An International History of the Cuban Missile Crisis: A 50-Year Retrospective by David Gioe & Len Scott & Christopher Andrew

Author:David Gioe & Len Scott & Christopher Andrew [Gioe, David & Scott, Len & Andrew, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, International Relations, Arms Control, Diplomacy, Intelligence & Espionage
ISBN: 9780415732178
Google: gLztnQEACAAJ
Goodreads: 18607533
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-01-15T10:15:31+00:00

Guiding Penkovsky’s intelligence production and asset validation

Early in the case it became clear that Penkovsky’s intelligence production would be voluminous. It was equally clear that, with so much information at hand in the GRU headquarters secret library reading room, Penkovsky would need refined direction and guidance to satisfy Washington and Whitehall’s most pressing intelligence requirements. The team would have had competing intelligence requirements from almost every corner of the intelligence and policy realms. Given Penkovsky’s access to military doctrine manuals, rocket and artillery guides, and personal access to GRU senior leadership, the list of requirements for Penkovsky must have been nearly endless. For the second series of London meetings, the team again benefited from the assistance of Len McCoy to ensure that Penkovsky was debriefed on US/UK priority requirements and to ensure that information was sent to the intelligence analysts in a timely manner with adequate source protection. According to a declassified 1966 internal CIA case evaluation, ‘The British were so impressed with [McCoy] that they permitted him to handle all the British requirements. They threw up their hands, he was head and shoulders above … they accepted anything that he would.’95

To protect their source internally, a different type of intelligence tradecraft was used. McCoy set up two different special information handling channels to disseminate Penkovsky’s information: CHICKADEE96 and IRONBARK.97 The SIS labelled his reporting as ARNICA and RUPEE.98 CHICKADEE referred to Penkovsky’s observations and comments about senior Soviet military officers and covered items such as well-sourced gossip or meeting atmospherics. IRONBARK referred to Penkovsky’s documentary product, including the thousands of pages he photographed with his Minox camera. CIA and SIS reports officers opted to separate out the two reporting streams to make it more challenging for an enterprising analyst to discern the true source of the information and thus sought to make the information appear as if it came from two different sources. If it were known that the same person had access to both the documents and manuals themselves as well as inside access to certain high level GRU officials, it could narrow down and perhaps even reveal the source.

While SIS was content to let CIA Officer McCoy handle the intelligence reporting, SIS was not content to follow CIA’s standard practice in the socalled ‘Asset Validation’ process. In fact, CIA and SIS operational philosophy diverged rather sharply on whether to administer a polygraph test (encrypted by CIA as LCFLUTTER) to Penkovsky.99 For the Americans, ‘fluttering’ a potential asset was a routine occurrence and a key data point in the larger Asset Validation process. For the British, an LCFLUTTER was a sure way to ruin rapport with their most valuable agent by insinuating that, after all the risks Penkovsky had taken, he was not yet truly trusted. It was CIA headquarters’ pro forma approach to the Penkovsky case that suggested ‘fluttering’ Penkovsky in the first place.

While a polygraph examination should never be treated as one-size-fits-all, from an agent management point of view, it would not have been out of the question for Penkovsky to submit to an LCFLUTTER.

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