Thank you very much. We have a special program for you today. And first i want to introduce claire sassen. The executive director. She wanted to say a word about the partnership on this. And well get into the statements. Thank you. Can you hear me . I will only take a minute of your time. We are delighted to be able to work with the cia to bring you this we think exciting briefing this morning. Also want to thank kevin and the National Press club for hosting us this morning. For those of you who dont know the Naval Historical Foundation were a nonprofit membership organization. We focus on preserving and commemorating naval heritage. And we use naval history to help educate the American People on the importance of our navy. And the mer time domain. Were located the Washington Navy yard. And we work closely with the naval history and heritage command. Our board and members throe of whom are four of whom are sitting who are today. David admiral kevin and norman polmar. A wealth of knowledge on naval history. And providing mistor kal context into activities that are happening today. We hope you will use us as a resource. As youre doing research and writing articles. Thats it. We want to say thank you for coming and enjoy the briefing. Great. Thank you very much. So let me go through the list of speakers today. David rosenberg. For the institute of defense analysis. And retired u. S. Navy captain. Mansfield from the Central Intelligence agency. Welcome. Norman polmar. Naval intelligence historian. And wealth of knowledge about all things navy and marine core. Thomas brooks. U. S. Navy. Retired former director of naval intelligence. And sullivan, retired cia senior officer. Everyone thank you very much for being here today. David id like to kick it off actually. And tell us about the report and the documents that will be released. And a question and answer after everybody says a couple words. Stand up and raise your hand. Identify your name and media source. And make did a really precise question if you could. Good morning and welcome. I have remarks that i have already prepared. So just in the way of reminder later on today from 4 to 6 00 p. M. We have a symposium at the naval yard. And that will be a two hour session. In which well gif a little bit more detail on the documents. I want to first thank our Navy Colleagues and panelist. Its been wonderful working with everyone. And its been a real learning experience for myself. Let me start by saying that i have the absolute best job not only do i get to tell the Central Intelligence agency story i also work with the talented and diverse work source. The reviewers and researchers critical to making this collection available to the public. It is a great privilege to be here today to discuss the results of their hard work. As the historical programs coordinator, i manage to revie and release of classified cia documents in the department of states Foreign Relations of the United States. And the release of significant documents which included over the last couple of years the release of the president daily briefs. Our goal is declassify what we can. While protecting what we must. With this in mind we strive to increase Government Transparency with with. We have produced a booklet which many have picked up on your way in. And provides an over view of the history of the soviet navy and the posture during this time. As well as a catalog. Its in the back of the booklet. Describing the documents. Recently released for the event. The documents can be found on our cia. Gov web site. Under historical collections. Since this is about history lets go back 2,500 years ago. That Chinese Military theory stressed the importance of intelligence in his book. The art of war. That same book he noted that to win 100 battles is not skill. On the other hand he stressed to subdue the enemy without fighting is indeed the true skill. The cold war was won without a shot being fired between the super powers. And a Nuclear Holocaust was averted. This collection of documents is our story of the soviet navy in the cold war. With previously are leased collections in the series fox on the warsaw pact and strategy issues. Resulting analysis at that time served on National Security policy issues. Documents in this include intelligence assessment, intelligence and Research Reports as well as the acquired reporting from behind the iron curtain. The analytic products were written by the direct tr of Intelligence Office of Strategic Research. And constitute 30 of the collection. Used as the basis for the finished products. These products were prepared for a policy makers and Intelligence Community partners. In total there are 82 documents. Newly are e leased and amounts to 2,000 pages. Much of the analysis of soviet military strategy thinking and for this collection the cold war soviet navy. With the naval strategy. Was derived from a special collection of soviet military thought articles. And related classified warsaw pact documents written by the military leaders and strategists. These greatly influenced our analysis in how the United States viewed the soviet union. They were obtained from lieutenant, colonel and many of those individuals you have heard about. One of the extraordinary heros spoke for all of them. When he wrote and i quote consider that my place during the troubled times is on the front line. I must remain on the front line in order to be your eyes and ears. God grant that only my modest efforts be useful in the fight for our high ideals for mankind. Please