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Russian and Soviet cryptology: I--some communications intelligence in Tsarist Russia

Cryptologia, Jul 2000 by Hammant, Thomas R

RUSSIAN AND SOVIET CRYPTOLOGY

I - SOME COMMUNICATIONS INTELLIGENCE IN TSARIST RUSSIA*

ABSTRACT: Russian communications intelligence has a long history. Although originally focused on supporting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it subsequently expanded to include at least the Ministry of Internal Affairs as well as the Army and the Navy. Navy comint in the Baltic Sea area, in fact, was so thoroughly developed in World War I that operations undertaken by the Baltic Sea Fleet were almost always successful. A large part of the credit goes to A. I. Nepenin as chief of the Baltic Sea Fleet Communications and Intelligence Service.

More Articles of Interest: Russian and Soviet cryptology: II--the Magdeburg incident: The Russian view; Russian and Soviet cryptology: IV--some incidents in the 1930's; Kim Philby, the American intelligence community, and OP-20-G: The fox built...; Britain reveals its bombe to America from the archives; Enigma bulletin number 5

KEYWORDS: Communications Service, Nepenin, Rengarten, Dudorov, MID, MVD, radio intelligence, Baltic Sea Fleet, black cabinet, army radio battalion, Magdeburg, cryptanalysis, codebooks, RDF, comint, sigint, general staffs, Novopashennyj.

This article 1 explores the early development and use of communications intelligence by the tsarist Russian regime through World War I, and the importance attached to it, especially by the Russian Navy.

Western publications in recent years have been providing frequent revelations about the use of communications intelligence (COMINT) by major nations of the world.2 The one notable exception, at least in English-language publications, has been Russia. At the logical source, the natural secrecy attached to COMINT information in general, combined with the traditional obsession with secrecy throughout its society, has held discussion of the subject to a minimum. Outside the USSR, such imperial Russian failures in communications security as Tannenberg in World War I have contributed to the impression that the Russians must have known little about COMINT. Despite these constraints, however, since the early 1960's several rather specific articles concerning COMINT organizations and operations under the tsars3 and even on the early development of radio intelligence service in the Soviet Army4 have appeared in Soviet journals. When supplemented with information available from non-Soviet sources, a general picture emerges of an early tsarist COMINT effort approaching similar efforts in the West. This article is an initial attempt to shed some historical light on this little-known area of tsarist intelligence.

It should be noted that the absence of any discussion in the present article concerning Russian army COMINT activities before World War I or Ministry of Internal Affairs COMINT operations during WWI itself does not necessarily mean such activities did not exist, but merely that insufficient documentation was available from which to draw any conclusions. It should also be noted that the early Russian COMINT efforts apply to communications in their broadest sense, including secret or coded written messages.

MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS (MID)

Traditionally, communications intelligence involving foreign governments and their representatives fell within the purview of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MID). This tradition has been traced back at least to the reign of Peter the Great.5 The methods used, of course, involved gaining access to the diplomatic correspondence, opening it (perlustration), and (if found to be encrypted) either purchasing the necessary cryptographic materials from a willing employee or actually engaging in operational cryptanalysis to exploit the document. Even so wily a statesman as the Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, while serving as Prussian ambassador to St. Petersburg (1859-1863), fell victim to MID's reading of Prussian ciphers.fi MID was aided in its COMINT efforts by the so-called "Black Cabinets" of the Imperial Russian Postal Service.

Black Cabinets were set up at the postal offices in major cities of the Russian Empire. One of their important functions was opening suspect correspondence, reproducing the contents, and disseminating the information to the appropriate ministry:

* information of "general state interest," usually comments about the imperial family made by segments of tsarist nobility, to the Minister of Internal Affairs;

* "political" correspondence to the Department of Police;

* "diplomatic" correspondence to the Minister of Foreign Affairs; and

* "espionage" correspondence (presumably during wartime) to the Army and Navy General Staffs.

According to one former Black Cabinet official, there was never much of a problem in gaining access to or photographing the contents of foreign diplomatic pouches. When the diplomatic correspondence was found to be encrypted, it was not worked on at the Black Cabinet itself but sent to a "similar establishment attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs." Copies of all encrypted telegrams sent and received by embassies in St. Petersburg were delivered to this MID organization. In important cases, even copies of reports carried in locked leather briefcases by special diplomatic couriers were forwarded to this same unit.? As most couriers and embassy employees were underpaid by their governments, they could be prevailed upon for a small bribe to allow the contents of their briefcases to be photographed by Black Cabinet specialists.

Russian and Soviet cryptology: I--some communications intelligence in Tsarist Russia

Cryptologia, Jul 2000 by Hammant, Thomas R

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