Chapter 7: The Enigmatic Fourth Main Directorate—Customer of the Over-the-Horizon Radar System
Original: Глава 7 «Загадочное 4 ГУМО — заказчик ЗГРЛС»
The activities of the Fourth Main Directorate (4 GUMО—4th Main Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Defense) were practically unknown to a correspondent of a central military journal in 1990. I only knew that the directorate was the principal customer of air defense weapons systems. Information about the Fourth Main Directorate's activities reached the media in highly measured doses. After Colonel Penkovskiy's betrayal, when he sold valuable information on numerous weapons systems abroad, the Fourth Main Directorate found itself behind a triple veil of secrecy. It came under special supervision of the 8th Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, which monitored security protocols, military counterintelligence operations, and directly under the KGB. Despite all my attempts, I initially learned little about the Fourth Main Directorate and specifically about Major General (retired) Mikhail Ivanovich Nenashev. He was, so to speak, a holder of state secrets; he had signed appropriate commitments on safeguarding state and military secrets, and by the nature of his work, even after going into the reserves, in meeting with journalists he would probably have had to obtain appropriate permission from the KGB and the USSR Ministry of Defense.
The authors of the article in Sovetskaya Rossiya titled 'Money for Defense' with the subtitle 'Four Monologues on the Secrets of Closed Science,' published on August 5, 1990, mentioned [the Fourth Main Directorate] only indirectly, without naming names.
However, in the article 'Money for Defense,' the authors nonetheless indirectly 'kicked' Major General Nenashev. Perhaps it was necessary to offer readers an excerpt from the old newspaper. I apologize in advance...
'Any significant military project formally passes through a number of expert reviews, is considered at scientific-technical councils,' the article's authors wrote. 'But, as practice shows, this is nothing more than ritual...'
In Soviet times in 1990, this was simply a revolutionary statement from fighters against mafiosi in uniform. At them! Catch and pursue embezzlers-generals who, together with corrupt scientists and...
As a correspondent of a central military journal, I was faced with the task of not succumbing to emotional statements but of carefully sorting through this story. And, first and foremost, Mikhail Ivanovich [Nenashev] could have told me much.
In mid-October, I had the good fortune at the journal's offices. I received a voucher to purchase an electric washing machine 'Feya' at the central military department store. A historical and simply magnificent building of the department store...
'I'm listening to you,' a man on the other end of the line answered literally immediately after the first rings.
I introduced myself. I explained that Yuriy Vsevolodovich Votintsev had given me the general's home phone number. I explained the reason for my call.
'I'm feeling a bit under the weather,' the general replied, 'I was in the hospital. Come to my apartment on Sunday. We'll talk over tea. I think Votintsev wouldn't recommend just anyone.'
On Saturday evening, after finishing all household chores, I secluded myself in the small kitchen. In the next room, in a small child's crib, my little daughter was already asleep, and my wife sat on the sofa with a book. No one interfered with me...
The next day, closer to noon, I set off by metro to central Moscow. Without much difficulty, on one of the embankments of the Moscow River, I found a monumental post-war building. However, what remained in memory was...
Eighteen years have passed since that conversation. In my notebook, no records remained of the surroundings, the apartment itself. I only vaguely remember that the general led me down a narrow corridor to a small kitchen with a standard...
Perhaps I attracted Mikhail Ivanovich's attention with my interest in the ZGRLS matter, with a brief account of previous meetings, of [prominent NIIDАР chief designer] Kuzminski's visit to our journal. But, judging from old entries in my...
The Account by Hero of Socialist Labor, Major General (Retired) Mikhail Ivanovich Nenashev Concerning the Activities of the 5th Directorate of the 4th Main Directorate
'In 1950, the Third Main Directorate under the Council of Ministers of the USSR
began creating the world's first multichannel
over-the-horizon radar system. [We] had to solve exceptionally complex scientific and technical problems.'
Gradually, the military directorate expanded its authority. It became the principal customer for the development, serial production, and technical maintenance during the operation of anti-aircraft missile systems, radar-technical systems, and automated command-and-control systems (ASDU - avtomatizirovannaya sistema upravleniya).
In the 1950s-1960s, the USA and NATO were actively developing plans for missile-nuclear war, a sudden devastating strike by air and space attack assets against the main strategic and military targets. The USSR had to develop adequate countermeasures.
All combat radar systems of the missile attack warning system 'Dnestr,' 'Dnepr,' 'Daugava,' 'Daryal' (Днестр, Днепр, Даугава, Дарьял), the space systems US-K, USK-MO for detecting launching missiles from territory dangerous for the USSR... were under the supervision of the Fourth Main Directorate.
