a.s.signed to Alaska with his fishing buddy, George became the most supervised employee in the CIA. As the only case officer in Anchorage, he was managed by both the Chief of Station and the Deputy Chief of Station. The three were there because Alaska, like Germany, was seen as another critical point into which the Soviet Union could launch hostilities. From a base just across the Bering Strait, Soviet pilots would regularly probe the Distant Early Warning line of U.S. radar and other air defenses protecting the U.S. western and northern borders. However, when budget cuts. .h.i.t the tiny intelligence outpost a year later, George was ordered back to Washington where, on that early November day in 1962, he deciphered the message that signaled Penkovsky"s capture.
George spent the next two years in SR Division, running a modest number of peripheral operations and learning pa.s.sable Russian before securing a Moscow a.s.signment where he worked for two stressful but operationally uneventful years. Returning to Headquarters in the mid-sixties Saxe found a changed att.i.tude in the SR Division. Despite the paralysis that gripped operations against Soviet targets, there was a new determination within the ranks of the SR officers to challenge the KGB on its own turf. The idea was to begin taking some risky, but carefully calculated initiatives that would, with luck, lead to productive operations.
Shortly after Penkovsky"s arrest, with Moscow operations all but dried up, a Soviet engineer had walked into an American Emba.s.sy outside of the USSR and offered his services. By way of bona fides, he brought with him images that detailed Soviet missile capability. With pressure not to make a mistake, the station provided the "walk-in" with a basic commo plan that included instructions on how to receive shortwave coded messages via OWVL, but no follow-up contact was authorized.
The lead had grown cold by the time George learned of the case. Sensing that an opportunity to reactivate the proposal remained, Saxe received approval to initiate an operation. No one gave him much chance of success, and the pa.s.sage of time had only complicated an already complex situation. Even if the walk-in wasn"t a provocation, even if he could be recontacted, and even if he responded, the Moscow office had little ability to sustain communications.
Added to these problems was the fact that the volunteer had specified that he could provide detailed technical intelligence, specifically engineering drawings. It was difficult enough to pa.s.s printed or handwritten doc.u.ments securely inside the USSR, but large blueprints presented special problems. Technical drawings could not be paraphrased or readily copied by hand, and they could not be removed from the facility for any significant length of time without triggering security alarm bells.
Out of necessity, the plan George developed departed markedly from operational tradition. First, the operation would be run not from the Moscow office, but out of SR Division at Headquarters. Second, there would probably be no face-to-face meetings. In all likelihood, the agent would never again talk with an American.
George was determined that the operation be handled exclusively through impersonal communications to lower both the political and security risks. "What would happen if this turned out to be a provocation? We could lose one of our few case officers in Moscow. And then what happens? It goes up to the Secretary of State who calls the Amba.s.sador," explained George. "What does the Amba.s.sador do? He raises holy h.e.l.l. He yells at the office chief, "You CIA cowboys are out there upsetting Soviet-U.S. relations! We have enough trouble with the Soviets without you jacka.s.ses going out and doing something on the street with a guy you know nothing about.""
Aside from the risks of a diplomatic flap, there was also the safety of the agent to consider. The material was so specialized that if the KGB intercepted it, the agent could quickly be identified as the source.
George, although a case officer, was still an engineer at heart with a natural affinity for TSD. Working with the techs, he devised a one-of-a-kind communications plan. "For two years I spent half my time working on this one guy and working with TSD people," George recalled. "The agent had access to a laboratory where blueprints for missiles were reproduced, and he could get 35mm reproductions of their engineering drawings of missiles."
The plan that TSD engineers and George eventually devised was not simple, but ensured the safety of the agent.
TSD mail probes of the Soviet postal system had shown that a nonpolitical, inoffensive message from an American tourist on a postcard back to the U.S. attracted little attention from the censors. Conversely, a postcard or letter from a Soviet citizen going overseas warranted a more careful look. Without revealing the source or purpose of the request, encouragement went out to U.S. officials in Europe to buy black-and-white picture postcards, common across the Soviet Union, whenever they were traveling in the country. The postcards, of the variety favored by tourists, featured images of Russian landmarks, such as the Hermitage, the Kremlin, and Red Square. The postcards were sent to Langley and filled out by staffers with messages typical of an American tourist visiting the Soviet Union. The cards were then returned to the Soviet Union and dead dropped to the agent for use with his new commo plan.
