Historical Dictionary of United States Intelligence

Party controlled all levels of government, the party’s politburo effec-

tively ruled the country, and its general secretary was the country’s

most powerful leader. The state owned and managed all industry, and

agricultural land was divided into state farms, collective farms, and

small, privately held plots.

From 1940 until 1991, the USSR was divided politically into 15

constituent or union republics ostensibly joined in a federal union,

but until the final year or so of the Soviet Union’s existence, the

republics had little real power. The Soviet Union’s intelligence

services—the KGB and the GRU—and their clients were the princi-

pal intelligence threats during the Cold War.

The Soviet Union dissolved in 1991 into its constituent republics,

with Russia assuming the obligations of the former Marxist state. The

Russian Federation’s security services—the FSBand SVRR—now

cooperate extensively with U.S. intelligence on a variety of issues,

but they also constitute a significant intelligence threat.

SOVIET WAR SCARE. The Soviet war scare refers to the 1983 alert in

the Soviet Unionof a possible war with the United States. Alarmed

over the hard-line rhetoric of the Ronald Reaganadministration that

had come into office in 1981, Soviet intelligence had been placed on

alert to monitor indications of a U.S. surprise nuclear attack on the

USSR and its allies and to provide early warning of U.S. intentions. The

Soviet intelligence collection program, known by the acronym RYAN,

came to dominate the work of the KGBand GRUduring this time. So-

viet intelligence officers in the West received requirements in Novem-

ber 1981 and January 1982 to collect, on a priority basis, information

on: key U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) politi-

cal and strategic decisions regarding the Warsaw Pact; early warning

of U.S./NATO preparations for launching a surprise nuclear attack; and

new U.S./NATO weapons systems intended for use in a surprise attack.

Although the origins of RYAN are unclear, it may have been in re-

sponse to a set of events that, taken together, alarmed the Soviet lead-

ership: a series of new psychological operations against the Soviet

Union and its client states; naval exercises near and incursions into

Soviet maritime approaches; and ongoing covert operations within

Soviet territorial waters, such as Operation Ivy Bells.

President Reagan’s 23 March 1983 announcement of the Strategic

Defense Initiative (SDI) probably was the catalyst for the emerging

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