altogether. Neither Nixon nor Clinton referred in their memoirs to their pusillanimous behavior in confronting a form of McCarthyism.
THE CIA’S ROLE IN THE ARTIFICIAL “COMBAT BRIGADE” CRISIS IN CUBA
Debates over intelligence are hard fought and often tendentious, and the public rarely learns about the political differences between intelligence agencies. One such debate took place in the fall of 1979, when the NSA intercepted a Soviet message that referred to a “combat brigade” in Cuba. A combat brigade of less than 3,000 men that had no airlift capability or sea transport did not represent a threat comparable to a possible Soviet submarine base as in 1970 or the deployment of Soviet MiG-23s as in 1978, let alone the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. But the fate of SALT II between Washington and Moscow hung in the balance, and national security advisor Brzezinski, no friend of Moscow or of détente, feared any effort by the Kremlin to steal a march on the United States. As a result, he put a great deal of pressure on the CIA and its national intelligence officer on the Soviet Union, Arnold Horelick, to find evidence of any Soviet chicanery.
Brzezinski and his military assistant, Colonel William Odom, both anti-Soviet and anti-disarmament, were fearful that Moscow would exploit the period during the run-up to the scheduled summit between President Carter and General Secretary Brezhnev in Vienna, where the SALT II agreement would be signed. Brzezinski asked CIA director Turner to take a hard look at all intelligence dealing with Soviet activities in Cuba and to increase intelligence collection over the island with a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. Brzezinski and Horelick spoke often on a secure line during this period, and the subject of possible Soviet violations of agreements regarding Cuba was a hot topic.
The “threat” turned out to be the possibility of a Soviet combat brigade in Cuba. In 1962, Moscow had deployed ground combat units to Cuba at four major locations as part of its deployment of medium- and intermediate-range missiles. General Secretary Khrushchev withdrew all ground forces that were protecting missile installations or bombers as part of the diplomatic agreement that ended the crisis. The so-called combat brigade was located at one of these four locations, which contributed to the confusion over the unit.
The combat brigade, however, was a praetorian guard for Castro that pre-dated the Cuban missile crisis, and Moscow had reason to assume that U.S. intelligence would confirm this. Therefore, they believed Carter was creating an “artificial issue” to avoid fighting for the ratification of a SALT treaty in a recalcitrant Senate. When a powerful opponent of détente with the Soviet Union and arms control, Senator Henry Jackson, leaked intelligence on the “brigade” and used the information to attack the treaty and the Soviet Union, there was grist for the Soviet mill.
Ignoring our concerns, Horelick immediately proposed “warning notices” regarding the combat brigade to the policy community, which created the impression of an impending crisis. Several of us took the position that there was nothing new about references to a combat brigade, and attempted to convince Horelick not to push an intelligence panic button that was nothing more than an exercise we referred to as CYA—“cover your ass.” We were the contrarians within the analytical community, challenging the conventional wisdom in order to defuse the crisis atmosphere that Brzezinksi and Horelick were creating. Our arguments to Horelick were both sane and sound, and—more importantly—correct. Unfortunately, the CYA exercise prevailed, which often happens in the intelligence community, particularly with military intelligence.
The State Department contributed to the crisis atmosphere by leaking news of the intelligence to two liberal senators, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Frank Church (D-ID), and Richard Stone (D-FL), who favored ratification of the SALT II agreement. The Department believed that Church and Stone, both influential within their party, would tamp down speculation of a possible Soviet violation of agreements that ended the Cuban missile crisis. Church and Stone were facing election challenges in their states from neoconservatives, however, and they exploited the intelligence they were given.
Provocative rhetoric from two dovish senators put the Carter administration on the defensive, and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance made it worse when he proclaimed on September 5, 1979, that this was a “very serious matter affecting our relations with the Soviet Union.” Church put the ratification of SALT II on the back burner, and presented himself as a tough foe of the Soviet Union. No one anticipated that he would take a hawkish stance and put an important arms control agreement at risk, because he was an experienced political figure and a strong supporter of SALT. He demanded the withdrawal of the Soviet force, a gratuitous demand. Seventeen years earlier, however, the Kennedy administration had falsely assured Senator Church that the Soviets hadn’t introduced missiles into Cuba, which led the right wing in Idaho to vilify him.
Stone, moreover, decided to pander to his anti-Castro constituency. He cited leaks from NSA staffers regarding a recent buildup of Soviet forces in Cuba, “perhaps as much as a brigade,” which proved to be wrong. Stone joined the Republican opponents of arms control, led by Senator Robert Dole (R-KS), who would not begin ratification hearings for SALT II until Soviet troops were withdrawn from Cuba. Ironically, as mentioned, the so-called combat brigade had been placed in Cuba prior to the Cuban missile crisis and was permitted to remain there to prevent a U.S. invasion similar to the Bay of Pigs, the CIA’s “perfect failure” in 1961.
The combat brigade “crisis” and the misuse of intelligence led to election defeats of both Church and Stone as well as the failure to gain ratification of SALT II, intended as a major keystone of the Carter administration. This led to a fundamental weakening of Soviet-American détente that wasn’t corrected until President Reagan’s second term, when Washington returned to arms control with Moscow. This was a classic example of intelligence being mishandled by the National Security Agency, poorly analyzed by the CIA, and misused by the Carter administration and the State Department. We have no idea what the Soviet leaders concluded from this amateurism, but they had reason to believe that Carter had lost interest in détente and arms control or that there was a right-wing conspiracy to block SALT II. In view of Moscow’s predilection for conspiracy, it probably assumed conspiracy.
The intelligence community had dropped the ball, and the CIA contributed to an unnecessary flap. The National Security Agency failed to have good archival records that would have established that the brigade had been in Cuba prior to the missile crisis, had no connection with Cuban combat units, and never should have been labeled a “combat” unit. The CIA, led by National Intelligence Officer Horelick, was too quick to accommodate the importuning of Brzezinski by issuing warning notices that added fuel to an unnecessary fire regarding Soviet intentions prior to a summit meeting and the signing of a strategic arms agreement.
The brigade did not compromise, let alone violate, the Soviet-American understandings about Soviet activities in Cuba. As with the unnecessary missile alert six years earlier during the October War, when Kissinger misused sensitive intelligence, the Soviets were left to scratch their heads and try to determine U.S. reasons and motivations for an unnecessary flap that brought détente to a halt. The CIA was created to provide the institutional memory on these occasions when new and inexperienced administrations lack a political background.
The media contributed to the crisis atmosphere, which is typical in these situations. Time magazine carried an article on “The Storm over Cuba” with a photograph captioned “Soviet-Built Intelligence Station in Cuba.” The station was described as an “advanced electronic monitoring complex east of Havana,” but it was a complex that had been built by an American company, ITT, before Castro took power in 1959. Flawed CIA intelligence on Cuba and Iran in 1979 undermined confidence in President Carter, which contributed to his election defeat in 1980. Presently, the mainstream media are playing up the notion of a renewed Cold War, which is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy
Even though the Carter administration and the CIA were wrong about the combat brigade, Brzezinski remained stubbornly critical of “backing down” to Moscow, and it was the one time in his stewardship as national
