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The Cold War 2 Essay Research Paper

The Cold War 2 Essay, Research Paper


Introduction


When World War II in Europe finally came to an end on May 7, 1945, a


new war was just beginning. The Cold War: denoting the open yet restricted


rivalry that developed between the United States and the Soviet Union and


their respective allies, a war fought on political, economic, and


propaganda fronts, with limited recourse to weapons, largely because of


fear of a nuclear holocaust.1 This term, The Cold War, was first used by


presidential advisor Bernard Baruch during a congressional debate in 1947.


Intelligence operations dominating this war have been conducted by the


Soviet State Security Service (KGB) and the Central Intelligence Agency


(CIA), representing the two power blocs, East and West respectively, that


arose from the aftermath of World War II. Both have conducted a variety of


operations from large scale military intervention and subversion to covert


spying and surveillance missions. They have known success and failure. The


Bay of Pigs debacle was soon followed by Kennedy’s ft handling of the Cuban


missile crisis. The decisions he made were helped immeasurably by


intelligence gathered from reconnaissance photos of the high altitude plane


U-2. In understanding these agencies today I will show you how these


agencies came about, discuss past and present operations, and talk about


some of their tools of the trade.


Origin of the CIA and KGB


The CIA was a direct result of American intelligence operations during


World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt recognized the need to


coordinate intelligence to protect the interests of the United States. In


1941, he appointed William J. Donovan to the head of the Office of


Strategic Services (OSS) with headquarters in London. Four departments made


up the OSS: Support, Secretariat, Planning, and Overseas Missions. Each of


these departments directed an array of sections known as ‘operation groups’.


This organization had fallen into the disfavor of many involved in the


federal administration at this time. This included the director of the


Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), J. Edgar Hoover, who did not like


competition from a rival intelligence organization. With the death of


Roosevelt in April of 1945, the OSS was disbanded under Truman and


departments were either relocated or completely dissolved. Soviet


intelligence began with the formation of the Cheka, secret police, under


Feliks Dzerzhinsky at the time of the revolution. By 1946, this agency had


evolved into the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), and the Ministry of


State Security (MGB) both ruled by Lavrenti Beria. This man was undoubtedly


the most powerful man in the Soviet Union with a vast empire of prison


camps, and informants to crush any traces of dissent. Of considerable


importance to Beria was the race for the atomic bomb. The Soviet Union and


the United States both plundered the German V-2 rocket sites for materials


and personnel. In 1946 the MVD was responsible for the rounding up of 6000


scientists from the Soviet zone of Germany and taking them and their


dependents to the Soviet Union.2 The political conflicts of the 1930’s and


World War II left many educated people with the impression that only


communism could combat economic depression and fascism. It was easy for


Soviet agents to recruit men who would later rise to positions of power


with access to sensitive information. ‘Atom spies’ were well positioned to


keep the Soviets informed of every American development on the bomb. Of


considerable importance was a man by the name of Klaus Fuchs, a German


communist who fled Hitler’s purge and whose ability as a nuclear physicist


earned him a place on the Manhattan Project. Fuchs passed information to


the Soviets beginning in 1941, and was not arrested until 1950. Also


passing secrets to the Soviets were Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, executed in


the United States in 1953. The latter two were probably among the first who


believed in nuclear deterrence, whereby neither country would use nuclear


weapons because the other would use his in response, therefore there would


be no ssible winner. It is generally believed that with such scientists as


Andrei Sakharov, the Soviets were capable of working it out for themselves


without the help of intelligence. (better transition) The National Security


Act of 1947 gave birth to the CIA, and in 1949 the CIA Act was formally


passed. “The act exempted the CIA from all Federal laws that required the


disclosure of ‘functions, names, official titles, and salaries or number of


personnel employed by the agency’. The director was awarded staggering


powers, including the right to ’spend money without regard to the


provisions of law and regulations relating to the expenditure of government


funds’. The act also allowed the director to bring in 100 aliens a year


secretly.”3 The 1949 charter is essentially the same one that the CIA uses


to carry out covert operations today.


The U-2 Incident


In 1953, the CIA contracted Lockheed Aircraft Corporation of Burbank CA


to build a plane that would go higher and farther than any yet produced.


