Spycraft - Melton [91]
CHAPTER 12
Cold Beer, Cheap Hotels, and a Voltmeter
If it ain’t audio, it ain’t shit.
—Unofficial motto of audio techs
They were called audio techs and for more than two decades—from the 1960s until the 1980s—they were at the top of an unofficial OTS caste system. Aggressively mounting hundreds of audio surveillance operations around the world, these few hundred officers worked on the frontline of Cold War espionage. Their missions took them from European capitals to the most remote destinations on the globe, responding to stations that saw an opportunity to “collect audio.”
Although CIA audio operations inside the borders of the primary Cold War “hard targets” (the USSR, China, Cuba, North Korea, and North Vietnam) were severely limited by internal security services, conditions in Europe and Third World countries were far different. In these countries, clandestine audio operations could be launched against the residential quarters, official buildings, and embassy compounds of the hard-target countries. This was particularly true in the Third World where security was often less stringent than in major European cities.
When operations levied a “requirement,” it was expected a tech would catch the next plane for Paris, Rome, West Berlin, or a Third World country in turmoil whose new name had yet to be printed on maps or the new leader’s visage on currency. The techs worked under aliases as businessmen, military personnel, or adventure-seeking vacationers, becoming whatever allowed them to blend in with other travelers and provided the most effective cover. A tech might get off a plane in a South Asian country, spend a week planting a bug, then fly home for the weekend, change identities, and find himself in Africa by Monday evening.
Their exploits and sophisticated gadgetry rivaled the popular fictions of globetrotting intelligence officers. OTS audio techs slipped into basements and sewers to tap phone and communication lines, moved silently over roof-tops, walked narrow beams through the crawl spaces of attics, and scaled the walls of fashionable villas in the dead of night. They were sent into diplomatic compounds, business offices, residences, hotel rooms, limousines, airplanes, and boats to plant audio devices. Accurate and sometimes embellished accounts of their operational adventures established what would become known as the tech culture, eventually defining, for better or for worse, all OTS techs regardless of their clandestine discipline. Among the most enduring of these professional and personal attributes was the techs’ seemingly unwavering fondness for cheap hotels and cold beer.1
There were practical reasons for what could be perceived as “less than sophisticated” tastes among these world travelers who commonly logged more than 100,000 air miles annually and were away from home 150 nights a year. Although government employees on official travel were not permitted to accumulate frequent flier miles, they were allowed to keep any funds left over from the daily government food and lodging allowance.2 The resourceful techs found they could supplement their modest salaries by staying at inexpensive hotels—a type of lodging that became known throughout the Agency as “tech hotels.”
More important, the techs’ choices when it came to accommodations and beverage made sound operational sense.3 Whereas case officers traveling abroad needed to match their selection of accommodations with their cover position and operational role, techs usually wanted to get in and out of town while keeping the lowest possible profile. As a rule, they maintained erratic schedules, working when the target was accessible, regardless of time, weather, or holidays. If that meant access to a consulate or embassy could be obtained only after it closed for business, then the tech’s workday would likely begin at nightfall and end before dawn. Whatever bargain lodgings may have lacked in comfort or basic amenities, such as heat, hot water, or a private bathroom, they made up for by way