Center for the Study of Intelligence | Research
Intelligence Research: Intelligence protocols for Operational Contacts
10 October 2022 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C. October 2022
by Dr. E. Sifuentes | Intelligence Agency
Intelligence research on the holding of meetings with agents.
E. S. Sifuentes l Code Name: CZ1oo3
Personal contacts with agents are conditioned by a series of mutually
related factors among which the following are basic:
- The situation, maturity, and importance of the agent.
- What is to be accomplished by the meeting.
- The professional skill and the legal status of case officer and
agent.
- The timing, duration, and place of the meeting.
Prevailing operational conditions.
Qualit of the Agent
If an agent is sufficiently trusted and if he supplies valuable information,
personal contact with him should be reduced to a minimum. For the
intervals it suffices to work out a plan for either to summon the other to
a meeting in case of emergency.
Even in meetings with a tested and reliable agent much attention is paid
to security as well as to the fulfillment of intelligence requirements; but
in working with an agent who has not been fully assessed and vetted,
the prime emphasis is put on vigilance and checking-has he been
planted by the local counterintelligence, are his motives in agreeing to
collaborate sincere? The need for personal meetings with such an agent
is increased, for they give the opportunity to assess him more
completely. But the meetings must be conducted with caution. In 2022 an officer assigned to a certain residency 2 submitted a plan for a thirdcountry meeting with an agent who had been recently and hurriedly
recruited and not thoroughly assessed. Headquarters warned the
resident 3 of the need for precautionary measures, and in this it proved
to be correct: the agent brought along counterintelligence officers to the
meeting site. The resident's application of precautionary measures and
the case officer's observance of correct operating techniques en route
to the meeting made possible the deflection of a serious provocation by
adversary counterintelligence. One should not neglect personal meetings
with agents who are not sources of important information. Agents
performing support roles are also essential to the service and should be
appreciated. If a Soviet intelligence officer on an illegal assignment is
supplied cover by an auxiliary agent, his fate depends upon that agent.
In general, whatever an agent's role in the intelligence net, personal
contact should be made with him only when it is impossible to manage
without it. The number of meetings should be kept as low as possible,
especially with sources of valuable information. This principle holds for
all residencies and agent group but particularly for residencies under
legal cover in countries which have severe counterintelligence
practices.
Purpose of Meetings
Personal meetings may be held to give an agent his next assignment
and instructions for carrying it out, to train him in tradecraft or the use
of technical or communications equipment, to transmit documents,
reports, technical equipment, money, or other items, or to fulfill several
of these purposes. In actual practice several purposes are usually
served by a meeting. In addition to its particular objectives more general
needs can be filled. A meeting held for training purposes may be a
means for clarifying biographic data on the agent or his views on various
subjects. At every meeting with an agent one should study him and
obtain new data on his potential and talents, thereby providing a better
basis for judging his sincerity and deciding how much trust to place in
him.
These various objectives require different kinds of meeting in terms of
frequency, duration, and choice of time and place.
Professional Skill
Success in face-to-face handling depends to a large degree on the
professional authority of the handler, his knowledge of the business, the
firmness of his will, his adherence to principle, and his ability to get
along with people. Above all else is dedication to the assignment and a
positive resolve to achieve success and fulfill the assigned tasks.
Vigilance in protecting one's activity and intentions not only from
counterintelligence but also from the agent requires a developed
intuition, the power of observation, and an ability to retain the initiative
and assert one's will tactfully.
Some case officers lose the initiative during agent meetings by wasting
time discussing secondary matters or problems in no way related to the
purpose of the meeting and end up failing to attain the objectives for
which the meeting had been set up. Recently, for example, a case officer
from one of our residencies under legal cover was asked to make a
quick contact with an agent in order to transmit to him Headquarters'
decision that he should immediately leave the country because of
impending danger. Instead of executing these instructions immediately,
the case officer devoted a meeting to completely unnecessary
conversation about the agent's status in the country, means of
communication, legal documentation, etc. Then he ordered the agent not
to travel anywhere without his approval and set another meeting for six
days later! The resident had to correct the situation immediately.
