Inside the CIA (6 page)

“It’s okay to recruit Israelis, mostly military officers, meaning paying them,” a former operations officer said. “That began gingerly after Angleton.”

The reason is the CIA wants to make sure that Israel is not taking steps that might suck the U.S. into a war.

Besides recruiting a key agent with critical information, the greatest success an operations officer can have is penetrating the communications of a country, either by bugging an embassy or obtaining the codes to its communications. Usually these are team efforts, and the plaudits go to many. Soviet successes in penetrating U.S. communications have been well publicized—the bugging of the new and old American embassies in Moscow and the recruitment of former Navy warrant officer John A. Walker, Jr., who provided the Soviets with codes to classified naval communications.

But what of CIA successes? There have been a number of them, most of them secret. Over the years, the CIA has planted bugs in or obtained the codes of a number of Soviet and Soviet-bloc embassies, as well as the codes of embassies of other countries, to cite just one category. For all the rivalry among the directorates, when cooperation is really needed, they work well together.

“The goal was to bug all the embassies [of hostile countries],” said a former CIA officer who was involved in providing technical assistance for these jobs. “You try to get it while it’s building. If it is not possible to penetrate an embassy electronically, the next best thing is to recruit someone—the cleaning force or whatever—and have them bring you material from the embassy. A break-in at the embassy would be stupid. If you jimmy the safe and it is discovered, they are alerted. You find someone who has access to it and bring it out each day. That way, life goes on.”

In penetrating these communications, the CIA has learned of diplomatic initiatives before they are broached, the plans of KGB officers, and identities of Americans working for the KGB.

Usually, a break-in at a local embassy is directed by the local station chief. The Office of Technical Service within the Directorate of Science and Technology supplies the bugging devices or other technical paraphernalia needed to do the job—the tools of the spy trade. For example, the CIA may break into an embassy and photograph the key cards that are used each day to decrypt secret messages. In this case, the Office of Technical Service may supply the cameras, lock-pickers, and installers of bugging devices. But for all the technical skill required, the most important ingredients for an operation of this kind are resourcefulness and courage, demonstrated when the CIA bugged a Chinese Communist mission.

W
HEN THE
C
HINESE
C
OMMUNISTS AND THE
S
OVIETS EACH
decided to open new missions in Asia, the Directorate of Operations assigned Howard T. Bane to find a way to bug the new offices. Bane is as far removed from the original Ivy League image as one can get. Standing five feet nine and a half inches and weighing 172 pounds, Bane has a florid complexion and a raspy voice. His temper is legendary. He chews tobacco and smokes a cigar. Bane attended Georgetown University but flunked out, then went to a junior college to get his grades up. He eventually graduated from George Washington University with a degree in government and international relations.

Bane had an exceptional operational mind, intelligence lingo meaning he was a phenomenally good spy. He had intelligence, imagination, common sense, and an ability to foresee problems, solve them, and go on to the next job. He could recognize opportunities when they arose and create them
when he needed them. Because of his exploits, he received the CIA’s Distinguished Intelligence Medal.

Like many officers who joined the CIA during the Korean War, Bane did not give his decision a lot of thought. Bane had been a diver in the Navy, and a CIA recruiter considered this useful background for operating in the war. Bane began in 1950 as a GS-5 filing clerk. The CIA soon sent him to Korea as an operations officer under military cover. There, he ran operations aimed at rescuing pilots who had been shot down.

Bane served in India and Bangkok and was chief of station in Ghana, Kenya, and Amsterdam. Later, he became chief of operations for Africa, special assistant to the CIA’s deputy director for operations, and finally chief of counterterrorism.