belief me that your soldier shall take a worthy position among his comrades who search for justice. Written by colonel a highly placed soviet Intelligence Officer. He was president kennedys most secure source during the berlin cry is in 1962. As well as during the cuban missile crisis. In 1962. He provided together with imagery over flights critical intelligence on the soef yet missile readiness that president kennedy needed to go eyeball to eyeball. And indeed the first to blink. He served from 1953 to late 1950s and reported on soviet military organizations policy strategy and tactic. And colonel served from 1972. In november of 1981 reported on soviet actions leading to the declaration of marshall law in poland that same year. I want to talk about from an analyst point of view what the documents mean. If i could give me a couple minutes just to talk about that. So access to how the navy debated key issues about their own naval theories and practices. As well as their view of u. S. Naval strength. Made the difference between knowing facts and more importantly understanding and gaining the intuitive edge to determine the other sides intentions. From collected intelligence the analyst will know thing it is. However collected intelligence that helps us understand things contributes to making accurate analytic projections. Understanding provides a context that allows the stitching together of misses of information and sorting through the to identify a more accurate picture of the situation. For example, we might have a picture that shows an increase in the number of ships oufr understanding the why allows us to predict intentions for that increase in ship number. The detail and the other soviet military strategist think pieces in the collection were critical to the analyst understanding of why. Another important aspect of analysis and youll probably pick up on some of the discussion today as we go through. Is that the Intelligence Community debates and had debates in the early years on the interpretation of the intelligence on certain issues. Community debates are healthy means to arrive at the understanding that analyst seek of the situation and adversaries intentions. In closing, id like to thank john and joan bird who are responsible for the collection. They spent about a decade doing a lot of pulling together the documents and doing the research. To allow this collection and two other collections. Unfortunately john bird passed away a couple months ago. And we are deeply greatful to both for all their hard work on the project. And dedication. Thank you. Thank you. David, you want to good morning. My name is david rosenberg. I do work at the institute for defense analysis. I am representing myself in the Naval Historical Foundation. Im a historian by training. I have been doing history for five decades. Starting back in the 1960s. So i have been in many of the archives and also as a navy Intelligence Officer have been behind the scenes. Im providing interesting comments on this. I wish i had an aircraft model. Im talking about documents. Let me ro virgin islaprovide in. The first thing i want to do is congratulate cia and thank them. What they have been doing over the last few decades has been remarkable in terms of releasing both finished intelligence and in the materials that you have seeb here. And other collections. Of getting open human intelligence derived documents. That provided by agents behind the iron curtain. And the thing is that when you put this together with material that was released under mandatory declassification review. Requests. Which also cia processed and also the Intelligence Community processed you get a remarkable peckture of the other side of the story. This is very important. Because very rarely this soon there after are you able to in fact get that kind of picture. The other thing i need to thanks cia on. Is the fact they have put these online. This collection has been available since earlier this summer. Online. In addition if you look in the back of the lovely book what you will find is a list of other documents related to it that have also been declassified. Its a very fine collection. That includes the first and Subsequent National intelligence estimate on the navy and so forth. However something i have checked about. Is that cia has on their cia research tool. Crest. Previous to this year, or late last year, crest was only available to the national archive. Crest is now Available Online at cia freedom of information act web site. This is remarkable. The problem is it has one of the worst Search Engines. If you type in the most precise search tools you get 1,500 following web pages. She noted this is a pain and didnt mind. I thought i would note this. Okay. What do we have here. On the web site. We have a collection of material that in effect covers if youll pardon the use of the phrase the water front on understanding the soviet navy. We have individual human intelligence derived documents. Some are repetitive. What is new in a number of cases are the late 1960s and 1970s formally classified formal intelligence of the soviet navy. Understanding the navy and the anticarrier role and series of other points that had not previously been released. This fills a huge gap in term of things to understand. There are also this will be a focus of the discussion this afternoon a series of cia assessments on the role of the soviet navy in interdicting lines of communication in the event of world war 3. The third battle of the atlantic. Would this have