Spycraft - Melton [287]
14 Images and an operational description of the kit appear in: Melton, CIA Special Weapons and Equipment, 75.
15 After a “woods metal” (commercially sold as Cerebun) copy of the key had been made, it was placed in a key-cutting machine to copy the “key cuts” onto a stronger key blank. This key was then available to be used operationally. For images and a description of the kit see: Melton, CIA Special Weapons and Equipment, 76.
16 For images and descriptions of TSD lock picking kits, see: Melton, CIA Special Weapons & Equipment, 73, and Melton, Ultimate Spy, 114-115.
17 Details of HTLINGUAL are presented in the U.S. Senate, Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, Final Report, Book III. 1976.
18 For a detailed description of the TSD “Flaps and Seals” course, see: Mendez, The Master of Disguise, 72-76.
19 Gardner, Picks, Clicks, Flaps and Seals, 93. The “dry” process involved separating the two sides of the glued flap with an ivory tool, and required more training and practice. The “steaming,” which softened the glue with steam to allow it to be opened, was easier, but more hazardous. There was always the possibility that the steam would affect the script, and if the envelope was tinted, the dye could run or change color.
20 Ibid.
21 See: U.S. Senate, Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, Final Report, Book III.
22 Ibid.
23 This decision, the amount of time techs would be in the target facility, went to the heart of operational planning, affecting the activities of both the tech and the case officers. Sometimes this was moot due to the target. A vacant building may offer unrestricted time. An occupied office building usually dictated a “quick plant” job. In other examples, a three-hour installation in an apartment could be accomplished by a ruse that temporarily drew the occupants out for the evening. However, that would also likely mean the audio would be a single bug with no redundancy and left no margin for installation complications or errors. A multiday installation actually could become more complicated, requiring separate operations to assure vacancy of premises, sustained countersurveillance, and logistical supplies for the audio team. Advantages included a less pressured schedule, opportunity to emplace multiple bugs, time to test system performance, and margin to correct errors.
24 Using more than one microphone and recording each “channel” separately allowed the signals to be individually filtered and amplified to achieve a result comparable to turning one’s head to hear a sound or conversation coming from a different part of a noisy room. “Audio steering” was accomplished by increasing or decreasing the amplification of the differing sound channels to focus on specific conversations.
25 The efficiency of a device, component, or system in electronics and electrical engineering is defined as useful power output divided by the total electrical power consumed (a fractional expression).
26 The 1980 Moscow Olympics that were boycotted by the United States ended the operation. Late in the spring of 1980, the Soviet government ordered a general clean up of Moscow prior to the Olympics. The shacks were declared public eyesores and razed. The wood block and transmitter along with the table were buried in an unknown dumpsite.
27 Oleg Kalugin, The First Directorate: My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 261.
28 Victor Cherkashin, Spy Handler: Memoir of a KGB Officer (New York: Basic Books, 2005), 194.
29 Based on interview with former KGB communications security officer living in the West.
30 Ibid.
31 By the 1990s, classical audio