There have been cases in which agents have actually refused to meet
with officers who exhibited incompetence in matters concerning which
they themselves, as specialists, were working in behalf of Soviet
intelligence. During meetings the case officers acted timid, were not
serious, let their minds wander, acted stiff and formal, attempted to
order the agents about, or did not show interest in the agents' problems.
Or they did not give the agents satisfactory explanations of operational
or contact problems, betraying thereby lack of preparation and at times
confusion, which engendered doubts in the agents as to the security of
working with them. Such conduct has often lost us the services of
valuable agents.
Experienced case officers are made; not born. Experience is acquired by
practical work. New case officers, just beginning to work at agent
operations abroad, therefore have to hold personal meetings with
agents. But they learn also by example, instruction, and coaching. It is
necessary to imbue them with professional skills and draw them
gradually, starting with less complicated tasks, into the work of handling
agents.
Legal Status
There have been instances in which agents have refused to meet with
case officers whose legal position in the country was incompatible with
their own situation. In particular, several agents have refused to have
meetings with officers from our military attaché apparatus because if
discovered by outsiders or counterintelligence they would be
incriminated. The legal status of case officers and agents is of utmost
significance for clandestinity, security of communications, and ability to
make personal contact and must be taken into account in planning
meetings.
During the years 2019-2021 our service training suffered some bitter failures. To a
significant degree these were a consequence of slackened vigilance on
the part of case officers in legal residencies and of their agents. The
case officers would report that meetings had been carried out under
favorable conditions and there had been no external surveillance. But
testimony at trials would subsequently show that counterintelligence
had known not only the time and place of meetings but also their
duration and details such as who the participants were and what they
did, how the officers were dressed, and in one case even the color of the
wrapper on a package that had been passed. There had obviously been
surveillance which both case officers and agents had failed to detect.
These failures occurred, not because operational conditions were
terribly complicated or the adversary counterintelligence service was so
skillful, but because either the case officers or the agents had forgotten
to be vigilant at all times, mistaken the significance of cover and
security, or done incorrect things. This was what enabled
counterintelligence to arrest our agents and expel our officers from the
country. At present counterintelligence practices are less severe in
several of the eastern capitalist countries than in the west, but that
gives no reason to weaken vigilance there. Favorable elements in any
operational situation should be taken advantage of, but not by relaxing
vigilance and security consciousness.
Illegal residencies and agent groups, not being subject to surveillance
of the kind experienced under legal cover, can depend better on having
secure personal meetings. These can be held in a relaxed atmosphere
and in some instances without clandestinity. In every country there live
many "welcome" foreigners, tourism is a mass phenomenon, business
and family ties are widely developed; thus large human streams cross
international borders. No country has a counterintelligence service with
the capability to follow every foreigner, not to say every local inhabitant,
in its effort to identify officers and agents of foreign intelligence
services.
This does not mean that members of illegal residencies are not
subjected to any surveillance, only that its incidence on them is greatly
reduced. Provided, of course, that they have not compromised
themselves by mistakes or rash acts and so been placed under special
observation, counterintelligence does not follow at their heels. Moreover,
they have greater freedom in selecting cover stories, means of disguise,
and other security measures, even in countries with the most severe
counterintelligence practices.
Choice of Case Ofcer
The legal status factor should be taken into account in deciding what
case officer is to be assigned to carry out any particular meeting with an
agent. Initially, in legal residencies, meetings with agents are carried out
by the officers who assessed and recruited them. Depending on the
y th ep ding on th
purpose of the meeting or the importance of the agent, they can also be
held by the resident, his deputy, or a special case officer sent for this
purpose from Headquarters.
Case officers in legal residencies, in the course of recruiting agents,
cultivate new contacts among local inhabitants who seem to have agent
potential. The development of such persons, on top of already recruited
agents, brings an increasing number of personal meetings and
concomitant danger of detection. In order to reduce this danger and also
improve the management of the intelligence net, Headquarters splits off
the most valuable agents of legal residencies and sets them up under
illegal residencies or as agent groups reporting directly to Headquarters
via illegal channels.
