(EST PUB DATE) LEON THEREMIN - CIA NEMESIS

• Document Type: FOIA
• Keywords: THEREMIN LEON
• Keywords: CIA NEMESIS
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0001230447
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: June 24, 2015
• Document Release Date: January 4, 2011
• Case Number: F-2005-00724
• Publication Date: January 1, 1970

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The Soviet Genius Who Spied for Stalin
Leon Theremin-CIA Nemesis
Benjamin B. Fischer
cc
Theremin [was] a Russian
`Thomas Edison,' whose
paradoxical life reflected
the contradictions and
convolutions of the East-
West conflict.
Benjamin B. Fischer serves on
the CIA History Staff.
CL BY: 0627241
CL REASON: 1.5(c)
DECL ON: X1
DRV FROM: Multiple Categories
Much of the history of the Cold
War remains hidden in classi-
fied archives. From time to
time, however, stories emerge
that cause us to stop and think
about what a strange epoch it
was. One of the most intrigu-
ing revelations to come to light
concerns Leon Theremin, a Rus-
sian "Thomas Edison" whose
paradoxical life reflected the
contradictions and convolu-
tions of the East-West conflict.
Theremin traveled from priv-
iledged Kremlin circles to the
Gulag and back again, and, dur-
ing a ten-year sojourn in the
United States, hobnobbed with
the rich and famous and made
and lost fortunes while spying
for Stalin. Americans believe
that creativity demands free-
dom, yet Thermin did some of
his best scientific work while
imprisoned ,by one of the most
repressive regimes of the 20th
century. This brilliant scientist
crossed paths with the CIA
more than once-to our detri-
ment. He appears in Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn's novel, The First
Circle, as Pryanchikov, an engi-
neer ordered to build a sophisti-
cated voice encryption system.
In real life, Theremin's story
proved stranger than fiction. (U)
Behind the Eagle's Beak (U)
Moscow, 4 July 1945: While
hosting the traditional Ameri-
can national day festivities,
Ambassador Averell Harriman
received a delegation of Soviet
Pioneers, a youth group much
like the Boy Scouts. As an
expression of friendship
between wartime allies, the Pio-
neers presented the envoy with
a replica of the Great Seal of
the United States of America.
The Seal was made from a rare
Russian wood and was hand-
carved by a leading artisan. (U)
Hidden inside, behind the beak
of the American eagle, was an
unusual eavesdropping device.
It had no wires, no conven-
tional microphone, and no
batteries-in short, nothing that
would reveal its presence
through conventional methods
of detection.I
The United States did not dis-
cover the device for another
seven years and did not offi-
cially reveal its discovery until
1960. (U)
For accounts of the Great Seal bugging,
see Tom Mangold, Cold Warrior James
Jesus Angleton: The CIA's Master Spy
Hunter (New York: Simon & Schuster,
1991), pp. 256-257; David Wise, Mole-
hunt: The Secret Search for Traitors That
Shattered the CIA (New York: Random
House, 1992), p. 14; and Albert Glinsky,
Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage
(Urbana and Chicago: University of Illi-
nois Press, 2000), pp. 259-260, 271-274,
304, 335, and 338. (U)
 S
Theremin
cc
The Great Seal that hung in Spaso House,
the residence of the American Ambassa-
dor in Moscow, with the location of the
bug superimposed. (U)
Discovery and Disclosure
(U)
Although some details have
leaked out, the full story of the
discovery of the sophisticated
device remains in classified
files.2 Harriman had the seal
hung in his study on the sec-
ond floor of Spaso House, his
residence in Moscow, which
had once been the palatial
home of a wealthy merchant.
The bug-or cavity resonator, to
use its technical name-
remained there, like the prover-
bial fly on the wall, picking up
2 Information on the discovery of the So-
viet bug is drawn from a memorandum
from
Office of Security US De-
partment of State], to
ice of Security, "Narrative Report of
Cavity Resonator Discovery," 24 October
1968. A copy of this memorandum is
available from the CIA History Staff of
the Center for the Study of Intelligence.
(C)
In the fall of 1951,
sensitive information during the
dark days of the early Cold War.
Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, who
succeeded Harriman as ambas-
sador and was later.,appointed
Director of Central intelligence,
had the Seal removed, repaired,
and cleaned in time for an offi-
cial visit by Secretary of State
George C. Marshall; Smith and
Marshall discussed US policy
toward the USSR within range
of the hidden listening device.