Not every CIA officer is big on bugging. It takes a tremendous amount of time to plan an operation, operations that can be extremely risky and sometimes yield paltry results. In one infamous effort to install a bug in an embassy in Southeast Asia, the CIA got only the sounds of birds chirping. Nor are telephone taps—as opposed to bugs that pick up sounds in rooms—particularly useful. Often, the local intelligence service helps the CIA by placing wiretaps. They may give an idea of the daily activity of opposing intelligence officers or which ones are vulnerable to recruitment, but they seldom provide much in the way of secrets. Soviets, in particular, tend to be not very gabby, although their wives may be.

With either bugs or wiretaps, the tapes take time to transcribe. Usually, a translator on site gives a rapid assessment of what is being said, but the tapes are sent to Washington for transcription. Yet for all the trouble, if well placed, a bug—known in CIA lingo as an audio operation, an audio op, or a technical penetration—can do wonders to let the CIA know just what the other side is up to.

When he was based in Washington, Bane agreed to try to bug the new missions. Since the Soviets and Chinese planned to rent or buy existing buildings, the key would be to determine in advance which properties they might acquire. Bane would then try to bug the buildings before the diplomats moved in.

Pretending to be a State Department administrative official looking for space for the U.S. consulate, Bane came up with a list of a dozen buildings the Soviets and Chinese might be interested in. Meanwhile, Bane arranged for a “quick plant”—a temporary, easily installed bug—to go in the hotel rooms where the Chinese and Soviet officials who were looking for their new quarters would stay. That way, Bane was confident, he would hear them discussing their plans.

Bane decided the diplomats would have to stay in one of five major hotels in the city.
*
He and an officer from the Office of Technical Service stayed in each one and waited until maids left their master keys in guests’ doors. The two CIA men made an impression of the keys and sent them to a CIA Office of Technical Service location in Europe. There, technical officers fabricated a master key for each of the five hotels. Using the keys, Bane entered guest rooms and helped himself to lamps from each hotel. He sent the lamps to the office in Europe, which made replicas of the lamps with transmitting devices concealed inside.

When the Soviet and Chinese diplomats checked into one of the five hotels, Bane exchanged the lamps in their rooms for the bugged replicas. But the effort did not work. Bane could listen to the diplomats’ conversations, but the diplomats never discussed which specific site they would like to acquire for the new missions.

Meanwhile, Bane had gotten in touch with a local real estate broker whose business included office buildings for diplomats. Bane told him what he wanted and agreed to pay him for the information. Thus, the man became an agent of the CIA.

Taking no chances, Bane also decided to bug the house of a KGB officer who had come to town posing as a
Pravda
correspondent. The man spent most of his time helping the Soviet diplomats look for a suitable location.

When the KGB officer was out, a CIA technical officer surreptitiously entered his house and scraped a sample of paint from the wall in his living room. Later, the technical officer
returned and installed a transmitter inside a wall. To conceal the sound of drilling, the officer used a “silent drill” developed by the CIA to mute the sound of drilling with a minute spray of water.

The CIA officer connected the listening device to an electrical switch in the wall, so it derived its power from house current. After he installed the device, the officer plastered over the hole in the wall and painted it, matching the old paint perfectly. A pinhole made after the wall was painted conveyed sound to the microphone in the transmitter, which beamed its signal to a nearby listening post.

As it turned out, this failed also. To Bane’s consternation, the KGB officer usually conducted his business outside his home and said nothing useful while on the air.

Before each bug was installed, CIA headquarters approved the plan. Sometimes the CIA decides such an effort is too risky and vetoes the idea. The agency also rules on the level of sophistication for the bugging device. Usually, this depends on how important and sensitive the operation is. The more important, the more likely the most advanced device will be approved.

With the help of the local real estate agent who was now on the CIA payroll, Bane decided that the Soviets and Chinese would most likely settle on two buildings. One was a fifteen-room private home owned by an Asian. The other was an office building next to a golf course.

Bane decided that both buildings should be bugged. By this time, the real estate agent Bane had recruited was working with the Chinese and Soviets almost daily to help them find a place. Bane told him he should push the two locations.