Kelly Johnson came up with the design for the U-2, a plane that would fly


with a record high ceiling of 90,000 ft. and a range of 4,000 ft. The U-2


flights are possibly the greatest triumph achieved by the CIA since its


founding. This is because of the planes success at evading detection for


such a long time and the vast amounts of information gathered. “We’ll never


be able to match that one. Those flights were intelligence work on a mass


production basis.”4 On the fateful day of May 1, 1960, Gary Powers was sent


up in his U-2 over the Soviet Union from the United States Air Force Base


at Peshawar, Pakistan. His mission was to photograph areas of military and


economic signifigance and record radio transmissions. The plane he flew was


equipped with cameras, radio receivers and tape recorders to accomplish


this mission. In addition to these devices, the plane was also equipped


with self destruction capabilities to blow up the U-2 if it was forced to


land, and a blasting mechanism fitted to the tape recorder to destroy any


evidence of the CIA’s monitoring of radio signals. As his plane flew over


the Soviet Union, the cameras recorded ammunition depots, oil storage


installations, the number and type of aircraft at military airports, and


electric transmission lines. When the plane did not return to its base


after a reasonable allowance of time, it was assumed it had crashed for


some reason or another. The circumstances surrounding the crash of the


plane Powers flew on this is a still a mystery today, depending on whether


you believe the Soviets or the Americans. The Soviets claim that “in view


of the fact that this was a case of the deliberate invasion of Soviet


airspace with hostile aggressive intent, the Soviet Government gave orders


to shoot down the plane”5, and that they shot it out of the air with an SA-


2 missile at 8:53 A.M. at the altitude of 68,000 ft. The Americans declared


that the U-2 was disabled by a flameout in its jet engine. Whatever the


truth maybe, or combination of truths, the fact remains that Powers


survived the encounter by parachute in the vicinity of Sverdlovsk. Upon


landing, he was apprehended, disarmed, and escorted to the security police


by four residents of the small town. The fault of the incident lay with the


American administration’s handling of the situation, not with the flight


itself. It was assumed that Powers had died in the crash, and this was the


mistake. The initial story released was not widely reported and only told


of a missing pilot near the Soviet border who’

s oxygen equipment was out of


order. “From an intelligence point of view, the original cover story seemed


to be particularly inept… A cover story has certain requirements. It must


be credible. It must be a story that can be maintained [no live pilots


knocking about] and it should not have too much detail. Anything that’s


missing in a cover story can be taken care of by saying the matter is being


investigated.”6 The further lies the State Department released about the


incident only strained U.S. and Soviet relations. These included reports of


an unarmed weather research plane, piloted by a civilian, that had trouble


with oxygen equipment going down over the Soviet Union. Under questioning


by the press, Information Officer, Walt Bonney, admitted that the U-2 had


cameras aboard, but they were not reconnaissance cameras. Rather, the


cameras were “to take cloud cover”. When it became publicly known that


Khrushchev had known what had taken place all along and had known for some


years, President Eisenhower justified the presence of a spy plane over the


Soviet Union with it being “in the interest of the free world.” Khrushchev


saw through the ploy and revoked his invitation for Eisenhower to visit the


Soviet Union for a summit.


