Cold War hot pursuits: the history of the struggle between Western intelligence services and Russia - ForumDaily
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Cold War hot pursuits: the history of the struggle between Western intelligence services and Russia

After World War II, military liaison missions emerged in divided Germany. Officially, they worked to maintain communication between the armed forces of the USSR and the West, but very soon the missions turned into teams of advanced scouts, about which little is known. Writes about it Air force.

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“I remember we were driving, and in the forest nearby the antennas of NATO signalmen appeared,” recalls Yuri Matirko, who served in the Soviet communications mission in the city of Bünda. “The major ordered: “So, you fly in there, brake sharply, put the car in reverse and freeze. I have to have time to photograph everything. On my command you drive back. If you don’t succeed, the British will shoot us there.”

The 20-year-old driver coped with it, and the Soviet intelligence officers managed to return to the base alive. But not everyone was so lucky.

"The most reliable and accurate source"

As a result of the Potsdam Peace Agreement, Germany was divided into four occupation zones: the eastern one - Soviet and three western ones - British, French and American.

Soon, Soviet military representatives appeared in each of the western zones, and envoys of the French, British and American armed forces appeared in eastern Germany.

Initially, the main task of liaison missions was to maintain constant contact and interaction between the military leaders and the headquarters of the parties. Mission officers took part in the disarmament of Germany, helped to detain Nazi criminals, and defended the interests of compatriots.

But soon after the start of the Cold War, “missionaries” suddenly found themselves in a unique position. They were practically the only military men who could legally and fairly freely travel through the territory of a potential enemy every day. Thus, communications missions essentially became reconnaissance missions.

“Experience has proven,” American General Loris Norstad later wrote, “that the intelligence collected by our military mission [in East Germany] is the most reliable and accurate source available to our command...”

The number of missions was small. For example, in the Soviet one, working in the British zone of occupation, there were 31 people (of which 11 were officers, the rest were representatives of technical and maintenance personnel). The American liaison mission in the GDR consisted of only 14 people, because the agreement on the work of the US military was signed when relations between the USSR and the West were quite tense.

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“Open the door, and you’re on your way”

In normal times, members of each military liaison mission were free to move throughout the zone of German occupation in which they were located. It was forbidden to enter only pre-agreed areas - most often military units and military factories were located there. But it was precisely there that the scouts strove in the first place.

“It was purely physically impossible to always accompany the mission vehicles. Yes, it was not necessary. Many civilians living in the region and all military personnel were given special cards. They explained exactly what the cars of the Soviet military mission looked like, and said that as soon as you see such cars, immediately call such and such a number. And such calls helped a lot,” says Colonel Richard Blunt, who served as part of the British contingent in Germany.

The British unit that monitored the Soviet “missionaries” was nicknamed “white mice” because of the color of their patrol cars.

“People constantly reported the movement of Soviet vehicles. And we already looked: if the scouts were seen in the permitted zone, then we did nothing, we simply tried to calculate their further route; if it was prohibited, they immediately sent a car to stop them,” adds Stuart G. (he asked not to mention his last name), who served in the “white mice” detachment in the late 1980s.

The fact is that, according to post-war agreements, the cars of the “missionaries” had immunity, like the cars of diplomats. This became a great trump card for the scouts and a headache for those who opposed them.

“While you are in the car, it is considered that you are on the territory of the USSR, and foreign military personnel cannot do anything to you. Therefore, when our officers got out of the car to photograph something or with another task, the main thing was to run back into the car in time,” explains Yuriy Matirko.

It was possible to prevent the "missionaries" forays into restricted areas only physically - by blocking their cars and blocking their view. Usually the first to stop them were the same military men whom the scouts were trying to spy on.

“There were different blockages. That's when the machine gun is trained - it's tough. When five people rush at your car, breaking antennas, wipers, mirrors and in general everything that can be broken, that’s also tough. There were cases when our guys sat in the car for eight hours without getting out. We waited for the British military attache to arrive, for all the paperwork to be completed, and then to escort us to the base. The men peed in bottles, because even if you just open the door a crack, there could be a pipe,” recalls Matirko.

There were also fatal blockages, although all of them were in East Germany. In 1984, a GDR army soldier noticed a car of French “missionaries” who were filming new equipment that had arrived at the base of a motorized rifle division. Trying to interfere with the scouts, the soldier decided to ram their car with his truck. A soldier of the French military mission, Philippe Mariotti, died on the spot.

