CHAPTER 9
And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. —John 8:32
—Inscription at the entrance of CIA’s Original Headquarters Building
The death of TRIGON and arrest of Martha Peterson were bitter victories for the KGB. The Soviets may not have known TRIGON had been an active agent for more than four years, but they certainly would have understood the significance of the information he provided. TRIGON did not hold the most senior of Soviet government ranks but had access to documents containing vital national secrets.
Unlike Penkovsky, there would be no public trial during which TRIGON’s pet poodle and South American mistress would be submitted as evidence of “moral degradation” and “individualism.” Worse for the KGB, TRIGON’s suicide precluded any kind of interrogation and follow-up damage assessment of what he may or may not have handed over to the Americans. They would have to assume the worst, and the worst was significant. Throughout his tenure in Moscow, TRIGON had access to some of the most sensitive policy and planning documents in the ministry, including those pertaining to the Soviet negotiating positions during the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks.1
TRIGON supplied the type of vital intelligence that fed directly into the poker game of realpolitik diplomacy and military threat assessment at a critical juncture in the Cold War. It was intelligence that could not be gained from the technology of satellites, the open sources of Soviet media, or a defector who fled across the border at night. It was also perishable information, the sort of intelligence that required continuous refreshing to track shifts in the dynamics of international relations. Only a human agent with the tools to copy documents, record conversations, prepare secret correspondence, and communicate regularly with his handlers could acquire it.
The KGB did not provide accurate details of its investigation beyond those printed as propaganda in Pravda and other government-controlled media outlets. However, from the KGB’s counterintelligence perspective, it was now painfully apparent that the CIA was capable of running agent operations in denied areas, including Moscow. It was as if a banker, supremely confident in his massive safe, alarm system, and armed guards, had suddenly realized a doorway had been cut at the rear of the vault.
There could be little doubt that secrets in Moscow—and the entire Soviet Bloc—were now vulnerable to American intelligence, and technology was playing an essential role. The level of American communications and collection technology evident in the subminiature cameras and the surveillance receiver confirmed a new level of technical capabilities available to American agents and case officers in the field.
For the KGB, early evidence of America’s technical sophistication occurred in 1974 with the discovery of a ground sensor. Concealed as a tree stump near an air force base, the device was crammed tight with electronics capable of capturing and transmitting radio data from the airfield.2Now TRIGON’s roll-up confirmed that advanced technology was also in the hands of agents. Dead drops, signal sites, and one-time pads were still used by the Americans, but operations were evolving. It did not require great imagination by KGB leadership to envision that soon these time-honored pieces of tradecraft would soon be supplemented or supplanted entirely with a new generation of ingenious devices that would move agent communications from the street to the airwaves.
Peterson presented yet another problem for the KGB officers of the Second Directorate. Because she was not a stereotypical case officer by KGB standards, Peterson’s cover work fit cultural and professional expectations of Western women in Moscow. For nearly two years, the immense Soviet security apparatus apparently had not focused on her activities. “When they caught Marty Peterson, I think that opened their eyes a lot,” observed an officer intimately involved with the case.
The KGB had done its best to create a cold, dark, inhospitable arctic-like environment for agent operations in Moscow. For years, both the reality and myth of the KGB’s blanket surveillance capability contributed to caution bordering on paralysis when it came to aggressive operational efforts. However, instructions given the new Moscow chief by his superiors in early 1973 were to “go out there and shake things up.”
TSD chief Sid Gottlieb conveyed a similar message to the techs. “You are not there to fiddle around with the technical gadgets,” he directed. “I’m sending you there to become part of their operations and use our gadgets wherever they think will help.” Over the next two years, the combination of new tradecraft and technical gear would revolutionize the operational environment in Moscow. Fire was being carried to the Soviet arctic.
Traditionally, new CIA officers received a block of basic technical training during the six-month-long intensive tradecraft course required by the DO. This instruction included photography with a 35mm, Minox, and some subminiature cameras; principles of developing and printing 35mm film, lock picking, sketching of operational sites, secret writing, fashioning an improvised concealment, and “burying” microdots. The objective was to introduce case officers to a variety of technical tools and familiarize them with the operational capabilities available through OTS.3
OTS technical operations officers, known as TOOs, who were trained specifically for field assignments, came from all disciplines, including documents, disguise, audio, and secret writing. After acquiring proficiency in each of the other areas, their primary expertise was then matched with the overriding need of an office. In the early 1970s, the prevailing requirement in Moscow was support for covert photography used for operational casing.