Bay of Pigs


By 1959, Fidel Castro and his rebels were able to establish their own


regime in Cuba. Americans soon became hostile to this new government when


it became apparent that Castro endorsed the Soviets. He declared his


intentions of supporting guerrilla movements against US backed


dictatorships throughout Latin America and seized US assets in Cuba. He


also established friendly relations with the Soviet Union although he was


not communist. The US recognized this threat to their interests and


proceeded to form a special CIA task force that was create an armed force


of exiled Cubans, form a subversive organizations within Cuba, and if


possible assassinate Castro. The initial plan was to discredit the


charismatic man in front of his nation. Some ideas that were considered to


accomplish the task were ludicrous in the least. The first was to spray


Cuban TV studios with LSD prior to Castro broadcasting a speech in hopes of


him making a complete fool of himself. The agency had been experimenting


with the acid for some time. However, the idea was quickly abandoned


because no one could guarantee with any certainty that the drug would have


the desired effect. Further attempts were stabs at the look of Castro


himself. One idea was to doctor his famous insignia, the cigars he is


always seen with. This idea was discontinued because no one could figure


out how to get the cigars to him. From an angle of more a chemical nature,


the agency planned at one time to make his beard fall out. Scientists at


the agency knew that when thallium salts contact skin, they act as a


depilatory and make hair fall out. The idea goes further into reasoning


that when Castro aveled he would leave his shoes outside of his hotel


bedroom and the salts could be sprinkled in then. This idea became


impossible when Castro announced that all forthcoming foreign trips were to


be cancelled. With these failures, the US felt that it had no choice but to


continue with the organization of partisans and help them usurp the


dictatorship of Cuba. By the time John F. Kennedy was elected President in


1960, the development of the invasion was already in full force. Eisenhower


had earmarked $13 million and a force of 1300 men had been assembled.7


Cuban pilots were being trained how to fly B-26 bombers by National


Guardsmen. The operation was massive, enough so that the public took notice.


Kennedy was extremely wary of any direct US involvement and set about a


series of compromises for the Cuban exiles. The air cover was reduced and


the landings were shifted from a more favorable site to the Bay of Pigs


where it was determined that the landing force could get ashore with a


minimum of naval and air force back up. Escorted by US naval vessels, the


force landed in the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961. The six B-26s assigned


to the operation were clearly inadequate and the support from within the


country never fully materialized. Completely exposed to counterattacks of


the Cuban air and land forces, the whole invasion force was either killed


or taken prisoner. When Kennedy’s statement that “the armed forces of this


country would not intervene in any way” was an outright lie. The exiles


uses American equipment. They were trained by American servicemen, and the


planes flown were Americans. The ships that carried the men to the invasion


were American, with American naval units for support. Americans were killed


in operation. When caught in his lie, Kennedy was forced to cover the US by


extending the Monroe Doctrine to cover communism. He declared that the US


would remain free of all Central and Latin American affair as long as they


were not communist. This fiasco undoubtedly led to Khrushchev’s belief that


he could deploy missiles to his newfound ally without any tangible reprisal


from the Americans.


Practices of Spies


Some of the devices used seem to come straight from a James Bond movie.


Hollow rings or talcum powder cans with false bottoms were some of the


items used for hiding microfilm. An interesting method involves the use of


a microdot whereby pages of information is reduced to the size of a colon


and used in an appropriate place on a document. The process is reversed for


the extraction of information and the dot is enlarged to display all the


information. Hiding places for secret packages were imaginative to say the


least and ranged from trees, to ruined walls, to mail boxes. Listening


devices were not restricted to telephone bugs, and on one occasion there


was a handcarved Great Seal of the United States presented to the US


ambassador in Moscow by the Soviet Union. It turned out that hidden inside


was a listening device. Microwave receivers exist all over the world for


the interception of messages, the Soviet embassy in San Francisco has its


own battery of dishes erected on top of its building. In 1978, a Bulgarian


exile by the name Georgi Markov who was working for the Radio Free Europe


was fatally poisoned with a pellet most likely hidden in an umbrella.


Vladimir Kostov was killed under very similar circumstances in 1978, and it


is believed that the toxin used was ricin. This is an extremely toxic


substance derived from castor oil. Political and intelligence related


assassinations have abounded in the twentieth century with the advent of


the Cold War. The public will never know when one of murders takes place by


reason of secrecy unless it is a public figure.


Conclusion


The agencies discussed above are integral to the peace that exists


today. There is no other way in the age we live in today to monitor the


enemy and ally alike so as to be able to understand their capabilities and


shortcomings without intelligence agencies. The CIA and KGB by themselves


cannot assure peace. With the knowledge supplied by each to its leaders,


intelligent decisions can be made in the world’s best interest. Moreover,


the status quo and power base remains relatively stable with the East and


West on opposing sides. There can never be true and utterly complete peace,


these organizations will continue to exist contrary ignorant ideals of the


public for peaceful coexistence.


1Encyclopedia Britannia index page 237 2KGB/CIA, Jonathon Bloch page 12


3KGB/CIA, Jonathon Bloch page 21 4CIA: The Inside Story, Andrew Tully page


113 5CIA: The Inside Story, Andrew Tully page 119 6General Thomas R.


Phillips, U.S. Army, retired. 7Bay of Pigs, Peter Wyden page 59 ??

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