SOVIETS' ELABORATE BUG NETWORK MAKES EMBASSY 'LISTENING DEVICE'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302310013-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: May 6, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000302310013-2
ARTICLE APKAOW
ON PAGE WASHINGTON TI11ES
6 May 1?37 -
Soviets' ? elaborate bug network
makes embassy 'listening device'
%7 By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
U.S. investigators late last year
discovered a sophisticated
eavesdropping system in the new
U.S. Embassy in Moscow that
worked through an elaborate net-
work of acoustic and electronic de-
vices, according to administration
officials.
The officials, who spoke on condi-
tion of anonymity, said the system
includes listening devices in the
frame of the new, eight-story chan-
cery building that are difficult to de-
tect with standard sensing equip-
ment.
They said the system may be
impossible to neutralize since some
of the electronic bugs cannot be re-
moved without permanently damag-
ing the entire support structure.
"We've found a variety of unusual
implants or configurations that
raise suspicions that they are part of
a very elaborate system, interrelated
between columns and beams and
connected from floor to floor and
from room to room," one official
said.
The official described the Soviet
bugging system as a "very aggres-
sive and capable technological at-
tack."
Without fully understanding the
Soviet system, officials said it may
be impossible to secure the facility
against covert eavesdropping be-
cause of the overlapping listening
systems built into the structure.
"It's not like you can just go in and
rip something out," the official said.
"We don't understand the entire sys-
tem, and many of the special devices
are in difficult-to-reach areas, like
major load bearings. If you tinker
with them, you risk weakening the
entire structure."
One element of the system, which
officials believe was designed by the
Soviet KGB intelligence service,
uses "energized," sound-sensitive
steel beams that can read embassy
messages by picking up slight vibra-
tions produced by code machines.
"The bottom line is that the
building was designed as a massive
intercept system, as opposed to a
limited [microphone) implant sys-
tem," the official said.
Officials said the first Soviet elec-
tronic listening devices were discov-
ered by special imaging equipment
in 1982.
But security searches could not
be conducted until Soviet con-
struction workers were ousted from
the site in August 1982. U.S. security
investigators were then given round-
the-clock access to the building.
Reuters
The entire structure of the new U.S. Embassy building in Moscow is so
riddled with listening devices that security experts doubt it will ever be used.
Working full time, security ex-
perts obtained the first "hard evi-
dence" late last year when several
electronic bugs were removed from
concrete columns and floor planks,
the official said.
"People keep talking about bugs
and buglike things that are im-
plants;'said the official. "What we're
describing is a whole building - col-
umns, I-beams and floor planks -
that was assembled in such a way to
attack electronic emanations, like
typewriters, or conversations."
The officials said Soviet elec-
tronic spying capabilities were re-
vealed in 1983 when listening de-
vices were found inside IBM
typewriters in the old U.S. Embassy.
The listening devices were able to
read typed messages from the noise
produced as the characters struck
the paper.
The official said some
acoustically sensitive steel support
beams were placed in strategic loca-
tions so that conversations of em-
bassy employees standing above or
below the beams could be picked up
through a high-tech "vacuum
cleaner effect."
Since 1985, security officials also
found:
? Electronic listening devices
wired inside some of the building's
thousands of bricks.
? Some 500 metal frames used to
hold bricks to the building's exterior,
electronically connected in a net-
work of listening devices.
? Coaxial cables, similar to those
used in transmitting video images,
implanted inside prefabricated
building support columns.
? Hidden wires running in and out
of the building.
? Simple microphones laced
throughout the building's thousands
of floor planks.
Asked to explain the sound-
sensitive bugging system, the offi-
cial said the Soviet equipment op-
erates much the same way as
equipment used by law enforcement
and intelligence agencies.
Listening equipment aimed at
windows, for example, can pick up
conversations from minute glass vi-
brations.
"Then they enhanced the sensitiv-
ity of say, a beam, so that it is not
subject to other noises in the
building, like people going up or
down a set of stairs," said the official.
"It's clearly a very advanced de-
sign requiring an awful lot of talent
and very special engineering de-
signed into it. The KGB had to put an
awful lot of effort and money into
this and they had to have a lot of
confidence that it would work, not
just for a year, but for many, many
years."
According to the officials, it will
be at least three years before the
extent of the Soviet eavesdropping
system is known. Once that is ac-
complished, "it's still speculative if
we'll be capable of neutralizing it,"
one official said.
The Senate Intelligence Commit-
tee has recommended that the new
chancery building be torn down and
rebuilt.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000302310013-2