Depending on circumstances, Moscow officers would use commercial 35mm or special subminiature cameras to photograph persons or equipment of interest as well as locations for meetings, dead drops, and signal sites. A favorite small camera was the Tessina, which took a half-format image using 35mm film to produce seventy-two exposures instead of the standard thirty-six and featured a spring-wound motor that allowed for one-handed operation and ten exposures before rewinding, eliminating the need to remove the camera from its concealment after each shot. The techs also made concealments for these casing cameras, incorporating them into purses, little leather pouches, and books.
Case officers returning from an operational photography mission, called a “casing run,” would hand over the camera to the tech who would develop and print the film, and then return the camera, loaded with fresh film and in a concealment, to the case officer.
The TOO in Moscow could also fabricate small concealments for dead drops out of fabric, leather, pieces of wood, pipes, dirty work mittens, plastic tubing, or discarded cardboard milk or juice cartons. What the TOO could not do on-site with his supply of hand tools and ingenuity, he accomplished by playing the role of consultant, relaying requirements for covert devices—such as audio transmitters—to a larger OTS tech base outside the Iron Curtain or to Headquarters. A TOO working in a denied area experienced the same pressures as case officers, including drawing surveillance when they shopped in the local market or drove their children to the international school.
The KGB may not have realized the degree to which the Americans were monitoring and exploiting the radio transmissions of its surveillance at the time of Peterson’s arrest. Certainly they had been confounded by the small receiver, no larger than two packs of cigarettes, she carried.4
Development of the SRR-100 began in the early 1970s after a communications tech intercepted transmissions on known KGB frequencies and correlated those with the movement of American personnel. Just as TSD had probed Soviet Bloc mail in the 1960s to understand postal censorship patterns, the CIA now began orchestrating a series of “rabbit runs” to probe KGB surveillance transmissions. A set of scanners identified signals and recorded the transmissions while a dilapidated plotter charted frequencies.
Receiver packages, small enough to be carried under a coat, included a time marker capability so the “rabbit” would push the button when he left the office, then five minutes later, as he took a street to the left, push the button again. Analysis of the marked times and locations were correlated with KGB radio transmissions to determine when the rabbit had surveillance and what frequency was used. Over time, a picture emerged of the type and intensity of surveillance Americans faced and how the KGB coordinated its efforts. Patterns surfaced that defined a standard operating procedure by the KGB, and detailed analysis identified types of behaviors that would likely draw surveillance and which Americans were most closely watched.
Recordings showed that some KGB conversations were in shorthand combinations of terms and numbers. For instance, the term “twenty-one” meant “I have the target in sight,” while some code words described specific people or activities. Brief conversations or even single words would indicate surveillance, while extended silence became a reliable sign they were free of their KGB watchers.
The CIA discovered that their KGB watchers would follow an individual with several different teams. One set would conduct overt surveillance, while the second team would hang back, invisible. Sometimes the surveillants would walk, changing articles of clothing to avoid recognition. At other times, they would rotate colors and models of cars. Surveillance could be in fixed positions located in apartment buildings and offices. “Warming rooms” were provided during winter months where inactive surveillants were put on stand-by should their services be needed.
For the operations officer this meant that surveillance could appear and disappear at almost any time. To know with certainty when one was free of surveillance, even momentarily, was the key to conducting a clandestine act. To take advantage of these transmissions, OTS was tasked to build a concealable, body-worn monitor. Conceptualized by an engineer in the Office of Communications and produced by OTS, the SRR-100 enabled the wearer to eavesdrop on KGB surveillance transmissions.
The first models of the SRR-100 could pick up only a single frequency. To alter frequencies, the TOO had to change out the two-pronged crystal, though once the monitor’s effectiveness was demonstrated, OTS developed a multichannel receiver to keep pace with the KGB’s communication systems. 5
The second half of building an operational receiver for clandestine use was designing the scanner to be covert as well as functional. The scanner had to be small enough not to attract attention on the street when worn under either summer or winter clothing. While transistors could solve this problem by powering a three-quarter-inch-thick receiver that was no larger than a pocket radio, the question remained of how the case officer could covertly hear the transmissions.
Thirty years after the SRR-100’s introduction, it is now commonplace to see the young and elderly walking with headphones and earpieces coupled to devices such as an iPods and cell phones. However, in Moscow, in 1973, an ear bud or headphones—particularly worn by an American—would surely have attracted attention and suspicion. A telltale trace of wiring, no matter how cleverly disguised, trailing from the ear to the shirt pocket of a foreigner on the streets of Moscow would be noticed and reported by the KGB watcher teams.
