Re: Soviet COMINT!

["ysk" <ysk@spiker.net>]

I believe the NSA web has a page that refers to the Sovite comint in
Korea/Far East.

http://www.nsa.gov/korea/index.html


ysk

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark & Paula O'Neill" <poneill@freenet.tlh.fl.us>
To: <KOREAN-WAR-L@raven.cc.ukans.edu>
Sent: Monday, March 19, 2001 4:24 AM
Subject: Re: Soviet COMINT!


Good Morning Matthew, Cookie & the List,

    Cookie is correct (as usual!!) in his once over of Seidov and German's
work.  Naboka's volume is better at putting Soviet air actions in a broader
context, but neither deal directly with the intelligence aspects of Soviet
involvement.  I will shamelessly plug my own dissertation along with the
Cold War International History Projects "Bulletin" as a place to start for
English language sources that begin to put Soviet activities in a broader
context.  I do want to make the point that just because our Cold War foes'
interpretation differs from our does not necessarily mean there is no truth
to it.  My work on the Soviet air force at the WW II Battle of Kursk
indicated that Soviet propaganda tended to "sin by omission" rather by
direct statements.  The official works would present accurate accounts of
missions flown and the times and dates, but would not mention that the tons
of bombs dropped missed, or were delivered (as they were during the first
days of the operations on the south shoulder of the bulge) ineffectively on
the far flanks of the German attack.  Soviet after action reports did point
out these and many other weaknesses.  Healthy skepticism and fact checking
are always helpful to anyone reading history as is the realization that
someone else's research may force you to revise your own interpretation.
    Both Russian works utilize Soviet-era archives, but appear to rely on
the usual secondary sources when it comes to NK and CPV operations that
Soviet pilots weren't directly involved in.  However, the detailed
description of air unit deployments is excellent.  I know that for every
message I got to see and/or copy coming from Razuvaev's advisory staff or
from Soviet air commanders, that there were an entire network of Soviet
intelligence types watching them, the North Koreans and Chinese (ok, and the
US and UNC forces too).  Of course, Futrell's classic and thorough "USAF in
Korea" doesn't deal with US radio intercepts and other (fascinating & highly
risky) intelligence gathering that members of this List have written about.
Lt. General Lobov (then commander of the 64th FAC) did comment in a
remarkable telegram listing the reasons why he believed his fighter pilots
inflated their claims by at least a factor of 3, that coastal raids by the
US and ROK forces on the western coastal regions of North Korea made them
too dangerous for Soviet personnel to venture.
    I only saw one document relating to intelligence in Moscow back in '95.
It was a letter signed by Victor Abakumov, and I wasn't allowed to copy it.
The entire Soviet intelligence operation is still mostly invisible on both
the military and foreign policy (Kathryn Weathersby has not come across any
intell reports from the MID archive, but she is heading back over at the end
of this week for more research).  It appears that Matthew has uncovered some
interesting information on Soviet COMINT, and I would certainly like to hear
more about this issue from both sides.  Dr. Weathersby tells me that the
Russians have produced a volume on the Korean War, but I haven't seen it
yet, nor do I have the name of the author.  Please forgive the "data dump,"
but I'm still revising my stuff and the CIA just released a bunch of
assessments from the early Cold War!

Regards,
Mark O.
----------
>From: <AMPSOne@aol.com>
>To: KOREAN-WAR-L@raven.cc.ukans.edu
>Subject: Re: North Korean Version of the War
>Date: Sun, Mar 18, 2001, 6:03 PM
>

>Matthew,
>
>All they mention is that COMINT confirmed a number of their claims as
>crashing in the Gulf of Korea or Yellow Sea, and therefore were used to
award
>claims based on what crashed and where. Nothing on skill sets,
organizations,
>or operator reports.
>
>Cookie
>