In 1985, a Soviet sentry shot and killed Major Arthur Nicholson of the US Military Liaison Mission. The officer entered the territory of the military unit, where the latest Soviet T-80 tanks were located, and began photographing. On the way back, a sentry noticed him. Nicholson ran to the car, the soldier shot and wounded him. Within minutes, the American bled out and died.

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Red card

The work of "missionaries" in both East and West Germany always intensified during military exercises.

“As soon as the exercises began, we were sent maps with additional areas marked in red that we were prohibited from entering during the maneuvers. We called it, excuse me, menstruation. Because the card arrived covered in red spots. For us, of course, this was a sign. Where it was forbidden, that’s where they tried to get in first,” explains Matirko.

During such periods, the “hunters” for scouts also became more active.

“With the start of the exercises, the “white mice” established a round-the-clock watch near the Soviet base of the “missionaries.” Most often you sit and wait for a long, long time. And then a car with a bright yellow license plate and a large Soviet flag rushes by. This means that the work begins. In our car we always had an album with photographs of all the mission officers, pictures of cars with license plates. Therefore, usually, soon after the start of escorting, we already knew who exactly we were leading today,” says Stewart.

According to the recollections of participants in the events, during the exercises the “missionaries” and the “white mice” accompanying them covered 1000-1200 km a day.

“We usually left at 4 am and returned to the base at XNUMX am,” recalls Matirko.

Warm relationship

Having set out on a mission, the scouts first tried to break away from the police car accompanying them. In East Germany, American and British "missionaries" easily escaped their pursuers because they had off-road jeeps with powerful engines.

It was more difficult for Soviet “missionaries” in the West. The “white mice” who were pursuing them underwent special extreme driving courses. But Soviet drivers were recruited from conscript soldiers, who were transferred to warrant officers and sent to West Germany without any additional training.

“Sometimes we raced for 2-3 hours to break away. It was great luck to meet Soviet truckers on the road on such a day, who were carrying some kind of international cargo. They usually traveled in twos. And we came up with this trick. You approach the truck driver who is second, and you honk. He looks at you - and we had to travel in our military uniform - and they recognize that we are our own, Soviet. And then the major asked with gestures to protect us from being chased from behind. The men always agreed to help. After that, we hit the gas and overtook both trucks. And then the long-range driver, who was second, also began to overtake his comrade, but only very, very, very slowly,” Matirko says, laughing.

While the truck driver was slowly completing the maneuver, the scout car first accelerated as much as possible, and then jumped off the Autobahn onto some small path and hid behind any obstacle or in the bushes.

“After this I was shaking, of course. Chase, adrenaline. Yes, and you fly off the highway onto the dirt road at great speed, not knowing what’s underneath you. We almost ruined the car a couple of times, and miraculously didn’t crash ourselves,” says Matirko.

At the same time, both British and Soviet veterans of communications missions note that despite risky chases and tough blocking, relations between intelligence officers and their “escorts” were often respectful.

“Yes, the chases were sometimes protracted and often risky. But in general, our relationship was very warm, it seems to me. We periodically accompanied Soviet military personnel so that they could go, for example, to a war memorial that was important to them or on an excursion to places that were formally located in closed zones. They, in turn, also tried to do something nice for us and gave us small gifts,” notes Stewart.

“We treated the chief of staff in our spacious living room to dishes of Russian cuisine prepared by the wives of officers, in particular dumplings, pies, and cold appetizers. They drank only Soviet drinks: various types of vodka, Georgian and Armenian cognacs and wines,” notes General Pavel Golitsin, who at one time headed the Soviet communications mission in the British sector, in his memoirs.

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Mutual control

In the course of such sorties, the scouts of both blocks managed to collect information about the positions of the strike missile systems, about the weapons, the location and movement of the enemy's military units, as well as about the latest developments entering the troops. The officers laid caches for illegal scouts working under deep cover behind the lines of the opposing blocs.

From the 1940s to the 1960s, according to American generals, intelligence officers from communications missions obtained up to 90% of all accurate information about the state of affairs in East Germany. With the advent of high-resolution photographic equipment and then satellite imagery, this proportion has changed somewhat.

However, "missionaries" continued to play an important role. As Colonel Blunt notes, in fact, intelligence officers from both blocs exercised constant mutual control over each other’s military groups. With such constant surveillance, neither side was able to build up or concentrate large forces in forward positions unnoticed by its opponent, which was important during the Cold War.

Military liaison missions ceased operations and closed in 1990 following German reunification.

“When it became known that the end of the Cold War was about to be announced, the Soviet officer took off his winter hat and threw it to me as a souvenir. His name was Onipko. I still remember that day in detail and still keep this hat. It would be great to see each other again someday,” said White Mice veteran Keith Bailey.

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