Page 631 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

631
ActA
17
CIMEX-79 strategic command & staff exercises (6-23 March 1979) For reconnaissance of
NATO winter exercises 30 new electronic stations were deployed by special Radio Technical
Intelligence brigade and 46 stations more by the three land forces Radio Technical Intel-
ligence detachments and one Naval Radio Technical Intelligence unit, which meant twice
more stations for radio and radar position finding of those used in “a regular situation” pe-
riod. During the WINTEX/CIMEX-79 exercises the activity of 117 sources of NATO elec-
tronic communications were located and followed, 80 of them newly dislocated. In general,
946 messages were recorded, 515 of them were from NATO and US command sources, and
the others from Turkish and Greek military stations. About 150 of the recorded messages
were sent with open texts, while some of the ciphered messages had used symbols, signals
and commands that were disclosed during the previous WINTEX exercises. The acquired
intelligence data permitted to disclose in the preparatory period and during the first phase
of WINTEX-79 (transition from peacetime to war with change from Military Vigilance to
Reinforcement Alert) the disposition of some NATO wartime control facilities in Southern
Europe through the messages sent by the communications centers in Naples, Vicenza, Izmir,
and Padua. At the second phase of the exercises (first defensive and counteroffensive op-
erations in the initial war period with/without use of tactical nuclear weapons) multiform
extensive data was collected about the participating troops and staffs, areas of disposition,
command points, control communications systems, etc.
One of the most disputed issues about the Warsaw Pact policy during the last Cold War
wave (1981-1985) was connected with the so called “Soviet War Scare” reaction toward
NATO ABLE ARCHER-83 exercise and the massive intelligence operation VRYAN. In
May 2013 the National Security Archive in Washington DC published a collection of several
18
newly declassified documents on the issue . In the last decade I had opportunity to publish a
few papers with several corrections about the terms of VRYAN operations. The revealed new
archival intelligence records categorically confirm that the strategic task of disclosure im-
mediate indicators for a NATO “sudden missile-nuclear attack” (VRYAN operation) against
the Soviet bloc did not started in 1981 and terminated in 1985, as claimed by Oleg Gor-
dievsky and Christopher Andrew. The task for “disclosure indicators of surprised Western
military offensive” existed in Bulgarian Foreign Intelligence directives and protocols even in
the early 1970s . In regard to Military Intelligence decision making, such priority task was
19
constantly formulated at the multilateral Warsaw Pact annual intelligence meetings, starting

17 COMDOS, VR, MF 01288, A.E. 1119, p. 196-205. In new information immediately after the end of
WINTEX-79 it was noticed that for the first time from 1973 joint communication between the Greek and
Turkish armed forces has been launched, which was reliable evidence for return of Greece into NATO
military activity.
18 Jones, Nate, “The 1983 War Scare: The “Last Paroxysm” of the Cold War”, NSA Electronic Briefing Book
No. 426, May 16, May 21, May 22, 2013. In one of the documents (a Memo to US National Security Adviser
Robert McFarlane from Jack Mattock) it was emphasized: “Fear of war seemed to affect the elite as well
the population. A degree of paranoia among high officials, and the danger of irrational elements in Soviet
decision making seems higher.”
19 See: Baev, Jordan. KGB in Bulgaria. Cooperation between Soviet and Bulgarian Secret Services, 1944-1991,
(Sofia: Military Publishing House, 2009), p. 216-219.