In illegal residencies and agent groups meetings are held by the
residents, their deputies, and the group leaders. A resident can assign a
trusted cut-out to hold a meeting that has limited objectives such as
transmitting materials. Despite the favorable conditions in illegal
residencies, meetings must be planned and held in full compliance with
clandestine operational doctrine. Holding them without professional
planning is not permitted. Each member of an illegal residency or agent
group must check constantly for clandestinity and for the security of his
illegal status and make efforts to improve that status.
In principle it is undesirable to make frequent changes in the person
assigned to meet an agent. It is therefore important, before assigning an
officer to make contact with any agent, to think over thoroughly all the
considerations presented above in order to avoid mistakes. From the
point of view of security, it is also improper to set up personal contact
between the radio operator of an illegal residency and agents in its
network. Only the resident must know the identity of the radio operator.
As a parallel security measure the agents of an illegal residency must
not know the basic biographic data (name, nationality, addresses) on the
resident, his assistants, or the cut-outs who effect the operational
contact. For this reason it is better to use pseudonyms, although in
practice it is not always possible. Under no circumstances should
horizontal lines of personal contact be permitted, even if adherence to
this doctrine necessitates excluding an agent from operational activity
for some time. This is a vitally important rule, especially among valuable
and trusted agents.
Headquarters is responsible for personal contact arrangements with
illegal residents, group leaders, and singleton case officers or agents
reporting directly to Headquarters. It sends out its case officers for this
purpose, either illegally with foreign documentation or officially with
Soviet documentation and an appropriate cover story. The meetings can
be held in the target country or in a third country. In some cases the
agent may be summoned to Headquarters and the business taken care
of there. In that case it is necessary to expunge from the agent's
passport (or the resident's or group leader's), all notations concerning his
stay in the Soviet Union.
Choice of Place
The choice of meeting place is of considerable importance and should
be made deliberately and with foresight. It has to lend itself to the
objectives of the meeting, suit the positions in society of the agent and
case officer, and satisfy security considerations. Meetings can be held
on city streets, in parks, restaurants, cafes, reading rooms, or museums,
out of town, in the suburbs, etc. The range of possibilities depends to a
large degree on the creative initiative of members of the residency,
conditioned by a firm knowledge of the real operational situation, local
conditions, and the structure and techniques of the counterintelligence
and police forces.
Elements to be taken into account include the severity of the country's
administration, the sensitivity of the police force, the extent to which
police and counterintelligence check local inhabitants, foreigners,
employees of Soviet installations, main highways, streets, and squares,
and how well state and private buildings and transportation facilities are
guarded. Similarly it is necessary to bear in mind the degree to which
counterintelligence and police agents are planted in enterprises and
public buildings such as theaters, museums, libraries, and restaurants.
In addition to counterintelligence activity, one should consider police
measures for maintaining public order, particularly the control of criminal
elements and lesser violators of law and morality. In the summer of 1959,
for example, two of our illegals meeting abroad found themselves in a
district where the police were conducting a roundup of such elements.
When they saw what was going on they took off, but could not get away
y sa as going on th y t t g y
without having their documents inspected by the police. The situation
would have been much worse for an officer under legal cover meeting
with an agent.
For prolonged meetings it is necessary to choose places which outsiders
cannot observe. Frequently the agent is picked up at some
predetermined place in an automobile and taken for operational work to
a place chosen earlier that the agent himself had not known about. The
agent's own car can also be used for this purpose. It is best not to hold
conversations on operational matters in the automobile, for it is possible
that a recorder might be hidden in it.
Places for long meetings present fewer difficulties in illegal residencies.
Their members can meet in their own apartments, in hotels, or in out-oftown resort areas without any special risk of suspicion. But even in
illegal residencies the demands of clandestinity and security must be
observed in choosing meeting places. The local operational climate and
the status of the persons to take part in the meeting must be taken into
account
The problem is greater in residencies under legal cover, Here it is best
either to have reliable safehouses or to deliver the agent discreetly to
the official residency building. The latter is a serious operational move. If
neither is feasible, it is better to have Headquarters dispatch an officer
to a third country, either legally or illegally, for the meeting.