Addressed to accommodation addresses in the West, the recipient"s only connection to the Agency was a "sterile" phone number to call when a card arrived.
The dead drop for the agent also contained a long portion of what TSD engineers called "stripping film." Originally created for satellites, the high-resolution film was eventually rejected for the s.p.a.ce-based program because the thin, light-sensitive emulsion layer was easily peeled away from the thicker plastic backing. Once separated from the backing, the film resembled the type of clear plastic wrap used to keep leftovers fresh in the refrigerator. Big Technology"s excess film became TSD"s operational treasure.
To create a covert image, the agent would transfer a standard 35mm image onto the larger-format stripping film by making a "contact print." This involved placing 35mm negatives of the missile plans firmly against the stripping film and briefly exposing them to light. After developing the large-format film, the agent then bleached the image to a nearly transparent white and stripped away the backing. If done with precision, one postcard-sized transparency would hold up to nine 35mm images. In the final step, the agent fastened the clear plastic film to the front where the detailed diagrams, now bleached on the film"s emulsion, vanished against the images of Russian tourist attractions. The finished product, which looked like any other postcard printed on glossy paper stock, would attract little notice from the postal censors. However, the agent had to accomplish all this in his tiny Soviet apartment that offered little or no privacy.
Since mating a covert picture with a postcard was a complex procedure, George, the engineer, spent two weeks learning the process before writing up step-by-step instructions in Russian.4 He went back and forth with native Russian linguists on every word to confirm that the message would be clearly understood. Satisfied that he had both mastered the technique and accurately described the process in Russian, George turned his attention to the trusted one-way voice link radio. A brief OWVL message told the agent that a package had been put down at a secure dead drop site. Inside the package, the agent found his instructions: He went back and forth with native Russian linguists on every word to confirm that the message would be clearly understood. Satisfied that he had both mastered the technique and accurately described the process in Russian, George turned his attention to the trusted one-way voice link radio. A brief OWVL message told the agent that a package had been put down at a secure dead drop site. Inside the package, the agent found his instructions:5 .
IN THIS PACKAGE WE HAVE INCLUDED A ROLL OF SPECIAL "STRIP-PING" FILM OF APPROXIMATELY 90MM. OPEN THIS FILM PACKAGE ONLY IN A DARK ROOM USING A SAFELIGHT. USE THIS FILM TO MAKE CONTACT COPIES OF YOUR 35MM NEGATIVES WHICH YOU WISH TO SEND TO US.
CUT OFF A PIECE OF THE FILM, SLIGHTLY LONGER THAN A PHOTOGRAPHIC POSTCARD. ARRANGE AS MANY OF YOUR NEGATIVES AS POSSIBLE ON THIS PIECE OF FILM (EMULSION TO EMULSION WITH THE 35MM NEGATIVES ON TOP). BE SURE THE 35MM IMAGES DO NOT EXTEND BEYOND THE SURFACE OF THE POSTCARD.
USING A 100 WATT LIGHT BULB POSITIONED ONE METER ABOVE THE 35MM NEGATIVES, THE EXPOSURE TIME SHOULD BE A FEW SECONDS. WE HAVE PROVIDED YOU WITH EXTRA FILM SO THAT YOU CAN EXPERIMENT TO OBTAIN THE BEST EXPOSURE TIME FOR MAKING GOOD COPIES.
DEVELOP THE EXPOSED FILM USING ANY HIGH QUALITY FILM DEVELOPER AVAILABLE TO YOU. ONCE YOU HAVE DEVELOPED, FIXED, AND WASHED THE FILM CONTAINING COPIES OF YOUR 35MM NEGATIVES, THEN PROCESS THE FILM IN A BLEACHING SOLUTION UNTIL THE 35MM IMAGES ARE TOTALLY BLEACHED OUT AND THE FILM IS AGAIN COMPLETELY CLEAR AND THERE IS NO SIGN OF THE LATENT 35MM IMAGES. WASH THE FILM THOROUGHLY.
