CIA’s Early Cold War REDSOX Foreign Intelligence Operations into Ukraine, Part Two

 Request for Renewal of Project AEACRE for the Fiscal Year of 1957

“From 1953, until late 1955, relatively few REDSOX operations were conducted…It has been said that every REDSOX agent whose capture is revealed by the Soviets has positive psychological value as it indicates positively to any dissident elements within the Soviet Union that we in the "West" are still actively interested in their cause. Such advertisement also shows anti-Communist elements outside the "IRON CURTAIN" that the West is still actively opposing the Communist regimes.

 

“Since the resuscitation of the REDSOX activity in September 1955, DOB has had some minor successes and some major setbacks that were in most part not due to the lack of professional handling but to factors beyond our control. Recent successes of short border crossing operations indicate that with proper agents, adequate training, and documentation, we are capable of successful short-range penetrations of the Soviet Union. And with good communication equipment and dependable in/exfiltration support, deeper penetrations of the Soviet Union will be possible.

 

“Under the new REDSOX functional concept, which became effective only after 1 September 1955, SR/7/DOB undertook the initiation of its REDSOX projects. Though hindered by the prevailing shortage of competent staff and support personnel, the following projects were undertaken:

 

“Project AERODYNAMIC: Domestic Operation Base (DOB) has recently submitted a revised Foreign Intelligence version of this project which formerly also incorporated Psychological Paramilitary and Counter Espionage functions. AERODYNAMIC has been an active Soviet Russia project for the past seven years and has supported the dispatch of all REDSOX agents into the Soviet UKRAINE. It provided:

 

·      Financial support for the mechanism by which underground couriers brought out pouched material;  

·      Provided the intelligence community with information of Ukrainian underground activities; 

·      The structure, aims, and personalities of the UKRAINIAN INSURGENT ARMY (UPA); and 

·      the underground government, the UKRAINIAN SUPREME LIBERATION COUNCIL (UHVR). 

·       

“The Domestic Operations Basee has taken the initiative to resurrect the REDSOX portions of this project. Recent conferences between DOB personnel and foreign representatives of the UHVR have provided the basis for establishing a spotter network among this emigre organization's membership. The UHVR keenly feels the need for reactivating some of its internal contacts in the Ukrainian underground. 

“Project ALOPECIA: This cryptonym has been given to a singleton contact in Brazil operating among the Ukrainian emigres. It is anticipated that his activities for Fiscal Year 1957 will be expanded to include all of South America, making him the focal point for the spotting and preliminary assessment of any action-type candidates who could be used in the Ukrainian REDSOX operations. It is further anticipated that this man will be brought to the United States during this fiscal period for assessment and training to prepare him better for his job. 

 

“Project AECUPBOARD: This is a pilot project for which recently requested foreign intelligence approval. It is an attempt to set up an overt package mail channel with persons in the Soviet Union. By tapping correspondence with persons who were active in the old Ukrainian underground movement, it is hoped that material, funds, and instructions can eventually be sent in to persons in the Ukrainian SSR. Eventually, safehouse and reception facilities might be established through this channel to support REDSOX and other Soviet Russia Division operations in the area.

CIA’s Early Cold War REDSOX Foreign Intelligence Operations into Ukraine, Part One ©

 In January 1950, the United States National Security Council (NSC) issued Intelligence Directive No. 13 entitled  "Exploitation of Soviet and Satellite Defectors Outside the United States." This directive specifically defined defectors as, 

 

"Individuals who escape from the control of the USSR or countries in the Soviet orbit, or who, being outside such jurisdiction or control, are unwilling to return to it, and who are of special interest to the U.S. Government because they can add valuable new or confirmatory information to existing U.S. knowledge of the Soviet world because their defection can be exploited in the psychological field."

 

NSC authorized and directed that "The Central Intelligence Agency shall be responsible for the covert exploitation of defectors, and shall coordinate all matters concerned with the handling and disposition of declared defectors from the Soviet Union and the satellite states to assure the effective exploitation of all defectors for operational, intelligence, or psychological purposes by the U.S. Government." 

 

REDSOX was a CIA cryptonym for Foreign Intelligence operations in the early Cold War involving “The illegal return of defectors and emigres to USSR as agents.” The information below comes from declassified CIA documents.

 

CIA's REDSOX operational plan for Spring 1952.

 

“Both the undersigned case officers and the ZP/UHVR themselves strongly agree that granted the extent of Soviet knowledge of CIA and British Intelligence dispatches of the past several years, any possibility of a May-moon-period air dispatch into Western Ukraine catching the Soviets napping must be discarded as wishful thinking; the trick has been tried too often. 

 

“Or the other hand, so long as quantities of snow are on the ground, the Soviets do not expect the woodland partisan activity of any sort, much less an airdrop of partisan couriers, who, as the Soviets well know, would have to wait for local contact until their local colleagues come out of their bunkers in late April. Therefore, it is strongly recommended by both the agents and the case officers that one of the last ten nights of March or the first five of April be utilized to dispatch the next ZP/UHVR team. March has never been used for an air mission to the Soviet Union. The next ZP/UHVR team members are frankly scared of waiting until the usual time in May. 

 

“From their point of view, a month of camping in the snow of an isolated mountain forest is far less dangerous than dropping in during the warmer weather when Soviets are out in force for the now-traditional spring anti-partisan campaign. 

 

“From our point of view, the plane and crew should by all odds be safer flying in and out in late March than would be the case in mid or late spring. Suppose the operation can be handled securely from this end. In that case, the change of schedule to March plus the use of a slightly different air approach should cancel out the effectiveness of Soviet-made plans for intercepting an aircraft or observing parachutists while they are landing. While the case officers are not air experts, they have given a lot of thought to the ground reactions to the CIA and British Intelligence Service flights of 1950 and 1951. 

 

“We know that by January 1950, the Soviets were aware that the U.S. was dropping personnel by air into Western Ukraine, but the Soviets were apparently unable to do anything to thwart the May 1950 mission. By early July 1950, the Soviets had captured alive one of the four men who had jumped in two months earlier. By Mid-August 1950, the Russian Intelligence Service can be assumed to have known all the essential facts concerning the September 1949 and May 1950 drops.

 

“Despite this, three separate air flights safely deposited a total of 22 agents in Western Ukraine in May 1951. The flights themselves were decidedly a success. Even though they repeated the pattern established the previous year, there was nothing except the flares our plane saw at the border to show that the Soviets had devised any methods for coping with the flights. 

 

"We have no information to indicate that the demise of the two British teams and the breakdown of communications with our team had a direct connection with the fact that the teams arrived in Western Ukraine by air. In brief, as far as Western Ukraine is concerned, we are not impressed with the Soviets' ability to thwart even those air operations that logic would lead them to anticipate.“