Everything has been done to make sure that not one of them should fall into
the hands of the enemy before the outbreak of war. A great deal has also
been done to ensure that, if one of them should fall into enemy hands at
that moment, it would be very difficult to establish his connection with any
country whatsoever.
The `pink' terror may continue for no more than a few hours. But those
are the most important hours and minutes -- the very last hours and minutes
of peace. It is very important that those hours and minutes should be spoilt
for the enemy and used for the maximum advantage to the Soviet side. It must
be pointed out that the `pink' terror may not be carried out at all. It is
used only when there is absolute certainty of the success of the operations
and equal certainty that the enemy will not be able in the remaining hours
and minutes to assess the situation correctly and strike the first
pre-emptive blow.
___
For Soviet Communists the month of August has a special significance.
It was in August that the First World War began, which resulted in
revolutions in Russia, Germany and Hungary. In August 1939 Georgi Zhukov
succeeded in doing something that no one before him had managed to do: with
a sudden blow he routed a group of Japanese forces in the Far East. It is
possible that that blow had very far-reaching consequences: Japan decided
against attacking the Soviet Union and chose to advance in other directions.
Also in August 1939 a pact was signed in the Kremlin which opened the flood
gates for the Second World War, as a result of which the USSR became a
super-power. In August 1945 the Soviet Union carried out a treacherous
attack on Japan and Manchuria. In the course of three weeks of intensive
operations huge territories roughly equal in area and population to Eastern
Europe were `liberated'. In August 1961 the Soviet Union built the Berlin
Wall, in violation of international agreements it had signed. In August 1968
the Soviet Army `liberated' Czechoslovakia and, to its great surprise, did
not meet with any opposition from the West. Suppose the Soviet Communists
again choose August for starting a war....
___
On 12 August, at 0558 local time, a van comes to a halt on the vast
empty parking lot in front of a supermarket in Washington. Three men open
the doors of the van, roll out the fuselage of a light aircraft and attach
its wings. A minute later its motor bursts into life. The plane takes off
and disappears into the sky. It has no pilot. It is controlled by radio with
the aid of very simple instruments, only slightly more complicated than
those used by model aircraft enthusiasts. The plane climbs to about 200
metres and immediately begins to descend in the direction of the White
House. A minute later a mighty explosion shakes the capital of the United
States. The screaming of sirens on police cars, fire engines and ambulances
fills the city.
Three minutes later a second plane sweeps across the centre of the city
and there is a second explosion in the place where the White House once
stood. The second plane has taken off from a section of highway under
construction, and has a quite different control system. Two cars with radio
beacons in them have been left earlier in the middle of the city. The
beacons have switched on automatically a few seconds before the plane's
take-off. The automatic pilot is guided by the two beacons and starts to
descend according to a previously worked-out trajectory. The second plane
has been sent off by a second group operating independently of the first
one.
It was a simple plan: if the first plane did not destroy the White
House the second would. If the first plane did destroy the White House then
a few minutes later all the heads of the Washington police would be near
where the explosion had taken place. The second plane would kill many of
them.
At 0606 all radio and television channels interrupt their normal
programmes and report the destruction of the White House and the possible
death of the President of the United States.
At 0613 the programme known as Good Morning America is interrupted and
the Vice-President of the USA appears. He announces a staggering piece of
news: there has been an attempt to seize power in the country on the part of
the leaders of the armed forces. The President of the United States has been
killed. The Vice-President appeals to everyone in the armed forces to remain
where they are and not to carry out any orders from senior officers for the
next twenty-four hours, because the orders would be issued by traitors
shortly to be removed from their posts and arrested.
Soon afterwards many television channels across the country cease
transmitting....
___
The Soviet military leaders know that if it doesn't prove possible to
destroy the President of the United States in peacetime, it will be
practically impossible to do so at a time of crisis. The President will be
in an underground, or airborne, command post, somewhere extremely
inaccessible and extremely well guarded.
Consequently the leaders, while not abandoning attempts to kill the
President (for which purpose several groups of assassins with every kind of
weapon, including anti-aircraft missiles, have been dropped in the country),
decide to carry out an operation aimed at causing panic and confusion. If it
proves impossible to kill the President then they will have to reduce his
capacity to rule the country and its armed forces at the most critical
moment.
