Alf Roar Berg
 Alf Roar Berg  (officer, spook) | |
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| Born | 17. April 1933 |
| Died | 2022 (Age 89) |
| Nationality | Norwegian |
| Alma mater | Norwegian Military Academy, NATO Defence College |
Leader of the Military Intelligence Service in the period 1988–1993.
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Alf Roar Berg was a Norwegian officer and spook. He held the rank of Major General, and in the period 1988–1993 was leader of the Military Intelligence Service.
Career
Alf Roar Berg went to school in Drammen and became an officer in the Air Force. In the 60s, he was commander of the Nike missile batteries outside Oslo and was a Norwegian UN observer in Syria. In the event of war, the Americans would equip the Nike missiles outside Oslo with nuclear weapons to knock out swarms of Soviet bombers, which, according to US intelligence, would pass over Norway.[1]
In the 70s, he was at the Southern Norwegian Defense Command and commander of the air defense battalion in Ørland. He held positions in the Ministry of Defense and went on to intelligence. [1]
For almost ten years, Berg held chief positions within the Norwegian military intelligence. Towards the end of the Cold War (1988–93) he was head of the entire service. In the US, the Norwegian head of intelligence was then regarded as more important than any Norwegian minister of state or foreign affairs, since Norwegian intelligence knew everything about what was happening in northern Russia.[1]
Terrorism
In his obituary, Ola Tunander mentions two episodes Berg:
For Berg, it was important not only to speak out against Moscow's military power, but also against allies, against the heads of American and British military intelligence, who wanted to change NATO's policy several times without there being any basis for it. They would use NATO for own purposes. In the mid-80s, they tried to get NATO to accept the claim that all terrorism was directed from Moscow. This was what the Americans and British were doing in the NATO Central Committee, but Berg then said that we had a recent joint intelligence document on the Irish Republican Army (IRA) which said that IRA was financed "from across the Atlantic". Then the Americans and the British fell silent. They had tried to get NATO to put all the blame on Moscow, but Berg succeeded in stopping that. There was no basis for such claims, and 20 years later he could say, also publicly, that he did not "rule out" that the Americans were quite involved in this business.[1]
"Imminent Soviet attack"
Tunander also tells of how:
In 1988, the American and the British commanders of the military intelligence services claimed at a meeting of NATO's Intelligence Committee that a Russian attack on the West was "imminent". All other NATO states toed Washington's and London's line, as they had nothing to contradict what the Americans and British were saying. But Norwegian intelligence with the signal monitoring from Vadsø had full control over the preparations made on the Russian side. Norway knew that Russian preparedness was low, and that the American and British claims of an imminent war were lies. Berg had integrity and opposed British and American attempts to prolong the confrontation with Moscow. He presented evidence. At the meeting, one after the other went over to Norway's line. NATO had to turn around. For this he was respected – also in the USA. The cold warriors in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Defense here at home [in Norway] also had to turn around.[1]
