Spycraft - Melton [29]
When the spike, still loaded with the one-time-pad and commo instructions, arrived back at Langley, the receiving CIA officer put it in his office safe. Several months passed before he got around to returning it to TSD. As he walked into the lab, a Geiger counter sitting on a nearby shelf sounded. The spike registered as highly radioactive.
Illustration showing the emplacement of a hollow-spike concealment at a dead drop site in a park or wooded area.
The investigation that followed concluded that the KGB had entered the diplomat’s safe, removed the spike, extracted the contents, and impregnated the one-time pad with cobalt 60. It was estimated that the OTP contained enough radioactive material that a standard Geiger counter could register its presence through a brick wall. “That kind of experience makes counterintelligence very real,” said the officer in whose safe the spike had been stored. “When all of a sudden you realize you’ve been sitting eighteen inches away from a device emitting radiation for months, you understand what the Soviets are capable of. Anyway, the Agency’s Office of Medical Services gave me a lot of close attention for the next ten years.”12
For a decade after Penkovsky’s death the combined intense pressure from the KGB and scrutiny by the Agency’s own Counterintelligence (CI) staff caused a virtual cessation of agent operations in the Soviet Union. Headquarters placed severe limitations on recruiting and handling agents inside the USSR. Field officers could not instigate or engage in any operational activity without prior Headquarters review and approval. While officers could express opinions, by saying, for instance, “We don’t like that drop site because . . . ,” Headquarters made all final decisions.
Given such restrictions, recruiting agents in countries bordering the Soviet Union became the priority focus, but even those opportunities were so infrequent that any reasonable lead merited immediate attention. In 1968, a Russian-speaking case officer assigned to Headquarters received orders to make an immediate, unexpected a trip to Helsinki. There was a possibility that a Soviet target would become available. The officer waited in vain for a month in Helsinki for the Soviet to arrive, then returned home empty-handed. There was no other choice. With so few prospects, any potential opportunity received urgent attention.
Consequently, defectors, émigrés, and legal travelers to the USSR became important sources of intelligence. But these assets were, almost by definition, often far removed from the political and military centers of power or technical institutes. Only a spy near the center of power—given the ability to communicate securely with his handlers—offered the potential for a reliable stream of quality intelligence.
A tightly held secret among the elite of the CIA’s Soviet Russia Division and Counterintelligence staff was the reality that neither the United States nor its allies could confidently recruit and securely handle Soviet agents unless they were able to travel outside the USSR. Frustration over Moscow’s severely constrained operational environment remained with officers long after they retired. “I was in Moscow for two years in the mid-sixties following the loss of Penkovsky, and to my knowledge, we unloaded only one dead drop during that entire period,” said a veteran case officer. “In those twenty-four months I never had a ‘sit-down’ dinner or a private visit with a nonofficial Soviet. I spoke good Russian but was never invited to a Russian’s home. I traveled all over the country, and the only contacts I had were with people who, the minute they found out I was with the American government, either literally ran or turned their back on me and walked away out of fear.”
Those occupying senior positions at Langley shared the frustrations felt by CIA officers stationed in Moscow.