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The East Bloc Spy-Der Web
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11392 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1986 |
2,117 Words |
| Author
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Jan Sejna
Jan Sejna is former first secretary of the Communist Party of
the Ministry of Defense in Czechoslovakia and chief of staff
of the Czech Ministry of Defense. Before he defected in 1968,
Major General Sejna had direct access to the Soviet "Strategic
Plan" for the global projection of Soviet military power. His
books include: We Will Bury You and Decision-Making in
Communist Countries (with Joseph D. Douglas). Sejna is an
expert on Soviet military and political strategy. |
There are two distinct Soviet intelligence organizations, the Committee for State Security (KGB), and General Staff. The GRU handles military-related intelligence and intelligence operations, while the KGB handles state security and foreign political operations. Military counter-intelligence, that is, intelligence about the reliability of soviet military forces, is handled exclusively by the KGB.
It is now widely recognized that the KGB is the largest and most professional intelligence organization in the world. Moreover, the second largest is the GRU. While in the popular press the tendency is to compare, often equate, KGB and the American CIA, such a comparison is most inappropriate, because the size, range of functions and operational methods of the KGB so far exceed those of the CIA as to render any comparison misleading, at best.
Myths of convenience
Another error is the frequent characterization of the KGB as bureaucratic, bumbling, and unsophisticated, with a decided lack of understanding of how the Western democracies, especially the United States, operate. The news media downplays the nature of the KGB and GRU and reports on a succession of Soviet agents in ill-fitting clothes who are seized as they retrieve stolen documents, or who are reported as they wander the halls of Congress asking questions about U.S. defense and intelligence capabilities. In a flurry of activity, scores of Soviet agents are then kicked out of the country, which seems to happen at least once every ten years in almost every NATO country and is thought to provide an example of how ineffective the Soviet intelligence forces are. In fact, the only agents caught are the few who are inept, or those provided as sacrificial offerings to maintain the impression of ineffectiveness, which is to the Soviet advantage.
As one who has watched Soviet intelligence from the perspective of the Czechoslovak Defense Council and Ministry of Defense, there are few reservations in my mind about the effectiveness, dangers, and weaknesses, too, of Soviet intelligence. The KGB is a bureaucracy, true, but it is a bureaucracy with a mission. Moreover, where operations are active, they are clearly managed with considerable effectiveness, which improves each year. The KGB can also react with extreme swiftness when that is required. They are not unmindful about the West and the democratic system. There are numerous research institutes formed to provide accurate studies of all foreign countries, including the United States, and there are numerous checks on the accuracy of
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