Intelligence Is The Source for That Knowledge
During recent weeks we talked about national strategy, national interests, realpolitik, belief systems, and spies who changed history. Knowledge is based on collecting information, then analyzing the information to give meaning a context. This week I want to take a look at how some of this information is gathered at the basic human level, in this case I mean theft.
We are all tuned to the current microchip crisis which has forced some industries to temporarily suspend production. Back in the early days of microelectronics, this technology was emerging as a strategic factor for national defenses. So back to those early days, what was the Soviet state of art in military microelectronics?
Thus, this week, our Thought is on the light-side – back in the field days of beating the Ruskies out of S&T information, and in this instance, physical stuff.
Dancing Shoes and Light Fingers
The intelligence community has terms used by insiders as they practice their craft. There are a bunch of ‘official’ and private ‘intelligence dictionaries’ dedicated to intelligence terminology. In Foreign Technology Division Det 3 in Germany, we frequently used and loved the term “dancing shoes”. The term “dancing shoes” means, ‘being able to talk one’s way out of trouble’. And we did ‘some dancing’ over the years. For us, the “dancing shoes” act was used as part of the tradecraft needed to conduct an operation. I think “light fingers” is self-explanatory as in surreptitious theft.
The Soviets had major weaknesses in their production phase for computer hardware and microelectronics. Given the low performance of the early Soviet computer designs, the Soviets decided “to borrow” US computer designs. For example, the Ryad series of Soviet computers was an exact copy of the IBM-360/370 and the East German VEB Robotron K 1840 (SM 1710) was a copy of the US VAX-11/780 computer.
One element which played across Soviet development efforts was an endemic problem of poor quality manufactured electronic components, in particular, microelectronics. Many of their microelectronic designs were relatively advanced but the Soviet electronics production capabilities did not support a high-quantity output for these designs.
The USAF Foreign Technology Division (FTD) had a priority intelligence requirement for detailed information on Soviet microcircuits. There was virtually no accessible data, documents, or hardware for this critical Soviet technical discipline available to anyone in the West. We in Det 3 needed to find a creative way to satisfy the priority collect requirement for information on the soviet microelectronics capabilities.
One of our Det 3 agents reported to his case officer that the Soviets were on a list of exhibitors at a major electronics fair in London. Though the source did not have detailed information about the Soviet booth display, we jumped on this potential access to “something”. D.S. (one of my case officers) and I grabbed our spy costumes, three piece suits with shirts and ties, and planned our cover story as journalists writing an article on the London electronics fair. Then, off to London for some fish and chips, warm beer, and a bit of spy work.
True to form, the lure of western luxuries dominated over the usual suffocating security procedures. D.S. and I were ready to tag-team the single rep. We had determined in our recon that most of the circuits were rather mundane, but still of interest. The real prize was four microcircuits on a separate table, which, on the previous day, we heard the rep touting as advanced designs.
We carried the ubiquitous plastic bags seen at every exhibition for collection of exhibitor product literature. We had divided the booth into two areas for efficient collection of the tech data sheets and brochures and set about that task as soon as we arrived at the booth. Only one Soviet tech rep was present. He became alarmed when he saw us effectively vacuuming up one copy of every technical document for our plastic bags.
We introduced ourselves using the journalist cover, providing business cards, and congratulated the tech rep on the professional presentation of his booth.
We pre-planned D.S. would handle the “dancing shoes” task. He told the tech rep that he would like to interview him for the article. The tech rep stated flatly, interviews were prohibited. D.S. countered that he would pay $100 for the interview ($100 was a lot of money in those days). Showing an unusual flexibility for a typical commie functionary, he now agreed to the interview as a special case. The booth had a small curtained-off area at the back for private discussions. The tech rep led D.S. behind the curtain and D.S. proceeded to schmooze and distract the tech rep.
I was “light fingers”. I grabbed the four small boxes with the ‘advanced designs’ and stuffed them in my plastic bag. Taking four of the antiquated display items, I positioned them to hopefully disguise the pilfering – ok, stealing for national security. The packaging was different, so the swap would be easily discovered in due course.
I did my ‘get out of Dodge’ move as D.S. wrapped up the “interview” and paid the tech rep $100 US dollars before he also left the crime scene.
That evening we celebrated with a couple glasses of single malt and mused – with the $100, the tech rep could buy some nice warm clothing for his trip to the gulag.
FTD analysts were delighted with the tech literature and particularly pleased to have the four ‘advanced’ devices for FME (foreign material exploitation)
The Soviets were there with some microelectronic goodies, actually a potential treasure trove: brochures, tech data sheets, and the gold of the treasure – microelectronics hardware in little plastic display boxes. We did a recon the first day. Three reps, we identified one as the KGB ‘watcher’ along with two tech guys manning the booth.
We had a common Soviet behavior working in our favor. When in the West, the Russians would try to buy as many western goods as they could carry, things we took for granted in many cases but not available in the Workers’ Paradise. The KGB guy absented himself for a shopping spree which we hoped would last thru the next day. The two tech reps appeared to split their time to allow ‘shopping time’ for each. Our plan was to hit the booth the next morning as soon as the KGB guy and one of the tech reps departed for “shopping sprees”.
It was a good day ‘out of the office’.
Originally Published 15.04.2022. Re-published with Permission from www.GaryBowser.net.
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