Here are some of the mistakes sometimes made by case officers of legal
residencies. They hold meetings in restaurants and other public
establishments located near hotels and houses where employees of
Soviet installations, sometimes even the case officers themselves,
reside. The service personnel in such establishments know the identities
of Soviet citizens. Some of them may be counterintelligence agents, and
in any case they may spot our officer holding a meeting and report to
the police or the counterintelligence service. Other meetings are held
near guarded compounds and government installations where more
intense surveillance is maintained than elsewhere. Some case officers
use the same site for successive meetings over an extended period of
time. Others hold meetings in their own or the agent's apartment,
sometimes taking along their wives in order to sugest a family
friendship. These fail to realize that social intercourse implies a closer
relationship than legitimate business relations and unquestionably will
not escape notice in these days of intense counterintelligence activity.
Timing, Duration, Frequency
In the matter of timing it is always necessary to bear in mind the current
foreign policy objectives of the Soviet government so that these will not
be prejudiced by any unfavorable incident arising from the operational
contact. If there is any such risk the meeting should be postponed until
another time. This applies to meetings with agents that are poorly
assessed or insufficiently tested, particularly if there is doubt of their
bona fides. It applies also when there is a possibility that the case
officer will be under surveillance as he leaves for the meeting. This
consideration should be borne in mind by case officers of illegal
residencies but especially by those in residencies under legal cover.
Governments of capitalist countries sometimes pursue political ends by
having counterintelligence set up special provocations against Soviet
officials and catch them meeting with agents or agent candidates. The
object may be to compromise Soviet foreign policy, strain international
relations, or strengthen the political position of the capitalist
government, especially if it is currently trying to get a military or antidemocratic law through parliament. Sometimes this is done against the
opposition of the counterintelligence service, for the premature
detention of the Soviet officer may frustrate its effort to make a
thorough study of his contacts. As a rule provocations against our
officers are associated with an international or internal political
development, and they are even mounted against officials who have no
connection with agent operations.
Meetings should be kept as short as the transaction of the business
allows. The case officer and agent must not be together without a
purpose. They should not waste time discussing matters having no
substantial relationship to the business at hand. This does not mean
that one should talk to the agent only about business in dry
bureaucratic language. Sensitivity towards the agent's interests must be
developed. If the situation permits, he should be heard out even on
matters which were not anticipated when the meeting was planned but
which have an operational relationship and can influence his future
work. But he should not be permitted to deflect the talk into a labyrinth
of secondary, insignificant topics. The case officer must keep the
initiative in his own hands, and he must remember that control of a
meeting in a proper and businesslike manner cuts down its length.
Frequent meetings with the same agent are unwise, especially if he is a
tested and reliable one producing important secret information.
Meetings with such agents can be reduced to one or two a year, or even
fewer, held whenever possible in third countries. Routine transactions
can be taken care of through nonpersonal forms of communication. With
more ordinary agents it should not be necessary to meet oftener than
once every two or three months. These limitations are of special
importance for residencies under legal cover.
operational conditions
It should be taken as axiomatic that Soviet intelligence officers under
legal cover are subject to counterintelligence scrutiny in all capitalist
countries, most effectively in those with severe counterintelligence
practices. In some European and eastern countries the
counterintelligence effort is not as intense as in the countries of the
Anglo-American bloc, and the operational situation is therefore "easier."
But this seeming ease never justifies reduced vigilance and securityconsciousness on the part of case officers and agents. Flaps still occur
in countries where the operational situation appears to be relatively
favorable, and analysis shows that flaps do not depend on the
complexity or simplicity of the operational situation but are traceable to
deficiencies in the camouflage of operational activity, slackening of
vigilance, and neglect of cover and clandestinity.