The solution the techs eventually arrived at was an ingenious use of existing technology, known as an “induction loop.” Based on an electrical phenomenon whose applications may be traced to the mid-nineteenth century, the “induction loop” operates on the principle that electrical currents sent through a wire (loop) generate an electromagnetic field that can be picked up by another nearby wire. Electromagnetic induction is similar to the way vibrations in one prong of a tuning fork cause the other prong to vibrate as well.
Engineers created an induction loop that could be worn around the neck under clothing. The loop in turn was connected to a monitoring receiver worn in a shoulder harness under the armpit. For women, the device could also be placed in a special purse with the shoulder strap containing the induction loop. The loops performed double duty, acting as both an antenna receiving surveillance intercepts and a transmitter that sent intercepts to the receiver. The receiver included another, much smaller, loop mounted in an earpiece resembling a hearing aid. Barely larger than the head of a cotton swab, the commercial device was manufactured by the Swiss hearing aid company Phonak.
Although the earpiece was small, it was not small enough to be worn on the street without the possibility of attracting attention. “The earpiece had an obvious a problem,” said one OTS staffer who was involved with the design. “You couldn’t be seen wearing a piece of plastic in your ear without drawing attention.” So OTS disguise specialists produced a “Hollywood solution.” After taking a casting of a case officer’s ear, they fashioned a false, silicone ear that fit over the Phonak receiver. Realistic down to the last detail, the covering was sculpted and tinted to duplicate the shadow of the ear canal. Each case officer received four earpieces, two for the right ear and two for the left ear. Officers could insert the receiver into the ear canal and place the ear mold in front to cover the device.
In addition to masking the earpiece, the sham ear exterior offered another benefit. The sculpting was done with such precision that it not only held the listening device firmly in place without adhesive, but also blocked out ambient street noise, rendering the Russian transmissions more intelligible.
Over time, OTS experimented with other methods for transmission surveillance. In one design, the smaller induction coil was placed in a smoking pipe, called “the Tooth Fairy.” The case officer could hold the pipe in his teeth and “hear” through bone-conducted vibrations transmitted along his jaw to his ear canal. Another engineering concept using bone conduction called for incorporating the Phonak circuitry into the bridge of an officer’s set of false teeth.
Within two years, the technology had progressed from correlating KGB radio communications with surveillance to being able to identify locations and activities of surveillance teams. A case officer could now walk out on the street, monitor the transmissions, and know with certainty whether or not he had surveillance. “When I heard that transmission and knew I’d been called out, I knew I was, for whatever reason, of some interest to them on that day,” said a tech about his Moscow experience. “I didn’t know whether or not they were calling me out to a surveillance team that was waiting around the corner or because they needed instructions about whether I was a target that day. I just knew that if the transmissions continued, they were looking at me. If the transmissions ceased, I knew there was a good chance I was free. And if the transmissions resumed later, I knew the KBG had me back on their active list.”
The CIA’s accumulated operational experience combined with OTS technological countermeasures revealed that the KGB surveillance apparatus, while daunting, was by no means perfect. A key to operational success became patience, as case officers learned that weeks, even months, of routine activity in pattern and profile, was often necessary to set the stage for a single clandestine act.
In time, case officers discovered that even under surveillance they could sometimes go black—vanish from sight—for relatively brief periods without setting off alarm bells. Soviet-style clothing, for instance, might be enough to blend into the population for relatively brief periods of time—just long enough to perform an operational act—and pop up again in view of the watchers, who no doubt breathed a sigh of relief. Personnel in Moscow called this “operating through the gap.” Such risky acts depended on a well-established pattern of travel, so that when the officer briefly disappeared the KGB surveillance teams would assume that it was their error to have lost him.
By the early 1980s, those skeptical that the CIA could operate in Moscow had been silenced with several remarkable clandestine successes. Viktor Sheymov, a brilliant engineer from the KGB’s Eighth Directorate (communications security and signals intelligence) had been smuggled out of the USSR with his wife and daughter in May 1980.6 A. G. Tolkachev was reporting regularly about advanced Soviet aviation developments during clandestine meetings in Moscow.7 Although TRIGON had been lost in 1977, he, along with another agent, code-named AEBEEP, a GRU general, had been handled successfully inside, and new technical collections systems were being deployed. Technology was melting some of the iron in the Iron Curtain.