PRACTICE THIS PROCEDURE USING A BLANK CARD (NOT ONE OF THE PRE-WRITTEN POSTCARDS WE HAVE PROVIDED YOU) UNTIL YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE ENTIRE PROCESS AND ARE SATISFIED WITH THE FINAL APPEARANCE ON THE PRACTICE POSTCARDS.
CAREFULLY DAMPEN THE PICTURE SIDE OF A POSTCARD WITH WATER TO SOFTEN THE PHOTOGRAPHIC EMULSION, TAKING CARE NOT TO WET THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE POSTCARD WHERE THE HANDWRITING WOULD BE. THEN WHILE THE PIECE OF SPECIAL FILM IS STILL DAMP, GENTLY SEPARATE THE EMULSION FROM THE FILM BACKING. THIS "STRIPPING" FILM IS MANUFACTURED TO ALLOW REMOVAL OF THE EMULSION WITHOUT DAMAGE. PLACE THE EMULSION SIDE OF THE POSTCARD SO THAT THE SURFACE OF THE EMULSION WHICH WAS FORMERLY IN CONTACT WITH ITS FILM BACKING IS NOW IN CONTACT WITH THE POSTCARD EMULSION. STARTING AT THE CENTER OF THE POSTCARD AND WORKING TOWARD THE EDGES GENTLY PRESS OUT ANY AIR BUBBLES OR EXCESS MOISTURE TO ENSURE COMPLETE CONTACT. PLACE THE POSTCARD ON A SMOOTH, FIRM, DRY SURFACE, AND THEN PLACE CLEAN BLANK SHEETS OF ABSORBENT PAPER ON TOP OF THE POSTCARD AND ADD A BOOK OR SOMETHING SIMILAR TO ALLOW THE POSTCARD TO DRY WHILE PRESSED FLAT.
WHEN THE POSTCARD IS COMPLETELY DRY, TRIM OFF EXCESS FILM EMULSION ALONG THE EDGES OF THE POSTCARD AND CAREFULLY INSPECT THE POSTCARD TO ENSURE THAT IT APPEARS NORMAL IN EVERY WAY AND THAT THERE IS NO SEPARATION OF THE FILM EMULSION FROM THE POSTCARD.
WHEN YOU HAVE PREPARED ONE OF THE PRE-WRITTEN POSTCARDS, ADD THE APPROPRIATE STAMP, MAIL IT IN AN AREA THAT IS VISITED BY FOREIGN TOURISTS.
UPON RECEIVING ONE OF YOUR POSTCARDS, WE WILL RECOVER YOUR 35MM IMAGES USING ANOTHER PROCEDURE.
Each element of operational planning and preparation had required time-consuming, exacting attention to detail, but the work paid off. Images of top-secret Soviet missile blueprints began arriving in U.S. mailboxes in large cities and rural communities. The recipients, who had agreed to help the Agency out of a sense of patriotism, could not have suspected that some of Moscow"s greatest secrets were pa.s.sing through their hands.
At Langley, the bleached images of engineering drawings were reconst.i.tuted at TSD using specialized equipment to produce high-quality prints. The first batch of images convinced both counterintelligence and Soviet-weapons a.n.a.lysts of the agent"s access, and as production continued, the operation was declared a major intelligence success.
The stream of technical information on Soviet missile design came at a point in the Cold War when knowledge of missile capability was a major requirement for the intelligence community. Yet the most serious operations have lighter moments. During one briefing, George sat in a conference room with ten a.n.a.lysts studying a copy of missile design blueprints. "I remember we couldn"t read every digit. The a.n.a.lysts were looking for serial numbers and parts numbers and those types of things. As hard as they tried they couldn"t be confident of every letter and number. Finally in frustration one of the a.n.a.lysts blurted out, "I hate to be critical of you guys in operations, but for Christ"s sake go out and buy the guy a better camera.""
George recalled, "The a.n.a.lyst is thinking that we handed this guy a cheap Pentax camera. I remember what we went through to get those images back and what the techs had to come up with technically and operationally. Think about what the agent had to do and the pressure he was under. So all I could do is laugh when this a.n.a.lyst offered a solution to the part of the problem he saw. "Spend an extra three hundred bucks and get us a little bit clearer image. ""
Later, as the operation matured, the agent communicated that he would be visiting a missile test site and offered to try to recover a piece of a spent missile. Soviet military materials were veritable "gold" for Department of Defense and CIA weapons a.n.a.lysts since the material"s composition could yield otherwise un.o.btainable intelligence about a weapon"s capability, design, and production processes.
