CHAPTER 19
“ “The training of Swedish SOSUS operators was held in the U.S. or Great Britain […] The U.S. offered to train Swedish staff in underwater reconnaissance and in organizing surveillance. A Swedish team went over to the U.S. for training.”
(The Hidden Alliance: Sweden’s Secret Ties to NATO,
Mikael Holmström)
Anton Modin kept talking. It seemed the natural thing to do in Julia’s presence. She was a soul mate. How, he didn’t quite know, but either she empathized, or she was just a professional grade listener. He watched her through eyes half closed in the light of the setting sun. She had color in her cheeks. Her dark, chestnut hair lay in stark contrast to her bright blue eyes. She was slender without being bony, and had the muscle tone of a professional swimmer. She must be in her forties, he thought. Not quite as old as he was; maybe 41 or 42, as he seemed to remember that she was a few years his junior. But her age didn’t show at all; yes, she was pretty.
“Last summer I met a woman. It felt good. That romance alone allowed me to move on.”
She gave a faint smile. “How lucky I am.” Julia reached for the wine glass. “Any plans for the future, Anton Modin?” Julia asked as she straightened her hair and gave Modin a glance.
“Not long term,” he replied. “I have no job. I even lost my commercial flying certificate. They revoked it, said I was unstable. So there’s no more jet streaks in the blue skies for me.”
“Oh, you poor bastard,” Julia said. “You served with the Air Force before you ended up in the commercial sector, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I used to fly a JA 37 Viggen. They’re fighter planes, if you know them.”
“I know everything about them, Modin. From my Defense Radio days. I’m sure we even have your voice recorded somewhere. It was our job to identify both our own aircrafts and those of the Russians. We knew how well you guys flew, and how deadly you could be. That is to say, we knew your score. Now that the JAS 39 Gripen has come along, the JA 37 has become obsolete. The Viggen was an incredible aircraft, especially above the sound barrier, although it rarely had a chance to show that aspect of its ability due to the sonic booms when it broke the sound barrier. Not very popular with the public. It was capable of huge payloads—bombs, rockets, missiles. I think it was sometime in 1986 that it carried American Sidewinder missiles of the 74 model AIM-9L. Top of the class at the time.”
Julia sat up and pulled her legs up under the blanket. She seemed content.
Anton Modin in a Swedish Air Force Fighter SAAB JA-37
“I’m impressed,” Modin said. “We got the 74 model after Olof Palme had been murdered, in the summer of 1986. Like a letter in the mail. Before that, we had been flying around with the older 24 model AIM-9P, old crap which half of the time didn’t hit the target. Now, for the first time, we had better stuff than the Russians.”
“Interesting,” Julia said. “Guess when Defense Radio, or rather Musac, where I was working, received new top of the line signal surveillance equipment for underwater use.”
“In 1986, I suppose,” Modin said. “Maybe after the assassination of Olof Palme. Am I getting warm?”
Julia nodded. Both her hands were clasped around her glass of red wine. She looked as happy as a child, and so did he. The air itself was chilly but it was cozy under the blankets that they had wrapped around their legs. It was getting darker and the sea lay silent and still. Just a few lazy breakers hit the rocks below them now and then.
Julia gestured with her glass. “In the summer of 1986 we set up a completely new SOSUS system on the seabed just off the coast here. It had been sent directly from the U.S., via Denmark, to cover up that it was U.S. equipment. It was codenamed The Dane to start with.”
“You mean out here?” Modin turned his head and watched the sea to the east.
“Well, I’m not sure of the exact location, but yes, out there somewhere,” she said as she pointed in a northeasterly direction.
Modin looked across the water.
“You did mention SOSUS before,” he said. “What is it exactly, and what is Musac, by the way? Sounds like elevator music, if you ask me.”
