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Thursday, November 21, 2024
Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Was The USSR Producing Enough Food?
Was the USSR Producing Enough Food?
queue for sausage
U.S. Intelligence Community Monitoring of Soviet Agriculture during the Cold War
Published: Nov 20, 2024
Briefing Book #
873
By James David
For more information, contact:
202-994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Subjects
Cold War – General
Intelligence and Espionage
Soviet-U.S. Relations
Space Policy
Regions
Russia and Former Soviet Union
Project
Cold War
Intelligence
hexagon
The HEXAGON satellite at the Lockheed facility in Sunnyvale, CA. This was the first photoreconnaissance satellite regularly used to image Soviet agricultural regions. Its color photography of these areas was useful in evaluating crop production. From the normal operating altitude, each frame captured an area roughly 310 miles x 15 miles. There were 19 successful HEXAGON missions from 1971-1984. (National Reconnaissance Office)
landsa
NASA’s LANDSAT 2 satellite, launched in 1975. The CIA used the multispectral imagery of Soviet agricultural regions acquired by LANDSAT satellites to help assess crop vigor. (NASA illustration)
016 multispectral image of Idaho farmland from one of Planet’s Dove satellites
2016 multispectral image of Idaho farmland from one of Planet’s Dove satellites. The red indicates good crop vigor. (Planet Labs)
khrushchev
Nikita Khruschev was the Soviet leader from shortly after Josef Stalin’s death in 1953 until 1964. He enacted major agricultural reforms beginning in 1954, but these were only partially successful in increasing production.
1955 U.S. delegation
Members of the first U.S. agricultural delegation to visit the USSR in 1955. These visits produced useful intelligence. (Source: Peggy Ann Brown)
harriman
Former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union W. Averell Harriman, who also served as Commerce secretary and led the Mutual Securty Agency under President Truman, visits a state farm in Kazakhstan in 1959. These visits by U.S. and allied officials, which began after Stalin’s death, produced valuable information. (Source: Truman Presidential Library)
Kissinger
Henry A. Kissinger, President Nixon’s National Security Advisor, initiated a review of U.S. intelligence on Soviet agriculture in 1972 after the Soviets bought large amounts of U.S. wheat greatly impacting domestic prices. (Source: henryakissinger.com)
Washington, D.C., November 20, 2024 – The failure of the U.S. intelligence community to adequately warn policymakers about the poor Soviet grain harvest of 1972—resulting in higher food prices in the U.S. and severe criticism of the Nixon administration—led the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to begin to rely on imagery from LANDSAT and classified photoreconnaissance satellite programs to improve its estimates of Soviet agricultural output, according to documents featured in a new National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book written by James David, retired curator of national security space programs at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum.
The new collection consists of declassified intelligence reports, top-level policy memos, and other formerly secret records that illustrate and describe the evolution of U.S. efforts to monitor Soviet agricultural production during the Cold War—from the early reliance on human intelligence (HUMINT) reports to the use of sophisticated space technologies in the 1970s.
Highlights of the new Electronic Briefing Book include:
A 1946 report from the Central Intelligence Group showing the role that HUMINT played in acquiring information about Soviet agriculture at the dawn of the Cold War. (Document 1)
A 1951 CIA report describing a clandestine operation by the Directorate of Plans to secretly obtain samples of Soviet wheat and rye exports. (Document 4)
A March 1954 document that is believed to be the first of many CIA briefings for the National Security Council on the subject of Soviet agriculture. (Document 6)
A detailed trip report from Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman’s 1963 trip to the Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries that shows the continuing importance of HUMINT in evaluating Communist agricultural programs (and an attached note from Director of Central Intelligence John McCone showing the Agency’s “keen interest” in the results of Freeman’s trip). (Document 14)
A September 1963 CIA report explaining why, since 1958, the Agency had been producing its own approximations of Soviet agricultural output rather than rely on inflated Soviet estimates and noting that its numbers had been “consistently far below Soviet claims.” (Document 15)
A declassified inventory of Agency reports from the period leading up to the poor 1972 Soviet grain harvest—one of several indications that the CIA was largely accurate in predicting a downturn in agricultural output. (Document 18)
Other records describe the CIA’s first steps in the 1960s toward using overhead photography to help produce crop estimates. Documents from the mid-1970s illustrate the increasingly critical role of unclassified imagery from LANDSAT, developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), in combination with classified imagery from other satellite programs, in the preparation of Soviet crop estimates.
David is the author of several National Security Archive briefing books on intelligence community efforts against the Soviet target and also donated his Radiological Warfare Collection to the Archive.
* * * * *
Was the USSR Producing Enough Food?
U.S. Intelligence Community Monitoring of Soviet Agriculture during the Cold War
By James David
The inability of a nation to adequately feed its population can have major domestic and foreign repercussions. It can result in loss of popular support for the government and social unrest. Food shortages can also decrease output in other sectors of the economy, reduce agricultural exports that earn foreign exchange or serve as an instrument of foreign policy, and, if severe, can affect military readiness. The use of foreign exchange holdings to acquire foodstuffs from other countries can result in decreased purchases of other needed goods from abroad. Large purchases can disturb domestic markets in the exporting nations and disrupt international markets. Accordingly, foreign agriculture was one of many important economic intelligence targets for the United States during the Cold War. As was the case for virtually all political, military, and economic intelligence targets, the highest priority country was the USSR.[1]
Overview of Soviet Agriculture
In the Soviet economy, the government, not the market, determined the allocation of resources and what goods and services would be produced. A small group of top leaders comprising the Council of Ministers established the production goals for each sector of the economy. They were assisted by central planning bodies that provided the detailed schedules and resource allocations needed to achieve them. In the agricultural sector, the Council established output goals for all crops and dairy and meat products and determined the total acreage to be used for each output. Industries supporting agriculture—such as fertilizers, pesticides, machinery, transportation, and food processing—each had their own production goals. During most of the existence of the USSR, heavy industry and defense production were the top priorities, and other sectors of the economy were left with whatever resources remained. Output goals and resource allocations were set forth in Five- or Seven-Year Plans, which were further broken down into yearly and quarterly Plans. Authorities often revised these during their lifetimes and issued numerous directives for every sector. The centralization of decision making required detailed instructions to the subordinate units on inputs into production and related issues. In turn, the subordinate units submitted lengthy statistical reports.[2]
The agricultural sector had three parts—collective farms, state farms, and privately managed plots. All land was owned by the state. Collective farms represented a pooling of the land and labor of many small peasant farms. Each worker was paid according to the amount and type of work performed, adjusted depending on several factors. The state exercised considerable control, while workers were paid fixed wages. Virtually all the production on collective and state farms went to the state. Collective and state farms accounted for over 95 percent of the sown area, with the balance in the private sector, consisting of families at collective and state farms that gardened small plots and owned livestock. Authorities limited the size of the plots and the number of livestock and, until 1958, took a share of the production. Despite its small size, the private sector contributed a major share of selected vegetables and fruits. For this reason, the state permitted the non-socialist private sector to exist.[3]
The USSR had about one-sixth of the total land area of the world, with about 11 percent under cultivation. Most of this was in the “fertile triangle” that extended from Leningrad to Odessa to Lake Baikal. Growing seasons were short because of the country’s northern location. Annual precipitation in the farming regions, as well as irrigation, was significantly less than that of most comparable areas in the United States and other major agricultural nations.[4]
Wheat was the most important grain and food crop and was cultivated on more acreage than any other crop. Rye was another grain utilized for food. Small amounts of both were also used as livestock feed, seed, and by industry. Although hay and other forage crops normally provided a large amount of livestock feed, grains grown mostly for that purpose included barley, corn, and oats. Potatoes were the second most important food crop. Sugar beets were the only domestic source of sugar. Sunflower seed accounted for most of the edible vegetable oil. Cotton and flax were the leading fiber crops.[5]
Throughout the Cold War, agriculture proved to be one of the weakest sectors of the Soviet economy. A growing population for several decades after the war, the desire to satisfy export commitments and minimize imports and the goal to provide more and better food to the citizenry required steady increases in production. The output of crops and livestock products grew over the decades, but there were often large annual fluctuations or periods of little or no growth. Domestic production accounted for most of the food, feed, and industrial crops consumed or used. Small amounts were exported to communist countries and, on occasion, other nations. Imports were initially low in the postwar period. However, with the increasing emphasis on improving the diet by providing more livestock products and the frequent inability of domestic production and reserve stocks to meet the demand for grain, imports began to increase significantly in the 1960s.[6]
Sources of and Production of Intelligence