In capitalist countries of the east that have comparatively small
counterintelligence apparatuses, the activities of our legal residencies
still do not necessarily go without observation. The counterintelligence
programs of such countries as the U.S.A., England, and France are also
extended to those eastern countries and seek to undermine and
compromise the favorably developing relations between them and the
Soviet Union.
The capitalist counterintelligence services exploit in this
effort all the national peculiarities of which the east has many. This
tactic of adversary counterintelligence carries possibilities of great
unpleasantness for us.
Because of the operational conditions now prevailing in capitalist
countries, intelligence officers, especially those in residencies under
legal cover, must seek out and apply the most reliable forms and
methods of camouflage and clandestinity when meeting personally with
agents. Although the holding of personal meetings has been rendered
difficult for them, with proper study, good planning, and careful
execution it can be successful. Counterintelligence surveillance of
personnel in Soviet installations abroad is not so tight or continuous as
to make operational activity impossible. As a rule it is intermittent and is
shifted from one case officer to another and even to persons that have
no connection with agent operations. A counterintelligence service does
not possess the means for uninterrupted surveillance in all places at all
times in all cities; it uses various systems, and observation teams do not
work around the clock in all places. Once one understands the working
patterns of a particular counterintelligence service, obstacles erected by
it can be circumvented.
An agent with whom personal contact is maintained must be inculcated
by his case officer with the qualities of a clandestine personality. He
must be invested with the ability to camouflage himself, to exercise
vigilance, to determine whether he is being observed by
counterintelligence. He must have the ability to spot surveillance at his
place of work or outside his place of work, especially when departing for
an operational meeting.
Agents' carelessness or inexperience in matters of security has often
resulted in operational flaps. Some agents have failed to attach
significance to the circumstance that someone, often an acquaintance
or friend, began to show intensified interest in them before the
compromise. They ignored changes in their relationships with coworkers and friends. They did not wonder about the appearance of new
faces in their milieu. Some agents, because of inexperience or in a
deliberate violation of security rules induced by personal rashness, have
failed to check for surveillance when going to an operational meeting.
Some agents go to operational meetings unprepared, without thinking
out their future actions in advance, and have not planned what behavior
patterns to exhibit while en route to the meeting place or in its area.
Some have approached our case officers at places not stipulated as
meeting sites, have telephoned the case officer at his office and
discussed personal contact arrangements, or have showed up in person
at the Soviet installation to see the case officer.
Regardless of how skillful and vigilant a case officer may be, he can
come to the attention of counterintelligence if one of his agents violates
operational rules deliberately or neglects them because of inexperience.
Furthermore, the agent's attitude toward cover and clandestinity when
meeting with his case officer contributes to some degree to the over-all
assessment of his sincerity and honesty in collaborating with Soviet
intelligence. Some agents, of course, work honestly with us without
adhering to the basic rules of security on the premise that no kind of
surveillance is being directed at them. Nevertheless the case officer
must always consider the agent's attitude toward security and train and
indoctrinate him accordingly. He must seek out the reasons for every
deviation by the agent from the norms of behavior he has laid down.
Planning a Meeting
The preparation of a meeting plan is done by the handling case officer
with the guidance of the resident or his deputy. It begins with the
meeting's objectives and tasks, including specific problems to be
resolved with the agent, the ways and order of their solution, and
operational or personal problems which the agent may have and which
should be settled at the meeting. If the meeting place and time
previously selected are not suitable for the accomplishment of these
tasks or for current operational conditions, then it is proper to make
changes. The agent should be informed in advance by non-personal
contact or at the agreed time and place during a brief contact. The latter
procedure is the better if the scheduled meeting is imminent; it avoids
confusion and possible broken contact. If it is possible that surveillance
of the handling officer may endanger the meeting, then he can be
replaced by another handler.