(U)
In the fall of 1951,
The State Department dis-
patched a technical security
team to "sweep" for listening
devices-it literally took apart
Kennan's office. Nothing was
found. (C)
Subsequently, a technical secu-
He quickly
pinpointed the place on the
wall where the Seal was
mounted. He and the person-
nel officer then dismantled the
wall behind the Seal down to
the basic construction. They
found nothing, confirming that
a single bug was inside the Seal
itself. (C)
to the US Naval
Research Laboratory, where, on
orders from President Harry
Truman, technicians analyzed
the cavity resonator. The Presi-
dent's concern is clear from a
memorandum that he sent to
the National Security Council in
September 1952:
rity specialist named
to continue the
as convinced
that there was a listening device
in Spaso I-louse, not Kennan's
office in the Embassy building
several blocks away. He
decided to begin his search
there
The Secretary of State has
informed me regarding the lis-
tening device discovered
3 The acronym KGB (Committee for
State Security) is used throughout this ar-
ticle, although the Soviet secret police
were known as the MOB (Ministry of
State Security) and other names until
1954. (U)
 cc
recently in one of the buildings
housing some of our diplomatic
personnel in Moscow. Appropri-
ate technical research has been
initiated with respect to this
device with a view to develop-
ing detection and counter-
action devices.
In view of the security problems
posed by the existence of this
device, I want the two internal
Security Committees of the
Council, in collaboration with
the Central Intelligence Agency
and other interested agencies,
to examine jointly these secu-
rity implications and to insure
that appropriate countermea-
sures are put into effect, both
immediately and in the light of
the above-mentioned technical
research.
I wish to be kept advised
through your office of the work
of the Committees on this prob-
lem, including any recommen-
dations for action required by
me.4 (C)
The genius of the Soviet bug
was its simplicity. In effect, it
was a microphone in the form
of a resonating chamber with a
flexible front wall that acted as
a diaphragm, altering the
dimensions of the chamber
when struck by sound waves.5
Soviet intelligence activated the
device with an ultra-high fre-
quency signal beamed from a
4 Letter to Mr. James S. Lay, Jr., Executive
Secretary, National Security Council, ar-
chived at the Harry S. Truman Library,
Papers of Harry S. Truman, President's
Secretary's Files. (U)
The genius of the Soviet
bug was its simplicity.
~9
Modulations
The cavity resonator hidden inside the
Great Seal had no wires, no conventional
microphone, and n batteries. (Diagram
from: H. Keith Melton, The Ultimate Spy
Book, (New Yotk: DK Publishing, Inc.,
1996). (U)
van parked outside S aso
House. the CIA
officer assigned to analyze the
device, explained it by saying:
"Technically it was a passive
device... [with] an infinite life
expectancy."6 After analyzing
5 The description of how the cavity res-
onator worked is drawn from Glinsky,
pp. 259-260. The results of FBI and US
Naval Research Laboratory analysis are
found in: FBI Laboratory, "Drawing and
Photographs, Russian Resonant Cavity
Microphone," no date [possibly Decem-
ber 19521. Copy available from the CIA
History Staff of the Center for the Study
of Intelligence. (S)
the cavity resonator, US techni-
cians built a device to activate
it. The activating mechanism
was then sent to the US
Embassy in Moscow to test for
additional secretly placed cav-
ity resonators. None were
found. (C)
Someone leaked part of the
story of the discovery of the
sophisticated bug to the now
defunct Washington Evening
Star in 1953-"The Russians
have become the world's
experts in creation of such elec-
tronic devices," the Star
exclaimed.? Nonetheless, the
United States kept the cavity
resonator under official wraps
until May 1960. At that point,
Henry Cabot Lodge, US Ambas-
sador to the United Nations,
unveiled a replica of the device
with the Great Seal before the
General Assembly to counter a
Soviet propaganda barrage after
the shootdown of the U-2
reconnaissance aircraft piloted
by Francis Gary Powers. (U)
Alarms Go Off (U)
Lodge's performance gave the
American public its first glimpse
into the secret world of elec-
tronic intelligence gathering.