In the United States, there was a massive reduction in the personnel and the budgets devoted to the armed forces, the State Department, and the succession of clandestine intelligence agencies that existed after World War II. As a result, almost all of the limited intelligence resources that remained initially were allocated toward higher priority political and military targets rather than economic targets. As additional personnel and funding was authorized beginning later in the decade, there was a slow but steady growth in the amount of raw economic intelligence acquired and the number of finished reports prepared and disseminated to users. National Security Council Intelligence Directive No. 2 from 1948 assigned collection responsibilities for economic intelligence to “each agency in accordance with its respective needs.” The directive, however, did not task any agencies to produce specific types of economic intelligence.[7]
The State Department and, beginning in 1947, the CIA, did most of the limited collection and reporting that occurred in the immediate postwar period. The majority of reports were classified. In the CIA, the primary office for analysis and preparing finished intelligence was initially the Office of Reports and Estimates, followed, beginning in 1950, by its successor, the Office of Research and Reports. The latter soon formed the Food and Agriculture Branch, staffed with agronomists and other experts, to analyze and publish finished intelligence on foreign agriculture. It retained that name under the new Office of Economic Research in 1967 and then became the Agricultural Assessments Branch in 1981 under the new Office of Global Issues. Various offices in the State Department performed the same tasks, including the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. The Department of Agriculture overtly gathered data on foreign agriculture and published unclassified reports. Both the State Department and CIA established liaison with the department in the late 1940s, and these relationships grew in the following years.[8]
To improve the quantity and quality of economic intelligence, the National Security Council tasked the Director of Central Intelligence in 1950 to lead an interagency study on the subject. The report, issued early the following year, recommended that no specific allocation of responsibility be given to individual agencies but that an interagency Economic Intelligence Committee be formed to review requirements, coordinate the effort, and occasionally publish reports. The Intelligence Advisory Committee quickly established the new committee, and one of the groups formed under it was the Subcommittee on Agriculture.[9]
Director of Central Intelligence Directive 15/1, approved by the Intelligence Advisory Committee in 1954, assigned primary production responsibility for foreign “military-economic intelligence” to the Department of Defense, all Sino-Soviet Bloc non-military economic intelligence to the CIA, and all non-military economic intelligence outside the Sino-Soviet Bloc to the State Department. All economic intelligence collected by an agency was to be shared with the one having primary production responsibility. Under this and subsequent authorities, the CIA assumed primary responsibility for the Soviet agricultural target during the remainder of the Cold War.[10]
U.S. intelligence agencies sought a wide range of intelligence about Soviet food production, including: information on its organization, governing policies, and directives; figures on the number of workers employed in the sector and the acreage devoted to each crop; information on crop health, weather conditions, output estimates, final production figures, and livestock numbers; data on the manufacture and employment of farm machinery, the production and use of fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation systems; and information on the development of improved seeds, the storage and transportation of foodstuffs, food processing, and exports and imports.[11]
U.S. agencies used several sources to obtain this information. Open-source intelligence (OSINT) was a major contributor throughout the Cold War. The Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) of the CIA and the British Broadcasting Corporation divided the monitoring and translating of Soviet radio broadcasts (and later television broadcasts) and freely exchanged all translations. The CIA’s Foreign Documents Division, as well as the State Department and other agencies to a lesser degree, collected and translated Soviet newspapers, journals, economic reports, and other government publications. (The Foreign Documents Division became part of FBIS in 1967.) They also translated covertly acquired documents. These broadcasts and materials contained a wide range of important information, although the Soviets considered some data (such as the allocation of grains to various uses, reserve stocks held by the government, and losses in transportation and storage) to be state secrets and never released them. The routine publication of agricultural statistics was often delayed for many months.[12]
Analysts were skeptical of Soviet production figures because officials had a strong incentive to demonstrate that the state-established production goals were being met or exceeded. In the early 1950s, the CIA began generating its own grain production estimates based on weather data, sown acreage, and, within a few years, occasional direct observations of agricultural areas by Westerners. By the end of the decade, more detailed and systematic weather data and increased information on seeding, harvesting, and state procurements enabled more accurate estimates. Improved tools were developed in the following decades using computers that analyzed additional factors in generating increasingly precise estimates.[13]
Limited data was also acquired through HUMINT. State Department personnel, including the agricultural attaché, and U.S. defense attachés occasionally gathered intelligence on Soviet farming in meetings with Soviet officials, discussions with personnel from allied nations, and from Soviet media. Until the mid-1950s, though, Soviet travel restrictions prevented them from visiting agricultural regions. As a result, they had no opportunity to personally observe farms or talk with farmworkers. After the loosening of these travel restrictions, a small but growing number of delegations that often included both U.S. officials and individuals from the private sector made visits to some of these regions. Although the visits were negotiated with and carefully monitored by the Soviet government, they provided the opportunity for personal observations and discussions with farmers and local agricultural officials. Under Project Wringer from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, U.S. Air Force personnel obtained limited information during interrogations of refugees from the USSR and former Soviet POWs. CIA operatives obtained intelligence from a range of sources, including allied intelligence services and covertly acquired Soviet documents.[14]
Beginning in the 1970s, imagery intelligence (IMINT) acquired by photoreconnaissance satellites became an important source of information on Soviet agriculture. This was the result of CIA studies beginning in 1965 examining the value of aerial photography from U-2 reconnaissance aircraft in estimating crop yields in China. These started with overflights of selected wheat, rice, and sugar fields in the United States for which there was accurate data on yields. Of the various types of film used, color was found to be the best to determine crop vigor. The studies were later expanded to review the potential of photoreconnaissance satellites in this regard, as U-2s could not collect against the Soviet Union and had stopped overflying China in 1968. Several HEXAGON photoreconnaissance satellites that flew from 1971 to 1984 carried small amounts of color film and were the first to make a substantial contribution to intelligence on Soviet and Chinese agriculture. (Color imagery was also valuable against certain other targets.) Undoubtedly, digital imagery acquired by the KENNEN satellite series, first launched in 1976, and its successors also made a significant contribution. However, these programs are still classified, and no details are available.[15]
The CIA began to examine the value of multispectral imagery of Soviet and other foreign agricultural regions shortly after the launch of the first Earth Resources Technology Satellite by NASA in 1972. (The program was redesignated LANDSAT later in the decade as additional satellites were placed into orbit.) This was the first civilian remote sensing satellite and the first robotic satellite to carry a multispectral camera, which can detect wavelengths of light beyond the visible spectrum, such as infrared and ultraviolet. The review found that the imagery was very useful in assessing crop health, as well as soil moisture and nutrient levels. It appears that the CIA started regularly acquiring and using multispectral imagery to estimate grain production in 1974. Although details are not available, the imagery from LANDSAT and the classified photoreconnaissance satellites were not redundant, as each provided different but equally important data on crop conditions.[16]
Weather data on the USSR came from several sources. Both the U.S. Weather Service and the Air Force’s Air Weather Service provided it to the CIA beginning in the late 1940s. The former initially furnished its monthly publication on worldwide weather, while the latter provided ten- and thirty-day precipitation totals, temperatures, and snow cover depth. As both organizations improved their collection and analysis, the data received by the CIA increased in quantity and quality. There was a category of communications intelligence (COMINT) designated Special Weather Intelligence, which in the case of the Soviet Union probably targeted encrypted radio transmissions of the three military weather services. However, since the effort remains completely classified, it is not known exactly what weather data it acquired or whether CIA analysts had access to it. The introduction of weather satellites in the early 1960s provided additional information. From 1960 to 1965, NASA launched ten first-generation TIROS weather satellites. The second-generation NASA weather satellites reached orbit beginning in 1964, and later generations followed thereafter. Because NASA’s spacecraft could not give timely and accurate information of the weather over the Sino-Soviet Bloc for the programming of photoreconnaissance satellite cameras, the National Reconnaissance Office initiated the Defense Meteorological Support Program to meet that requirement, launching the first generation of these satellites in 1962 and later generations beginning in 1965. Their data was classified until 1972, and it is unknown whether CIA analysts had access to it during this period.[17]
Intelligence Reporting on Soviet Agriculture
The first postwar Five-Year Plan for 1946-1950 aimed to rebuild the devastated economy. Its modest goals for agriculture called for a 10 percent increase in production over 1940. During this period, little collection or analysis on the agricultural sector took place because of the higher priority of other targets and scarce resources. Most of the small amount of finished intelligence disseminated to users only briefly summarized a HUMINT or OSINT report. This included entries in the Daily Summary, a brief description of the most important events around the world that the Central Intelligence Group began preparing for the president and a small group of other top officials in early 1946. (The CIA assumed responsibility for it the following year.)
