Washington, D. The Andropov speech, Politburo-level warnings about the war risks from NATO exercises in the fall of , and other previously secret Soviet documents and declassified U. As the delegation of U. He announced that there was now a need for the KGB to work to prevent a Western nuclear first strike — despite the lack of evidence that NATO had any such intentions. And therefore the one who better knows the objectives, the intent and the whole nature of the military and political preparations of the other side, will gain the advantage long before the missiles hit the target.
In this connection, long before the military confrontation comes around, a confrontation of the intelligence services springs to life. Our objective is to win it. Our intelligence service has a lot of experience, draws upon glorious traditions, has at its disposal loyal, well-trained personnel, and is armed with up-to-date specialty equipment.
It bravely engages the enemy. In short, the intelligence service needs to learn to act in a more pointed, more accurate, faster way. Its objective is not to miss the military preparations of the enemy, the main enemy [the United States], its preparations for a nuclear strike, and not to miss the real risk of the outbreak of war.
The intelligence service cannot limit itself to reflecting the picture of military preparations of the enemy in general. We have to look at the issue of analytical work of the intelligence services from a new angle. They are not building factories and palaces in order to destroy them. Maybe I am wrong. You should expect anything from him. Dmitrii Antonovich Volkogonov Papers, U. Document provided by Svetlana Savranskaya.
After giving a series of talks to Soviet citizens in Ukraine about the need to raise vigilance, KGB agents solicited questions from the audience on a wide variety of topics. This document is a page summary of the questions asked by the audience members. Will the nuclear conflict between the U. Is their collision inevitable? Document 98 in Vojtech Mastney and Malcolm Byrne, eds.