The disclosure heightened.con-
cern that America lagged
behind the Russians, a percep-
tion that was not confined to
the public-at-large. (U)
6 Wise, p. 14. (U)
7 Constantine Brown, "Secret Ears in U.S.
Embassy," Evening Star, 20 March 1953,
p. A-9. (U)
 cc
A 1957 CIA Inspector General's
report stated flatly that the Mos-
cow discovery "had set off a
chain reaction, the effects of
which are still being felt."8 In
the demimonde of the CIA-KGB
spy war, the psychological
impact was akin to the launch-
ing of Sputnik a few months
later. The Soviet device con-
firmed-or seemed to
confirm-that the CIA was
being beaten in the espio-
nage technology race. As
one intelligence expert
noted years later, the Sovi-
ets had reached a "level
previously thought to be
impossible," while CIA
audio equipment "relied
upon commercial law
enforcement equipment and
antiquated World War II tele-
phone-company listening
devices."" (S)
The Soviet device seemed
to confirm that the CIA
was being beaten in the
espionage technology
race.
99
UN Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge displaying the Great
Seal to the General Assembly, May 1960. (U)
CIA data on Soviet eavesdrop-
ping capabilities and techniques
were seriously deficient. The
cavity resonator was inge-
nious-it took quite a while to
figure out how it worked and
even longer to duplicate and
improve upon it. The fact that
the CIA, as well as the State
Department and the military
intelligence services, had dis-
covered numerous conventional
listening devices was no suc-
8 Inspector General's Survey of the Tech-
nical Service Staff; April 1957, Volume I,
p. 177. Records of the Office of the In-
spector General, job 62-01094R, Box 2.
(S)
9 H. Keith Melton, CIA Special Weapons
& Equipment: Spy Devices of the Cold
War (New York: Sterling Publishing Co.,
Inc, 1993), p. 6. (U)
cor. Senior officials were
concerned-almost panicked-
that many more of the sophisti-
cated devices were in use. (S)
Information on Soviet audio
systems was not only sparse,
but also dispersed among many
offices. Technical countermea-
sures became an urgent
national security matter requir-
ing White House-level attention
and a new national policy. The
perceived threat was so serious
that, in December 1956, the
National Security Council cre-
ated the Special Committee on
Technical Surveillance Counter
Measures to coordinate techni-
cal countermeasures for the
entire Intelligence Commu-
nity.10 A CIA deputy director for
security was assigned to it
Soviet Faust (U)
What the CIA did not know-
and would not learn until near
the end of the Cold War-was
that the Moscow bug that trig-
gered such anxiety in Wash-
ington was the handiwork of an
10 Inspector General's Survey of the Tech-
nical Service Staff, pp. 178-179. (S)
11 Ibid. (U)
12 Ibid. (S)
32 JCS
 Theremin
cc
aristocratic genius named Leon
Theremin.13 Theremin was born
Lev Sergeyevich Termin in St.
Petersburg in 1896 into a fam-
ily of nobles descended from
French Huguenots who had
immigrated to Russia in the 18th
century.'4 He was a child prod-
igy and experimented with
electricity, then still in its
infancy, before entering col-
lege. He graduated on the eve
of World War I, served in a
radio battalion of the Imperial
Army, and, despite his origins,
embraced the Bolshevik Revolu-
tion. In turn, it apparently
embraced him. Communism,
Theremin believed, was the
wave of the future because it
would use technology to
achieve social and economic
progress. He often quoted
Lenin's famous dictum that
communism was Soviet politi-
cal power plus electrification of
the entire country. Lenin appar-
ently recognized Theremin's
13 Information in this and subsequent
paragraphs on the details of Theremin's
life are based on: Bulat M. Galeyev, "So-
viet Faust in the Country of the Yellow
Devil," website http://he.net/-enternet/
teci/faust/faust.htm, accessed 15 April
2002; Bulat M. Galeyev, "Light and Shad-
ows of a Great Life: In Commemoration
of the One-Hundredth Anniversary of
the Birth of Leon Theremin, Pioneer of
Electronic Art," website http://
mitpress2. mit. edu/e-journals/Leonardo/
isast/journal/j ournal96/LM J6/ga-
leyevintro.html, accessed 24 January
2002; and Glinsky, op. cit. Galeyev, a
Russian musicologist, and Glinsky, an
American musicologist, are the leading
experts on, and biographers of Therem-
in. Overall, a bibliography of works on
Theremin would run to dozens of books
and hundreds of articles. (U)
14 Theremin anglicized his name after
moving to New York in 1927. (U)
The Moscow bug that
triggered such anxiety in
Washington was the
handiwork of an
aristocratic genius
named Leon Theremin.