The agricultural goals of the first Five-Year Plan were not met, with the CIA and others only beginning to report on it in detail early in the next decade when they received additional collection and analytical resources. Grain output did not exceed the prewar level until 1952. (All output figures herein are official Soviet figures unless otherwise noted.) With a rapidly growing population (from roughly 170 million at the end of the war to over 200 million by 1950), per capita consumption of food decreased between 10 and 17 percent from prewar levels. The reasons for the failure to meet the goals were many, including unfavorable weather, the fact that the total sown area for all crops did not exceed the prewar level until 1951, slow delivery of farm equipment, and the compulsory mobilization of many farm youths for the industrial and transportation sectors that diverted much-needed labor.[18]
Much of the finished intelligence on Soviet agriculture beginning in the 1950s was set forth in CIA publications such as Research Aids, Provisional Intelligence Reports, Intelligence Memorandums, and Economic Intelligence Surveys. One set of National Intelligence Estimates published annually from 1953-1957 also briefly addressed agriculture as part of the larger treatment of the Soviet economy. (The CIA’s Board of Estimates prepared these and sent them to the interagency Intelligence Advisory Committee for review and publication.) There were several briefings of the National Security Council by CIA officials, including one in 1954 on a Soviet decree criticizing agricultural failures and lagging grain production and again in 1957 and 1959 on the food situation in the Sino-Soviet Bloc. Short summaries for the president and a few other top officials continued to be included in the Daily Summary and its successors, the Current Intelligence Bulletin and Central Intelligence Bulletin, as well as in other periodic publications with wider distributions. The Departments of Agriculture and State generated a much smaller number of reports.[19]
The Five-Year Plan for 1951-1955 set forth ambitious agricultural goals, including a 40 to 50 percent increase in grain production over 1950. However, little progress was made in the early years. Total agricultural output in 1953 was only three percent above the prewar level, and the daily caloric intake remained slightly below prewar levels. Shortages of meat, sugar, dairy products, and a few other foods were common. CIA grain estimates during this period generally were within five percent of the Soviet figures.[20]
After the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, the new Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, publicly acknowledged serious problems in the sector and placed a high priority on improving agriculture and the quantity and quality of the average diet. Authorities took numerous steps to achieve these objectives. In 1954, they initiated the New Lands program that developed farmland from virgin and long-fallow land in West Siberia and North Kazakhstan. However, the newly cultivated regions did not have ideal soil or weather and experienced declining productivity over the years. The program soon expanded the sown area for all crops by more than one-third over 1950, and it basically remained at that level for the remainder of the Cold War, as there were few potentially productive areas left to develop. As part of this expansion, the cultivated area for wheat increased by over 50 percent (and for other grains by about 25 percent) within a few years, while the acreage for potatoes and other vegetables remained about the same. Other actions taken included stopping the campaign to end, and lowering taxes on, private plots, accelerating the use of machinery and fertilizers, providing more agricultural and livestock specialists, and revising the procurement system. These measures resulted in major increases in production for many crops, particularly in years that had exceptionally good weather. For example, the total grain output in 1955 set a record. A record for total agricultural production (including grain) was set three years later and represented a 50 percent increase over 1953. From 1954-1958, consumers experienced a small but steady growth in the quality of their diet, although it continued to rely heavily on potatoes and cereal products.[21]
Beginning in 1958, CIA grain output estimates were consistently lower than Soviet figures and by wider margins. For example, the CIA estimate for 1958 was 125 million metric tons while the Soviet Union reported 141 million metric tons. Over the next several years, analysts attributed the increasing variance in these numbers to the CIA’s collection of more and better data and to increased falsification of output by Soviet officials. Additionally, the Soviets apparently began to report “bunker weight” (the weight including excess moisture, trash, dirt, and weeds) instead of “barn harvest” (the weight after cleaning and drying). Analysts believed that the latter was eight to eleven percent below the former.[22]
The Seven-Year Plan for 1959-1965 called for a 70 percent increase in gross agricultural output over 1958. From 1959-1963, however, annual production of grains and almost every other crop fell short of the record year of 1958. The per capita availability of most foods declined or remained stagnant, and there was no improvement in diet. Feed shortages throughout the country resulted in smaller numbers of livestock, and, coupled with price increases for meat, led to major protests in at least one region in 1962. Khrushchev and other leaders repeatedly criticized management of the sector. They quickly implemented an extensive reorganization of agricultural administration, planned major increases in fertilizer and farm machinery production, and expanded the use of irrigation.[23]
Grain output decreased even more in 1963 to 111 million metric tons per Soviet statistics (the CIA estimate was 92 million metric tons). The country imported more than four times as much grain (primarily wheat) than it had in any prior year, representing almost four percent of the total supply. Khrushchev publicly admitted that the imports were needed to avoid rationing. Canada was the largest supplier, but smaller amounts also came from several other countries (including the United States in its first postwar wheat exports to the USSR). Although there was no definitive intelligence on wheat reserves, analysts believed that they were probably low, and that the government was reluctant to draw them down further. Grain output increased by more than one-third in 1964, setting a record. Nevertheless, imports increased to almost six percent of the total supply demonstrating that the demand still exceeded domestic production.[24]
Leonid Brezhnev succeeded Khruschev after the latter’s ouster in 1964. Efforts continued to improve production and the quantity and quality of the diet, particularly raising meat consumption. The measures to accomplish this in the Five-Year Plan for 1966-1970 included using more fertilizers and pesticides, expanding irrigated and drained land, employing improved seed, increasing the supply and quality of feed and the use of vitamins and growth stimulants for livestock, and raising the earnings of farms and farmworkers. Good weather and implementation of many of these measures resulted in greater output for almost all crops and livestock products during most years of the Plan. To satisfy consumer demand for more meat, the share of all grains used for feed increased from one-third in 1966 to almost one-half in 1970. Large amounts of imports continued, ranging from two to five percent of the total supply. Notwithstanding a modest growth in the per capita consumption of meat, milk and milk products, eggs, vegetables, and fruits from 1965 to 1970, about two-thirds of the Soviet diet still consisted of grain and potatoes (compared to less than one-third in the United States).[25]
The Five-Year Plans during the 1970s continued placing the highest priority on providing a better diet. Wheat remained the principal grain, accounting for roughly one-half of all grain produced. However, there was a sizable shift from wheat to feed grains, with barley increasing its share of total grain production since the 1960s to about 25 percent since it usually provided greater yields than spring wheat. There was record grain production in 1970 and a good crop the following year. Unfavorable weather caused a decrease of more than nine percent in the output of all crops (including grains and potatoes) and of almost four percent in livestock products in 1972 over the previous year. To avoid bread shortages and a major decrease in meat, milk, and dairy products, the Soviets imported a record amount of wheat, rye, corn, and soybeans. About two-thirds of the imports came from the United States. Soviet representatives spread out their purchases to not upset the markets and to avoid higher prices for their imports. However, in the United States the purchases eventually resulted in much higher prices for wheat and its products and substantial criticism of the government. Beginning in January of 1972, numerous CIA publications had forecast a poor harvest and predicted increased imports because analysts believed that Soviet reserves were low at a time when it needed more livestock feed and to provide sufficient livestock products. The Agency also quickly reported many of the domestic and foreign purchases the Soviets made. In contrast, the Department of Agriculture’s unclassified reports did not predict a decrease in production until the early summer and did not forecast the increased demand for U.S. grain.[26]
The events led to an interagency study in 1973 under the National Security Council to improve forecasting of Soviet agricultural production, expected imports, and the export demand for U.S. crops the Soviets were purchasing. Among other things, it was to examine the potential role of imagery from NASA’s Earth Resources Technology Satellite and classified photoreconnaissance satellites. There is no further information available on the study, but it undoubtedly recommended using imagery from both systems, since many subsequent CIA intelligence reports heavily relied on LANDSAT and, in the redacted portions, the classified photoreconnaissance satellites. Additionally, in the early 1970s, the CIA developed an improved computerized model to predict yields for each of the grain-growing regions and estimate total grain output. The model, designated UPSTREET, generated estimates early in the growing season that could be further revised every ten days as new weather data was received. Although tests demonstrated the model had errors ranging from two to eight percent in estimating total grain output, it was more accurate than prior methods. The CIA apparently constantly improved the model and used it during the balance of the Cold War.[27]