The agent advised that officials of his rank traveling on government business were allowed to buy quant.i.ties of goods and foodstuffs from regions outside the cities and bring those purchases back home. This made it common practice for officials to travel with large empty suitcases to fill with local items such as meats, cheese, fish, vegetables, and other hard to obtain delicacies. The area of the missile test range, the agent noted, happened to be famed for its herring, exactly the type of fish that his family enjoyed. Since he would take two large cases to fill with herring for family and friends, there would certainly be enough room in one of them for a small piece of rocket a.s.sembly.
So important was the acquisition of a fragment from an operational missile that Langley approved a high-risk clandestine moving-car delivery on the streets of Moscow. The plan instructed the agent to arrive at a predetermined site in an alley that also served as a through street. The alley had no lights and the meeting would be scheduled for a moonless night. The agent, carrying a shopping bag, would hide the missile part under whatever was available at the market that day and remain at the location no longer than five minutes.
On the appointed afternoon, an American whose pattern of activity frequently involved early-evening shopping and a drink at one of the hotels catering to Western businessmen drove away from his house. As usual, KGB surveillance fell in behind the car, maintaining a polite distance.
For more than three hours, the American attended to routine activities with surveillance trailing behind. After finishing a nightcap consisting of more tonic than gin, he headed home at an unhurried speed. With surveillance hanging back at a steady fifty meters, the American a.s.sured himself there was ample distance for what would come next. After five more minutes of driving, surveillance did not close the gap. Apparently they were not going to "b.u.mper lock" this evening, but neither were his KGB watchers going to abandon their surveillance. With both cars maintaining their respective speeds, the American concluded the surveillance vehicle was far enough back. This was the moment. If wrong, he would be signing the agent"s death warrant.
Making an abrupt right turn down an alley that served as a shortcut to his house, the American"s car was shielded temporary by three-story buildings on either side for a few seconds. Surveillance could see neither the brake lights blink nor the car"s three-second pause in the darkened alley. As the KGB team rounded the corner, the American was driving just a bit slower due to the narrowness of the alleyway and a few minutes later parked at his residence.
The next morning"s report by the surveillance team no doubt included details of an uneventful evening. No mention would have been made of a darting shadow that appeared from a hidden doorway at the very instant the American"s car turned the corner or that an old shopping bag was dropped through the open window on the vehicle"s pa.s.senger side.
That same morning George smiled as he deciphered an ops cable advising that a courier had departed Moscow that day for Washington with a special delivery. His package weighed somewhat more than normal for hand luggage and had a slightly fishy odor.
In part, because of his work in developing the sophisticated commo plan that yielded the valuable missile diagrams, Saxe was appointed special a.s.sistant to the chief of Soviet Operations in 1967. This new post not only took advantage of Saxe"s skill at creating commo plans, but also his ideas about using technologies that could finally make operations possible inside the USSR.
Sid Gottlieb, now heading TSD, recognized in George exactly the kind of ops officer that would a.s.sure the long-sought "relevance" of TSD to operations. George was one of the few case officers in the Soviet Division willing to spend time on technology and agent communication. While most of his colleagues wanted to make their career in recruiting agents, George possessed no aspirations to become the DDP or the DCI. He genuinely liked the techs and saw the value in what they could do for operations.
Six miles away from Langley, across the Potomac River at the TSD headquarters, George was able to translate the basic concepts of denied-area operations to TSD engineers who possessed little, if any, operational experience. The quandary was how to reveal the needed information about an operation without violating compartmentation. Seemingly minute details, such as an agent"s military rank or nation of origin, could breach security.
But without those basic facts, how could TSD techs know what type of camera to propose? Issuing a $1,200 camera in 1970s to an agent inside the USSR would surely attract unwanted attention. Suspicions might also arise if the agent, who had not been abroad, suddenly acquired equipment not available on the Moscow market. These were precisely the small but significant details TSD needed to understand. The techs needed to know what types of equipment, such as cameras or radios, an agent, based on his salary and status, could easily own in his country. Conversely, from the case officer"s point of view, high-quality images required better cameras, but only an informed tech could explain the necessary technical and security tradeoffs. SR Division officers would need to reveal more about the ops to the techs, and the techs would have to honor that trust.