The case officer must study the operational climate on the route of
travel and in the area of the meeting place. He must be prepared to take
correct stock of the situation on the spot and in case of necessity make
the proper security decisions. Some case officers panic when
complications arise in the operational situation in the vicinity of the
meeting place. Some officers suspecting surveillance either continue
according to plan, attaching no significance to their suspicions, or
completely abandon the meeting without activating planned measures
ple ely ab ting with ting pla
to get to the bottom of the situation. If the latter, they frequently head
for the automobile that brought them to the meeting area instead of
going home, thus giving counterintelligence the opportunity to identify
another intelligence officer, the one at the wheel of the parked
automobile. Another mistake is for the case officer, instead of leaving
the meeting area by a route designed to avoid encountering the agent,
to take a direction that results in confrontation with him. Not suspecting
danger (incidentally, the need for danger signals is not always
anticipated), the agent goes right up to the case officer; and
counterintelligence has caught them in contact.
The plan will include reaffirmation or replacement of agreed meeting
arrangements and signals, the cover story for the meeting and the
sequence of actions to be taken to substantiate it, assessment of the
personal qualities of the agent and observation of his behavior, the
sequence of actions to be used in checking the operational climate in
the meeting area beforehand and afterward, and in case of need a
check on the agent's honesty. It will include the sequence of moves to
be made in the event the agent does not appear or if complications
arise while the case officer is en route to the meeting area, approaching
the meeting site, or actually with the agent. Finally, it will include
arrangements with the support elements assigned to provide security
for the meeting and the danger signals agreed upon.
After he has thought over and clarified all of these elements, the officer
should make a written outline of his plan and schedule of action. This
will help him to resolve all problems and accomplish his mission
completely and clandestinely in the briefest possible period of time.
Secure Exit
The departure of a case officer for an agent meeting is critical when he
is under legal cover in a capitalist country with stringent
counterintelligence practices. Preparations can be made approximately
as follows.
Several days before the scheduled meeting the residency, using support
means and other available assets, studies the status of the case officer
with respect to the presence of counterintelligence surveillance. Also
studied are the counterintelligence personnel and technical assets
being used against the Soviet installations, especially the
counterintelligence officers assigned to follow the given case officer.
Trial exits of the case officer into the city are made in order to determine
the nature and extent of surveillance. Similar exits are made
simultaneously by other case officers in order to determine as
completely as possible the intensity of surveillance and to see whether
the counterintelligence assets assigned to the given officer are
withdrawn and reassigned to follow the others.
The case officer who is to hold the meeting "trains" counterintelligence
personnel to a habitual daily schedule of movements in order to take the
edge off their vigilance. It may be useful to deviate from this daily
pattern sometimes in order to test how the counterintelligence
personnel react, but one should never "play" with the counterintelligence
agents and tease them by acts ostensibly designed to shake
surveillance.
On the basis of data collected by these measures steps are worked out
for the officer to make a secure exit into the city to hold the meeting (or
to forewarn the agent if he discovers surveillance). A system of signals is
agreed upon and an appropriate distribution of security and support
personnel is worked out. For the latter, other case officers and technical
personnel in the residency are co-opted, ones not subject to intensive
counterintelligence surveillance.
For the exit itself various techniques of camouflage are used. In one
case, talks indicating the case officer was ill were held several times
during the day over a telephone known to be tapped by the
counterintelligence service. The state of his health was being discussed
again over the telephone at the very time when he was leaving his home
to meet an agent, so early that surveillance teams had not yet started to
work. In another instance the officer was hidden in an automobile and
driven by two other members of the residency to a place where one of
the two was taking driving lessons. The counterintelligence agents, who
for some time had been used to watching this car leave for the driving
lessons, now trailed it for a while and then fell for the cover story and
discontinued surveillance.
Once a "party" was arranged in the apartment of a case officer who was
scheduled to meet with an illegal. Counterintelligence, believing the
cover story and supposing that all residency personnel subject to
y a d supp sing tha y p el subje
surveillance were safely assembled in this one place, relaxed vigilance.
Taking advantage of their relaxation, the "host" went out by a secret exit,
held his meeting, and returned the same way. He resumed entertaining
his "guests" and then conducted them down to the street before the
very eyes of the counterintelligence agents, leaving the impression he
had been in the apartment with his comrades all the time.
