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(U//FOUO) InSIDer's View of History: Quite a Welcome!
FROM:
Chief European/Central Asia Division Field Operations Office
Run Date: 08/03/2004
FROM:
Chief European/Central Asia Division Field Operations Office
(S//SI//REL) Note from SIGINT Communications: To mark the 25th
anniversary of the Special Collection Service (SCS, aka F6) , we
asked SCS'ers past and present to contribute stories.
sent us a couple. Here's one:
(TS//SI) My wife, daughter and I arrived in Moscow on a Friday
morning in August to start our first SCS tour. We were thrilled -we were about to spend two years in a place none of us ever
thought that we would ever even see. Under the tutelage of our
sponsor, Saturday and Sunday were filled with sightseeing and
learning how to get around the city. We went to bed Sunday night
worn out from miles of walking and exploring.
(TS//SI) Early Monday morning we awoke at sunrise to the sound
of heavy equipment outside of our bedroom window. We crawled
out of bed to peek around the drapes and found a column of tanks
rolling along the street outside. This certainly seemed strange, but
didn't cause us a lot of concern. I had never heard of the Red Army
conducting an exercise in the city, but that didn't mean it couldn't
happen. We had breakfast and went out onto the embassy
compound to meet my new boss and start in-processing.
(TS//SI) The first person to walk by hollered, "There's been a coup,
Gorbachev is missing." My boss came running up the street and all
thoughts of in-processing were forgotten. We left our families and
hurried to the site where we spent the next 24 hours trying to sort
out the communications environment and figure out what was
going on. Eventually we organized site personnel into two teams,
each working 12-hour shifts. We spent the next week monitoring
the activities that eventually led to Gorbachev's fall and Yeltsin's
rise to power.
(U) Since I was working the night shift, I was home during the day
and was able to watch and hear Yeltsin, from our bedroom window,
addressing the crowds outside of the battle scarred Russian White
House while standing on top of a tank.
(U) This was our welcome to the SCS world and the beginning of
eleven years overseas peppered with moments of surprise, fear,
sadness, and regret but always filled with a sense of
accomplishment.
Look for more from
soon.
SERIES:
(U) InSIDer's View of
History '04
1. InSIDer's View of
History ... A Lesson
in Personal
Accountability
2. InSIDer's View of
History : How a Four
Star General Once
Waited for a Lowly
Captain to Finish
Eating Lunch
3. InSIDer's View of
History : In SHAPE,
In France
4. InSIDer's View of
History : 'Soviet
Rocket' Strikes
Chicksands
5. InSIDer's View of
History: Onboard Air
Force Two Bound for
Moscow
6. InSIDer's View of
History : Testifying
Before Congress...
Who Turned Out the
Lights?
7. InSIDer's View of
History : Resourceful
NCOs at Goodfellow
8. InSIDer's View of
History : Desert One
- The Iranian
Hostage Rescue
Mission
9. InSIDer's View of
History : SIGINT
Appearing in the
Press
10. InSIDer's View of
History : Meeting
President Reagan
11. InSIDer's View of
History : 'Local
Support' as Stress
Management
12. In SID er's View of
History : Quite a
Welcome!
13. In SID er's View of
History : The
Adventure Continues
-- Evacuation from
Belgrade
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)."
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DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108