91
gifts and heralded him as a
"proletarian" genius, noble ori-
gins notwithstanding. (U)
Theremin's name was not
unknown in America; indeed he
lived in New York from 1927 to
1938, where he mixed easily
with Gotham's artistic, scien-
tific, and corporate elites. His
New York notoriety derived
from his many inventions, but
he was best known as the pio-
neer of electronic music. He
was the inventor of the "there-
min," the eponymous instru-
ment that many consider the
grandfather of -.1l modern elec-
tronically made music. (U)
Theremin had invented the
"etherphone," as his instrument
was first called, in 1919, while
he was still an undergraduate
studying physics. Lenin
requested a demonstration in
1922, and Theremin put on a
show for him in the Kremlin.15
In 1927, the inventor was per-
mitted to leave the USSR and
take his show on the road, first
15 He also demonstrated his inventions
for Stalin. In 1927, Therenin was called
to the Kremlin to show his latest inven-
tion, a television set with 100 lines of
resolution on a five-foot-square screen.
It took the Radio Corporation of America
until 1931 to design a screen with greater
.resolution. (U)
to Berlin and then to other
European capitals, before he
arrived in New York City for a
ten-year stay. He put on sold-
out concerts at the Royal Albert
Hall in London, the Paris Opera
House, and Carnegie Hall in
New York City. Theremin
hoped to revolutionize the per-
formance of classical music-
his 1928 concert at Carnegie
Hall featuring ten theremins
made him the toast of the town.
(U)
The novelty of the instrument
turned the music world on its
ear. "Surely," New York Times
music critic Janet Maslin wrote,
"the theremin is the weirdest of
all musical instruments." 16 It
looked like a portable podium,
not unlike those in many con-
ference rooms, with a hori-
zontal loop on one side and a
vertical antenna on top. It was
played by moving one's hands
in the air around the antennas.
One hand was used to control
the pitch, and the other to con-
trol the volume. (U)
The theremin briefly appeared
to have brighter commercial
prospects than radio, which was
just coming into widespread
use. In 1929, Radio Corpora-
tion of America (RCA) president
David Sarnoff purchased the
patent to the theremin with the
intention of selling one to every
American household that could
afford one. The instrument,
16 Janet Maslin, "Beyond the Theremin,"
The New York Times, 8 September 1995,
p. 8-C. (U)
 however, eventually flopped. It
was difficult to play, expensive
to produce, and never caught
on with either musicians or the
public. (U)
The decade that Theremin spent
in New York was fittingly one .
of prodigious technical achieve-
ment and repeated business
failure. He continued working
on his electronic musical iristru-
ments and made numerous
contacts in the business and
artistic worlds. Theremin had a
practical side and a nose for
things that could make him
money in America. He created
an electronic crib alarm after
the infant son of Charles and
Anne Lindbergh was kid-
napped. The US Bureau of
Prisons hired him to build the
world's first metal detector at
Alcatraz. That invention did not
work properly, and Theremin
lost his contract, pushing him
over the brink into bankruptcy.
All told, several small fortunes
passed through his hands. (U)
Theremin eventually settled into
a kind of lab-cum-salon in a
townhouse on Manhattan's West
54th Street owned by a wealthy
patron. There he devised a mul-
titude of devices that must have
seemed like pure science fic-
tion, including electronic
lighting shows, an electronic
dance platform, and even a pro-
totype color television system.
Artists, musicians, composers,
dancers, and choreographers all
beat a path to his door, seeking
to fuse art with science in the
dawning of a new technologi-
cal age. (U)
All this while, however, There-
min was leading a double life.
As he revealed for the first time
in 1988 in a series of articles in
Moscow News-revelations
made possible by Mikhail Gor-
bachev's policy of glasnost-the
brilliant inventor was a Soviet
spy.17 Jan Berzin, the founder
and chief of the GRU (Soviet
military intelligence), had
recruited him and then sent him
to Berlin and other European
capitals to establish is cover
story and make contacts. (U)
Theremin was already up in
years when he began telling his
story. His memory was not
always sound, and he told dif-
ferent versions on separate
occasions. His main mission,
apparently, had been to obtain
scientific and military intelli-
gence from his contacts and to
assess whether, in a future
European conflict, the United
Sates would be neutral, an ally,
or a foe of the Soviet Union.
