Spycraft - Melton [122]
In the late 1960s, a TSD engineer developed a concept that mechanisms within key-operated locks could be measured and characterized remotely by marrying emerging ultrasonic measurement technology with an oscilloscope. Portable oscilloscopes had just been introduced and when combined with a small ultrasonic device, the techs would have a tool they could carry easily to the target, use to measure the lengths of the pins in a lock, and thereby acquire the precise data to make a key.
Once the engineer produced a prototype device that produced accurate calculations, OTS contractors refined the design for a field deployable unit. A year later, after the device proved itself by enabling several surreptitious entries into previously inaccessible targets, Cord Meyer, the Associate Deputy Director for Plans, recognized the engineer with a special award that included a $5,000 stipend. In his presentation, Meyer said he could not mention what was acquired from the entries, but added, “This is the largest stipend the DDP has ever awarded for a technical development. This gadget is right out of the James Bond movies.”
Not all entry operations involved breaking into rooms or safes. HTLINGUAL, for example, was the CIA’s controversial Cold War program that intercepted and examined U.S. mail to and from the Soviet Union.17 Covert mail intercept required skills in “flaps and seals” to open and reseal envelopes, cartons, and packages thought to contain intelligence. “Surreptitious opening” and surreptitious entry shared the common objectives: to get inside a protected area and copy or steal the contents.18 The two primary methods for opening a sealed gummed flap, such as on an envelope, were “dry openings” and “steaming.”19
From 1940 to 1973 the FBI, and later the CIA, conducted covert activities to open and photograph suspect mail in the United States. The earliest techniques of chamfering (mail opening) were taught to the FBI by a friendly Allied intelligence service during World War II. Information obtained from these programs was sanitized to protect against revealing sources and was disseminated to the intelligence agencies, the Attorney General, and the President of the United States.20
As the Cold War intensified, the CIA initiated its mail-opening project in New York to target mail from the Soviet Union. The HTLINGUAL operation was conducted by the Counterintelligence Staff and the Office of Security with TSD’s assistance. Over a twenty-year period, more than 215,000 letters to and from the Soviet Union were opened and photographed in New York.
The New York mail project originated in 1952 with a proposal to scan exteriors of all letters to the Soviet Union and record the names and addresses of the correspondents as a means of identifying U.S. contacts of Soviet intelligence. The project expanded when James Angleton, chief of the Counterintelligence Staff, advised Richard Helms, then Acting Deputy Director for Plans, of a need to open and examine a selected portion of the letters. He advised Helms that there was no capability for “searching for secret writing and/or microdots, or to determine whether items have been previously opened, and to open items sealed with the more difficult and sophisticated adhesives.”21
TSD set up a lab in New York in 1961 to test letters for secret-writing chemicals and to study Soviet censorship techniques. Because technical examination was time consuming, only a small percentage of the letters opened and photographed were actually tested. The Manhattan field office of the CIA’s Office of Security handled most of the opening and photographing. Those who opened the mail attended a one-week course called “flaps and seals” conducted by TSD at CIA Headquarters.
The basic method of opening the mail was simple. First, the glue on the envelopes was softened by steam from a kettle, and with the aid of a narrow stick, the flap was pried open and the letter removed. One of the agents