Mastering operational requirements for equipment was no small thing, particularly for operations behind the Iron Curtain. To the case officers it sometimes seemed engineers operated from principles of design that were in conflict with covert operations. Engineers are schooled in the design of industrial and consumer products so that form usually follows function. The can opener in a kitchen and the ratchet wrench in the workshop look the way they do because engineers chose the most logical design solution. Spy gear inverts that concept. For clandestine use, function must often adapt to forms that disguise the true nature of the device. The challenge for TSD engineers was to design a can opener to look like a shoe, a vase, or a tube of toothpaste-anything but a can opener-and they had to do it without sacrificing any of the can opener"s functions or reliability.
One of SR Division"s early concealment requirements came to TSD during 1967 when operational planners needed a dead drop container for pa.s.sing money to an agent. Moscow officers collected brick fragments from the dead drop area to match the color and texture of the local masonry. Even the brick collection operation required careful scripting, since Americans in Russia did not stop their cars and jump out to pocket a few random stone fragments from a construction site without prompting questions from KGB surveillance.
While the Moscow office concerned itself with finding brick fragments, another officer was dispatched to Switzerland to obtain nontraceable and well-circulated small denomination rubles. The TSD lab worked on fabricating a hollow "brick" and compacting a wad of money to go inside.
Its work completed, TSD called George to the lab for a look at the brick. What he found was a beautifully constructed concealment, matched in color, texture, and dimension, thanks to the brick fragments. Every detail was perfect, until George picked it up. It felt light as Styrofoam.
"This won"t work. Go back to the lab. Get a real brick and weigh it. Your brick doesn"t have to be precisely the same, but it has to be close," he told the TSD staff. "I don"t care if you put lead in it or whatever you have to do. I know you have to make it hollow and large enough for the wad of rubles, and that paper is lighter than brick material, but whoever picks it up has to believe they"re holding a brick."
What George wanted-and what the operation required-was a "brick" that fit into the environment in every way possible. It was not good enough that it simply looked like a brick. It had to be be a brick to anyone who accidentally came across it. The critical question was: If you put it down in the playground, would a ten-year-old boy come over and pick it up and say, "Boy that"s a light brick," or would he say, "That"s just an old brick," and throw it away? Would a construction worker who picks up rubble all day say, "That doesn"t look or feel right"? This was the degree of protection required to handle agents inside the USSR and the product quality demanded from the TSD. a brick to anyone who accidentally came across it. The critical question was: If you put it down in the playground, would a ten-year-old boy come over and pick it up and say, "Boy that"s a light brick," or would he say, "That"s just an old brick," and throw it away? Would a construction worker who picks up rubble all day say, "That doesn"t look or feel right"? This was the degree of protection required to handle agents inside the USSR and the product quality demanded from the TSD.
Getting money to agents in denied areas was, in fact, another ongoing problem. Operational security dictated that higher denominations of rubles were more likely to arouse the suspicions of shopkeepers or bartenders, who could report the unusually large notes to the KGB. However, for a dead drop concealment to remain inconspicuous there was a limit to its size. George took TSD a stack of twenty-ruble notes with the requirement to figure out a way to fit the Soviet currency into the smallest cubic inches possible. At the TSD lab, the engineers devised a combination shrink-wrap, vacuum-packing technique that compressed hundreds of ruble notes into a roll that felt like a stone of solid paper. That single process eventually enabled SR officers to pa.s.s millions of rubles in small concealments to the agents.
A few months later, a top-level Soviet scientist, acting on instructions from his OWVL message, approached a high-voltage transmission tower outside of Moscow. There, as instructed, he picked up a brick at a specific location that matched the dead drop description he was given. Something must be wrong, the agent concluded, because this was identical to all the other bricks scattered around the area by workers who erected the tower. Discarding the brick, he headed to the bus for the journey home wondering what had gone wrong.
Russian counterintelligence image of a CIA Cold War dead drop rock container and contents, late 1970s.