occurred . Would the soviet union with this vast collection of submarines come out and attempt to do what the germans had attempted to do in two world wars. Thats an important issue. And a way we can focus the discussion. In addition theres remarkable material coming outs of cia collection of military thought pardon my accent. I was told this is the right way to say it. That was the general staff classified journal. That was provided by. Remarkable material and the warsaw pact journal. This is the way that much of the military questions were in fact debated and naval strategy was in fact talked about. Finally we have a essentially nine documents that represent the 13 the 13 chapters of the combat regulations of the soviet navy in 1983 that were released that in fact were published in 1986. Human derived, but important if you want to delve into the mind mindset of how soviet naval officers are going to think. Are then finally two booklength studies. One a study with a number of redactions on kruschevs miscalculation on the cuban missile crisis and also on the trial of soviet disasters. Now as i said, you have to be, have to look at this and thats the value again of this booklet. I dont know if theres any hyperlink. Is this going online . It should go online today. It will be on the website with the documents we did a short summary paragraph. So itll be a pdf. The beauty of this you can go to the website. You can find this now and then in addition you can at least copy and paste into the Search Engine the title of some of these things and that would be the way to find some of these documents. They have to be the documents that were released fill holes of stuff that the cia has been releasing over time that i think john and joan byrd made the decision they needed to fill in. So this is a celebration of that act but also of everything thats come before it. Because if you really want to understand this you have to understand and look at the other documents. Particularly something that i do want to mention, and that is the issue of the National Intelligence estimate on the soviet navy that came out in 1982. National intelligence estimate 111582d. This has been out for some time, and whats important about that is thats the estimate that was a gamechanging assessment of the soviet navy, that while not part of this you can see things leading up to it. And i want to at least note the importance from the key judgments that i think is very, very critical because it represented such a departure for american admirals on one hand and to understand the soviet navy and how this worked. And that was this quote. Within the soviets overall wartime strategy the primary initial tasks of navy remain to deploy protection in conduct thurk strikes and to defend the ussr from enemy ballistic submarines and aircraft carriers. This is something very, very different than the United States navy would contemplate. Its something that took a while to get the United States navys leadership to understand. The United StatesNavy Leadership was worried about interdiction, was worried about the soviet navy coming out. And the fact is how did this work. The final point i want to note is that you need to understand that the way the United States went about collecting information on the soviet union was all sourced. That were all sorts of things that in effect contributed to these formal intelligence assessments. This includes the technical collection that was undertaken by satellites, overhead imagery, but also electronic intelligence as well as signals and communications intelligence. There were a range of other sources that contributed to this. The United States navy itself redid the way it did intelligence, capitalizing on what it did in the Second World War and in the early 70s created something called the ocean surveillance Information System that provided tailored information to fleet commanders on the doings of the soviet navy. All of this was a remarkable essentially a set of systems that brought us a lot of important information. If you want to understand this, the good news is realize theres a very, very large iceberg behind what youre reading. I think well open it to q a now. So again raise your im sorry, you want to make a statement . Absolutely. Please go ahead. Let me move this over for you a little bit. We want to hear what you have to say. As the only press club member on the panel. Oh, no, kevin. Oh, kevin, of course. Im sorry. Hes an officer. Im just a member for 60 years, whatever. These documents are, one, fascinating. Some ive had the privilege of seeing related to work ive done in the past, a large number ive not. So i consider myself a consumer of all of this. Having made a dozen trips to the soviet union and russia and having discussed some of the issues in here in these papers with Senior Officers as well as submarine designers, ive written a couple of books on russian submarines, let me say these are eye opening documents. The problem is as Dave Rosenberg just pointed out, prior to 1982 a lot of our perceptions of what the soviets would do, how they would do it, turned out to be pretty bad, pretty bad. This evening i will speak about the slac, sea lines of communication interdiction, how the u. S. Navy in the first roughly 30 years of the cold war, the primary Wartime Missions were one, Nuclear Strike against the soviet union with aircraft carriers, with regulus Cruise Missiles, with polaris, poseidon, trident missiles. That was the number one mission, Nuclear Strike against the soviet union. The