Although the USSR had excellent harvests in the next two years, in each of those years the country still imported about one-third the amount as in 1973 because domestic production did not satisfy the demand. A dramatic fall in grain production occurred in 1975. The Ford administration suspended sales to the Soviet Union until an agreement was signed preventing disruption to U.S. markets and guaranteeing U.S. farmers a reasonable share of the Soviet market. A record of nearly 26 million metric tons of grain imports the following year helped remedy the shortage in part, with the United States providing almost two-thirds again. Nevertheless, there was still insufficient grain for livestock feed, and the herds had to be reduced. Grain output rebounded and set a record in 1978 with 237 million metric tons, but substantial imports were still made because demand was larger than domestic production. Total agricultural production also set a record that year. Modest growth in per capita consumption of meat, milk and milk products, eggs, vegetables, and fruit took place in the first half the decade and then essentially leveled off.[28]
A decrease in agricultural production in 1979 and in the following two years led to widespread discontent, particularly over the decline in supply of livestock products, fruits, and vegetables. There was increased black market activity, longer queues in stores, and occasional work stoppages. In 1981, imports of grain and meat reached a record 12 percent of the total farm product. Authorities established a temporary rationing system for meat and milk products that year.[29]
Brezhnev and other leaders publicly acknowledged major problems with the agricultural sector. They specifically noted rising consumer discontent with the diet and how the growth in disposable income along with the maintenance of stable prices were together causing demand for food to increasingly outstrip supply. There was significant crop waste and losses, they said, and low rural living standards made it difficult to retain younger workers. The Five-Year Plan for 1981-1985 set ambitious goals for increasing the output of all livestock products and crops throughout the decade, including a nearly 25 percent increase in the production of grain, vegetables, and fruits and an approximately 15 percent increase in livestock products. Brezhnev’s Food Program, implemented beginning in 1982, was a comprehensive effort to improve the production, transportation, storage, and processing of food and thereby increase the quality of the average diet, decrease losses and waste, and cut imports. Among its many provisions were the reorganization of the management of food production, increased investment in the farm sector (production, transportation, storage, food processing, and agricultural machinery), increasing incentives for farm workers and managers, and new production goals for key foods. The CIA’s September 1982 report on The Brezhnev Food Program concluded that for several reasons the production goals would not be met and that the improvements in transportation, storage facilities, and food processing would take nearly a decade to materialize.[30]
Brezhnev died in 1982 and was succeeded by Yuri Andropov, Konstantin Chernenko, and finally Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985, but the Food Program remained in place. Gorbachev initiated several major economic reforms, including a major reorganization of the agencies governing agriculture and measures to increase the autonomy of farms and improving incentives. However, most had not been fully implemented by the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.[31]
For unknown reasons, the Soviets did not disclose grain production and yield data for 1981 through 1985 until 1986. Nevertheless, using UPSTREET the CIA made accurate estimates each year when compared to the statistics released in 1986. As an example, for 1981 the CIA estimated 158 million metric tons, while the official Soviet figure released in 1986 was 158.2. The CIA estimate for 1984 was 178 million metric tons, and the official Soviet figure was 172.6. Additionally, the CIA began to make estimates for other major crops, such as potatoes, vegetables, sugar beets, and sunflowers.[32]
Agricultural output improved in 1982 and 1983 because of good weather and the impact of the Food Program. Combined with larger than normal imports of grain, meat, fruits, vegetables, vegetable oil, and sugar, food availability grew noticeably. Total production fell in 1984, and the following year a record of almost 55 million metric tons of grain was imported. Output of grain, sunflower seeds, and livestock products increased modestly from 1985 through 1987 but for most other crops only grew slightly or declined. There was excess demand for food because of government policies that increased disposable income but kept retail food prices stable and low. By 1987, there were reports of shortages of some foodstuffs and an increase in the rationing of meat and butter. Production of most crops and livestock products fell slightly during the next two years. In 1990, the last year of the USSR, output grew noticeably, including the second largest wheat crop ever. Nevertheless, most of the Food Program targets were not met.[33]
Throughout the Cold War, Soviet agriculture suffered from major problems that numerous reforms and decrees never completely overcame. Despite adequately feeding its citizens in terms of caloric intake through domestic production and, beginning in the early 1960s, imports, it was never able to provide sufficient amounts of the high-quality foods they desired.[34]
The Documents
ebb 873 doc 1
Document 1
Daily Summary, Top Secret, 14 December 1946
Dec 14, 1946
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
This is an excerpt from the Daily Summary, an intelligence report President Harry Truman asked the Central Intelligence Group to prepare in February of 1946 for dissemination only to him and a small number of advisors. The entry on the USSR summarizes a HUMINT report from the U.S. Legation Helsinki regarding discussions with members of a Finnish Trade Mission that recently returned from Moscow. The members were certain that the Soviet grain crop was “very short” because of the drought in Ukraine and heavy rains during harvest in eastern growing regions. They also saw little flour in the stores. At the time, these fragmentary HUMINT reports, along with limited information from Soviet publications and other OSINT materials, were the only sources of information on Soviet agriculture.
ebb 873 doc 2
Document 2
Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence to the Director of Central Intelligence, Confidential, 31 October 1949
Oct 31, 1949
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
Timely and accurate weather data was critical for analyzing Soviet agriculture and other purposes. This memorandum summarizes contacts between the CIA and the U.S. Weather Service to get the latter to improve the data it was already providing the CIA. The Weather Service and the Air Force’s Air Weather Service were the primary sources of weather data for many years. It is not known whether CIA analysts had access to Special Weather Intelligence, a type of communications intelligence derived from the intercept and analysis of Soviet military weather station traffic.
ebb 873 doc 3
Document 3
Information from Foreign Documents or Radio Broadcasts, Secret, August 1950
Aug 1, 1950
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
This Foreign Documents Division report summarizes developments in Soviet agriculture from translations of various Soviet newspaper articles and one periodical from November 1949 to March 1950. Open-source intelligence like this was a key information source throughout the Cold War.
ebb 873 doc 4
Document 4
Information Report, Secret, 31 January 1951
Jan 31, 1951
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
This report summarizes a likely Directorate of Plans clandestine operation that obtained samples of Soviet wheat and rye exported to a country whose name is redacted and Hungary. Information on whether U.S. or allied personnel collected the samples and how this was accomplished is also redacted. Officials in an unknown organization conducted tests that found comparable nutritional value and baking characteristics to a sample of American wheat.
ebb 873 doc 5
Document 5
Intelligence Memorandum – Estimate of 1953 Grain Production in the Soviet Bloc, Secret, 13 September 1954
Sep 13, 1954
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
This Office of Research and Reports publication is based on prior CIA reports, Department of Agriculture publications, open-source materials, and still-classified sources. Among other things, it concluded that the yields and output for Soviet grains in 1953 were below 1952 and prewar levels due to unfavorable weather. The report predicted that Khrushchev’s New Lands Program and other measures to greatly increase production would likely fall short of their goals for several reasons.
ebb 873 doc 6
Document 6
NSC Briefing – Soviet Decree Indicts Agricultural Failures and Attacks Lagging Grain Production, Secret, 11 March 1954
Mar 11, 1954
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
This is a summary of a CIA presentation to the National Security Council on the recent Land Reclamation decree of the Soviet Party Central Committee. Among other things, the decree criticized the lack of progress in the agricultural reforms announced the previous year and, for the first time, grain production. Grain yields were down, and the total acreage devoted to grains was less than in 1940. Output had failed to keep up with population growth and resulted in smaller exports, normally a key earner of foreign exchange to pay for imports. Additionally, livestock herds were smaller than in 1940, fodder output was less than in recent years, and there had been inadequate production of agricultural machinery.
ebb 873 doc 7
Document 7
Current Intelligence Bulletin, Top Secret, 3 August 1954
Aug 3, 1954
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
This is an excerpt from the immediate successor to the Daily Summary. Only President Dwight Eisenhower and a few advisors received it. The entry on the Soviet Union stated that, based on personal observation in July, agricultural attachés at the Moscow embassy concluded that the Ukrainian grain crop would be about two-thirds of the average postwar output because of drought. The few other grain-producing areas they had seen they believed held “fair to good” prospects. Official statistics released by the Soviets late in 1954 disclosed that, although the Ukrainian crop was lower than in 1953, production in other areas resulted in a slight increase in total output over the previous year.
ebb 873 doc 8
Document 8
Secretary, EIC Subcommittee on Agriculture to Secretariat, Economic Intelligence Committee, Secret, 20 July 1956
Jul 20, 1956
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
This is the Annual Report for 1955-1956 of the Subcommittee on Agriculture of the U.S. Intelligence Board’s Economic Intelligence Committee. At the request of the State Department, much of its work in the past year had been identifying intelligence gaps on Soviet agriculture. Members from the CIA and Departments of Agriculture and State agreed to undertake a joint project to address them. Other efforts included improving the sharing of data on crop output by the three agencies.
ebb 873 doc 9
Document 9
Materials Division Monthly Report, Food and Agriculture Branch, Report for January 1958, Secret, n.d.