Theremin told his Russian biog-
rapher in the 1980s that he had
been the GRU rezident (chief of
station) in New York and com-
pared himself to Richard Sorge,
the famous Soviet illegal whose
statue stands in Moscow and
whose face once adorned
Soviet postage stamps. 18 With
his American biographers, Ther-
emin was more modest. He
disclaimed any major espio-
nage success (thus denying
damage to American interests).
17 Glinsky, pp. 320-334, (U)
18 Galeyev, "Soviet Faust in the Country
of the Yellow Devil." (U)
As an example, he cited a
requirement to find out the
diameter of a military aircraft
muffler, observing that such
matters had bored him. (U)
Theremin almost certainly was
too modest-or too reticent. He
hobnobbed with the cultural
and artistic elite of New York
and had wealthy patrons. His
circle of acquaintances encom-
passed people with names like
Rockefeller, Dupont, Morgan,
and Ford. His contacts also
included an obscure Army lieu-
tenant colonel named Dwight
D. Eisenhower and an Army
major named Leslie Groves,
who later managed the Manhat-
tan Project. (U)
It seems likely that Theremin,
who was often in debt despite
the millions his inventions
earned, may have used some of
his money to support Soviet
intelligence operations.19 He
incorporated one of his spin-off
companies in Panama, using it
to cover a GRU network that
targeted the US military pres-
ence in the Canal Zone. He also
laundered money for Amtorg,
the Soviet state foreign trade
company that provided cover
for espionage and the Comin-
tern's efforts to foment
revolution in the West and in
the Third World. (U)
This, unfortunately, is the sum
and substance of what we
know about Theremin's covert
life in America, and even these
 cc
bits of information are at times
contradictory and incoherent.
Theremin's Russian biographer
called him the Soviet Faust, an
allusion to Goethe's famous
character who makes a deal
with Mephistopheles in order to
achieve worldly success. In
Theremin's case, he made a
deal with Soviet intelligence in
order to pursue his research
interests. As we shall see, he
extended this "deal" even after
returning to the Soviet Union,
turning his considerable talents
against the United States and
becoming the CIA's nemesis.
(U)
Surviving the Gulag (U)
In September 1938, ten years
after arriving on American
shores, Theremin, with GRU
help, boarded a Soviet vessel as
a crew member, under an
assumed name and identity, and
set sail for home. For many
years, his friends in New York
believed that he had been kid-
napped by Stalin's secret police.
But, as he told his Russian biog-
rapher in 1995, the decision to
leave was his own-he believed
that the Motherland would soon
be at war and felt a duty to
return.20 Probably contributing
to Theremin's decision was the
fact that he was just one step
ahead of the INS, the IRS, the
Labor Department, and a host
of business partners and
patrons-all of whom for vari-
20 Galeyev, "Light and Shadows of a
Great Life." (U)
In 1939, Theremin was
arrested in Moscow, the
penalty in those
paranoid times for
having lived abroad.
9~
ous reasons would have liked
to see him in jail or at least
before a judge and jury. (U)
By fleeing New York, however,
Theremin jumped from the fry-
ing pan into the fire. In March
1939, he was arrested in Mos-
cow, the penalty in those
paranoid times for having lived
abroad. He was charged with
espionage and membership in a
"fascist" organization-a generic
charge-and sentenced to six
years in Soviet prison camps.
Ironically, the Great Terror of
1937-1938 was winding down;
had Theremin waited a little
longer, he might not have been
arrested. He was sent to
Magadan, a,gold-mining camp
above the Arctic Circle in the
Kolyma region, where tempera-
tures fell to -94 degrees (F). A
term at Magadan was in effect a
death sentence. (U)
Theremin's genius saved him.