Closed CIA rock concealment of the type used to pa.s.s instructions, cameras, and money to agents, late 1970s.
Several anxious days pa.s.sed as the case officer awaited confirmation that the agent had successfully "unloaded" the dead drop. Then came word that the agent had indeed gone to the site, but no "special" brick had been seen. An OWVL broadcast quickly followed, reiterating the instructions with a.s.surances that the ordinary-appearing brick he had discarded was indeed a very special one. It was a modest, but important success.
"The guys in TSD were technically adept, but they were coming over into the operational lion"s den," remembered George. "We who did Moscow operations were the most security conscious part of the whole SR Division, which was the most b.u.t.toned-up part of the CIA. I mean it was tight and TSD never had the benefit of having a tech a.s.signed in Moscow or dealing closely with denied-area case officers in operational planning. At first they didn"t realize all the little points we were always thinking about, worrying about."
A new way of thinking about the operational environment and technology in denied areas was required of both case officer and engineer. For case officers this meant understanding that technology used in satellites could be adapted and applied for operations on the streets of Moscow or Leningrad. For TSD"s engineers this meant experiencing the realities of operating in the denied area and integrating that knowledge into the design of clandestine gear. Success demanded that much of the traditional compartmentation of laboratory development from the field operations end.
SECTION III.
IN THE Pa.s.sING LANE.
CHAPTER 7.
Moving Through the Gap
Adversity is a good teacher.
-Russian proverb The U-2 spy planes and Corona satellites that produced spectacular new intelligence from their successful first missions overshadowed the slow evolution of technology used by human spies in the early 1960s. TSD chief Sid Gottlieb, who replaced Russell in 1966, remained unwavering in this belief that technology would become an integral role in agent operations. During Russell"s four years in the division, the two officers had become lifelong friends and shared the view that the KGB"s ma.s.sive security apparatus was vulnerable to U.S. technology. In the predigital, a.n.a.log environment of the mid-1960s, this confidence in technology was not routinely accepted in the DDP.
Gottlieb continued to rely on George Saxe to bridge the gap between the operations and technology. As case officers began to use the increasing store of TSD equipment available, new problems arose. One recurring dilemma was communications between case officers and engineers. The cultural divide between the pragmatic engineers of TSD and the "liberal arts types" in the DDP was one not only of background, but of language.
Technology brought with it a vocabulary that was not always clear to the outsider. The potential for confusion was compounded by the already colorful espionage vernacular. This was ill.u.s.trated when a case officer asked TDS to fabricate a "phone tap." What he wanted was a device that logged the numbers dialed for outgoing calls to identify the contacts of a target. Hearing the words "phone tap," TSD built a system that covertly taped the target"s conversations but did not collect the numbers dialed.
Gottlieb understood the necessity for operational compartmentation, but technical requirements had to be precisely translated if TSD was to build the right gear. Misuse of words, misunderstanding of technical concepts, lack of clearly defined operational requirements, and excessive application of compartmentation all contributed to operational failures. George"s job was to make sure that SR"s operational needs were well defined and clearly communicated to the engineers of TSD.
One significant step that Gottlieb took to bridge this gap was to invite George, as a representative of the SR Division, to TSD"s annual retreat. Convened at a covert testing and training facility on an island off the East Coast, the event was a chance for senior scientists, engineers, and craftsmen to let their hair down. A seemingly small thing in retrospect, George"s presence caused a stir at the time. "They"d sit in an auditorium in a group and say things like, "What I don"t like is that this group over there is not providing me the kind of support I need to do my job" or "We have a new idea with a contractor, and we need fifty thousand bucks, but can"t get the money,"" recalled George. "So when I showed up, guys were pointing at me and saying, "Who let him in? An operations guy listening to us talk about our problems? " Gottlieb told them, "We need to have more trust with operational elements that we support. If he goes back and tells his people we have some problems, what else is new?" That was an effort by a very smart director of TSD to break down the wall and get a better flow of information. I can"t overemphasize how revolutionary that was to people in TSD."
The a.s.signment of two senior DDP officers, Everett C. "Neal and Quentin Johnson, as Gottlieb"s deputies, also served to build bridges between the technical and operational. Johnson had firsthand knowledge of the dangers surrounding denied area operations, having served as one of the princ.i.p.al CIA case officers handling Penkovsky a decade earlier.
