Spycraft - Melton [134]
Once the NLJD technology was known, the United States countered with techniques to neutralize its effectiveness. The KGB found that bugs planted near naturally occurring junctions such as electrical sockets, rusty nails, or sections of walls containing pieces of dissimilar metals touching each other were “a nightmare for detection.30 Certain components were coveredwith a variety of hybrid coatings to mask the circuitry within. Improved shielding techniques for audio packages rendered the devices invisible to KGB countermeasures, including the NLJD.
“We worried a little bit, and put additional filters in the circuits to keep the radio frequencies out,” said Kurt. “We were always trying to shield them anyway, so the extra filtering became an incremental improvement. I don’t think we lost many of our devices to nonlinear detection.”31
Once the SRT audio systems were widely deployed, the CIA’s capacity to process the “take” from the hundreds of installations worldwide became a continuing problem. Every audio op required listening post keepers and translators. Although much of the audio contained nothing of intelligence value, someone had to listen to the tape to make that determination. The promise of good intelligence from an audio installation often exceeded the results.
“I recall, over a ten-year period, fifty percent of the audio operations were terminated every year, and probably half of those shouldn’t have gone forward in the first place,” said one senior manager. “For a few years people were getting a feather in their cap because they were involved in an audio op. A case officer felt he really could not be promoted until he had run an audio op. That was part of the case officer checklist.”
A study done by the same manager concluded that 5 percent of all audio ops produced 95 percent of all valuable information. But even that number was tricky. Some compared audio operations to diamond mining, the invaluable gems are found only after sifting tons of dirt.
For most of the last twenty-five years of the Cold War, audio dominated OTS operations. However, the emergence of computer-based information systems and cellular technologies in the 1980s and early 1990s created new target opportunities and eventually lessened the dependence on traditional audio for obtaining private conversations or communications. The target’s technology, as well as the person, became an object of recruitment.
CHAPTER 15
Genius Is Where You Find It
The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it.
—Dr. Vannevar Bush, “As We May Think,” The Atlantic Monthly, July 1945
Espionage novels and movies devote few pages or minutes of screen time to the scientists and engineers who create spy gear. The notable exceptions are James Bond movies and the British gadget-master Q. Acting as the proper British foil to Bond’s more colorful persona, Q invariably anticipated Bond’s technical needs for each mission even as he fussed and fretted over each piece of equipment that left his lab.
Contrary to Q’s uncanny ability to provide Bond with just the right gadgetry no matter how vague the mission, specific operational requirements preceded the design and deployment of OTS devices. In fact, operational requirements drove much of the innovation in the same way competition in consumer products pushes companies to the next level of technological sophistication with their products. Noteworthy is the fact that innovation in clandestine gear is motivated not by market share or quarterly profits, but by the need to ensure the survival of agents and officers. This remains as true today as it was for Lovell and the OSS during World War II.
Through the decades, the Agency had remarkable success in consistently acquiring the required technologies and expertise. By necessity and tradition, OTS sought its devices from a surprisingly wide range of suppliers. Over the years spy gadgetry has been produced by high-profile business leaders