REDBLOCK / REDCOAT / REDLEG / REDTOP
CIA Soviet Russia Division

Throughout the Cold War, the potential enemies were mainly the USSR and other Soviet Bloc countries. As various wars of national liberation blossomed under communist support to indigenous, native guerrilla movements, there were still other factions of guerrillas on the scene. At the close of World War II, certain groups of guerrilla fighters who had been opposing the Germans, the Soviets, or both, still existed. As Eastern Europe was quickly occupied by Soviet forces these organizations, primarily in Albania, Romania, Ukraine, Hungary, Poland, and some even within the Soviet Union, shifted from guerrilla warfare to espionage, subversion, and sabotage.

The United States looked upon these groups as possible allies against the Soviets and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) spent considerable time, effort, and money in keeping contact with these eastern European groups. Both the United States and the Soviet Union secretly started to mobilize forces against each other and build intricate networks of spies.

A secret American plan known as Rollback was "an audacious strategy of espionage, subversion, and sabotage to foment insurrection in the Soviet satellite countries." The book Operation Rollback: America's Secret War Behind the Iron Curtain highlighted these secret efforts. This possible theater for a future WorldWar III started at a time when the OSS of World War II fame was dissolving into the CIA on the civilian side and into Army Special Forces on the military side.

• REDBIRD - Operations involving the illegal return of defectors and emigres to USSR as agents.
• REDCAP - was the planned collection of information on Soviet personnel stationed abroad for the purpose of operational exploitation, including defection inducement.
• REDSKIN - Operations involving legal methods of placing, recruiting, and communicating with agents within the USSR.
• REDSOX - Operations involving the illegal return of defectors and emigres to USSR as agents.
• REDWOOD - Action indicator for information for CIA Soviet Division.

• AERODYNAMIC (formerly CARTEL, ANDROGEN, AECARTHAGE) (1949-70) refers to CIA support for ZP/UHVR (Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council), which began in 1949. CIA helped to establish in New York City the Prolog Research and Publishing Company in 1953 as ZP/UHVR's publishing and research arm. Prolog, through an affiliate in Munich, published periodicals and selected books and pamphlets which sought to exploit and increase nationalist and other dissident tendencies in the Soviet Ukraine. ZP/UHVR operational activity concentrated on propaganda and contact operations. In 1970, AERODYNAMIC was redesignated QRPLUMB.
• AEBEEHIVE [later QRDYNAMIC/QRPLUMB] (1970-91) superceded Project AERODYNAMIC and supported the Ukrainian émigré organization ZP / UHVR (Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council) with a New York publishing arm called Prolog Research Corporation (QRTENURE, AETENURE) and a Munich Office, Ukrainian Society for Foreign Studies (QRTERRACE, AETERRACE), publisher of the monthly journal Suchasnist. CIA terminated QRPLUMB after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1991 and provided funds to enable Prolog to transition to a privately-funded company. In 1992, Prolog's monthly Ukrainian journal Suchasnist (Contemporary Times) was successfully transitioned to a publishing company in Kiev, Ukraine and thereafter was published as a collaborative effort between Prolog and a Ukrainian group in Kiev.
• AECAMBISTA-1, CAMBISTA-1 (cryptonyms for BNR). Byelorussian emigration was split into two organizations -- the BZR/BCR (Beloruska Zentralna Rada or Byelorussian Central Council) and the BNR (Beloruska Nationalna Rada or Byelorussian National Council or Council of the Byelorussian Peoples Republic). The BZR/BCR, which was created during the German occupation of Byelorussia and supported by the Germans, was headed by Radislaw Ostrowsky. The BNR, which included a Cadre School and a Study Group, was headed by Mikola Abramtchik in Paris and Major Boris Ragula was its Operations Chief. Francis Kushel was BNR's military representative in New York.
• AEMANNER (1955-58) was an operation to collect intelligence on the Lithuanian SSR by spotting, recruiting, and training Lithuanians who planned to return to Lithuania; spotting, recruiting, and training Lithuanian merchant seamen who would be on vessels calling at Lithuanian SSR ports; exploiting existing postal channels between Lithuanian SSR and the West; and interrogating persons coming out of the Lithuanian SSR.
• AEMARSH (1953-59) involved collecting foreign intelligence on the Soviet regime in Latvia through sources residing in the Latvian SSR, legal travelers, and all possible legal means. The Institute for Latvian Culture (AEMINX) was established as a cover facility engaged in the preservation and development of Latvian national culture, collection of information on Latvian national life, and the safeguarding and preserving of physical, spiritual, and moral conditions of Latvians who were separated from their homeland.
• AEDEPOT (formerly AEREADY) (1957-65) was designed to provide a trained "Hot War" cadre of agents who could be used during a period of heightened tensions/increased alert or during actual hostilities against the Soviet Union.