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<\/center> <\/p>\nYes, the APF on this operation – particularly during the tunneling and tap placement – was indeed high.\u00a0 Cojones muy grandes<\/i> required.<\/p>\n
Introduction<\/span><\/p>\n Operation Gold was a joint operation conducted by the US and British intelligence services. \u00a0The British had conducted a similar operation in Vienna, Operation Silver<\/a>, which allowed them to tap cables leading to the Soviet military headquarters in the then-Soviet occupation sector of Austria.\u00a0 (Operation Silver continued until the Austrian government resumed sovereignty at the end of Allied occupation in 1955.) The British proposed conducting a joint operation to do the same in Berlin if a suitable location could be found at which to place taps.<\/p>\n Doing so would provide a windfall of intelligence on Soviet intentions in Germany and Eastern Europe.\u00a0 This intelligence take would include not only voice communications, but also secure military message traffic.\u00a0 Though US cryptographers had apparently not broken Soviet encryption systems of the day, there was still a vulnerability that could nonetheless \u00a0be exploited.\u00a0\u00a0 Soviet encryption equipment used at the time inadvertently broadcast a faint echo of the clear-text for encrypted messages along with the transmitted encrypted traffic.\u00a0 Under the right conditions, this faint echo could be recovered with appropriate equipment and filtration.<\/p>\n In 1953, action became feasible. \u00a0The Allies learned hat three major communications cables in the Soviet sector came together in a single location that was a relatively short distance (less than 450 meters ) from the border between the Soviet and US secorts of Berlin.\u00a0 The operation was thus determined feasible.\u00a0 Approval was swift, and the operation began.<\/p>\n Pre-Tunnel Preparations<\/span><\/p>\n A suitable location was found in the US sector of Berlin for the tunnel\u2019s support facilities.\u00a0 At this location, a new \u201cwarehouse\u201d with an unusually large basement (12\u2019 ceilings) was constructed.\u00a0 This building would house the tunnel\u2019s support facilities as well as store the large (approx 3,100 tons) amount of soil that was expected to be excavated during the building of the tunnel.<\/p>\n In order to provide secrecy, a cover story was prepared \u2013 though it wasn\u2019t circulated publicly.\u00a0 The \u201cwarehouse\u201d was intentionally constructed with poorly-camouflaged antenna, simulating a badly-disguised radio intercept station.\u00a0 The hope was that the Soviets would \u201csee through\u201d the poor attempts at camouflage and misidentify the facility as a radio intercept station.<\/p>\n Execution<\/span><\/p>\n Construction of the tunnel began in 1954.\u00a0 A 5 1\/2 meter (18-foot) diameter shaft was sunk inside the warehouse to a depth of 6\u00a0 meters (20 feet).\u00a0 At that point, a horizontal shaft 2 meters (6 1\/2 feet) in diameter was begun towards the cable junction point in the Soviet sector of Berlin.<\/p>\n Tunneling through the soil was slow and painstaking, as the soil was relatively soft and digging perforce had to be done quietly.\u00a0 The tunnel was shored with 125 tons of steel and 1,000 tons of grout or cement (different sources say one or the other) to ensure it did not collapse under traffic and other loads.\u00a0 Pumps were used to remove collected water.\u00a0 Concrete and steel antipersonnel doors were installed at the sector border – as were explosive charges that could be used to collapse the tunnel if required.<\/p>\n By 28 February 1955, the cable tap location had been reached and tap placement began.\u00a0 Tap placement was likewise slow.\u00a0 However, by 10 March 1955, collection of traffic had begun.<\/p>\n Operations and Exposure The tapping operations produced a bonanza of strategic- and operational-level intelligence.\u00a0 In addition to traffic to\/from the Soviet headquarters near Berlin (Zossen), conversations between the Soviet Embassy and Moscow and between East German and Soviet authorities were also intercepted.<\/p>\n Operations continued for a period of 11 months and 11 days.\u00a0 At that point – on 21 April 1956 – an East German crew \u201cconducting routine maintenance\u201d on the cables discovered the taps.\u00a0 While it took a few hours for the crew to recognize precisely what they were looking at, Soviet authorities were notified some hours after the discovery.<\/p>\n The Soviets publicized the tunnel at the time of discovery.\u00a0 The Free World essentially laughed, considering it an audacious effort on the part of the US.<\/p>\n Post-discovery processing of collected intelligence continued for a substantial period of time.\u00a0 At that point, the operation was thought ended.<\/p>\n But several years later, the operation came back to life \u2013 when the plot took a very new and unexpected twist.<\/p>\n Aftermath<\/span><\/p>\n It turned out that the 1956 \u201cexposure\u201d of Operation Gold \u2013 wasn\u2019t.\u00a0 The Soviets had known much if not all about the tunnel all along.<\/p>\n A highly-placed Soviet mole in British Intelligence, George Blake<\/a>, had been involved in early planning meetings concerning Operation Gold.\u00a0 (Blake had been captured in Korea during the Korean War and had spend roughly 3 years in captivity; it is believed he was \u201cturned\u201d then.)\u00a0 He tipped the Soviets to the tunnel\u2019s existence before construction began.<\/p>\n The Soviets apparently decided that Blake \u2013 who was very <\/i>highly placed in MI-6 \u2013 was worth more than the information they would lose if they allowed the operation to proceed unmolested.\u00a0 In order to protect Blake \u00a0from exposure, they did exactly that until after Blake had been reassigned to another job within British Intelligence.\u00a0 The tunnel was not \u201cdiscovered\u201d by a maintenance crew until after that had occurred.<\/p>\n Blake was eventually exposed as a Soviet mole in 1961 by Polish defector Michael Goleniewski<\/a>. \u00a0At that point, the US intelligence community conducted an extensive cross-check information obtained via Operation Gold to attempt to determine whether any of it was deliberate \u201cdisinformation\u201d.\u00a0 This analysis indicated that, as best could be determined, the intelligence obtained by the tunnel operation had been genuine.\u00a0 The Soviets apparently really did think Blake was placed highly enough within British Intelligence to be worth exposing the 440,000+ telephone conversations, 6,000,000 hours of teletype traffic, and 1,750 intelligence reports collected by Operation Gold.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Well done, men.\u00a0 Damn well done indeed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0Sources<\/span><\/p>\n The Wikipedia article on Operation Gold<\/a> is a decent though perhaps mildly inaccurate and biased starting point concerning the Berlin Tunnel.<\/p>\n The CIA has a brief summary of the operation<\/a> posted on its website.\u00a0 It\u2019s better, but still short on details.<\/p>\n NSA has perhaps the best publicly-available information on Operation Gold, which they called Operation REGAL.\u00a0 A short summary of the operation from the NSA perspective can be found here<\/a> (Part I), here<\/a> (Part II) and here<\/a> (post-exposure discussion).\u00a0 A much longer and more detailed description from NSA’s perspective can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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