number two was protecting the atlantic sealanes. Because we knew the germans had tried in world war i to cut off europe from the United States, had tried again in world war ii with submarines and had failed. But with the number of submarines the soviets were producing, in one year, 60, 70 submarines, they could probably do it. So we spent a lot of time, effort, and resources in the concept of protecting the atlantic convoys, which it turns out the soviets were not planning to go after. That was a secondary, tertiary mission for them. Ill close by saying that this evening im going to go into much more detail on that with some of the documents. But also i must take issue with some of my panel members. I often take issue with organizations, and some of you have seen me on tv, read my books and articles. And let me just say the cia is totally wrong, incorrect, just unbelievably bad. During the cold war lots of shots were fired, and several score americans and several score russians were killed. Ill be happy to go into details afterwards. Thank you. It think youd like to make a statement, too. Id like to amplify on one point. That the references have been made to disagreements that sometimes exist in the Intelligence Committee and this panel is going focus on the issue of s. L. A. C. Interdiction. Id like to point out a paper that has just been released. That is the 1978 paper by jerry sparks in the office of research on the role of interdiction at sea in soviet navy operations. As an analyst over 27 years ive had the experience of writing a paper and you never know what happened to it. Like werner von braun and the v2. I launch them, i dont know where they landed. But jerry sparks paper produced a virtual fire storm of opposition from i put the admirals. And my name admiral shupeero, wickland, holloway. Opposition to jerrys message. So what you see in the released papers are not only the finished products, you see a lot of how the sausage is made because there was a lot of debate, a lot of anger within the community in discussing this issue, and you may say, well, why would the office of Strategic Research care what the admirals felt . We didnt work for the admirals. But in fact we did because our director of Central Intelligence at the time was admiral stansfield turner. So one of the great things about this release of documents is that you see not only the finished products, you get an insight into the arguments about what the finished product would look like. You get fascinating anecdotal material of for example admiral turner having a meeting with secretary of defense harold brown, talking about the s. L. A. C. S, and admiral turner says we did a paper on that. Secretary of defense brown says i loved that paper he. Admiral turner says i wasnt too crazy about it myself. So theres a lot of stuff here that really points to the difficulties sometimes of getting the message out. And i feel that they do in the long run really mark a recognition for the excellent work of jerry sparks as the author and even more so for john byrd, who was jerrys Branch Manager at the time and kind of the first line advocate and combatant in what was at times a pretty nasty exchange of views within the Intelligence Community. But truth prevailed. Its interesting. For the scholar its a great trove of evidence to see how the system, how the Intelligence Community system works, not simply the final products. Admiral brooks wanted to make a quick comment before we go to q a. I would like to repeat whats been said before, congratulate the cia on this huge product on getting all of these documents released and previous documents to this as well. I would also like to leave a thought with the audience. As you go through this and as you read this, you have to stop and think that there still are some things that can only be collected by human beings from human beings. No satellite or no antenna could have collected the information thats compiled in the back of this document. The value of the worlds oldest form of intelligence remains important today as it has been throughout history. Thank you very much, everybody on the panel. Open to questions right now. Very interesting this comes out right now considering the world situation. So well start with you right in the back. Yes, sir, right there. Thanks. Irv chapman, a member of the press club with bloomberg. We hear a lot today obviously about putins navy and his admirals prowling the black sea, the baltic, threatening the countries there, prowling the black sea from a base in the crimea. Prowling the mediterranean from a base in syria. What has putin and his admirals learned from the period that you were discussing . Where do we stand today with the new russian threat and how to counter it . And for the benefit of the audio, would whoever answers reintroduce yourself . You want to start with that one . No. Ill take that one. Today the soviet navy has an interesting dichotomy. The surface navy is in big trouble. They have one aircraft carrier. Much smaller than our 100,000ton nuclearpowered ships. The one carrier they have is now in the yard for two, three, possibly four years and will be rebuilt and modernized. They probably cannot add another carrier to their fleet for another 7, 8, 9, possibly 10 years. Surface Ship Construction of destroyers and cruisers has come to almost a complete stop because these were shipped powered by gas turbine engines. The main factory that produced them was in ukraine. And ukraine will not sell gas turbines to russia for their