New evidence of Soviet spyingIt read like a chapter of seabed science fiction, but last week Swedes
were taking very seriously indeed a report by their government charging
the Soviet Union with a spectacular underwater spy effort off the
Swedish coast. After a six-month investigation, an official commission
concluded that up to six submarines had been involved in a bold
intrusion into the waters near Sweden's Musk Island naval base last
October. The fleet was said to include three advanced miniature
submarines, some equipped with tanklike treads for crawling along the
sea floor. One of the minisubs, the report disclosed, may have crept 50
miles to the north, right into a waterway that runs through the center
of Stockholm.A neutral nation that has long steered a careful path between the two
superpowers, Sweden reacted to the spying with unusual harshness. The
government recalled its Ambassador to Moscow, and Socialist Prime
Minister Olof Palme summoned Soviet Ambassador Boris Pankin for an
hourlong dressing down. Declared Palme: “The gross violations of
Swedish territorial integrity should be roundly condemned by all.”The 89-page report was commissioned in the wake of the October incident.
Despite a three-week effort by 40 search vessels, the Swedish navy
never flushed out what it believed were two or more foreign submarines
lurking in the waters off Musk Island. Nor could it produce a
satisfactory explanation of how the mysterious intruders had penetrated
the defenses of the naval base, whose radar keeps a continual watch on
Sweden's Baltic Sea coastline facing the Soviet Union.The commission's findings did little to exonerate the Swedish military.
Instead, the report revealed evidence of large-scale Soviet snooping in
Swedish waters. The suspicious movements that prompted the October
search, the commission said, were “part of a larger operation in the
southern portion of the Stockholm archipelago.” It reportedly involved
three conventional Soviet submarines and three manned “bottom-creeping
minis” of a type that was previously unknown. Some experts think the
Soviets could have been gathering intelligence to plan the invasion of
Sweden and Norway, so as to gain control of the vital northern Atlantic
sea-lanes in the event of war. 'According to the Swedish report, the minisubs are between 32 ft. and 50
ft. long, carry a crew of two to five and are propelled in some cases
by treads, in others by conventional screws. One small sub, the
commission said, navigated the shallow channel into Stockholm's harbor
during a visit by the U.S. fleet last September. The vessel came within
one mile of King Carl XVI Gustaf's palace on an island in the center
of the capital . The Swedish navy also attributes the failure
of the October search to the minisubs. “Sonar didn't work where they
were concerned,” says Vice Admiral Bror Stefenson. “If they had been
the normal size they wouldn't have got away.”