As head of TSD, Gottlieb began shaking things up inside the Division. He inst.i.tuted a program of daily operational briefings in a conference area that became known as "the situation room." "Every afternoon beginning at about four, the bosses had to go to the situation room," recalled a chemist. "On one wall hung a huge map of the world with pins representing a tech, somewhere, doing something operational. Those responsible for secret writing would not normally hear about audio because the individual operations and targets were compartmented. But with this briefing, TSD chiefs were forced to think about the problems and requirements faced in other disciplines."
Gottlieb had little tolerance for personality differences or rivalries within the Division. When long-simmering tensions between two TSD chiefs showed no signs of dissipating, he put them in the same office. "They shared a small office, their desks faced each other, head to head," recalled a TSD staff member. "Sid was quoted as saying, "They may refuse to talk to each other, but by G.o.d, they"re going to sit there and look at each other all day."" Gottlieb"s personal attention to the TSD "family" became legendary. He called staff and officers on their birthdays and remembered spouses and hobbies. "It sounds hokey, but he had a touch with that kind of thing," said a TSD chemist. "It came across as, "The boss knows me.""
As TSD and Soviet Russia Division were beginning to mesh internally, a bureaucratic and political turf war raged among the CIA"s senior officers. From its inception, TSD had been a part of the Agency"s operational directorate, but with the formation of the Directorate of Research in 1962, the organizational position of TSD became a matter of debate.1 DCI John McCone believed that all Agency technical capabilities should be centralized. Conversely, Richard Helms, Deputy Director for Plans at the time, opposed moving TSD to the new directorate and argued successfully that operations needed a technical component "as their right arm." Helms then became DCI, and, for the next decade, TSD remained in the operational directorate. DCI John McCone believed that all Agency technical capabilities should be centralized. Conversely, Richard Helms, Deputy Director for Plans at the time, opposed moving TSD to the new directorate and argued successfully that operations needed a technical component "as their right arm." Helms then became DCI, and, for the next decade, TSD remained in the operational directorate.
President Nixon moved to replace Helms by nominating James Schlesinger in December 1972 as the successor. Schlesinger became DCI in February 1973 and almost immediately initiated a major reorganization of the Agency. TSD was realigned from the DO to the DS&T.2 The move also brought TSD a new name: Office of Technical Service (OTS) and a new chief from the DS&T, John McMahon. Gottlieb retired in May 1973. The move also brought TSD a new name: Office of Technical Service (OTS) and a new chief from the DS&T, John McMahon. Gottlieb retired in May 1973.3 The internal turbulence was soon matched by controversy on Capitol Hill. When OSS veteran William Colby followed Schlesinger as DCI, political clamor about the CIA"s activities in the 1950s and 1960s erupted.4 In December of 1974, In December of 1974, The New York Times" The New York Times" investigative journalist Seymour Hersh revealed evocative CIA "crypts" (cryptonyms), like MHCHAOS and MKULTRA, and described past operations within the United States. investigative journalist Seymour Hersh revealed evocative CIA "crypts" (cryptonyms), like MHCHAOS and MKULTRA, and described past operations within the United States.5 One of the most damaging revelations was the Agency"s involvement, along with the FBI, in opening the mail of U.S. citizens. One of the most damaging revelations was the Agency"s involvement, along with the FBI, in opening the mail of U.S. citizens.6 As a result, both Congress and the Ford administration conducted investigations. The Church Committee in the Senate, the Pike Commission in the House of Representatives, and the presidential-appointed Rockefeller Commission each examined past CIA activities deemed illegal, improper, or misguided. As a result, both Congress and the Ford administration conducted investigations. The Church Committee in the Senate, the Pike Commission in the House of Representatives, and the presidential-appointed Rockefeller Commission each examined past CIA activities deemed illegal, improper, or misguided.7 Intent on making a full disclosure, Colby released sensitive and previously closely held operational details referred to as the Agency"s "family jewels."8 Ordered by Schlesinger, the "family jewels" doc.u.ments had been hastily compiled in 1973 during the Watergate inquiries. Colby made the highly cla.s.sified material available to a Senate committee headed by Frank Church. He then unintentionally provided an impromptu visual coup for the Church Committee on September 16, 1975, by displaying an ominous-looking pistol called a Ordered by Schlesinger, the "family jewels" doc.u.ments had been hastily compiled in 1973 during the Watergate inquiries. Colby