Within a few months, Stalin's
henchman and secret police
chief, Lavrenty Beria, ordered
Theremin removed from the
camp and brought back to Mos-
cow. Beria ran the Soviet
Union's atomic research pro-
gram and had an eye for
scientific talent. He assigned
Theremin to Central Design
Bureau Number 29 of the Cen-
tral State Aero-Hydrodynamic
Institute.21 Theremin worked on
aviation instruments in Moscow
until the bureau was relocated
beyond the Urals to Omsk and
then to Sverdlovsk, following
the German invasion of June
1941. (U)
The Design Bureau was an
example of a unique Stalinist
institution known as a sha-
rashka. Called "Islands of
Paradise" in Aleksandr Solzhen-
itsyn's Gulag Archipelago,
sharashkas were minimum
security facilities with bearable
living conditions that held some
of the best educated and most
brilliant Soviet scientists, engi-
neers, and technicians. Many
Soviet advances in space, mili-
tary, and intelligence tech-
nology derived from the efforts
of the faceless zeks, as the
inmates were called. (U)
As the war wound down, Ther-
emin was returned to Moscow
again and assigned to a sha-
rashka at Kuchino, near
Moscow, which specialized in
radio electronics and measur-
ing devices. While there, he
designed a beacon that was
used to locate missing subma-
rines and aircraft, as well as to
locate supplies dropped clan-
destinely behind enemy lines.
Theremin also served as the
lead scientist on the M-803
vocoder, an analog speech enci-
pherment system. (C)
21 For details of Theremin's work at the
Institute, see Glinsky, pp. 230-236, 238-
242, and 259. (U)
 cc
It was at this time that There-
min, on direct orders from
Beria, designed the infamous
cavity resonating microphone
that found its way into the
Great Seal of the United States
at Spaso House. A Soviet intelli-
gence officer who manned the
listening post near the US
Embassy claimed that "For a
long time, our country was able
to get specific and very impor-
tant information, which gave us
certain advantages in predic-
tion and performance of world
politics in the difficult period of
the Cold War."22 (U)
In 1947, Beria also ordered
Theremin to develop a wireless
audio surveillance device. The
result was a pioneering feat
codenamed BURAN ("Snow-
Missing the order and
pure research
opportunities of [his life
in detention], Theremin
asked the KGB to hire
him as a `free' research
scientist.
99
storm").13 It directed an infrared
beam at window glass, where it
focused on what Theremin
called the "zone of optimum
resonance," picking up sound
waves and reflecting them back
to an interferometer and photo
element. BURAN was resistant
to interception and jamming
and almost impossible to detect.
Beria used it first against the
chancery of the US Embassy
and later against the French and
British missions in Moscow.
With Theremin's knowledge
and assistance, he also used it
against Stalin at a time when
the dictator's paranoia seemed
poised to engulf the USSR in a
new major domestic upheaval
or a nuclear war. As a souvenir,
Theremin kept tapes of Stalin's
ravings.24 (U)
While still a prisoner, Theremin
received a Stalin Prize, which
was awarded anonymously for
an unidentified contribution to
Soviet intelligence (possibly
BURAN). The Soviet dictator, a
fan of Theremin's, personally
upgraded the prize from class II
to class I. The prize carried an
award of approximately $20,000
(worth about ten times that
amount today), a furnished
apartment, and even maid ser-
vice. (U)
Little is known about There-
min's life from 1947, when he
was released, until the mid-
1960s. Even his Russian biogra-
pher failed to pry details from
him. He tried to rebuild his life
and return to his inventions. He
found freedom difficult, how-
ever. Missing the order and
pure research opportunities of
the sharashka, he asked the
KGB to hire him as a "free"
research scientist. Theremin
spent the next 20 years work-
ing in what the Soviets called
"mailboxes," secret facilities
known only by their postal box
numbers.25 Theremin's very
24 Galeyev, "Light and Shadows of a
Great Life." (U)
