident evidence to justify increasing our real alert posture At this point in the exercise our forces were in а Appendix Approved for Releese 2022 04115 СО6914245 Ь 1 Ь З NatSecAct 1427 simulated posture ofNATO State ORANGE and local SALTY NA ТION tests involving simulated generation of combat aircraft were underway at various locations induding Ramstein АВ If I had known then what I later found out I am uncertain what advice I would have given 6 portion marking not dedassi fied An NSA message dated 022229Z DEC 83 provided the rest of the picture as far as we knew it-at least until the reports began to surface from the British penetration of the KGB Oleg Gordievskiy This GAMMA message was entitled SOVIET 4th AIR АR АТ HEIGHTENED READINESS IN REACTION ТО NATO EXERCISE ABLE ARCHER 2-11 NOVEMBER 1983 This report stated that the alert had been ordered Ъу the Chief of the Soviet Air Forces Marshal Kutakhov and that а11 units of the Soviet 4th Air Army were involved in the alert which induded preparations for immediate use of nudear weapons This report described activity that was contemporaneous with that refl ected in East Germany but because of the speci fic source of this material it was not availaЫe in near realtime The two pieces taken together present а much more omi-nous picture 7 portion marking not dedassified Equally ominous in its own way was the fact that this alert was never reflected at а11 Ьу the I W system At the time of this occurrence there was no distribution of electrically reported GAMMA material to the Tactical Fusion Center at Boerf 1 remedied that shortfall in the aftermath of this activity Secondly а real standdown of aircraft was secretly ordered in at least the Sovict Air Forces units facing the Central Region and that standdown was not dctected Тhе Sovict alert in response to АВLЕ ARCHER began after nightfall on Wednesday evening there was no flying on the following two days which led to the weekend and then the following Monday was 7 November the revolution holiday The absence of fl ying could always Ье explained although а warning condition was raised finally on about the ninth ofNovember when overhead photography showed fully armed FLOGGER aircraft on air defense alert at а base in East Germany When this single indicator was raised the standdown had been underway for а week 8 portion marking not dedassified For the next si x months I was on а soapbox about ABLE ARCHER whenever I could discuss it at the appropriate dassification level 1 spoke to the Senior Military Intelli-gence Officers' Conference SMIOC and I buttonholed а lot of people 1 suggested that perhaps we should move our annual exercise away from the November 7 holiday because it is dear to me that the conjunc-tion of the two events causes а waming proЫem that can never Ье solved Our proЫem here was that we had а couple of very highly dassified Ьits of intelligence evidence about а potentially disastrous situation that never actually came to fruition For decision-makers it was always difficult to believe that there could have been any serious reaction Ьу the Soviets to such а 'Ъenign exercise as ABLE ARCHER From the Soviet perspective however it might have appeared very different It was difficult for а11 of us to grasp that but Oleg Gordiev-skiy's reporting began to provide а somewhat more frightening per-spective when it became availaЬle in the Fall of 1985 II11 • •1 1 for Release 2022 04115 CIOeM l�S----- 1428 Foreign Relations 1981-1988 Volume IV --------- ·----- ----- ---- --· Approved for Release 2022 04 15 СО6914245 Ь 1 Ь З NatSecAct 9 S Ву the tirne Gordievskiy's reporting began to surface for analytical rcview I was the Director ofDIA Gordicvskiy's initial report-ing about а war scare in 1983 imrnediately caught ту attention It should Ье pointed out at the outset that Gordievskiy knew nothing of а military alert during ABLE ARCHER Не did however tel1 us something of а chilling story about Moscow Center's Intelligence task-ing during 1983 Не related that there was а project called either RY aN or VRY aN the latter рrоЬаЫу being the full form of а Russian acronym meaning sudden rocket nuclear attack There was а cadre of specialists in Moscow Center charged with among other things finding the cvidence of planning for а western attack on the Soviet Union Beginning in 1982 and continuing into 1983 Gordievskiy says that this group became ever more insistent that an attack was being planned Ьу the West Ву March 1983 the KGB officers in Moscow had decided that ABLE ARCHER 83 would provide an e x cellent cover for the planned attack and KGB and GRU residencies around the world were being directed to find the evidence Gordievskiy living in London at the time states that he never believed there was really а threat and that the London residency of the KGB simply ignored the collection requirements until it began to become clear that Moscow was serious During the summer of 1983 the London residency sent some reports that in retrospect Gordievskiy believed might have hyped the war hysteria Не never really believed in the threat however and reported during his debriefing in 1985 that he thought the VRY aN hysteria might have been some kind of internal political ploy 1 must reiterate again that Gordievskiy did not know about the secret military alert of November 1983 10 portion marking not declassified The US intelligence community has never really closed with this analytical proЫem А SNIE addressed this subject 1½ lines not declassified The position has been taken again and again that had there been а real alert we would have detected more of it but this may Ье whistling through the graveyard It is not certain that we looked hard enough or broadly enough for information For W estern collectors the context was peacetime without even the most basic ripples of crisis For the Soviets however the view may have looked quite different It is uncertain how close to war we came or even if that was а possibility at all but we know from Gordievskiy that the analysts in Moscow had predicted that the W est would launch the attack from а posture of NATO State ORANGE What might have happened that day in November 1983 if we had begun а precautionary generation of forces rather than waiting for further information Central Intelligence Agency National Intelligence Council Job 91ВОО551 Speeches Lectures Briefing Files 1988-1989 Вох 1 Folder 2 C NIC Ermarth Chrons March 1989 Approvea for Release 2022 04115 СО6914245