“Musac is short for the term The Marine Underwater Sensor Analyzing Center. They grabbed me and a few others from Defense Radio to run the SOSUS equipment. We were trained in California in 1986. That’s when I was in L.A. for the first time. Anyway, as I said, SOSUS works underwater. It’s a pretty complex piece of equipment, a sound surveillance system that detects movement, metal, and sound underwater and over long distances. It can identify specific sources of sound and distinguish between different kinds of submarines. The equipment was updated in 1985 to identify the active sonars of subs, the ones they use in navigation. Even submarines with silent nuclear reactors could be traced.”
“You mean to say that the equipment could identify what sort of submarines were moving around in Swedish waters?”
“Exactly,” Julia said, and fell silent, seemingly waiting for Modin’s next question. She didn’t have to wait long.
“You mean that since 1986, the navy knew which nation was sending which sub?”
“Oh, absolutely. That’s why the equipment and what it could do was so very secretive. Even the information we gathered with the equipment needed to stay secret. For if we would identify the submarines officially, it would be clear that we had used state-of-the-art methods and technology from the U.S. We didn’t want to show that to the Russians.”
“Fucking yes, Julia, I love you. It all makes sense.” He laughed. “Just imagine, Julia! If the SOSUS was still out there on the seabed, we’d have smoking gun proof of NATO’s secret involvement with Sweden. The government always claimed we where neutral and the Swedish people believed it. The SOSUS would proof that this was a lie.”
CHAPTER 20
“In 1986 the secret military cooperation between Sweden and the U.S. deepened. […] To my surprise there were never any problems with the Department of Defense. We could just travel to the U.S. One result of this was the SOSUS System 4 in the northern Baltic (Understen). The SOSUS installation was also cleared by the Minister of Defense. In return, we had to share our results of Soviet submarine activity in the Baltic Sea with the U.S.”
(Interview with Bengt Schuback, Head of The Swedish Marine,
in: The Hidden Alliance: Sweden’s Secret Ties to NATO, Mikael Holmström)
Modin was all perked up. He felt that Julia was telling him something that could prove important. Perhaps she would provide a chance to probe further into the relationship between Sweden and the two superpowers during the ’80s. He felt this instinctively, but tried not to show his eagerness to Julia.
“Do you want some coffee?” she asked but didn’t wait for an answer. “I’ll put the water on.”
Modin stayed put in his comfortable chair and looked out over the landscape. Isn’t the earth beautiful, really? He was a little tipsy and enjoyed the feeling of drifting right into a good buzz. Nonetheless, he made an attempt to gather his thoughts.
If Sweden received a brand new SOSUS in 1986, some event must have made that happen. The U.S. and NATO didn’t trust Sweden because of our relations with Russia, and the Russians didn’t trust Sweden because of our secret ties to the U.S. Was Olof Palme’s death the reason that the U.S. sent all this high end equipment to Sweden? With Palme alive, the Pentagon couldn’t trust Sweden due to Palme’s Soviet sympathies, but with him gone and a new Prime Minister in place, sympathies might have shifted.
“That sounds like a conspiracy theory. Don’t you think?”
They both went quit for a while, thinking about what they just said.
“Who was coordinating this from within government, Julia?”
“Drink this. It’s going to be a long night,” Julia said with a wry smile as she handed him a cup of coffee. “I can tell you are curious. About my work, that is.”
“I am. But not only about your work,” he paused. “But perhaps that’s what I’ll stick to for a whil
e.”
He looked at her, searching for a reaction, anything to tell him whether an advance on his part would be welcome. When none came, he continued. “What was it that made the U.S. release the SOSUS equipment to Sweden in 1986? Who was organizing it all?”
“Defense Minister Anker Turner. He came to visit, or rather, to conduct an inspection at Musac. I think that was in the fall of 1985. Before Palme’s murder, anyway. He’d been working at the U.N. in New York and had made good contacts there. He said he could arrange for us to get the equipment we needed to catch submarines. Because that was what both he and the government wanted. They wanted to capture one of those Soviet subs.”
“To catch a submarine,” said Modin and felt that his jaw had dropped. He camouflaged this by wiping his lips with his hand.
