Letter from the Committee for State Security of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on Aid to the Ministry for State Security of the DRV

Translation from the Russian

208/65 TOP SECRET!

Nr. 470/65

At your request, we report that the Committee for State Security of the Council of Ministers of the USSR will provide large aid to the Institutes of State Security of the DRV. As determined by the State Committee for Economic Aid (Russian Acronym GKÖS), radio interception devices, punched-card tabulators, facilities for forensic laboratories, and laboratories for food testing will be delivered to the DRV. By the order of the Technical Operations Administration of the Committee for State Security of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, operations technology for departments of identity checks [Personenkontrolle], eavesdropping equipment (receivers, transmitters, generators, and tape recording devices) based on tube technology, an apparatus and device for wired eavesdropping, and a special device for cutting through wood paneling will be provided to the DRV. For the office of outdoor surveillance, an “AJAX” apparatus, a portable radio station based on tube technology for communication with observers on foot, will be handed over.

The Vietnamese comrades expressed the wish to obtain eavesdropping technology based on transistor technology, such as an apparatus for wireless video observation.

The intention of the technical operations administration of the Ministry for State Security of the DRV is to manufacture complex technical equipment with their own forces, but the necessary technical basis is lacking. For one month in Moscow, the deputy head of the OTV of the MfS of the DRV, NGUEN HYN NJAN, dealt with issues relating to the maintenance of technologies for decoding and intercepting radio transmissions. Currently he has traveled to our Hungarian friends to discuss the question of the delivery to the DRV of replacement parts for operations technology that was assembled in the People’s Republic of Hungary.

In Moscow, the Vietnamese comrades were received very cordially by the Committee for State Security of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and were shown that we attempted to meet their requests.

Translated:

2 copies were made

6.12.65