ships. By the same token, theyre building lots of small corvettes that their gas turbines can power and diesels. These small corvettes, small frigates, fortunately from their viewpoint have terrific weapons systems. One of their frigates and three of their corvettes in the was it the caspian sea . Launched missiles 900 miles into syr syria. So its the surface navy is small ships with increasingly potent capabilities. The major threat, i still believe, is on the submarine side where they are building very slowly, very advanced submarines. Missile submarines, Ballistic Missile for the strategic role and what we would call in our navy torpedo attack and Cruise Missile submarines. When the soviet union disintegrated in december 91, half the surface ship yards were lost. They were in other countries, primarily ukraine but other countries. All five of the submarine building yards, now theyve changed the order of them, all five remained in russia. And most of the component suppliers remained in russia. So whereas their surface ship navy has made a contribution in syria, the carrier briefly, surface ships and submarines firing missiles, in my opinion the area thats going to be i dislike using this word. Its a very journalistic term, and im a journalist. The threat is going to be from the under sea, the submarine side. And this is where their emphasis is today. Would you reintroduce yourself . We cant really see the little blue sign in front of you. Oh, your name. Im sorry. Norman polmar. This is naval and intelligence historian. Let me follow up, norman. Im not in position to talk about Current Affairs given that the work i do in Current Affairs has nothing to do with this or if it does i cant tell you about it. So i will simply note as follows that there is the interesting question as we look at and interpret how russia is going about its use of its navy an important lesson to remember is that which is symbolized by that startling statement in the National Intelligence estimate from 1982. Namely, that things the u. S. Navy thought the soviet union was going to do for 30someodd years were things that they in fact were shown through the accumulation of a significant amount of very valuable evidence they werent going to do. And so the issue is, to talk about what norman just noted, the russians are building very, very capable submarines. They are advanced, and given at least the things i have heard from norman, given his relationship with some of the soviet submarine designers, they are really rather remarkable systems. But the fundamental question is how will they be used . How would they be used in wartime . And i think we can venture one thing. And that is it is not likely the russians will be using their submarines to interdict in the North Atlantic Sea lines of communication. The fundamental question is how would they use them and where would they use them . And i can at least venture one thing, which is available when you look at it in these documents, thats also important to look at. The russians pioneered the use of antiship Cruise Missiles, going back to the 1950s. And that if you want to start with understanding the history and the utility of the russian navy for the future, start with the antiship Cruise Missile. Sir, i think you had a question . Thank you. My name is jafer jafri with al mahedin tv network. Im going back to a little bit of history rather than the current day. I wonder if miss mansfield can elaborate on a statement you made a little bit earlier because id like to take that statement and reverse engineer it and see how that works out with the available documents in public domain. I believe you made the statement that khrushchev was the first to blink during the cuban missile crisis. Now, the publicly available documents state that the United States also withdrew quietly its Nuclear Missiles pointed at the soviet union at the time from turkey. Is that a viable statement . Im not the expert on the cuban missile crisis, so i cant comment on that. There is, however, and i believe that david mentioned there is an analytic document from 1964 that gives a lot of analytic detail on what we knew at the time. So its a very indepth study, and its probably the definitive study that ive ever seen, and its released and part of this collection. So i would commend that to you to take a look at. Im not sure. Maybe somebody else can talk to the turkey issue if that was brought up. There was a excellent book published called operation a anader which was the russian code name for sending troops and missiles to cuba. Operation anader is an excellent book written, coauthored, the first half written by an American General who was involved, the back second half written by a soviet general who was involved. And i think youll find if not specifics, at least indications thatll answer your question. There was also a book by a guy named gresham and palmar called defcom 2, which i think was the only time in the cold war we went to defcom 2 level, which was everything but war. But everything was primed to start attacking. But the operation anadir is probably the best published resource on that issue. But were there any u. S. Missiles removed from turkey either during or shortly after the crises . The missiles i think there were only one or two missiles operational in turkey at that time, only one or two missiles. And they were removed after the crisis, not during but after. But im pretty sure, and the book goes into this as i recall, there were maybe two of a planned i forgot. 