Ministry of State Security (Stasi), Plan for Consultations with the Delegation of the KGB

Translation from Russian
SECRET!

1980/86

The delegation of the 1^st Main Directorate of the KGB of the USSR, consisting of three comrades chaired by the Deputy of the Head of the 1^st Main Directorate, Comrade Major General L. N. Shapkin, would be willing to come to Berlin for 5 days in February 1987 to discuss practical question of further collaboration on the issue of a sudden nuclear missile attack by the adversary.

Translated: [signed, illegible], Lieutenant Colonel

2 copies

Deputy of the Minister [of the MfS]

Berlin, 20 January 1987

STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL!
Confirmed:
[Mielke]
Army General

PLAN

for consultations with the delegation of the 1^st Main Directorate of the KGB of the GDR – chaired by the Deputy of the Head of the 1^st Main Directorate of the KGB, Comrade Major General SHAPKIN – on issues of early recognition

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Objectives of consultations:

1. Exchange on achieved results and existing practical experiences of implementation of agreed measures on timely uncovering of the adversary's acute military intentions of aggression, in particular the intention of a surprise strategic nuclear attack.

2. Working out proposals towards further development of the system of early recognition and to increase its effectiveness, in particular of its preventive effect.

3. Exchange of thoughts about means, ways, and results in obtaining foreign intelligence features, in developing new indicators and indicator areas, and in organizing a swift exchange of gathered new insights.

Theses for conversation:

- Explaining the achieved state in implementation of Order No. 1/85 by the Minister for State Security and corresponding implementing provisions.

- Explaining the workings of the situation room.

- Message traffic on early recognition (scope, quality, timeliness).

- Problems in gathering information through sources on the illegal line and of legal [agent] residents in the area of operation [FRG]

- On the share and quality of information in overall message traffic gathered by technological means, especially through signal intelligence; tasks and problems of collaboration with signal intelligence of the KGB.

- On results of cooperation with foreign intelligence of the Ministry for National Defense of the GDR.

- Experiences from application of the catalog for signs of tensions (catalogue of indicators) and from further development of indicators.

- On the state of collaboration and actual message exchange with the KGB;

Appreciation of the value of [KGB] monthly reports for the MfS – although no substitute for the lacking direct exchange of messages between the [KGB and MfS] centers;

Discussion of a practical solution for the problem (technological equipment – fast, secure, permanent 24-hour operation)   

- Request to the Soviet side to explain their own experiences with early recognition work, according to its central responsibility in the coordinated system of allied organs to gather indicators:

* general insights won through the specific work;

* structural and functional solutions in the center;

* experiences in the context of using IM in the area of operation [FRG], legal residents, capabilities of domestic counterintelligence and technological means of intelligence;

* on activities, mode of operation, and structure of a situation room, technological solutions;

* opinions on collaboration between central structure units of early recognition and information-analyzing units of foreign intelligence of both organs;

* planning of operative, operative-technological and, if applicable, combined measures to cover especially important objects, areas, or fields;

opinions on likely division-of-labor operations in selected geographical areas, or with regard to certain groups of objects;

* opinions (experiences) on qualitative requirements for cadres in the central structure units;

* issues of technological guaranteeing of operative and guidance processes, working with central guidance documentation, use of EDV [electronic data processing]