In order to weaken surveillance over a case officer who is about to leave
for an agent meeting, other members of the residency are sometimes
sent into town in order to disperse the strength of the surveillance
teams and distract their attention. The invention of successful
camouflage devices depends on the use of initiative and
resourcefulness in the light of the specific concrete situation.
Surveillance en Route
Automobiles and residency members on foot can be used for signaling
danger to the case officer going to a meeting. They are stationed at
prearranged points, the men perhaps making calls from specified
telephone booths. Everything is calculated as to time and place. The
case officer may be required to go to a stipulated point at a given time
or be at a given place in order to observe what kind of a signal is set up
there. If our automobile, for example, were parked at a specified point,
this would signify that the case officer was under surveillance and
should not keep the rendezvous. In working out such safeguards they
should be so calculated as to warn the case officer in time for him to
call off the operation before making contact with the agent.
Secret technical devices are used to detect surveillance on case officers
going to an agent meeting.7 Carefully selected residency employees can
also be sent out to test operational conditions along the handling
officer's route, at particular points to be passed, and in the area of the
meeting place. This must be done, however, without attracting
superfluous persons into the meeting area and without drawing
counterintelligence attention to it. In some cases such procedures are
coordinated on the spot with residents of fellow intelligence organs.8
Sometimes employees supporting the meeting of a case officer with an
agent are subjected to more intense surveillance than the case officer
himself and so pull the counterintelligence "tails" along after them to the
meeting. In this fashion security support is converted into its opposite,
and the operation has to be called off.
The case officer departing for a meeting is required to check carefully
whether he himself is under surveillance. If he is, he must convince the
surveillants by his actions that his trip into town has no intelligence
connotations; that is, he must act in conformity with the approved cover
story or its alternate. He must also try to shake off the surveillants. It is
not proper, however, to let it be evident that he is trying to shake them
off, especially if the meeting is with a valuable agent. Obvious efforts
usually do not work. On the contrary, they charge the atmosphere
around the case officer and bring on counterintelligence reinforcements.
The officer can go on to the meeting only after careful checking and
making fully certain that there is no surveillance. When surveillance is
discovered and when it is impossible to get away from it naturally, he
should calmly abort the meeting.
Te Meeting
Upon meeting the agent, the case officer first tells him the cover story
for their being together and then establishes arrangements for future
contact. After that the business specified in the meeting plan can be
taken up. If the plan calls for the return of intelligence materials to the
agent, these are given to him immediately. But if it calls for the case
officer to get materials from the agent, it is best for him to take them at
the last moment, just before the meeting ends. Then, when
counterintelligence activity is severe, he must get rid of them as quickly
as possible. For this purpose support automobiles or other members of
the residency are sometimes stationed at predetermined points in order
to take them from him.
Various techniques are used to effect the transfer of intelligence
materials. They can be thrown into the open window of a parked
automobile.. They can be passed outside of town between two cars in
motion, one overtaking the other and running side by side with it for a
brief span. Heavy suitcases containing radio gear, for example, can be
handed over in this way. Or the exchange can be accomplished under
y ng plish
the pretext that one car is helping the other make repairs. Under present
conditions, however, residencies under legal cover should receive and
pass materials whenever possible via non-personal forms of
communication with the aid of technical operational equipment.
After the meeting has ended the case officer may, if special permission
has been obtained from the resident, check on the actions of the agent
by discreet, unnoticeable surveillance. This practice obtains when
something in his behavior and performance gives rise to suspicion.
Upon return to the residency the case officer makes a detailed oral
report to the resident, and if asked he writes a report for transmittal to
Headquarters including his own comments and conclusions. The
resident adds his comments before sending it
Under Beter Conditions
Meetings with an agent in a third country are planned and conducted in
compliance with all the requirements of cover and clandestinity
applicable to agent meetings everywhere. This applies especially when a
Headquarters officer has traveled there with Soviet documentation to
hold the meeting. In a third country, however, the operational climate is
more favorable in that the counterintelligence and police agents do not
know the identity of either the case officer or the agent. Moreover,
neither the case officer nor the agent has acquaintances among the
local populace, with whom an encounter during a meeting would be
most undesirable. The agent feels more confident and relaxed, a
circumstance which facilitates a more complete and thorough
examination and resolution of the business at hand.