“That’s what the Defense Minister said. We were surprised, because they routinely let intruding submarines go. It was normal procedure. I never understood; if these subs where Russian, why the fuck did they release them? It doesn’t make sense. Defense Minister Turner said he could obtain the latest state-of-the-art anti-submarine warfare technology. And the navy got a new anti-submarine grenade, the Elma. It could sink a submarine by just a pinprick and without actually blowing it to pieces. They hoped that would provide proof that Soviet subs were intruding Swedish waters without having to kill hundreds of Soviet sailors. That’s at least what we at Defense Radio heard when doing a little bit of eavesdropping.”
“Oh, I love you, Julia. How many times have I said that now? It explains everything. Turner must have worked for the U.S. He must have been a U.S. spy. It’s the most reasonable explanation to all this. He wanted to crack down on Soviet subs, while the rest of the government, including Olof Palme, wanted a soft policy against Russian operations in our waters.”
Anton Modin leaned back and squinted at the clouds on the horizon. “I think it’ll be a nice day tomorrow. Statistically speaking, that is. The greatest statistical probability has turned out to be the same weather as the day before. Strange, isn’t it?”
“My dear Modin, you can cut the weather talk,” Julia said softly. “I liked what you said about loving me before. It’s been such a long time since I have loved.”
“Me, too,” he said. “We’ll have to build on that, won’t we, eh?”
They laughed. The awkward moment had passed and they felt comfortable with each other. No reason to rush anything.
“Thanks for trusting me with your secrets,” Modin said. “NSA would kill you on the spot, if they knew you’ve broken the oath of secrecy.”
“That’s for sure,” Julia nodded. “And I guess you’ll tell me that I might as well tell you more.”
“You can see right through me.”
“You are so transparent, Anton!” Julia smiled.
“I’m crushed. I had hoped to be a bit of a mystery.”
“Not where your obsessive desire to find the truth is concerned.”
“The truth is not a bad thing, Julia. They say the truth will set you free,” Modin said as he looked at her with a twinkle in his eyes. “So humor me.”
“Fine. You win. Turner said he could get what we needed from the U.S. I figured he was some kind of courier between our government and NATO.”
“A NATO spy?” Modin said.
“If that’s what you want to call it, yes. In which case there are plenty of NATO spies working for Defense Radio. We cooperate closely with the National Security Agency in the United States, and even with its British equivalent, the Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ for short. They’ve constantly had guys over here in Sweden. They came in their Gulfstream planes and landed at Stockholm Bromma Airport. All kept under wraps, of course, although everyone involved knew what was going on.”
“Yes, I know,” Modin said. “It all started with the downing of that Douglas DC-3, back in 1952. That’s when CIA operative William Colby came to Sweden for the first time, trying to influence our government. Stalin just couldn’t be trusted, and so our intelligence services started cooperating with NATO. I would imagine that this cooperation has been refined and perfected over time.”
Modin went up to the radio and cranked up the volume. The Åland station was now playing “In The Summertime”, a song by Mungo Jerry—a real classic!
“The SOSUS is a darn sophisticated piece of equipment,” said Julia, slurring her words ever so slightly. “So refined that you can even hear when they’re taking a dump on a sub. And that from here to right across the Gulf of Finland. The first set we received in the summer of 1982 was for acoustic reconnaissance—test equipment. We think that’s why the Russians were over here. They knew something was going on and wanted to check it out. They probably panicked when they heard from their spies over here in Sweden that we’d obtained classified submarine detection equipment from NATO. That initial test-system was installed at the Danziger Gatt by the sea entrance to Stockholm and Hårsfjärden.”
Julia stirred her coffee. She had not had a chance to take a sip now that she was telling her story. Modin didn’t want to interrupt.
“The Russians had Golf II submarines which were so noisy that they could be heard from a long way off,” she continued. “That’s why they often lay still on the seabed. The new Kilo attack submarines caused a stir. They started turning up in 1982 and were extremely quiet—the most silent underwater craft the Russians had ever built. But nonetheless, the SOSUS managed to pick them up, too.”