To carry out this task the Soviets have secretly transferred to
Washington a spetsnaz company from the first spetsnaz regiment at the
strategic level. A large part of the company is made up of women. The entire
complement of the company is professional athletes of Olympic standard. It
has taken several months to transfer the whole company to Washington. The
athletes have arrived in the guise of security men, drivers and technicians
working in the Soviet embassy and other Soviet establishments, and their
weapons and equipment have been brought in in containers covered by
diplomatic privilege. The company has been split into eight groups to carry
out its mission. Each group has its own organisation, structure, weapons and
equipment. To carry out their tasks some of the groups will have to make
contact with secret agents recruited a long time previously by the GRU
rezidentura.
On 11 August the GRU rezident in Washington, a major-general known by
the code-name of `Mudry' (officially a civilian and a high-ranking diplomat)
receives an encyphered telegram consisting of one single word -- `Yes'. On
the rezident's orders the spetsnaz company leave their places of work. Some
of them simply go back home. Some are transported secretly in the boots of
their cars by GRU officers and dropped in the woods round the city, in empty
underground garages and other secluded places.
The group commanders gather their groups together in previously agreed
places and set about carrying ou
t their tasks.
Group No. 1 consists of three men and the group is backed up by one
secret agent. The agent works as a mechanic at an airport. In his spare time
he builds flying models of aircraft of various sizes. This particular model
was designed by the best Soviet aircraft designers and put together in
America from spares bought in the open market. The agent himself does not
play any part in the operation. A van containing a light radio-guided
aircraft and its separate wings has been standing in his garage for some
months. What the aircraft is for and to whom it belongs the agent does not
know. He only knows that someone has the keys to the garage and that that
person can at any moment come and take the van along with the aircraft. In
the middle of the night the spetsnaz group drives the van out into the
forest where they take the explosive charges from a secret hiding place and
prepare the plane for flight. At dawn the van is standing in the deserted
parking lot.
Group No. 2 is doing roughly the same at that time. But this group has
three agents working for it, two of whom have left their cars with radio
beacons parked in precisely defined spots in the centre of the city.
Group No. 3 consists of fifteen spetsnaz men and five experts from the
REB osnaz. They are all wearing police uniforms. At night the group kidnaps
the director of a television company and his family. Leaving the family at
home as hostages guarded by three spetsnaz men, the rest of the group make
their way to the studios, capturing two more highly placed officials on
their way, also as hostages, but without giving cause for noise or panic
among the staff. Then, with guns threatening them and supervised by Soviet
electronics experts, the director and his assistants insert, instead of the
usual advertising programme, a video cassette which the commander of the
group has given him. The video cassette has been made up in advance in the
Soviet Union. The role of the Vice-President is played by an actor.
The Soviet high command knows that it is very difficult to cut into
American military channels. If it is at all possible, then at best it will
be possible to do no more than overhear conversations or interrupt them. It
is practically impossible to use them for transmitting false orders at the
strategic level. That is why it is decided to make use of the civilian
television network: it is difficult to get into a television studio, but it
is possible and there are many to choose from. Operations are carried out
simultaneously in several different cities against various TV companies. If
the operation succeeds in only one city it will not matter -- millions of
people will be disoriented at the most critical moment.
The operational plan has provided that, just after the `Vice-President'
has spoken several retransmitters will be destroyed by other spetsnaz groups
and one of the American communication satellites will be shot down `by
mistake' by a Soviet satellite. This is intended to deprive the President
and the real Vice-President of the opportunity to refute the false
declaration.
But events do not go entirely according to plan. The President succeeds
in addressing the people and issuing a denial of the report. After the
television network throughout America has suffered such major damage, the
radio immediately becomes the principal means of communication. Radio
commentators produce different commentaries about what is happening. The
majority of them report that it is difficult to say which report is genuine
and which was false, but that the only fact about which there is no doubt is
that the White House has been destroyed.
At the moment when all these events are taking place in Washington
another spetsnaz company from the same regiment is ordered by the GRU
rezident in New York to carry out the same operation but on a much larger
scale. They do not make use of radio-guided aircraft, but seize two
television studios and one radio studio which they use for transmitting the
same false report. Five other spetsnaz groups emerge from official Soviet
offices and make open, armed attacks on underground cables and some radio
and TV transmitting and receiving aerials. They manage to damage them and
also some transformer stations, as a result of which millions of TV screens
go blank.