15 Galinsky, pp. 256-265, 270, and 300.
(U)
 cc
existence was a state secret. He
was not allowed to contact rela-
tives or friends. He was always
accompanied by bodyguards
and often worked on sensitive
projects under armed guard. (U)
Resurfacing (U)
At some point in the early
1960s, like millions of other
"repressed persons" (the Soviet
legal term), Theremin was offi-
cially absolved of past crimes
and "rehabilitated." In 1964, he
began working in the Moscow
Acoustic Tape and Recording
Department of the Moscow
State Tchaikovsky Conserva-
tory. He remained there until
1971, when he lost his position
for continuing his work in elec-
tronic music, deemed too
modern for Soviet socialist
esthetics. He spent the final
20 years of his life working as a
"grade six mechanic" in the
Acoustics Department of Mos-
cow Lomonosov University. (U)
America's rediscovery of There-
min began with a chance
encounter in April 1967-
Harold Schonberg, chief music
critic for the New York Times,
spotted Theremin at the Mos-
cow Conservatory. For
Theremin's former friends in
New York, this was the first sign
of life since 1938. For years
rumors had circulated that he
had been executed in 1945 or
shortly thereafter. Theremin, for
his part, was unaware of the
revival of American interest in
his life, his work, and his music
machine, due in part to the
Two trips [abroad] paved
the way for a triumphal
return to America in
1991, where Theremin
had become an icon of
sorts.
99
theremin's use in popular sci-
ence-fiction and suspense
films.26 His reputation had also
been burnished by the serious
attention being paid to elec-
tronic music as a result of the
Moog synthesizer.27 In Mos-
cow, Theremin gave Schonberg
a tour of the small lab that he
had set up and displayed some
of his latest inventions. Schon-
berg wrote a flattering article
that was widely read among afi-
cionados. 28 (U)
For years after the encounter,
Western academics and artists
invited Theremin to the West,
but Soviet authbrities-afraid
perhaps of the secrets he still
26 Because of the eerie sounds that the
theremin produced-one critic said it
sounded like a violin being played un-
der water-it became popular with Hol-
lywood film composers, who used it to
produce sound tracks for such movies as
The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Thing,
and Spellbound. One can even see a
theremin in operation in Jerry Lewis's
comedy The Delicate Delinquent. Later,
the Beach Boys rekindled interest in the
theremin by using it in Good Vibrations,
their only million-selling single. (U)
27 Inventor Robert Moog had built there-
mins in high school and college. He
wrote the introduction to Theremin's
American biography and was largely re-
sponsible for keeping interest in the Rus-
sian inventor alive in the United States.
(U)
28 Harold C. Schonberg, "Music: Leon
Theremin," New York Times, 26 April
1967, p. 40. (U)
held-refused to let him leave.
Finally, in 1988, Moscow News
ran a three-part series about
him, mentioning among other
things his espionage in Amer-
ica, the secret Stalin Prize, and
BURAN.29 A year later, There-
min was allowed to attend an
experimental music festival
organized by UNESCO in
Bourges, France. In 1990, he
was a guest performer at the
Electronic Music Festival in
Stockholm. These two trips
paved the way for a triumphal
return to America in 1991,
where Theremin had become
an icon of sorts. He took part in
a three-day seminar at Stanford
and then returned to New York
to visit his old haunts and those
of his friends who were still
alive. Theremin's reputation
was also growing inside Russia.
In 1992, the Theremin Center
for electronic music at the Mos-
cow Conservatory opened. (U)
In 1993, American filmmaker
Steven Martin produced a fea-
ture length documentary
entitled Theremin: An Elec-
tronic Odyssey. He used footage
he shot in 1991 in New York
and an interview with There-
min in Moscow a year later. The
film first aired on the BBC in
March 1993, just two days
before Theremin died at age 97.
It was also shown at the 1995
New York Film Festival, and
eventually won the Film-
maker's Trophy at the Sundance
Film Festival in 2000. In March
1995, the Kennedy Center's
 Theremin
cc
American Film Institute Theater
organized a showing of Holly-
wood films whose soundtracks
used theremins. These were fit-
ting tributes, since the Russian
genius's invention had far more
impact on the movie industry
than on haute culture. Over
time, Martin's film played to
large audiences in the United
States, Europe, and Japan, creat-
ing interest in Theremin and
leading to the establishment of
an international club for enthu-
siasts. (U)
American composer and musi-
cologist Albert Glinsky
published Theremin: Ether
Music and Espionage, the best
and most comprehensive biog-
raphy of the inventor, in 2000.
