What was that dialog where the French intelligence head (played by Niels Arestrup) was briefing Reagan on some overhead slides, and he mentions the USSR spent 40% of it's defense budget....on WHAT? spying?
He was stating that the USSR had no real R&D prowess, but then they mention that they were using their spy info to feed more bad info? I don't follow this dialog. Did anyone make any sense of this scene's upshot?
That was a little fuzzy to me, too. I took it to mean that there was information that the USSR was spending 40% of their budget on spying. But that "40% info" could be "bad info" placed to confuse/misinform the US of USSR resources.
The US believed that the 40% statistic was accurate and that Russian resources we scarce. The US would start the Star Wars program that the USSR would have no chance to keep up with (or they would go broke trying) especially since their spying network was decimated by the US getting their hands on the "X" list.
still amazing to think that apparently their whole apparatus was so largely geared to spying/mind-games that the star wars bogey (plus knowledge of the "X" list) was the proverbial straw that broke the bears back and brought the ENTIRE structure down!!
Reality is wayyyy stranger than fiction even...!
It's also hard to reconcile with the lay-person's zeit geist based (possibly wrong) opinion about USSR (from news reports of post Glasnost crime wave in Russian business practices which were driven by the same former state hardened apparatchiks who used to run USSR) that extortion and murder were their breakfast, their bread and butter. and yet this same lot caved on this intelligence issue alone! mind boggling...IF this is the full story as L'Affaire movie suggests.
I interpreted this to mean that 40% of the Soviet budget for (defense-related) Research & Development was spent spying on the West. In other words, instead of trying to develop their own new stuff, they tried to steal technology secrets from the West instead.
shareYeah. I agree both of you guys' answer. It is a classic human folly. Real development is hard. Mind Games double think and monopolized pravda media spin come easy.
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Probably a big chunk of that 40% spying meant all security efforts including spying on all their own people,
A big part of their down fall was Afghanistan which was their "Viet Nam." The Russian soldiers came back disillusioned and using heroin like the US did after Viet Nam. Every invader of Afghanistan comes to regret it.
Every country is like a sieve. One CIA man betrayed all our spies in Russia and they were shot. Then they bungled arresting him and he escaped to Russia.
Another spy was the FBI head of counterintelligence against the Russians. He betrayed everything to the Russians. I think I remember they made him a colonel in the KGB while working for the FBI. After he was caught the US governemt let him off with a reduced sentence and handled him with kid gloves.
Captions and spoken English:
Pierre and Jessica at home, about the "borrowed" file contents scattered in front of them:
P: This is incredible! The plan of the space shuttle. It's crazy! With notes by Russian scientists. They think the fuselage won't withstand the heat of atmospheric re-entry. The 6-month route plan of all French nuclear subs. It's wild!
J: But why? Why you?
P: I don't know. Maybe mistaken identity.
J: We've got to get rid of this stuff, and fast. It's impossible.
P: But it's top secret.
J: Not so loud!
P: Western intelligence would die for this!
J: It's not your concern. I married an engineer, not James Bond.
P: Then I'll ask Jacques if...
J: Where does Jacques come in?
P: He does favors for the DST.
J: What?
P: He told me a while ago.
J: Your boss trades with French Intelligence and some Russian drops top secrets in your car. I'm no fool, Pierre.
P: Think we're all spies at Thomson? Jacques' DST dealings are his affair. I'm not involved.
J: I hope not; we're in the lion's den here in Moscow. So for your family's safety, burn that stuff and forget it. Forget it.
P: You're right. Tomorrow, it goes.
Conversation between Mitterrand and Reagan on the phone:
M: He gave us important documents which we'll pass on to you.
R: What kind of important documents?
M: They're about the aerial defenses of the United States. In front of me are all the radar positions that have been installed on your territories since 1976; your coded procedures for triggering a reply in the event of a hostile air raid. In the margin, annotated in Russian, are the keys for scrambling them at the appropriate moment. I even have the digicode numbers to get into the white house, the schedules of the companies that deliver your laundry and food supplies. And there are also the codes that, since 1959, your embassies have used to communicate with each other throughout the world.
R: I see.
DST man Maurice Vallier briefing CIA man Feeney and Presidents Reagan and Mitterrand:
V: Thanks to Farewell's last delivery, we now have a complete picture of the global organization of Soviet espionage. We're spied on not just by the KGB. Every Eastern Bloc company, every scientific academy, even minor trade fair participants are involved. And all these networks send information that is centralized, analyzed, and digested by an outfit previously unknown to us: the VPK.
F: How many agents work for the service? And who's in charge of it, and since when?
V: I don't yet have reliable enough information to answer that.
F: A long time ago, we too heard of the VPK. That thing is the Loch Ness Monster.
V: Probably why you decided never to tell us about it.
M: Continue, sir.
V: We calculated that the Soviets spend more on industrial espionage than on research. They don't want to just gamble on research. What they want, above all, are solid results, and it's costing them a fortune. This plundering accounts for over 40% of their overall budget in the arms race.
R: Well -- well, that, that's incredible. Are you sure of it?
V: Sure.
F: 40%? Can you imagine the sums at stake? It doesn't make any sense. To feed the enemy good information, to hook them, and then dish out a lot of baloney; that's an old tactic. But you know that, right?
V: Absolutely. But Farewell is the finest source of all times, Mr. President.
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@Dog112, you are THE BEST!
Transcript cures all.
Thanks. The syp v spy "game" as in "game theory" sucks up all manpower and computer power.
{ASIDE:I am thinking of today. The US is busy spying on our IMDB chats, and scooping up all the internet on their HDDs. This is costing more and more money. But they are ignoring INdonesia burning fires that spread over entire continents worth of carbon emission. Ignoring Japan nuclear waste pouring way worse than BPs Macondo well, into the entire pacific ocean....all to spy on emails and internet chats. This kind of spending has NO END!}
Also Reminds me, today we are not in a 2 player world (Soviet v USA). Today we are in MULTI-PLAYER world. Game theory is MUCH MUCH more treacherous and untractable in multiplayer.
And also the reason why at the last Russian meeting, Gorbachev is told it would take at least another decade for the Soviets to build their "Star Wars" equivalent. Simply put, the Soviets put too many of their espionage eggs into one basket.🐭
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