16, 24. That was the order of magnitude of missiles that were being installed. Either 16 or 24 as i recall. But only one or two were operational at the time of the crisis. Just very briefly, what norman said is true. I think there were more missiles that were in fact operational because this was a decision that was made by the Eisenhower Administration in the 1950s as part of the naval stockpile to provide these missiles in turkey and in italy. These remain a bit of a point of controversy because of difficulty on the part of the u. S. Government and the department of energy to admit even though theyve been out for years whether or not these things actually were in turkey with Nuclear Weapons on them, they continue to redact some of the information about this. But theres enough material even on the u. S. Government websites in the official United States air force history. The key point is that the jupiters in turkey were really pretty horrible weapons that could be disabled by a rifle bullet. And they were in range of highways. The fact is kennedy had ordered their removal because of their vulnerability. And the fact was in the end there was a kind of secret quid pro quo that the Kennedy Administration didnt admit that they would in fact remove the missiles but they were leaving anyway. And they didnt happen during the missile crisis but they were in fact discussed in a private set of negotiations between Robert Kennedy and ambassador the new ambassador, dobrynin, about all of this. So it was back channel diplomacy that made a difference and had nothing to do, however, with the blockade, which was another key part of all of this. Great. Do we have other questions . Sir, way in the back. Hi, greg mirey with National Public radio. To anyone on the panel, can you tell us a little more about what the u. S. Navy was doing to prepare in the decades when they thought the soviet union would try to block sea lanes and after that realization came about what changed or was done differently afterwards . Ill be happy to make a couple of comments on that. The missions of the u. S. Navy during that time frame that were talking about, were talking about 1960s, 1970s in particular as pertinent to these documents. We viewed our missions as number one fielding an ssbn force, Strategic Deterrence as we characterized it, sea control, power projection, and presence and support of diplomacy. And that was roughly how we categorized our missions. The sea control mission, a very large subset of that sea control mission envisioned getting the convoys through to western europe to reinforce nato. And before and particularly after the beginning of the war. Again, having in mind and remember the admirals who were planning this all were world war ii admirals. Admiral zumo was Naval Academy class of 1941. They all had fought. Many of them were submariners. Many of them saw that despite what the soviet intention might be to interdict sea lines of communications that the soviets with a vast, huge number of submarines that they had, had the capability to interdict sea lines of communications. And for those in the audience who were naval officers or who served in the military, youll know that from the Naval Academy on, through all of our war colleges and all of our educations you were taught when considering the enemy you consider capabilities first. Intentions are very, very much secondary. You can change intentions very, very quickly but you cant change capabilities very, very quickly. And a good example of that which was cited to me as a young officer at the time was you remember that and of course i didnt remember this because i was 5 years old when pearl harbor happened. But you remember that five hours after pearl harbor happened secretary knox sent a message to the fleet saying commence unrestricted submarine warfare. Something that to us was absolutely taboo. We had denounced it. We had said it was criminal. We would never execute unrestricted submarine warfare. Four or five hours after pearl harbor we executed it to the surprise of the japanese, i suppose, but also to the surprise of a lot of the naval officers. That was not our doctrine. But our intentions changed very, very quickly. When you look at the investment the navy was making in those years, the ssbn force, the Carrier Force was far and away the despite the fact that sea control was listed as our number two mission, the money was being spent on power projection. Two or three carriers off vietnam at any given time conducting strikes. A lot of money was spent on asw and submarine warfare, mainly used in world war ii ships. And in the 1970s as those ships were wearing out, it became necessary to try to replace the asw sea control capability. We had such a thing as a sea control ship which never saw the light of day. And highlow mix of ships. But the navy has continued to train considerably in asw and invest but not to the degree they invested in the ssbn program or the carrier warfare program. So i hope that helps, to answer your question. Its kind of a rambling answer. Is there anything more specific i can address, let me know. Just a footnote to what admiral brooks just said, in the 50s as an example the soviets built 236 submarines of what the u. S. Calls the whiskey class or nato calls the whiskey class. 