Jan 1958
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
This is a monthly report on the work of the Food and Agriculture Branch in the Office of Research and Reports. It listed its contributions to CIA publications and different types of support to other CIA offices.
ebb 873 doc 10
Document 10
Central Intelligence Bulletin, 10 November 1958, Confidential
Nov 10, 1958
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
This excerpt stated that overall Soviet agricultural production set a record in 1958, including an excellent grain harvest and records for sugar beets, fodder, and oil seeds. The record amount of livestock feed stored would enable increased output of meat products in 1959, but Khrushchev’s goal of catching up with the United States in per capita meat production was still far off.
ebb 873 doc 11
Document 11
NSC Briefing – Communist Bloc 1959 Harvest, Confidential, 30 November 1959
Nov 30, 1959
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
This is a summary of a CIA briefing of the National Security Council on agricultural production in the Sino-Soviet Bloc in 1959. With respect to the USSR, it was conducted before the Soviets released any figures. Due to drought, the CIA predicted a 25 to 35 percent decrease in grain output from the excellent harvest the prior year. This was based on OSINT and a new technique of using weather data that first enabled a prediction of a lower grain crop back in June. The drought also affected other crops, except for cotton.
ebb 873 doc 12
Document 12
Periodic Requirements List (PRL), USSR, (1May – 31 August 1959), Secret, n.d.
May 1 - Aug 31, 1959
Source
Published by the CIA’s Office of Current Intelligence, these documents specified the “information required for current intelligence coverage of significant developments during the 4-month period covered by each PRL.” They were developed in conjunction with other CIA offices and the State Department and disseminated to the collection units of all intelligence agencies. This excerpt from the PRL for the Soviet Union for 1 May to 31 August 1959 set forth the data desired on Soviet agriculture.
ebb 873 doc 13
Document 13
Orville L. Freeman, Secretary of Agriculture to Hon. Allen W. Dulles, Director, Central Intelligence Agency, Confidential, October 3, 1961
Oct 3, 1961
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
In this letter, Secretary Freeman noted the excellent relationship between the two agencies and requested intelligence on Sino-Soviet output of major agricultural commodities, Sino-Soviet trade in these commodities, and Sino-Soviet agricultural aid programs, particularly to “underdeveloped agrarian countries.” Undoubtedly, the CIA provided the intelligence.
ebb 873 doc 14
Document 14
Orville L. Freeman, Secretary of Agriculture to Dean Rusk, Secretary of State, et al., Confidential, August 16, 1963
Aug 16, 1963
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
This document summarizes the presentation Secretary Freeman gave President John F. Kennedy after a visit to the USSR, Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia. In addition to meeting with top officials in those countries, he toured agricultural areas. Among his conclusions on this subject were that in the agricultural sector of all the countries there is inefficient use of labor and underemployment. Improved seed, machinery, and practices will ensure continued progress in increasing the production of wheat, corn, sugar beets, and sunflowers. However, there has been little progress in the transportation, storage, and processing of these crops, as well as increasing the production of livestock products, fruits, and vegetables.
ebb 873 doc 15
Document 15
Directorate of Intelligence Memorandum, Secret, 26 September 1963
Sep 26, 1963
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
This memorandum initially explains that since the Soviets apparently began inflating grain production statistics in 1958, the CIA’s Office of Research and Reports had been preparing its own estimates based on weather data, acreage, and, when available, direct observations by Westerners. These estimates had consistently been lower, in some cases by almost one-third, and show that output had basically stagnated since 1958. The Soviets did not release any information on reserves. Because both the production estimates and data on consumption were not entirely accurate, no estimates could be made on stocks. The prediction for 1963 was also for a mediocre crop, and the memorandum briefly summarizes the many intelligence reports beginning in November 1962 that reflected this.
ebb 873 doc 16
Document 16
Current Intelligence Memorandum, Top Secret Dinar, 26 December 1963
Dec 26, 1963
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
The classification marking “Dinar” indicates that this report contains COMINT, and the specific information is undoubtedly in the redacted portion of the first sentence. Based on this COMINT, OSINT, the mediocre harvests since the late 1950s, and the record nearly ten million tons of wheat and flour imported during the fall, the CIA stated that the reserves had to be very low.
ebb 873 doc 17
Document 17
Chief, DD/I Collection Guidance Staff to Director, NPIC, Secret, 2 August 1965
Aug 2, 1965
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
This letter to the Director of the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center requests that the organization examine using overhead photography to improve estimates of “crop types, acreages, and yields” and developing “automatic scanning procedures that would be necessary to make the whole program feasible for agriculture, where large areas must be covered or at least sampled.” A study was undertaken and expanded in the following years.
ebb 873 doc 18
Document 18
Publications Dealing with Soviet Grain Production and Grain Imports, Secret, n.d.
Sep 1971 - Oct 1972
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
The Soviets imported a record amount of grain from the United States following a poor harvest in 1972. This caused a significant increase in the price of many wheat products in the United States and generated substantial public criticism of the Nixon administration. The White House ordered an internal review of the intelligence that had been collected and disseminated. This CIA document was part of the response, summarizing its many reports in 1972 on the subject.
ebb 873 doc 19
Document 19
The President’s Daily Brief, Top Secret, 3 February 1973
Feb 3, 1973
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
This entry describes the demotion of the long-time First Deputy Premier to Minister of Agriculture as a response to a series of poor harvests. It also states a U.S. embassy agriculture officer reported that the thin snow cover and extreme cold would result in another poor winter grain crop.
ebb 873 doc 20
Document 20
A.W. Marshall to Brent Scowcroft, Confidential, October 1, 1973, w/attachments
Oct 1, 1973
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
This series of correspondence includes a letter from NASA’s Administrator to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget describing the important data on crops that the first Earth Technology Resources Satellite (later redesignated LANDSAT), launched in 1972, was acquiring. He asked for an earlier launch of the second satellite and development of a national policy governing the collection of this economic intelligence by these remote sensing satellites. The internal National Security Council memorandum from Marshall to Scowcroft states that current forecasts for the foreign demand for U.S. agricultural products were not useful. Marshall proposed an interagency study to improve estimates of foreign agricultural production, foreign demand for agricultural products, and the state of the international market for them. The results of any such study are not available.
ebb 873 doc 21
Document 21
National Intelligence Survey – U.S.S.R. – The Economy, Secret, April 1974
Apr 1974
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
The CIA published National Intelligence Surveys for each major country every several years. They covered political, military, and economic developments. This excerpt is the section on agriculture.
ebb 873 doc 22
Document 22
U.S.S.R. – Early August Prospects for Grain Production, GC AB 77-004, Secret NOFORN, 10 August 1977
Aug 10, 1977
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
This is the fourth in a series of six reports published during the 1977 growing seasons of the Soviet grain crop. The estimates of output were based on crop models that used both historical and current data. The sources for the latter included satellite photography, weather data, HUMINT, and OSINT. Examples of NASA’s LANDSAT imagery of three regions from 1976 and 1997 were included to compare the crop vigor in the two years. The redacted portions probably contain imagery from HEXAGON (which had not been declassified when this report was released) or possibly KENNEN. Based on all the data it had at this point, the CIA estimated total grain production at 220 to 225 million metric tons.
ebb 873 doc 23
Document 23
Chief Interdepartmental Affairs Staff, OPP to Director of Central Intelligence, Secret, 15 December 1981
Dec 15, 1981
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
This memorandum concerns an upcoming meeting of the Cabinet Council on Commerce and Trade on two issues. The first was whether LANDSAT should be transferred to the private sector, and the second was whether there should be a simultaneous transfer to the private sector of the LANDSAT and civil weather satellite program. On the first issue, the CIA had no objection to the transfer but insisted on a level of continuing federal support required to sustain the program because it provided the CIA (and the Department of Agriculture) with “timely, large area, multi-spectral data necessary for preparation of grain estimates.” Imagery from both LANDSAT and photoreconnaissance satellites was needed as “each imaging system had characteristics that provide unique information about agrotechnical practices and crop conditions.” LANDSAT was transferred to the private sector in 1984, but for various reasons it was returned to the government in 2001.