A few hours later spetsnaz detachment I-M-7 of 120 men lands in New
York harbour from a freighter sailing under a Liberian flag. Using its
fire-power the detachment makes its way to the nearest subway station and,
splitting into small groups and seizing a train with hostages, sets about
destroying the underground communications of the city.
In the area around the berths of America's huge aircraft-carriers and
nuclear submarines in Norfolk, several mini-subs are discovered, as well as
underwater saboteurs with aqualungs.
In Alaska eighteen different places are recorded where small groups
have tried to land from Soviet naval vessels, submarines and aircraft. Some
of the groups have been destroyed as they landed, others have managed to get
back to their ships or, after landing successfully, hidden in the forests.
Spetsnaz detachment I-S-7 consisting of eighty-two men lands on the
coast of Mexico, immediately commandeers private cars, and the next night,
using their fire-power and new mobility, cross the United States border.
Small spetsnaz groups land and use routes and methods employed by
illegal immigrants, while others make use of paths and methods used by drug
dealers.
Islands and the military installations on them are more vulnerable to
sabotage operations, and at the same moment spetsnaz groups are landing on
Okinawa and Guam, on Diego Garcia, in Greenland and dozens of other islands
on which the West has bases.
___
Spetsnaz group 2-S-13 has spent three weeks aboard a small Soviet
fishing vessel fishing close to the shores of Ireland. On receiving the
signal `393939' the ship's captain gives the order to cut the nets, switch
off the radio, radar and navigation lights and set course at top speed for
the shores of Great Britain.
In darkness two light speed-boats are lowered from the side of the
ship. They are big enough to take the whole group. In the first boat is the
group commander, a lieutenant with the code-name of `Shakespeare', a radio
operator, a machine-gunner and two snipers. In the second boat is the deputy
group commander, a junior lieutenant with the code-name `Poet', two soldiers
with flame-throwers and two snipers. Each man has a supply of food for three
days, which is supposed to be used only in the event of being pursued for a
long period. For general purposes the group has to obtain its food
independently, as best it can. The group also includes two huge German
shepherd dogs.
After landing the group the little fishing vessel, still without lights
or radio, puts out into the open sea. The ship's captain is hoping to hide
away in a neutral port in Ireland. If the vessel is stopped at sea by a
British naval patrol the captain and his crew have
nothing to fear: the
dangerous passengers have left the fishing boat and all traces of their
presence on it have already been removed.
`Shakespeare's' group lands on a tiny beach close to Little Haven. The
landing place has been chosen long ago, and very well chosen: the beach is
shut in on three sides by huge cliffs, so that even in daytime it is
impossible to see from a distance what is going on on the beach itself.
At the same time as `Shakespeare' four other spetsnaz groups are going
ashore in different places two or three kilometres apart. Operating
independently of each other, these four groups arrive by different routes at
the little village of Brawdy and at 3.30 in the morning they make a
simultaneous attack from different directions on a large building belonging
to the United States Navy. According to reports received by the GRU,
hundreds, and possibly thousands, of acoustic listening posts have been set
up in the region of the Atlantic Ocean. The underwater cables from these
posts come together at Brawdy where hundreds of American experts analyse
with the aid of a computer a huge amount of information about the movement
of submarines and surface ships all over the North Atlantic. According to
the GRU's information similar establishments have been set up in Antigua in
the Azores, in Hofn and Keflavik in Iceland, in Hawaii and on Guam. The
GRU's commanding officers are aware that their information about Brawdy may
not be accurate. But the decision has been taken to attack and destroy the
Brawdy monitoring station and all the others as well. The four attacking
groups have been given the task of killing as many as possible of the
technical staff of the station and of destroying as much as possible of the
electronic apparatus, and everything that will burn must be burnt. Mines
must be laid at the approaches to the building. All four groups can then
depart in different directions.
The `Shakespeare' group takes no part in the raid. Its task, beginning
with the following night, is to lay the mines at the approaches to the
building. Apart from that, with sniper fire and open attacks, the group has
to make it difficult for anyone to attempt to save or restore the station.
The group commander knows that the four neighbouring groups which are taking
Spetsnaz: The Inside Story of the Soviet Special Forces Page 25