Several years later, interesting data on the Fourth Main Directorate's work fell into my hands. Over more than fifty years of this directorate's activity, more than 160 military specialists were awarded orders and medals. [The directorate had] recipients of the USSR State Prize and Lenin Prize...
Transcript of dictaphone recording of a conversation with the former Chief of the 5th Directorate of the 4th Main Directorate, Major General (Retired) Mikhail Ivanovich Nenashev.
'To the over-the-horizon combat radar system, still at the design stage, was assigned, in the Country's Air Defense Forces and Anti-Missile Defense [system], first and foremost, an auxiliary role. And everyone who participated in creating the ZGRLS understood this perfectly well.'
The ZGRLS system project was made rather carelessly. However, it served as the basis for creating an alluring over-the-horizon combat system. After all, it promised to significantly reduce the time required to detect missile launches...
The time back then was somehow idiotic. Central newspapers wrote that the USSR would strike the USA with such nuclear missiles that the country would turn to splinters. Following one such publication, where specific [figures were given]...
'What is to be done, comrades?' the marshal replied, noticeably calmed.
'Comrade Marshal,' Baydukov replied, 'we must create radars like the Americans have—if the USA is the first to begin launching missiles against the USSR, or if some error occurs and [a missile] heads in our direction...'
'You are probably right,' Zakharov then responded to our objections, 'we must create powerful radars.'
After that, the Chief of the General Staff issued appropriate orders to the Fourth Main Directorate. And we began ordering systems for detecting ballistic nuclear missiles from the military-industrial complex. After some time...
There were many absurd proposals back then. For example, NPO 'Vektor' proposed the idea of a 'listening' over-the-horizon location system. This was a kind of passive radar, based on the work of many...
That same NIIDАР [NIIDАР—Research Institute for Radio Engineering and Astronomy] proposed, besides ZGRLS, another system as well. But it clearly smelled of adventure. And the Fourth Main Directorate flatly refused it. But the combat ZGRLS system, which NIIDАР proposed and specifically Frantsisk Kuzminski developed, [was accepted]...
Hastily conducted were large-scale works on creating a combat system from two gigantic radars. A whole range of research had not yet been completed, but the Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR for construction and deployment of forces...
After that, [we] began thinking how to improve the system. In that difficult period, Chief Designer Kuzminski visited my 5th Directorate three times. He proposed changing much. The last time, I told him directly...
We had conversations that Kuzminski had written a letter to the ministers of radio industry, defense, [and] the chairman of the Military-Industrial Commission (VPK - Voennо-promyshlennaya komissiya), where he detailed his ideas for improving the ZGRLS. But I never saw that letter. Perhaps he didn't...
But we determined that, unfortunately, only later, when the combat system had already been built.
We developed special instruments for studying the physical processes occurring in the ionosphere and magnetosphere. During that period, Frantsisk Kuzminski had already left NIIDĀR and was removed from his position...
I left the Fourth Main Directorate and my 5th Directorate in 1987. The article in Sovetskaya Rossiya, frankly speaking, disturbed me. In it, the Fourth Main Directorate is not named, nor am I. However, a veiled innuendo is made...
I remember, there was one official in our Ministry of Defense, I won't name his name. He cleverly used a technical idea he had heard or eavesdropped on regarding the development of a weapon. He quickly reported it to the Air Defense Chief...
Various officials, bypassing the Fourth Main Directorate and my 5th Directorate, would convene scientific councils, make decisions on them concerning the creation of weapons. Then these proposals were passed to the scientific-technical committee under the Council...
But with the clearly adventurous project to build the Krasnoyarsk RAS [RAS—Radar Station (Radiolokatsionnaya antennaya sistema)] for the missile attack warning system, the Fourth Main Directorate could do nothing.
At one time, specialists of the Fourth Main Directorate proved that between the RAS near Pechora of the missile attack warning system and Krasnoyarsk there was no radar coverage area. American submarines could from the Sea of Okhotsk fire missiles at even Moscow...
So believe my experience—it was not easy to fight against monopolism and voluntarism in the creation of weapons. The same NIIDĀR, other similar enterprises, [and] the military-industrial complex ministries pushed their decisions through...
The conversation with Major General (Retired) Mikhail Ivanovich Nenashev clarified a number of questions that had been raised in the publication in Sovetskaya Rossiya. Although he glossed over much, alluded vaguely to some matters...
In my notebook were written the telephone numbers of two designers Efir Ivanovich Shustov and Valentin Nikolayevich Strelkin, who together with Kuzminski began the over-the-horizon epic, and then continued...