Meanwhile, Bane arranged to meet the son of the owner of the house by having an intermediary introduce them at a bar. Bane knew that the man liked to go to good restaurants, so he invited him to an evening out with his wife. After they had become regular companions over a period of weeks, the man introduced Bane to his father and mother, the owners of the house. Bane began wining and dining them as well.

The CIA approved Bane’s proposal to bug the fifteen-room house, but decided the British should be given the task of
bugging the office building. Because a British company owned the building, CIA headquarters figured MI-6 would be in a better position to do the job.

By now, Bane had recruited the son of the owner of the house as an agent, paying him $1,000 in cash as a start. He was ready to pull off what he hoped would be a major success for the CIA. Bane told the son to tell his father that Bane had a friend who was an Italian movie director. The movie director wanted to rent the place for a week so he could polish a screenplay. He would be bringing a couple of movie stars with him. Bane offered to pay the man’s father and mother to move to a hotel for a week. In addition, Bane would pay $5,000 for renting the compound.

As the man conveyed the offer to his parents, Bane alerted Office of Technical Service officers in Europe. He sent them photographs of the inside of the house. Seven officers were assigned to the job.

The owners of the home agreed to the offer. When they moved out, the CIA people moved in. Bane replaced the padlock on the front gate with a CIA lock. Bane also arranged a code with the real estate agent. If anyone was coming to look at the home, he was to phone and say a prearranged phrase. As it turned out, just before the officers were to leave, the Chinese wanted to visit the home. The agent called Bane and gave the signal. Horrified, Bane told him not to let them in.

The Chinese drove up to the home in limousines. The agent tried to open the lock on the gate but found his key would not work. The Chinese would have to come back the next day.

After working steadily throughout the week, the CIA officers had outfitted the entire mansion for sound. The transmitters beamed their signals to a listening post three hundred yards away. Some of the bugs worked off house current, while others had long-lasting batteries. They could be turned on and off remotely to conserve power and further conceal them. If they heard any indication that a sweep might be in progress, the monitors turned them off.

To add a little credibility to the cover story, Bane left the
bottoms of two bikinis on the clothesline—evidence that the Italian movie stars had stayed at the home.

After the Chinese finally saw the home, they agreed to rent it. Meanwhile, the Soviets took the office building. The British, however, had done a poor job of bugging the building. The bugs did not work, and the effort was a failure.

Bane set up a listening post some one hundred and fifty yards from the Chinese Communist compound. For the next several years—until the Chinese found a new location—the CIA was able to listen to every conversation in the mission, including those in the code room.

The information was a treasure trove for the CIA. Unlike the Soviets, the Chinese tended to share overall strategies with their embassies. The CIA was able to learn in advance of the Chinese Communist government’s diplomatic overtures and plans, as well as relationships the Chinese had with local officials and with the Soviets.

This is the kind of success that thrills CIA operations officers and wins them awards—the kind that only rarely becomes known. It is one reason CIA officers repeat the maxim “Our failures are publicized; our successes are not.”

If there is any success that surpasses bugging a sensitive diplomatic post, it is recruiting a high-level official or intelligence officer who is willing to continue to work for his own country. That gives the CIA the benefit of being able to instruct the agent to obtain information according to the CIA’s needs. Short of recruiting a high-level official in the Kremlin, nothing could be more sensitive than recruiting a KGB officer in the Soviet embassy in Washington.

T
HE BROWN BRICK OFFICE BUILDING AT 6551
L
OISDALE
Court in Springfield, Virginia, is hardly the sort of place where James Bond would make his headquarters. With tiny vertical windows, it is the plainest of structures, the lobby decorated with thin, slate-blue carpeting and cheap blondwood doors. Known as the Spring Mall Building, the structure could not be more inconspicuous or less inviting—which is the point. For it was from this building that the CIA and the FBI recruited the first KGB officer inside the Soviet embassy in Washington.