William H Hallahan - Triple Trap

William H. Hallahan

You could always get free cheese in a mousetrap.

Brooklyn proverb

At two-thirty that afternoon, as instructed, Charlie Brewer entered the maximum security screening theater of the Mally Center on Fourth Street, a few blocks north of the Library of Congress. It was empty.

He sat down in one of the theater seats and waited.

A few moments later, a colonel holding a small clipboard entered through a side door and walked up the aisle to Brewers seat. He looked closely at the number on the plastic visitors badge clipped to Brewers lapel. Then he looked at a notation on the small clipboard. Then looked once more at the visitors badge.

He cleared his throat and read a statement from the clipboard. Everything you see and hear in this room is to be kept in the strictest confidence. The document you are about to receive is to be read in this room only and is to be returned to me at the end of this screening. Its contents are not to be revealed to anyone. May I proceed?

Brewer nodded patiently.

The colonel handed him a sheaf of papers, 8 by 14. This is the script for the slide presentation you are about to see. Attached to it are several other documents which I will refer to in my presentation. I have been instructed to disclose to you the contents of a secret report given on December twelfth to the Technology Export Control Committee of the National Security Council. As you can see from the title page, the subject of this talk is the Unauthorized Acquisition of U.S. Technology by the Soviet Union. It is for your eyes and ears alone. Please sign here.

When Brewer signed his name, the colonel walked to the podium, lowered the lights, and turned on a slide projector.

On the screen appeared a photograph of a submarine.

Colonel: This is the new Soviet submarine Typhoon. Naval experts consider it to be the deadliest weapon ever conceived by the mind of man. It can dive deeper and run faster than any other submarine on earth. It is believed to be capable of outrunning our fastest torpedoes. It can settle on the bottom of the ocean for months on end, absolutely soundless, beyond reach of even our most sensitive detecting devices. It is equipped to fire over two hundred warheads at Western military targets and cities. It is a product of technological and engineering skills largely stolen from the United States. From stem to stern, if you removed the thousands of Westernmainly Americancomponents and research developments, it would sink like a stone.

Slide: MiG-25 Foxbat.

Colonel: This is the MiG-25 Foxbat. With an airspeed of 1,625 knots, it is one of the fastestperhaps the fastestmilitary aircraft in the world. Reportedly, it has exceeded three times the speed of sound. From nose to tail it contains thousands of parts invented by, made in, and stolen from the U.S. It could almost literally be stamped Made in the USA.

The colonel pointed to the next slide on the screen. It showed Soviet troops raising a flag over the parapet of the Reichstag building in Berlin in May of 1945. Below them and beyond could be seen the ruins of the smashed city.

Colonel: Berlin fell in May of 1945, and that ended World War Two in Europe. The armies of the Soviet Union seized vast areas of eastern Europe, most of which it still holds by main force today. It was one of the biggest land grabs in history.

Slide: The ruins of Leningrad.

Colonel: Despite its seizure of many captive nations, the post-war Russian nation lay in ruins. Its industrial infrastructure was crippled. Its technologywhat was left of itwas more than fifty years behind the United States.

Slide: Photographs of FBI arresting Soviet spy Dropov.

Colonel: For more than forty years since then, to make up for critical gaps in its own technological establishment, the Soviet Union has been conducting an unremitting campaign to acquire

American military technology by any and all meanslegal, illegal, covert.

Slide: Customs authorities examining a truck at a border checkpoint.

Colonel: During this forty-year period, the Soviet lag in technological development has become much greaterso enormous, in fact, the Soviet military installation now has had to resort to massive illegal acquisition of Western technology on a scale never before seen in history. Only in this way has it been able to maintain parity with the West. In fact, in a number of critical areas, as was just indicated, stolen U.S. technology has given the Soviets a dangerous advantage over the West.

Slide: Aerial view of Zeleenograd.

Colonel: This is the Soviets secret city of Zeleenograd. It is so important to the Russians, they have put land mines around the entire area, barbed wire and watch towers around the perimeter of the city, into which only the most carefully screened workers are admitted. To a greater extent than ever before, the Soviet government now rigorously pursues a formal, elaborate program for the illegal acquisition of Western technology. Much of its stolen technological apparatus is located in this city. That program is an official and vital element in the development and production of the military weapons and military systems of that country.

Slide: Photograph of Yuri Andropov.

Colonel: It was Yuri Andropov himself, former head of the KGB and later Premier of the USSR, who formed Directorate T, a special division of the KGB, created specifically and solely for the purpose of stealing U.S. technology. He stocked the operation with some of the finest technological minds in Russia.

Slide: Photograph of Directorate T headquarters.

Colonel: Directorate T has its own huge office complex just outside Moscow. In addition it maintains its own offices in Soviet compounds throughout the world. As we talk here, some twenty-two thousand Soviet intelligence people in Directorate T are busy illegally acquiring that technology from locations all over the world. Although it routinely gathers information on technological developments in the West, particularly the U.S.much of it published in business and trade journalsthe great bulk of it is acquired by relentless spying. Please note I underline twenty-two thousand personnel in just Moscow alone.

Slide: Photograph of Kaline, convicted Soviet spy.

Colonel: Hundreds of Soviet nationals have been caught spying on Western countries. In addition, countless Western nationals have been suborned into spying for the Soviets. The Soviets regard spying and the acquisition of Western secrets as an extension of its dedicated warfare against the West.

Slide: Aviation Age magazine.

Colonel: The contents of Aviation Age magazine alone are deemed so important by the Soviets, each copy is transmitted page by page by electronic scanner to Moscow, where Soviet technical specialists translate every word of itincluding the advertisingfor immediate dissemination. And Aviation Age is just one of thousands of U.S. publications the Soviets study.