Spycraft - Melton [81]
The job of identifying the best potential access point fell to CIA field officers who studied more than a dozen manholes along Varshavskoye Shosse (Warsaw Boulevard), a busy thoroughfare near Moscow’s outer ring road. However, like all Moscow operations, any actions to survey the manholes required exacting planning. How many times could Americans travel to the target locations without alerting the KGB surveillance teams? Could clandestine photography of the sites be acquired? How closely could a manhole be examined without attracting attention?
In the final determination only a handful of ground reconnaissance and casing trips were authorized. Each trip—either on foot or by car—required detailed planning, disciplined tradecraft, and, perhaps most important, timing calculated to avert suspicion. For an American to drive along a particular stretch of road outside his normal pattern of travel five times in a week was certain to tip off the ubiquitous KGB watchers that something about the area was of interest to the CIA. The few authorized casing runs required the participants to create new patterns of travel and eventually took more than two years to complete.
The essential casing photography was acquired with OTS concealed Tessina cameras. With high-altitude images, casing photos, and sketches, the Moscow office worked up a three-dimensional view of the CKTAW target site, including close-ups of notable features. Target sites along the heavily trafficked Varshavskoye Shosse were narrowed down as one target manhole after another was rejected. The specific manhole eventually selected for an entry point was in the worst possible location, except for the fact it was better than all the others.
The area along the narrow treeline that bordered Varshavskoye Shosse became one of the most carefully plotted and studied pieces of real estate on the planet. Details of the manhole, located just off the roadway, were painstakingly examined. Among potential problems were the worrisome 120-acre open field opposite the target, and a hostile installation belonging to the Second Chief Directorate visible on a hill two kilometers away. One positive feature was the treeline that ran parallel to the roadway. Although less than fifty feet wide, its foliage offered good ground cover for approaching the manhole from May through October.
Depiction of proper technique for successful clandestine photography from inside a moving automobile, 1960. OTS continually improved spy cameras, but the techniques for taking quality photos remained unchanged.
Over several months, CIA officers covertly examined, photographed, and briefly entered the manhole. These operations allowed them to gauge the difficulty of removing its cover, measure the dimensions of the underground chamber, the depth of the ground water at the bottom, and confirm that the communications cables were accessible from a small steel utility ladder set permanently into one wall. The Soviets had not only shielded the cables in lead, but also installed sensors and alarms to detect any tampering. To tap a cable clandestinely meant not touching the actual transmission wires or compromising the integrity of the lead sheath encasing them.
Tapping the cable was a daunting challenge. So important was the potential intelligence carried over the line that in 1977, the CIA authorized an unprecedented, technically high-risk, and costly development program to do just that.
Technical expertise required coordination among multiple engineers to design and build the equipment and an interface among the developers and operations officers who would install and service the equipment. The operation included several DDS&T offices, a DO Division, and the National Security Agency. Management of CKTAW’s technical development resided with the DDS&T’s Office