made the highly cla.s.sified material available to a Senate committee headed by Frank Church. He then unintentionally provided an impromptu visual coup for the Church Committee on September 16, 1975, by displaying an ominous-looking pistol called a Nondiscernible Microbioinoculator. Nondiscernible Microbioinoculator. The press dubbed the weapon "the CIA dart gun." In fact, it was not a CIA device, but the result of a Fort Detrick research and development program. The weapon, along with others developed by the Army, had been sent to Langley and other elements of the intelligence community for evaluation and comment. The press dubbed the weapon "the CIA dart gun." In fact, it was not a CIA device, but the result of a Fort Detrick research and development program. The weapon, along with others developed by the Army, had been sent to Langley and other elements of the intelligence community for evaluation and comment.9 Colby had taken the pistol to the committee meeting, thinking it would be of interest as a curiosity, a miscalculation that inadvertently and permanently linked the Agency to the weapon. Colby had taken the pistol to the committee meeting, thinking it would be of interest as a curiosity, a miscalculation that inadvertently and permanently linked the Agency to the weapon.10 Information about CIA activities from reports of the Church Committee and the Rockefeller Commission provided a more complete picture of post- World War II U.S. intelligence than had ever been seen. Several OTS officers were investigated or subpoenaed as a result of their partic.i.p.ation in drug testing projects, a.s.sa.s.sination planning, mail opening, or support to Nixon"s "White House plumbers" in the Watergate break-in. Eventually all of OTS"s activities were found to have been part of approved operations, and not a single OTS officer was found guilty of any wrongdoing.
While Washington was preoccupied with the politics of scandal, technology was advancing at lightning speed. Personal computers, called "micros" in the parlance of the day, were entering the mainstream. Once the domain of hobbyists and large organizations, these new systems, with their unwieldy five- and eight-inch floppy disks, pointed toward an unexplored world of digitally stored information. The future could also be glimpsed in the hands of teenagers playing a video game called "Pong" from a new company with the strange name: Atari. In U.S. research labs, scientists were laying the digital groundwork for the "wired world." ARPANET, a Department of Defense-distributed computer network, was quietly expanding into a communication system that would evolve into the Internet within two decades.
For OTS, the question was, how quickly could viable and reliable spy gear be built integrating this new technology? Like their OSS R&D counterparts, OTS engineers recognized that technology flowing from private industry could meet intelligence requirements. Technology for espionage seemed poised to match the imaginations of screenwriters who dreamed up fictions such as The Man from U.N.C.L.E The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Mission: Impossible Mission: Impossible. A "pen communicator" or a "self-destructing" taped message seemed plausible. The transistor, which had revolutionized audio surveillance operations a decade earlier when it supplanted the vacuum tube, was now being replaced by the microchip. The reliable, affordable Xerox copier ended the labor-intensive need for OTS techs to photograph, develop, and print copies of sensitive doc.u.ments agents secretly lent to case officers. For OTS, the question became which one of the technologies to pursue.
Early in 1975, an OTS scientist was invited to the lab of an engineer in another part of the Agency. "I have a technology you guys really ought to look at," explained the engineer. At the lab, the OTS scientist saw an experimental setup that allowed for storage and retrieval of relatively large amounts of digital information in a very small sphere. Aptly named "bubble memory," the storage technology could be used to create a new short-range agent communications (SRAC) device.
At the time, SRAC systems could store and transmit only a limited number of characters. With bubble memory, it might be possible to store and transmit entire pages of data. The scientist proposed the project as a practical solution to the communication problem. A few days later, he received an estimate of fifty thousand dollars to build a bench model of a bubble memory module for a SRAC device. Even more quickly, the answer came back-"That"s too much money"-and the project wilted. Eighteen months later, funds appeared, but too late for bubble memory, which was already overtaken by the inexpensive and adaptable Read Only Memory (ROM). Literally, technology was advancing faster than the government"s funding process.
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. .h.i.t 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 doc.u.ments 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 cla.s.sified 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 s.p.a.ce.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.