“Is that why the tapes are classified even to this day?” he asked. “To hide the fact that it was U.S. equipment that picked up the Russian subs? Is it just that they didn’t want the Swedish people and especially their left wing voters to know about this cooperation? I mean, I realize that many Swedes sympathized more with the Russians than with U.S. Even today. That’s a fact. But I myself think that the cover-up itself was the problem. The hypocrisy in our foreign politics.”
“It’s not quite the way you think. They were not hiding the information from the Swedish people, but from a foreign power. And they were not hiding that information to save their own butts, but out of consideration for another foreign power. Most of what sits in the Defense Radio archives, or much of it, is from NATO. Even the DC-3 material, which will never see the light of day.”
She took a large gulp of coffee at the same time as Mungo Jerry was fading out.
“So Sweden was lying to its citizens to help out the U.S.?” he commented. “That’s true lapdog behavior.”
“I suppose so. But come on, Sweden was a small country, still is, and had reason to fear that the big bad Russians would come and swallow it up.”
“So what’s the excuse now?”
“Good question.”
“That’s why I am after the truth, Julia.”
“I understand. And I will tell you what I know.”
“Thank you.”
“We received the NSA identifier lists of submarines,” Julia said. “That is to say, we had access to their submarine archive and their submarine fingerprints, which means we more or less had their sound library. That way we would know exactly what type of submarine we found. Clearly, that was highly classified information. In return, NATO wanted access to every scrap of information our equipment picked up. And they got it. Information on exactly what sort of vessels the Russians had in the Baltic Sea was relayed to England, and from there, through protected cables, over the Atlantic to NSA headquarters. Nowadays, we’d use satellite.”
“Fucking hell, Julia. We basically had an NSA station out here on Black Island. What did the Russians make of that? Did they know?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they did. The whole business was conducted very discreetly. There were no spies from Swedish Defense Radio. The equipment arrived in ordinary trucks and was loaded onto small civilian boats in Grisslehamn. It looked as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on. That’s all I know.”
CHAPTER 21
Last summer I met with two Soviet spies,” Modin said in a low voice. “Bo
th of them worked for Swedish Defense Radio. There were more of them, no doubt. A whole spy ring, I would imagine. Five of them.”
Anton Modin looked around uneasily, as if checking for the prying ears of Russian submarines listening below the cliffs. It was getting really dark now.
“Are you serious?” Julia said. “Russian spies at Defense Radio, no way.”
This was the first time that he had detected distress in her voice, and his conscience hit him abruptly.
“I’m afraid it’s true. I interviewed them myself, so there’s no doubt in my mind they were Soviet spies. They even confessed they were, although it took some time before the truth emerged. We’re not talking about worker bees. These were people in top positions. So there you have your answer about what the Russians knew, I’m afraid. They probably knew a lot about western military secrets.”
“Shit. You know, Modin, Defense Radio did admit internally that there had been spies in the firm but they always maintained that these were at a lower level, in other words that the occasional driver or administrator handed over material to a foreign power. But no one ever talked about spies at the top level. And it was always very sensitive to bring it up.”
“The guys I’m talking about were certainly no drivers, Julia. They were department heads; one of them was even a divisional Director at Defense Radio.”
“Heavy stuff. Makes you question everything you thought you knew,” Julia said, visibly disturbed. “Time for the sauna. What’d you say?”
“Not just yet.” He reached for Julia’s arm, and missed. “Okay, let’s take a break. But promise me, we’ll talk more about your Defense Radio sect out at Lovön.”
“Turnabout is fair play,” she said, rising from her seat.
She vanished into the house, and came back shortly with towels in her hand. They ran down to the sauna. Anton grabbed the wine and their glasses.
“Has the sauna already been heated up?”
“You have to plan ahead,” Julia said. “Come on.”
Enemy of the State (Anton Modin Book 2) Page 11