ebb 873 doc 24
Document 24
The Brezhnev Food Program, An Intelligence Assessment, SOV 82-10130, Confidential, September 1982
Sep 1982
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
This report is an initial analysis and assessment of the Food Program adopted earlier in 1982. It was a comprehensive effort to improve the production, transportation, storage, and processing of food and thereby increase the quality of the average diet and cut imports. Among its many provisions were reorganization of the management of food production, increased investment in the farm sector and industries that supported it, increasing incentives for farm workers and managers, and new production goals for key foods. For several reasons, the CIA believed that “the Food Program will fail to provide material relief from shortages” and that “the regime probably will be forced to continue to import food.”
ebb 873 doc 25
Document 25
USSR: 1984 Grain Crop in Trouble, GI M 84-10097, classification redacted, May 1984
May 1984
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
This is one in a series of reports on the 1984 grain crop published during the growing seasons. Although the prospects were favorable earlier in the year, they had decreased in recent weeks because of drought in several key regions. The CIA estimated that the target of 240 million metric tons for 1984 would not be met, but that production of 200 million metric tons would be possible if growing conditions improved through the summer. LANDSAT imagery, weather data, and direct observations of the agricultural attaché during April were used in the report.
ebb 873 doc 26
Document 26
USSR: Improving Agricultural Performance Reduces Grain Import Needs, SOV 86-10056, Secret/redacted classification, December 1986
Dec 1986
Source
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room
This report concluded that total agricultural output in 1986 might exceed the 1983 record as a result of growth in the livestock sector and increased production of several key crops. No Soviet statistics on final grain output were available since harvesting was not finished. However, based on the information to date a good output was expected that would lower the need for imports over the previous year. The production estimates were based on LANDSAT imagery, weather data, HUMINT, OSINT, and a still-classified source (probably imagery from a successor to KENNEN).
Notes
[1] Agriculture in Communist Countries, n.d.; DD/I Collection Guidance Staff to Director, NPIC, 2 August 1965; CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[2] Food Shortages and Agricultural Failures in the USSR, 8 April 1955 and A Survey of Economic Planning in the USSR, CIA/RR RA-13, 15 April 1957, CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[3] National Intelligence Survey, U.S.S.R., Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forestry, December 1968, CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid. USSR: Prospects for Grain and Other Crops, ER IB 75-6, 4 September 1975; CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[6] National Intelligence Estimate 11-4-54, Soviet Capabilities and Probable Courses of Action Through Mid-1959, 14 September 1954: U.S.S.R. National Intelligence Survey, April 1974; CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[7] National Security Council Intelligence Directive No. 2, January 1948; CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room. Thomas L. Burns, U.S. Cryptologic History, Series V, Vol. 1, The Origins of the National Security Agency, 1940-1952 (Center for Cryptologic History, National Security Agency, 1990).
[8] The Office of Research and Reports (ORR), 29 November 1951; Report to the National Security Council in Compliance with NSC Action 282, 1 April 1951; Reorganization of DDI, n.d.; Non-IAC Agencies, Status Report, 1 July 1948; CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[9] Ibid. Memorandum for the National Security Council, 19 April 1951; Economic Intelligence Committee, Minutes of Meeting, 19 July 1951; CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[10] Director of Central Intelligence Directive, June 1954; An Assessment of National Foreign Intelligence Production, Volume II, Annex, December 1976; CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[11] A Model for Forecasting Soviet Grain Yields, ER RP 75-8, March 1975. Soviet Climate Change: Implications for Grain Production, GI 85-10128, May 1985; CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[12] Overview, n.d. and The Foreign Documents Division, 1946-1967, Volume V, April 1974; CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[13] Possible Revision of Soviet Grain Statistics, CIA/RR CB 65-18, March 1965; CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[14] Guy E. Coriden, “The Intelligence Hand in East-West Exchanges”, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 2, No. 3 (Summer 1958); William R. Gasser, “Aerial Photograph for Agriculture”, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 11 (Fall 1967); Chief, IAD/CIA to Director, NPIC, 2 August 1965: CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[15] The Hexagon Story, December 1992; National Reconnaissance Office FOIA Electronic Reading Room. National Photographic Interpretation Center, A Review of Color Science and Color Aerial Reconnaissance, January 1972; William R. Gasser, “Aerial Photography For Agriculture”; CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[16] USSR: Improving Agricultural Performance Reduces Grain Import Needs, SOV 86-10056, December 1986; [redacted] to Director of Central Intelligence, 15 December 1981; Chief Interdepartmental Affairs Staff, OPP to Director of Central Intelligence, Secret, 15 December 1981; CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[17] [redacted], Weather: its Role in Communications Intelligence; National Security Agency FOIA Reading Room. Willard Machle to Director of Central Intelligence, 31 October 1949; W.C. Jacobs, Director of Climatology to Director of Central Intelligence, April 25, 1952; CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room. R. Cargill Hall, A History of the Military Polar Orbiting Meteorological Satellite Program; National Reconnaissance Office FOIA Reading Room.
[18] Indexes of Household Consumption in the USSR 1928-55, CIA/RR PR-151, 13 November 1956; NIE 11-3-55 - Estimate of 1953 Grain Production in the Soviet Bloc, CIA/RR IM-395, 13 September 1954, Possible Revision of Soviet Grain Statistics; CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[19] Survey of the Office of Current Intelligence, March 21, 1955; NSC Briefing, 11 March 1954; NIE 11-3-55, Soviet Capabilities and Probable Soviet Courses of Action through 1960; Annual Report of the Status of Economic Intelligence Research Projects on the Soviet Bloc; CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[20] Preliminary Evaluation of the Fifth Soviet Five-Year Plan, 28 August 1952; Food Shortages and Agricultural Failures in the Sino-Soviet Bloc, n.d.; Estimate of the 1953 Grain Production in the Soviet Bloc; CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[21] Food Shortages and Agricultural Failures in the Sino-Soviet Bloc, n.d.; Current Problems of Soviet Agriculture, CIA/RR ER 61-34, July 1961; National Intelligence Survey, U.S.S.R., Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forestry, December 1968; CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[22] Possible Revision of Soviet Grain Statistics; USSR: Second Consecutive Good Grain Crop, GI 87-10081, November 1987; CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[23] The Soviet Grain Problem, 1 November 1963; Current Problems of Soviet Agriculture; CIA Reporting on the Soviet Grain Situation, OCI No. 2357/63, 26 September 1963; CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[24] Ibid. Current Intelligence Memorandum, 26 December 1963; Research Aid, The Soviet Grain Balance, ER 75-68; CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[25] National Intelligence Survey, U.S.S.R., Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forestry, December 1968. USSR: The Food Supply Situation, SOV 85-10042, March 1985; The Soviet Grain Balance, 1960-1973; CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[26] Ibid. A.W. Marshall to Henry A. Kissinger, March 30, 1973; The Soviet Economy in 1972 and 1973, ER IM 73-24, February 1973; CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[27] A.W. Marshall to Brent Scowcroft, October 1, 1973; A Model for Forecasting Soviet Grain Yields, ER RP 75-8, March 1975; PRED: A Predictive Weather Model for Crop Forecasting, GI M 83-10129, May 1983CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[28] USSR: The Food Supply Situation, March 1985 and The Brezhnev Food Program, SOV 82-10130, September 1982; CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[29] The Brezhnev Food Program.
[30] Ibid.
[31] USSR; Second Consecutive Good Grain Crop, SOV 87-10068, November 1987 and Gorbachev’s “Radical” Economic Reform Package: An Initial Evaluation, SOV 87-10081, December 1987, CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[32] The Brezhnev Food Program and USSR: Improving Agricultural Performance Reduces Grain Import Needs, SOV 86-10056, December 1986; USSR: CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[33] Modeling Soviet Agriculture: Isolating the Effects of Weather, SOV 88-10054, August 1988; CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
[34] USSR; Second Consecutive Good Grain Crop. Alan Barkema, “How Will Reform of the Soviet Farm Economy Affect U.S. Agriculture?”, Economic Review, September/October 1991, pp. 5-19.
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Tuesday, November 19, 2024
A Mass Murder In China
Little Explosions
China
A knife attack in eastern China left eight people dead and injured 17 others over the weekend, less than a week after the country was shaken by its deadliest mass killing in a decade, NBC News reported.
Authorities said Saturday’s attack took place at the Wuxi Vocational Institute of Arts and Technology in Jiangsu province. The suspect was a 21-year-old man with the last name Xu, who was arrested at the scene.
Police said Xu confessed to the crime and that he acted “out of anger.” They added that the suspect was a former student at the school and hadn’t received his diploma after failing an exam, and was angry over how much his internship paid.
The weekend attack came days after a 62-year-old man rammed his car into a crowd in China’s southeastern city of Zhuhai, killing 35 people and injuring more than 43 others in what observers called the country’s deadliest mass killing in nearly 10 years.
