Swiss Review 3/2020

Swiss Review / June 2020 / No.3 14 Politics own history is generating discussion. After all, what did the Swiss government knowabout what was going on?Was our country hosting foreign intelligence activities but keeping them deliberately secret? “The programme exceeded our wildest expectations” How successful were the CIA and BND in manipulating Crypto’s Swiss systems for their own intelligence purposes, and what impact did their actions have? The effectiveness of spying always mirrors the amount of damage caused to the party being spied on. It is all a question of perspective. According to leaked sources, the CIA saw it as the “most pro- ductive and longest-running intelligence project since the Second World War”. It allowed 80 to 90 per cent of Iran’s confidential communications to be intercepted. According to the CIA: “The programme exceeded our wildest expec- tations.” Wiretapping enabled the USA in particular to influence the outcome of almost everymajor conflict in its favour. For example, decryption records now show that the CIA sup- ported the 1973 military coup in Chile. The CIA and BND alsomonitored communications within themilitary junta and knew from the outset about the persecution and tor- ture that cost 30,000 opponents of the regime their lives. Some initial questions and answers The Crypto AG revelations have caused quite a stir, although it is too early to predict the full fallout. The following key questions outline the implica- tions for Switzerland: Why did the CIA and BND use a Swisscompany? Swedish cryptologist Boris Hagelin established Crypto AG in 1952. Hagelin deliberately chose to base the business in Switzerland because, as the CIA source notes: “When one was engaged in a sensitive business like cryptography, better to seek the protection of a neutral country with fewer moral scruples.” Hagelin sold Crypto to a front company of the CIA and BND in 1970. The CIA and BND were the ones who were spy- ing. Why is this being viewed in Switzerland as a ‘Swiss’ scandal? The issue for Switzerland centres on what the federal government knew about the motives, methods and extent of the spying, and whether it tolerated or even facilitated what the two in- telligence agencies were doing. Suspecting at the time that foreign powers had tampered with their prized technology, Crypto employees in Switzerland involved the authorities. What happened next? It is documented that an employee of Crypto AG told the authorities in the mid-1970s that the products sold by his company had, according to a file entry in the Swiss Federal Archives dated 24 July 1977, been fitted with “manipulated key generators that allowed West Germany and the USA to decode messages”. Embarrassingly, part of this record has since disappeared. Switzerland’s federal police looked into the allegations at the time but found no proof of wrongdoing. Witnesses of that era now lament the fact that police inquiries were merely pro forma in nature. Isn’t the whole affair just a relic of the Cold War? It was in the mid-1970s that doubts were first raised. Former Crypto employee Hans Bühler openly accused the company of cooperating with foreign intelligence services (Bühler, who spent nine months in an Iranian jail on suspi- cion of spying, made the allegations in his 1994 book “Encrypted”). However, it is only now that we see the full implications after in- formation from CIA sources recently came to light. The snooping also continued far beyond the Cold War until 2018, albeit without German involvement: the BND left the programme in 1993 as a result of German reunification. To what extent was the Federal Council com- plicit in the affair, if at all? This is a key question. How much the Federal Council knew about the conspiracy is still any- one’s guess. CIA documents mention former Federal Councillor Kaspar Villiger (FDP) as one of those who were aware of what was going on. Villiger, now 79, has strenuously denied any knowledge. Why does the issue of whether the Federal Council knew about the spying carry so much weight? If it turns out that the Federal Council – or in- dividual Federal Councillors – knew about the surveillance, then it begs some other serious questions. Did the Federal Council turn a blind eye to CIA spying, or did it try to cover it up? Did the Federal Council resign itself to foreign entities taking advantage of Swiss neutrality? And if Switzerland was indeed complicit, turned a blind eye or deliberately covered it up– how does spying against warring states square with Swiss neutrality? How have the Federal Council and parlia- ment reacted to the affair? The President of the Swiss Confederation, Simonetta Sommaruga, has said from the out- set that her government will look at all the facts and would welcome an investigation. Defence Minister Viola Amherd has also con- firmed that her department possesses docu- ments suggesting complicity on the part of predecessor Kaspar Villiger. The parliamentary control body will now examine the allegations Crypto representative Hans Bühler, pictured here following his release from an Iranian prison in 1993, suspected his company of cooperating with foreign intelligence services. Photo: Keystone