Spycraft - Melton [193]
In the course of disassembling and reassembling the components, Parr examined the electronic circuit board, took photos, and made sketches. The device contained components he had not seen in terrorist devices, revealing a new type of timing device that subsequently appeared in other bombs as a trademark for a particular PLO bomb maker.
“You deserve a medal,” the chief told Parr as he departed.
“I don’t think so,” Parr replied, “I’ve spent most of my life in Vietnam and Laos making devices that help kill people. It seems a little ridiculous to give me a medal when I disarm a device.” Nevertheless, a few months later, based on the recommendation of the chief, Parr did, in fact, receive the CIA’s Intelligence Star for “a voluntary act of courage performed under hazardous conditions.”
In December 1988, John Orkin was heading an OTS unit responsible for conducting technical design and performance assessments of spy equipment deployed against American targets by the Soviets or other adversaries. These devices were usually discovered either through technical surveillance countermeasures or acquired from a friendly liaison service.
Typically, Orkin’s engineers analyzed each recovered device to determine its country of origin, function, materials, design, and capabilities. This was no easy task, since intelligence organizations routinely mask the country of origin of a device by “sanitizing” spy gear. Since a bug found in the wall of a diplomat’s office was not usually stamped MADE IN THE SOVIET UNION or came with an instruction manual, Orkin’s job was to figure out how a mysterious device worked, who made it, and how it might have been deployed.
With a well-equipped suite in the sprawling OTS covert laboratory outside Washington, Orkin joked that he was far enough from the Langley Headquarters to do “real engineering work” without interruption or micro-management. The lab was largely immune from the crisis-to-crisis atmosphere that dominated many intelligence operations.
Orkin began his CIA career during the early 1970s evaluating OTS equipment. Responsible for testing every piece of spy gear produced by OTS before certifying it for deployment to the field, the unit functioned as the Agency’s in-house “Underwriters Laboratory.” Far removed from the glamour associated with agents, spies, and back-alley intrigue, testing the frequencies of transmitters and battery life of communication devices in a government laboratory seemed a world away from the frontlines of espionage.
The certification of OTS devices and analysis of hostile gear involved both elements of reverse engineering and similar testing procedures. However, during the 1970s, analysis of foreign devices was an ad hoc affair. “As a device was recovered the lucky engineer-of-the-day got assigned the project to test and write a report on how the foreign equipment performed,” explained Orkin. “We were dealing with mostly technical surveillance equipment—microphones, transmitters, communication and concealment devices. Eventually it became apparent that we were reinventing the wheel with each analysis. When a device came in, we often didn’t remember if we’d seen the same thing three years before or if there was already a report in the file. So, one of the engineers finally said, ‘Give them all to me. I’ll do the work.’ Over time he became the in-house repository of knowledge about foreign equipment.”
Eventually, this led OTS to establish a unit with expertise in reverse-engineering foreign equipment and a proficiency in spotting patterns that accompanied technological evolution. Although the