236. When we saw four shipyards producing these as i say 60some a year, 70some a year, we knew that had to be the mission of those submarines, to interdict the sea lanes. Interestingly, the soviets never considered the whiskey class as oceangoing submarines. They built them with the idea of Coastal Defense against our aircraft carriers and amphibious landings. We looked at them as submarines capable of going to sea, so obviously they tried to do what the germans had tried. And part of the reason we thought that way was after the war, world war ii, the british and americans, armies and navies, literally hired or got hundreds not hundreds, scores of german generals and admirals to write about fighting the soviets. And i have an example back there in my bag if anyone wants to see it afterwards, of how it was for the germans to fight the soviets. We were that influenced our thinking was influenced by these papers and books that the generals and admirals and in a few cases captains and colonels wrote. And of course they all, having fought the battle of atlantic, said its unquestionable the soviets will do the same thing. Whats fascinating to me a naval and intelligence historian, it says, its just fascinating to me that the largest class of submarines built since world war ii, the 236 whiskeys, were intended for Coastal Defense, not for longrange operations. Just adding eugene sullivan, retired cia analyst. If you look at the papers that are published about soviet s. L. A. C. Interdiction, they cover both intentions and capability. And the intentions thing says the soviets didnt intend to do it but its accompanied by a careful assessment of suppose they did decide to do it. And the papers at least that the agency published found that they really were not capable of doing it. Because when you looked at the submarine numbers and you factored in things like endurance, like torpedo loads, like the ability to differentiate different types of targets, the finding of these agencies papers were they were not capable of doing it unless they perhaps totally abandoned every other mission including the protection of ssbns, and even then it was doubtful whether they could carry out a successful s. L. A. C. Interdiction effort. But then again, the papers are the way to look at this problem, see what the arguments are, see what the counterarguments are. Thanks to celias efforts, theyre all available for extensive looking into. Just a quick follow up, and after that sort of realization set in, can you give us kind of concrete examples about that change, how that might have changed the way of thinking, deployments . And he on a deeper note, if youll pardon the use of this phrase, let me address a couple of issues that did take place in the u. S. Navy during this time. Antisubmarine warfare became a point of serious concern with the advent of the missile submarine. And in fact, something from 1957 on, it became a high priority for them chief in naval operations, burke who create an antisubmarine executive. But more importantly, this is something that as things were developing up in new london, connecticut under submarine group 2 and submarine Development Squadron 12 this was the rise of american submarines, particularly Nuclear Attack submarines with very large sonars. In cooperation with a much larger system of systems seeking to understand where, find, target and so forth, soviet submarines, that the creation of submarines as antisubmarine weapons in effect became this is something the u. S. Navy in effect made a significant priority for its submarine force. Im sure all of you have either read the book or seen the movie the hunt for red october, and the trail carried out by uss dallas fictionally of the red october. And the fact is the capability to do that is something the u. S. Navy did work very, very hard at with the goal of building 100 Nuclear Attack submarines that in effect i think we achieved 90something in the 1980s that were going to be as a former commander of the Pacific Fleet once called it, the capital ships of world war iii. For Everything Else you would be using carriers and surface ships. But these would be the capital ships of world war iii if you needed to get into it. And then in addition as i noted the navy also built a remarkable system built on National Intelligence capabilities to track the soviet navy from home waters into forward deployments and to find ways of figuring out where they were and what they wt therdo we. And at the risking of providing any kind of plug on this, but i will at least note there is available one book called the admirals advantage written by christopher a. Ford and edited and directed by myself. This was a Navy Reserve Intelligence project. Weve never gotten any money. The book was published in 2005, and reprinted with an introduction or foreword by john greenert, cno, at the time in 2014, and it is the cutting edge of declassification that talks about how we tracked the soviet navy. And without that youre not going to necessarily be able to vector those submarines in to go find what youre looking for. So that was a big part of this. May i make a few comments about the other side . One of the problems in asw, antisubmarine warfare, that we encountered was the soviets did things with submarines that, one, we didnt think could be done or, two, we couldnt do. For example, the worlds fastest submarines were soviet, not american. The oneofakind papa class was the worlds fastest, 44. 7 knots. The soviets planned at one point to build 30 of those submarines. These were Cruise Missile antiship submarines. Their alpha class, which they built seven of as i recall, six operational, one just a troublesome boat, could do 40, 41, 42 knots. They have built submarines that can go to 1,000 meters. 