Spycraft - Melton [125]
An operation to bug a Czech intelligence officer in Europe almost never got to proposal stage. Headquarters rejected the station plan to send a tech on an after-dark walk around the target property to survey windows and doors, assess security, and observe activity in a neighborhood not frequented by Americans. The tech did not, Headquarters pointed out, have sufficient cover and plausible reason to be in that part of the city at night. The tech and case officer agonized for a couple of days then sent a brief cable, “If caught the tech will admit to being a thief. Then we will go to the local service and get him out of jail.” Headquarters reversed itself and approved the operation.
Techs, with their predilection for improvisation to get a job done found the glamorous locales often offered the least amount of operational freedom. “In Europe it seemed you had levels and levels of Agency management all wanting to review and second-guess every piece of a plan, and there was always concern about diplomatic niceties,” remembered one tech. “In Africa, we shot a little more from the hip—the case officers did, too, and I think we got a lot more done. We liked working down there and in South America. In Europe we sometimes felt smothered by a lot of tradition and scrutiny.”
A tech stationed in Central America during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 undertook an ambitious operation to penetrate a Soviet embassy. After learning that the Soviets used a particular shop for typewriter repair, a case officer recruited the shop’s owner. The next Soviet typewriter that came in was “lent” to the tech who disassembled the machine and installed a transmitter into the platen. Once back in the embassy, it was hoped the device would pick up sensitive conversations near the machine while audio analysis of the striking keys could potentially reveal individual letters or words.
Surveillance confirmed that the Soviet diplomat picked up the typewriter and took it back into the embassy. The plan was working, and after enough time elapsed for the typewriter’s return to service, the tech sent a “turn on” signal to the device and heard . . . nothing.
The following morning, a CIA asset observing the embassy’s entrance watched a Soviet emerge carrying a typewriter high above his head. With a theatrically extravagant flourish, he heaved the offending machine into the trash. For some unknown reason the bug had been detected and the audio operation thwarted, but wariness of the Americans’ capability was raised to a new level. After the incident, Soviet case officers were not allowed to type their reports; all had to be handwritten.
Another operation made possible by miniaturization of audio devices assisted a foreign government in catching a Soviet spy. John Kennedy was President when a Northern European security service called on TSD with an unresolved problem. A Soviet diplomat, a suspected KGB officer, had begun meeting regularly with a senior government minister. While the meetings had legitimacy based the official duties of the two men, the security service suspected the minister of also spying for the Soviets. Yet, their investigations had turned up no hard evidence of espionage.
The alleged KGB officer was cagey and professional. He met the minister openly at expensive, well-known restaurants, ostensibly to discuss legitimate diplomatic matters. Several times counterintelligence officers had notice of a planned meeting and plotted with the restaurant’s manager to install monitoring equipment at the table where the Soviet would be seated, though the ploy never seemed to work. In some instances, the Soviet canceled reservations at the last moment in favor of an alternative location. In other cases, the KGB