Subject: INTERCEPTS NETWORK NEWS: CIA/RUSSIAN SUBS

 Russian Subs Off US Coasts 

   U.S. Navy officials say Russian submarines have been increasing operations
off the East and West coasts of the U.S. in recent months. The officials, who
do not want to be identified, say the Russian subs have been shadowing U.S.
missile subs and aircraft carriers. The officials note the Russian vessels
are operating legitimately in international waters. Navy officials say as
best they can tell, the Russian submarines have no negative intentions. 

      WASHINGTON  The Soviet Union fed misinformation to Washington that
fooled the United States into overestimating Soviet military strength, CIA
Director John Deutch said in a report released Friday. 

    ``I believe the net effect of the Soviet/Russian 'directed information'
effort was that we overestimated their capability,'' Deutch said in a report
to Congress on the damage caused by CIA spy Aldrich Ames' work for the Soviet
Union. 

    ``The overall effect was to sustain our view of the USSR as a credible
military and technological opponent'' when the Soviet Union was in fact on
the verge of collapse, he said. 

    Deutch said a damage assessment team found that Central Intelligence
Agency reports using information from Soviet-controlled sources and passed on
to U.S. officials ``had a substantial role in framing the (U.S.) debate.'' 

    The misinformation was fed to the United States during the late 1980s and
early 1990s. Ames, a veteran CIA agent who worked in counter-intelligence,
was arrested in February 1994 and is now serving a life prison term. 

    Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said in releasing
the report that the tainted CIA reports resulted in misguided decisions
including the speed-up of a $200 million U.S. defense program. 

    Deutch cited no such concrete examples in his report but said the tainted
reports could have influenced the speed of developing weapons to meet
anticipated threats and could have shaped U.S. contractors' and military
experts' thinking on the Soviet threat. 

    But Deutch said the damage assessment team ``found no major instance
where Soviets maneuvered U.S. or NATO arms control negotiators into giving up
a current or future military capability. 

    He added: ``This conclusion is buttressed by the fact that the Soviets'
bargaining position grew increasingly weak as its economy deteriorated and
(former President Mikhail) Gorbachev struggled to maintain control''. 

    Deutch's report linked Ames' cooperation with Soviet agents to the
planting of Soviet, and later Russian, information in CIA reports to U.S.
officials, but it did not spell out the connection. 

    The senators said CIA analysts who wrote the reports defend their use of
the Soviet-controlled sources, saying they believed the information was
accurate and did not want to put the reports in doubt by identifying the
sources. 

-Steve Douglass