3,000 feet. Based on published material thats roughly three times as deep as our submarines go, and much deeper than any of our antisubmarine weapons can go. Their goal, according to russian publications, is 2,000 meters, over 6,000 feet. The problem with a submarine operating there is youre not going to find it because of all of the thermal changes between the surface and even 1,000 feet let alone 3,000 or 6,000. Theyve also done a few other things which we either didnt believe they could or they did, automation. Their attack submarines today have less than half the crew numbers of ours. Theyre the only navy that built Nuclear Submarines with escape pods or capsules for the entire crew. Theyve just done a number of things that we either said couldnt be done or just surprised us because we didnt think they would do it. I just want to put in a plug for the other side. You want to make a comment . Just to wrap up the question as you asked, the discussion of s. L. A c. S is an illustrative issue on the larger issue of how do we go about finally fully understanding the missions of the soviet navy. And the book the admirals advantage goes into that. It was a number of sources, some of which were human sources, some of which were siggant sources, some overhead sources, a number of things, but some very highlevel the availability of some very highlevel intelligence to us in the 1970s that enabled us i think by the end of the 1970s to pretty well understand soviet missions, soviet naval missions. And there were some dimensions of those missions which quite frankly surprised us. And the reason they surprised us is because we didnt think that way. One of the major soviet Navy Missions was to protect their ssbn force, to provide huge numbers of forces to protect their ssbns. We dont do that. Our entire philosophy is the ssbn will go to sea, get lost out there in the vast expanse of the ocean and isnt threatened by anything. The soviets had very, very different problems they had to deal with, particularly before they got to longrange missiles and had to patrol off our coasts. And even after they did, they wanted to protect the bastions in which they were operating their ssbns. We didnt appreciate this until very much later on in the evaluation of all of this intelligence that became available in the 1970s. Great. May have time for one last question. Yeah, go ahead. Its kind of double barrelled. I wanted to ask mr. Polmar, first for those of us who may not be able to attend this afternoons session if youll say a word about the incidents in which you say there was an exchange of fire. You said that its not so as the cia put it that there was never any shots fired in anger. Oh, okay, let me hit that. And a followup. Very quickly. Everyone here knows of gary powers being shot down. But the soviets also shot down 8, 10, 12, i dont recall the exact number, a dozen u. S. Reconnaissance aircraft. The first one in 1946, 47. A Navy Patrol Bomber lost i think 12 crewmen. There are also a couple of shooting incidents in germany where americans were killed. At least one russian badger Reconnaissance Aircraft crashed while flying low over a u. S. Carrier. She did a turn, didnt quite make it, one of the wing tips hit the water. They lost 12 not 12. 8 people in that aircraft as i recall. In vietnam there were russians who were killed, technical advisers, if you will. And i believe we know of at least two or ive seen references to two russian pilots who were killed in vietnam. So people were killed during the cold war on both sides, and shots were fired. And as i say, probably a dozen u. S. And russian Reconnaissance Aircraft were lost, not counting the u2 where there was no casualty on the u. S. Side. But one of the missiles that were fired, as i recall, did hit a russian fighter that was trying to intercept the u2 flown by gary powers. That aircraft was lost with its pilot. So there were real shots fired and real casualties on both sides. And on a slightly different matter, you mentioned vietnam. And i wanted to ask what the documents show about the u. S. Conclusions about soviet access or the soviet use of cameron bay in vietnam starting in 1980 and the importance of kam ran bay as a launch pad for possible future u. S. Operations in east asia and the pacific. Or if not a launch point but a i dont believe this collection of documents covers that aspect at all. 82 documents, i dont think that was part of the package as i remember. I dont recall anything about that. Theres some mention of that in the later National Intelligence estimates, 1582 discusses this in terms of peacetime activities and also some of the later intelligence information, memoranda. And portions of nius that were declassified do at least briefly mention it but nothing in great deal. With respect to the future, thats the future. Well, ladies and gentlemen, i want to thank you on behalf of the National Press club for coming out today and being part of this important meeting. And i think our panelists will be around for a little bit if you have some followon questions. Thank you again for being here at the National Press club. American history tv on cspan 3. This week in prime Time Starting were sending negros by the multiplied thousands to die and fight for freedom while telling them they shall have no part or parcel in freedom at home. Thursday night president Andrew Jacksons political struggle to challenge and even cripple the powerful bank of the United States. Already by 1829, june of 1829, when hed been president all of three months, jackson was writing