In recent months, there has been a spate of similar violent attacks across China. Last month, ahead of the celebrations marking the 75th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, a knife attack at a Shanghai supermarket left three dead and 15 injured.
In September, a 10-year-old Japanese boy was fatally stabbed on his way to school in Shenzhen.
Analysts told the Financial Times that the recent incidents come as China, which has a low rate of violent crime, is grappling with rising social tensions amid slow economic growth, job losses and rising youth unemployment.
It also has prompted soul-searching among its citizens over mental health and censorship over such incidents. Chinese censors quickly suppressed information about the attacks and removed footage from internet platforms.
Last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping issued a rare personal statement regarding the Zhuhai attack, urging officials nationwide to enhance risk prevention efforts “at the source.”
Observers interpreted the comments as highlighting the government’s sensitivity to social stability and its intent to tighten public controls.
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Monday, November 18, 2024
Sunday, November 17, 2024
Saturday, November 16, 2024
The Economist Magazine For 11-16-2024
The Economist
Read in browser
November 16th 2024
How we chose this week’s image
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Cover Story
How we chose this week’s image
The Economist
Zanny Minton Beddoes
Editor-in-chief
The week was dominated by news of the next administration. Many of Donald Trump’s nominations and appointments, including Matt Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard, appear to have been selected mainly because their personal loyalty to Mr Trump will be untroubled by any scruple.
Less noticed has been Mr Trump’s urgency. Critics often accuse him of being too chaotic to get much done. However, the blistering pace at which names are emerging from Mar-a-Lago suggests that, after four years cooling his heels, the next president is itching to get down to business. Our cover asks what that will mean for the world economy.
These first two ideas focused on the sense of impending upheaval. However, if the straw-haired tsunami is too gentle, the Trumpian twister is too destructive.
What is more, stock and corporate-bond markets are delighted with the deregulation and tax cuts Mr Trump is promising for his second term. Our cover needed to be more upbeat.
This is a depiction of market euphoria. A pledge to cut $2trn from the government’s annual budget is patently absurd, but judicious liberalisation could be benign. On day one the new administration could speed up planning, by accelerating the passage of legislation that is already in Congress. Mr Trump has also promised to free up artificial intelligence. The technology is immensely power-hungry. Just imagine if easier planning rules helped unleash a revolution.
But this cover goes too far. The markets are mindful of the danger of inflation and cronyism. As The Economist has warned, a Trump presidency also comes with risks.
This spiky flagpole tells the other side of the story. Mr Trump wants to deport millions of irregular migrants and impose tariffs of up to 60% on China and 10-20% on the rest of the world. This would be bad for growth. For example, the direct costs of mass deportation could, by one estimate, run to hundreds of billions of dollars. That does not include the economic burden of labour shortages and spiralling consumer prices. Roughly half of the workers on America’s farms have no legal status.
These risks are real, but we did not want a cover that ignored the potential for good news even before Mr Trump had taken office. One way to think about these two contradictory stories is that your view depends on whether you are in America or the rest of the world.
This illustrates that divergence literally, by portraying America as a separate planet. With its huge domestic market, it is far more insulated against trade shocks than most other countries. Mr Trump has an old-fashioned regard for share prices as a barometer of success and that could also limit the harm at home.
The rest of the world is a different matter. As America borrows, raises tariffs and grows, the dollar will strengthen. That will dampen trade. It will also lead to higher interest rates and greater dollar-debt burden in developing countries. Places that Mr Trump accuses of taking advantage of America, including Mexico, Germany and China, are likely to become particular targets.
So far, these covers have oscillated between hope and disaster. We needed something that could embrace them both.
We turned to the president’s favourite game. Never mind that our sketch has him approaching the green with a driver: that could be fixed. What matters is that Mr Trump is creating a great deal of volatility. Another thought was to show his trundling buggy having strayed from the greensward onto a greenback.
These were promising, but Mr Trump has appeared on the cover for the past two issues. We wanted something fresh.
We liked this. One golf-mad colleague speculated that Mr Trump would be teed off to be teeing off with such an old-fashioned club as this. So we gave him a gold one, a bit like the driver he received from Abe Shinzo, the late Japanese prime minister, who knew how to flatter Mr Trump with a gift. We engraved this one with the number 47.
The question is whether growth or anti-growth will dominate. It will be resolved partly by necessity, as the hyperbole of stump speeches comes into contact with the messy reality of governing. Policies take so much effort to enact that the next administration will simply be unable to do everything all at once. Mr Trump will have to choose.
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Friday, November 15, 2024
Thursday, November 14, 2024
Drug Dealing And The Temptation Of Big Money
I wrote a biography of the international drug dealer Paul Lir Alexander (o barao da cocaina). Paul was born in the small fishing village of Laguna, Santa Catarina, Brasil to an unwed mother. He started life poor and humble. Before Paul became a drug dealer, he had a distinguished career as an Israeli Mossad agent. He earned two college degrees at a prestigious private university in Rio de Janeiro. He learned to speak six languages (English, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Hebrew, and Yiddish.) He created a brilliant talent agency, Sunshine Entertainment Limitada, that created the Brasilian superstar Xuxa. Just on that basis, he became a millionaire in his 20s.
Then Paul became a drug dealer importing some $9 billion worth of cocaine to the US and Australia. At the time of his arrest in April 1993 at the age of 37, Paul had the following assets:
1) A Hawker Sidley corporate jet.
2) A $5 million apartment in the Barra da Tijuca section of Rio de Janeiro.
3) A $800,000 house in north Miami Beach.
4) A 6,400-hectare (15,874 acres) ranch in Brasil.
5) A $25 million mega yacht.
6) Paul was completing the raising of over $300,000,000 to buy The Manchete Television Network in Brasil.
I asked Paul why he went into drug dealing. He calmly replied that he could not resist the temptation of so much money.
Over 30 years later, the temptation of big money to be made from drug dealing is still alive and well. The senior Spanish officer in charge of fighting drug importation into Spain has been arrested for drug dealing and money laundering. Here is the story:
Spain
Spain arrested the former top law enforcement officer in charge of the unit investigating fraud and corruption after the Guardian reported this week that around $22 million was hidden in the walls of his house.
Óscar Sánchez Gil, the former head of the fraud and anti-money laundering division of Spain’s national police force, was arrested last week along with 15 other people, including his girlfriend, also a police officer in the Madrid region.
During the raid on his home, police found the cash hidden in the walls and ceilings of the couple’s home near the Spanish capital.
Officers also found more than $1 million in his office.
The couple has been charged with drug trafficking, money laundering, corruption, and membership of a criminal organization and have been jailed until trial.
Spanish media said the arrests were linked to the seizure last month of 13 tons of cocaine that arrived in the southern port of Algeciras from Ecuador, the largest-ever haul of cocaine in Spain and “one of the largest seizures in the world.”
Police operations uncovered links between the importer of the drugs and Sánchez Gil.
He was already under suspicion by his colleagues who had tapped his phone, the newspaper El Mundo reported. He is suspected of having worked for the drug traffickers for “at least five years,” providing information on the surveillance of containers in Spanish ports, which enabled them to avoid checks, Agence France-Presse wrote.
Spain is a main entry point for drugs into Europe because of its close ties with former colonies in Latin America such as major cocaine producers Colombia and Peru, and its proximity to Morocco, a top cannabis producer.
Wednesday, November 13, 2024
Tuesday, November 12, 2024
Monday, November 11, 2024
Sunday, November 10, 2024
The First Week Of November, 2024 Was A Brutal And Deadly One In Ukraine
Winter is fast approaching in Ukraine. We have a new president elected here in the U.S. Despite these factors, the war in Ukraine is still going at its full intensity. A Russian major general Pavel Kimenko was killed by a Ukraine drone. Since the beginning of the Ukraine war 18 Russian generals and one Russian admiral have been killed. During the first week of November, Newsweek magazine reported that Russia suffered almost 10,000 casualties:
Russian forces suffered almost 10,000 casualties in the first week of November, according to figures sourced from Ukraine's Armed Forces.
Moscow lost 1,270 on November 1, 1,410 on the second, 1,300 on the third, 1,260 on the fourth, 1,250 on the fifth, 1,400 on the sixth, and 1,580 on the seventh, for 9,470 in total.
This figure is slightly higher than the last two months, which saw 8,960 Russian casualties in September and 8,540 in October, according to Kyiv.
