Spycraft - Melton [103]
Regardless of whether the audio operation was “hardwired” or used a radio transmitter, each installation required a carefully planned entry into the target and the right tools to the job. Secure, temporary control of the target site was also required to provide time for installation, including running and hiding wires, constructing antennas, testing the system, and restoring any damage done to the surroundings. These exacting tasks could not be rushed. Frequently the work was done at night and in semidarkness. Excessive noise by the techs or the equipment could draw attention and lead to compromise. No debris or tools could be left at the site for later discovery and wires run through public areas were in danger of discovery. The job was akin to wiring a house for cable television without the occupant or his neighbors ever noticing.
To minimize installation time, TSD developed a portable installation device with a razor’s edge that allowed the tech to slice open the wall, “bury” two wires only slightly larger than a human hair, and then close the opening. The compact “Fine-Wire Kit” could be operated with one hand. In addition to efficiency, the device provided a means to place wires in sections of open walls where no better concealment options were available.3
Given a choice, the techs preferred hiding wires behind wooden baseboards or chair-rail molding where they were less likely to be discovered and fewer restoration problems arose. For that purpose techs were issued a lightweight, aluminum “baseboard puller.” L-shaped like a small pry-bar,the baseboard puller came in two sizes, the smaller version less than a foot long. It could provide sufficient leverage to create a gap between the wooden molding on a wall large enough to slip the thin wires behind without damaging or leaving marks on either the wall or baseboard.
Potential locations for concealing an eavesdropping device exist in every office or conference room. 1. Picture frame. 2. Behind speaker grille of TV. 3. Table lamp. 4. Brace below table leg. 5. Cigarette lighter. 6. Ashtray. 7. Telephone. 8. Overhead light.
For audio techs, operations in the early 1960s became more numerous, complex, and increasingly audacious. Unstable Third World governments, especially in Africa where colonial governments transferred power to local authorities, added personal risk to clandestine activity. The techs, like other American visitors, were frequently viewed suspiciously and considered to be in league with the “colonialists.”
Audio operations came to the personal attention of President Eisenhower following the downing of CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers’s U-2 aircraft over Svedlovsk in the Soviet Union on May 1, 1960. Before the incident, the techs planned audio operations against the Soviet officials who would be accompanying Premier Khrushchev to the scheduled May 16 European summit meeting with President Eisenhower. The techs bugged several hotel rooms assigned to the Soviet attendees with mic and wire devices. When the summit collapsed after Khrushchev’s public denunciation of U.S. spying, the techs received word that the President himself had a “collection requirement.”
Eisenhower, the techs were told, wanted information about what the Soviet reporters from the TASS news agency knew about the cancellation and when they knew it. The President wanted specific information when he met the following morning at breakfast with his security advisors.
In fact, among the bugged targets was the room of the chief TASS correspondent. The “audio take” from conversations in the room revealed that the correspondent had telephoned Moscow after the cancellation to refile the story about the summit that he had written before departing Moscow. The audio operation left no doubt in the minds of the techs that the TASS official did not know in advance that Khrushchev would call off the summit.
Only infrequently did techs receive feedback on the value or use of the “take.” Strict standards of “need-to-know