Spycraft - Melton [51]
Another compelling technology quietly emerging was the Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) developed by researchers at Bell Labs in the late 1960s. Originally conceived as a memory storage device, each CCD chip is made up of an array of light-sensitive capacitors. As photons hit the CCD, an electron is dislodged, creating a small electrical charge to form a pattern that varies in degree to the intensity of the light. By focusing light through a lens, the pattern becomes well defined, similar to the chemical reaction of photographic film. A software program that “remembers” where individual charges are located creates the picture. Instead of the image’s resolution being determined by the size of the silver grains on the film, the number of capacitors (or pixels) defines detail. In 1974, OTS began building its first digital imager. Rather than copying documents with film cameras, the idea was to replace film with a linear array of imaging sensors from the emerging CCD technology. With a modest investment through a classified contract, OTS engineers worked with a team of scientists at a leading American electronics company to develop a “camera” that would work as well in an agent’s hands as the KH-11 imagers (cameras) worked from space.11
It would take more than ten years for a product to emerge, a remarkable black box called a “filmless camera” that captured and stored digital images. More important for clandestine operations, the “black box” contained a feature for digital transmission of the electronic images, turning the camera into a two-way covcom device. By 1989, OTS had a piece of spy gear that worked like a cell phone’s digital camera.
Advances in technology both radically reduced size and increased capabilities of spy gear. Size reduction expanded possibilities for concealment, minimized power requirements, and improved an agent’s ability to conceal it, carry it, dead drop it, and use it. “Can’t we make it smaller?” and “Why is this so big?” may have been the most frequently asked questions of OTS engineers.
CHAPTER 8
The Pen Is Mightier Than the Sword (and Shield)
Q: What is a Soviet trio?
A: A quartet returning from an overseas tour.
—1970s underground Soviet humor
In 1973, a Soviet diplomat stationed in Colombia entered the steam room of the Bogotá Hilton. A few minutes later, another man casually joined him and struck up a conversation in Spanish. The Soviet was Aleksandr Ogorodnik, a member of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the other a CIA case officer. What appeared to be a chance meeting in an unlikely location was actually part of a finely coordinated plan to recruit Ogorodnik to spy inside the Soviet Union.
An economist with a specialty in Latin America, Ogorodnik had access to information about Soviet policy through his diplomatic status and assignment. Here was a chance for the United States to learn what the Soviet leadership was thinking and planning for its Latin American policy. If successful, this operation could provide sustained, detailed intelligence on Soviet plans and intentions not available from satellites.
Soviet officials were more accessible in countries outside the Soviet Union, but recruiting them was still no easy task. As much as possible, the Soviets tried to create a security cordon around their diplomats. Soviets living abroad were watched carefully by their own security officers stationed in the embassy, who, ever alert for a hint of the smallest political crime, would make note of something as harmless as attending a foreign movie. Soviet missions were laced with stukachi (informers) eager to curry favor with superiors by reporting any trivial transgression. Soviet diplomats were required to report even a casual conversation with Americans to the security officer at the KGB rezidentura (station) inside the embassy. Most complied with the restrictions because, compared to conditions in Moscow, foreign living was luxurious. These diplomats had prospered under the Soviet regime and guarded their elite status jealously.
However,