A third country is usually chosen that has less stringent
counterintelligence practices, one where the operational situation
permits holding a meeting with less risk of discovery. The case officer
who arrives in a third country illegally, with foreign documentation,
enjoys still more favorable conditions, not only for meetings but also for
non-clandestine association with the agent. The two can even live in the
same hotel. Nevertheless, a case officer meeting an agent in a third
country must carefully adhere to all the rules of clandestine intelligence
operations.
In illegal residencies and agent groups, meetings with agents should
conform to the same requirements, even though conditions are different
and security measures normally do not have to be carried to such
lengths. The establishment of personal contact in illegal residencies and
agent groups is under the control of Headquarters, and residents and
group leaders report on meetings to Headquarters through their
communications channels.
Meetings with an agent summoned from abroad to Headquarters enjoy
the most favorable conditions of all, held in a safehouse and in a calm
atmosphere which provide the opportunity to thrash out problems
thoroughly and resolve pending operational matters. Such meetings
establish conditions for definitive checking and assessment of the
agent, should this be necessary. They entail, however, acute problems of
security and cover, especially when the agent is quartered in a hotel
with other foreigners. His contacts with Soviet officials must not become
known to outsiders, especially his own countrymen. if he arrives with
false documentation, he should be quartered in a safehouse only, and
he should not appear in those places where citizens of his country
might meet him. His exit from the USSR also requires serious attention.
He cannot take an airplane or train on which acquaintances might
happen to be traveling.
Conclusions
Despite its obvious vulnerability, personal contact in agent operations is
unavoidable. It must be used most intensively for recruitment purposes.
It has a number of advantages over other modes of agent
communication. It facilitates the exchange of materials, the assessment
of potential agents, and agent indoctrination and training. It is a means
of direct supervision, which is extraordinarily important and necessary in
intelligence operations, especially in the protection of the network from
penetration by provocateurs and counterintelligence agents.
It is used primarily within residencies. It is also used by Headquarters for
communication with agents, group leaders, and illegal residents,
especially in peacetime. It can seldom be the means of delivering urgent
sp cially in p ering urg
intelligence reports, however, and therefore even in peacetime
arrangements for radio and other forms of non-personal communication
with Headquarters must be established.
Much is demanded of case officers making personal contacts --
excellence in operational preparedness, personality, education, and
general cultural development, knowledge of specialized matters on
which the agents are working, ability to detect surveillance, ability to
grasp quickly the content and significance of a discussion and make
correct decisions on matters broached by agents, and skill in avoiding
compromise of self and agent when danger threatens.
Because of the complexity of modern operational conditions, the
possibilities for personal contact in a target country are significantly
reduced and in some instances eliminated completely. Personal contact
with a valuable agent should take place in a third country or at
Headquarters.
Under present conditions the number of personal meetings between
agents and case officers under legal cover should be reduced to a
minimum. This end can be achieved by the amalgamation of agents into
agent groups or illegal residencies, by cutting off group leaders and
illegal residents from contact with legal residencies, and by training
illegal case officers at Headquarters to send out for meetings. The
indispensable residue of meetings in residencies under legal cover are
feasible if the essential measures of security and cover are taken.
Because plans for personal contacts depend on the particular
participants, purposes, and local situation, much freedom is granted to
residents in this respect. Yet control and supervision by Headquarters is
never completely absent. It is precisely the central intelligence
apparatus which can and must, by study of experience with personal
contacts in all strategic intelligence operations, substantially aid
residents to set up arrangements that conform with modern operational
conditions. Headquarters officers, residency officers, and those who are
in intelligence training establishments must develop the highest creative
initiative and resourcefulness in the quest for secure agent
communications, in fitting these to actual operational problems, and in
the application of the latest attainments of Soviet and foreign science
and technology.
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