Russia does not frequently publicize its losses, and analysts are skeptical of reports from both sides. Gauging the true number of casualties on either side is notoriously difficult, with numbers from Russia, Ukraine, and independent analyses differing.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) meets soldiers during a visit to a military training center of the Western Military District for mobilized reservists outside the town of Ryazan on October 20, 2022. Russian forces suffered... More Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images
Newsweek was unable to independently verify the figures and contacted the Russian and Ukrainian Defense Ministries for comment on Saturday, as well as an independent think tank.
On Saturday, Ukraine's Ministry of Defense claimed that Vladimir Putin's forces lost 1,660 military personnel in the space of 24 hours, which it said brought Russia's total casualties since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine to 707,540.
They seem to be saying that 9,470 military personnel were killed in action. As I have pointed out to you in previous op-eds, for each military person killed there are 3 wounded. This would indicate that approximately 28,410 Russian military personnel were wounded in the first week of November.
In a separate incident, Ukraine soldiers discovered the bodies of 563 Russian soldiers in the Donetsk region of Ukraine.
We have not seen losses like this in a war since the Nazis and Russians fought in World War II during what is known as The Great Patriotic War. In any other country, including authoritarian China, the public would not tolerate losses of that magnitude. People would take to the streets in massive numbers and demand a cessation of hostilities.
I am sorry to bring this to your attention on a Sunday. It was so serious that I could not wait. Please be thankful that you are not in Ukraine!
Saturday, November 9, 2024
The Economist Magazine Cover For 11/09/2024
The Economist
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November 9th 2024
How we chose this week’s image
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Cover Story
How we chose this week’s image
The Economist
Zanny Minton Beddoes
Editor-in-chief
To understand how we came up with this week’s cover you need to travel back to that far-off land where Donald Trump has not yet won the presidency and the election is still balanced on a knife-edge. We did not know who would win. We did not even know if we’d know who would win. The only thing we were certain of was that, if we waited until we had the information, our deadline might not give us enough time to come up with a decent design.
Here, then, are a few of our contingency covers. It is astonishing how rapidly an election victory takes on the sense that it was inevitable. Think of this as a chance to reminisce. If you are a Democrat, you can recapture the moment when your hopes were still alive. If you are a Republican, you can savour your man’s stunning victory as if it were still fresh.
These are our throw-up-our-hands covers. We needed those because on election night it’s dangerous to presume anything. Every editor is haunted by the infamous headline in the Chicago Daily Tribune on November 3rd 1948: “Dewey Defeats Truman”.
Amid the uncertainty, we had put back the print deadline for our cover in America to Thursday morning London time. But we still needed to cater for the possibility that we would have no earthly idea who had won.
In one design a nation is taking refuge behind the sofa as a horror show unfolds; even the marmalade cat is alarmed. In the other we have ditched the sofa and the voters to leave a wide-eyed kitten which, frankly, is a bit mystifying. Is it a reference to the pet-eating immigrants in Springfield, Ohio? To cat-ladies? We never got as far as finding out.
We also needed a pair of “no result” covers which hinted that one candidate was nosing ahead of the other. As we went into Tuesday evening, the numbers said that we could just as well be preparing for President Harris as for President Trump.
In one of those self-serving revisions of the past, pundits on both sides are already behaving as if it was obvious all along that Mr Trump would triumph. The corollary is that the belief that Ms Harris could win was born out of hubris or bias. Our need to prepare for the possibility of a Harris win is a reminder of where the polls actually stood. On the eve of the vote they were within the margin of error.
This is the one that will tug hardest at Democrats’ heartstrings. There is already speculation that their candidate could run again in 2028. However, although it is surely only a matter of time before a woman sits behind the Resolute desk, the chances that she will be Ms Harris must be very slim.
After months of agonising, it was just 02:36 London time—21:36 Eastern time—when Dan Rosenheck, the head of our data team, sent a message over our election WhatsApp group to say that Mr Trump was on track to win. Three minutes later, he added that Ms Harris may even lose the popular vote. We needed to see if his prognostication was borne out, obviously, but it was time to focus on our Trump-wins covers.
There is something about the moment that always confounds your expectations. As the scale of Mr Trump’s achievement began to emerge, it became obvious that these designs did not begin to capture the mood. One was too satirical and the other low-energy.
As our editorial was later to declare, Mr Trump’s triumphant return to the White House makes him the most consequential American president since Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Trump era is a return to an old idea of America. Before the fight against fascism convinced FDR that it was in his country’s interest to help bring order and prosperity to the world, the country was hostile towards immigration, scornful of trade and sceptical of foreign entanglements. That is the world Mr Trump will bring back.
These 60s-style vibrations capture the profound change brought about by his re-election. In 2016 some people comforted themselves with the thought that Mr Trump’s presidency was an aberration. By choosing to overlook his attempts to stop the transfer of power to Mr Biden in 2020, voters have shown how wrong that conclusion was. Instead they have not only embraced Mr Trump’s promise to sort out the economy and immigration. They have also endorsed his unbounded exploitation of partisanship as the basis of his politics, including the slander of his opponents as corrupt and treacherous. This has spread a cynicism and despair about the merits of government that may serve the 47th president, but will not serve America’s democracy.
This is a powerful image, but it leads away from our leader’s central theme—that the world created by benign internationalists who occupied the White House for 70 years has been shattered.
This was more like it. The stacked Trumps say that his approach to politics and to America’s place in the world is here to stay. But it, too, lacked the acclamation we had just witnessed. So for our final cover we put a bust of Mr Trump above an adoring crowd. It is almost as if he were an emperor.
Cover image
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View large image (“Welcome to Trump’s world”)
Backing stories
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Welcome to Trump’s world (Leader)
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Donald Trump’s victory was resounding. His second term will be, too (Briefing)
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What a Republican trifecta will mean for governing (United States)
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Democrats need to understand: Americans think they’re worse (United States)
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The return of Trumponomics excites markets but frightens the world (Finance & economics)
→ Why Volodymyr Zelensky may welcome Donald Trump’s victory (Europe)
Friday, November 8, 2024
The Secret To Moving To A Foreign Country
After the election here in the U.S., there has been a massive amount of interest in the U.S. from people seeking to move to other countries. I could write a book on this subject. Central to this decision to move is "getting off on the right foot" with the immigration department in the country that you are seeking to move to.
Here is my pedigree in this area as follows:
1) My first wife and current wife: I moved both ladies through this process from tourist visa to U.S. citizenship.
2) I went through the Argentina immigration process from tourist to permanent resident with a national identity card and ready for citizenship.
3) I went through the Brasilian immigration process from a tourist visa to a permanent resident.
4) I went through the South African immigration process from a tourist to permanent residence with an identity book for life.
5) I went through the Australian immigration process. I achieved a permanent residence visa.
A good immigration lawyer is essential to your success in moving to another country. There are three easy ways to transition to another country. The first is to marry a citizen of a country. The second way is to meticulously do your genetic research to prove that you have ancestors in a given country. European countries are very receptive to such immigration applications. The third way is to invest in the country where you want to move. In many cases, buying a house worth $500,000 or more will get you admitted with a residence permit.
If you do not have these options, you are in for some hard work. The U.S. immigration system is the toughest in the world, in my opinion. Our readers Mandy Findlater and Nancy Dai made it all the way from a tourist visa to a US citizen. It was a Herculean task. I got the surprise of my life when I began the process of obtaining permanent residence in Argentina. Even though I was married to a local citizen, the immigration process was just as tough as the U.S. It was a painful and lengthy process. I was blessed to have a brilliant immigration lawyer.
If you do not get the immigration process right, your transition to another country will fail.
Thursday, November 7, 2024
A Humane Lender For Those With Credit Problems
I want to tell you an uplifting story this morning. One of my fellow Tulane graduates is Todd Schwartz. He caught my attention when he made a $5 million donation to Tulane. I decided to in-depth and find out more about this man. He is the CEO of a company named Opp Loans or Odd Fi. Here is a link to the company:
https://www.opploans.com/
Some companies offer credit facilities to consumers with bad credit and related problems. They are called "payday lenders." These companies are predators who charge up to 30% monthly interest rates. Todd decided to serve this market humanely and differently. He offers loans to people at reasonable interest rates. His goal is to rehabilitate the borrower.
I was amazed to see that Todd used this humane money-lending system to make money for his company and its shareholders. His quarterly earnings consistently exceed expectations. I ran the company through my stock screener at Charles Schwab. His shares got an "F".
I loved Todd's business model so much that I ignored the bad recommendation. I invested in this company. As of this morning, it is the best-performing share in the portfolio. OPFI is "up" 27%.
Wednesday, November 6, 2024
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
Monday, November 4, 2024
Sunday, November 3, 2024
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