DATE=10/27/1999
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=KGB FILES
NUMBER=5-44627
BYLINE=ED WARNER
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
CONTENT=

VOICED AT:


INTRO:  The Cold War lives on in the United States in 
a potentially explosive way, according to testimony at 
a recent U-S Congressional hearing (Tues., Oct.26). 
The records of a former Soviet intelligence official 
indicate caches of arms were concealed in various 
places in the United States and other western 
countries in preparation for a possible war. There 
they remain in deteriorating and dangerous condition. 
V-O-A's Ed Warner reports on these unsettling 
reminders of the Cold War.  


TEXT:  For more than a decade, KGB archivist Vasili 
Mitrokhin risked his life to take notes of secret 
files of the Soviet spy agency.  He then buried 
several trunks containing them underneath his dacha 
(country home). From there, he smuggled them to 
Britain - the largest collection of KGB documents ever 
obtained by the west.

A professor of modern history at Cambridge University, 
Christopher Andrew, has just published a book, "The 
Sword and the Shield," based on the files. They reveal 
the identity of thousands of Soviet agents operating 
around the world, many of them so-called "illegals,' 
who posed as ordinary citizens of the country they 
were spying on.

Testifying at a U-S Congressional hearing, Professor 
Andrew said the until the late 1970's Soviets sent 
weapons and communication equipment to Western nations 
to be concealed until the outbreak of a possible war. 
Then agents on the spot would make quick use of them.

So far, three caches have been uncovered and removed 
in Belgium, and one in Switzerland, which was attached 
to explosives. So dealing with them can be hazardous.

None has been uncovered in the United States, said 
Professor Andrew, though the Mitrokhin notes make 
clear some have been hidden there:  

            /// FIRST ANDREW ACT ///

      KGB files reveal, for example, that in 1966 KGB 
      sabotage and intelligence groups, largely 
      composed of Sandinista (Nicaraguan)guerrillas, 
      were established on the Mexican-U-S border. 
      Among the chief sabotage targets across the 
      border were military bases, missile sites, radar 
      installations and the oil pipeline which ran 
      from El Paso in Texas to Costa Mesa in 
      California. A support group was tasked with 
      using the movements of migrant workers to 
      conceal the transfer of agents and munitions 
      across the border

            /// END ACT ///  

The files indicate there were similar activities on 
the U-S-Canadian border, with the aim of destroying a 
large dam in Montana in the event of war.

Professor Andrew said the Mitrokhin files do not 
provide the exact location of the caches in the United 
States, although two are considered to be in Northwest 
Montana and two in Minnesota. He cautions that the 
Mitrokhin notes are just a fraction of the KGB files 
and do not include any from the GRU, Soviet military 
intelligence.

Also testifying before Congress, KGB defector Oleg 
Gordievsky said he had participated in burying a cache 
in Sweden and digging up another one. For a long time, 
the Kremlin leadership actually feared the United 
States would deliver a first strike with nuclear 
weapons. They would not even believe their own agents 
who said there was no evidence of such a plan. So 
Moscow was led to draw up all kinds of sabotage 
schemes with exotic weapons.

But they were not necessarily carried out, said Mr. 
Gordievsky, who was revealed as a British agent by the 
CIA spy Aldrich Ames and narrowly escaped execution: 

            /// GORDIEVSKY ACT ///

      For example, I am under sentence of death. So 
      theoretically speaking, they can kill me. But 
      they are not killing me. I am still alive. What 
      they have in their plans, what they have on 
      their desks, what they have in their files is 
      one thing. What they are doing practically is 
      not the same.

            /// END ACT ///  

Professor Andrew said Russia today has an obligation 
to disclose the location of all the arms caches with 
their varieties of weapons, including possibly nuclear 
ones: 

            /// SECOND ANDREW ACT ///

      What we have a right to know surely is that 
      anyone who even considered doing these monstrous 
      things - even if the chance that they succeeded 
      in doing so is extremely remote - they have an 
      absolute duty to tell us what it is they planned 
      and how far they got along the process of 
      implementing it.

            /// END ACT /// 

Representative Curt Weldon, who chaired the 
congressional hearing, said he is troubled that the U-
S Government has not asked Moscow for the location of 
the weapons' sites.  (Signed) 


NEB/ew/gm 



27-Oct-1999 16:57 PM EDT (27-Oct-1999 2057 UTC)
NNNN

Source: Voice of America
.