The book was based on the
author's prize-winning 1992
Ph.D. dissertation at New York
University. The bibliography of
books and articles about There-
min and his creations continues
to grow. There are dozens of
websites devoted to him, and
Theremin tee-shirts are sold on
the Internet. (U)
Payback (U)
Adulation from the music world
aside, Theremin's genius caused
significant problems for US
intelligence over the years. In
addition to spawning a series of
sophisticated audio devices
used against the United States
worldwide, Theremin's bug in
the Great Seal played an inad-
vertent but key role in the CIA's
internal molehunt of the 1960s
and 1970s that demoralized the
Theremin's bug in the
Great Seal played an
inadvertent role in the
CIA's internal molehunt
of the 1960s and 1970s,
which demoralized the
clandestine service.
99
clandestine service and dis-
rupted operations. KGB
defector Anatoly Golitsyn made
the link in 1961. Golitsyn
warned the Agency-of a mole
named "Sasha," Who was of
Slavic origin, had spent several
years in Germany, and had a
name that began with "k" and
ended in "ski." The defector
claimed that the mole was a
CIA officer who had been
assigned to analyze the cavity
resonating microphone found in
Spaso House. (U)
A subsequent investigation led
to Peter Karlow, an up and
coming operations officer who
headed the panel charged with
analyzing the Soviet audio
device. An Office of Strategic
Services (OSS) veteran who had
lost a leg during World War II,
Karlow had a technical orienta-
tion and was in line to head the
Agency's Technical Services
Division. His life was turned
upside down by Golitzyn's
accusation.30 In January 1962, at
the Agency's request, the FBI
put Karlow under electronic
and physical surveillance for a
30 This account of Karlow's tribulations is
based on Mangold, pp. 254-257, 266,
273, and 356; and Wise, Chapter 2. (U)
year. When nothing turned up,
the Bureau dropped the case,
with the concurrence of the
CIA's Office of Security. James
Angleton of the Agency's Coun-
terintelligence Staff, however,
refused to accept Karlow's inno-
cence. Karlow was forced to
resign in September 1963 with-
out ever knowing that he was
mole suspect number one.
Years later, he was one of sev-
eral previously discredited CIA
officers who received back pay,
pensions, and compensation, as
well as, in Karlow's case, the
Career Intelligence Medal.31 (U)
Given the damage done directly
and indirectly, the Intelligence
Community can take at least
some satisfaction from the fact
that the sophisticated cavity res-
onator technology was
subsequently turned back
against its Soviet perpetrators.32
Until the Theremin bug was
found in Spaso House, CIA
technical experts had deni-
grated Soviet intelligence's
technical capabilities. Set back
on their heels by the discovery
of the device, senior Agency
31 Years later, the CIA determined that
there was a "Sasha," but that he was a
Russian emigre who had worked as a
contract employee in West Germany be-
fore opening an art gallery in Alexan-
dria, Virginia. He was not the source of
information on the audio surveillance
device. The culprit in this case was
George Blake, a KGB mole inside British
intelligence. (U)
32 The story of how Theremin's technol-
are avai a e rom the CIA History Staff
Oral History Project. (S)
ape an transcript
 cc
who fought in the arnr-i azr arraei
ground, from his OSS days. (U)
Theremin's story should
give pause to those who
assume that scientific
achievement requires
political freedom.
99
Theremin in Perspective
(U) A
Taking a broad view, Theremin
remains a fascinating character
not the least because he man-
aged to bridge, two dramatically
divided worlds. As his Ameri-
can biographer put it:
(Theremin's story] is nothing less
than a metaphor for the diver-
gence of communism and
capitalism, totalitarianism and
freedom, luxury and drudgery,
hope and hopelessness. His life
was a microcosm of these duel-
ing scenarios and he spent most
of his nearly one hundred years
shuttling back forth between
them.34 (U)
Interestingly, for all of his bril-
liance, Theremin chose the
Soviet system over the Ameri-
can way of life. He elected to
return to the Motherland in
1938, volunteered to work for
the Soviet government after his
release from detention, and
declined petitions to emigrate
late in life. He campaigned for
admission to the Communist
Party for many years, finally
receiving his party card just
weeks before the August 1991
attempted coup that undid the
Soviet empire. "I promised
Lenin I would," he explained to
a Russian friend who ques-
tioned his reasons.35 Theremin's
story should give pause to those
who assume that scientific
achievement requires political
freedom or that the benefits of
the Western way of life exert a
compelling attraction on the rest
of the world. (U)
34 Glinsky, pp. 6-7. (U)
35 Bulat M. Galeyev, "Light and Shadows
of a Great Life." (U)