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January 2002
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XJT 'Jet Signals' | Book review : Confessions of a spy | News Items
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Reviewed for ENIGMA 2000 by 'E'
I got this in America last year. It is yet another book on the infamous CIA traitor. Published in 1997 it was written using interviews with the turncoat CIA officer. The book is the best of four books I have examined on his case. I would recommend it to anybody with an interest in this disaster and who relishes a delicious tale of bungling by one of the world's most highly publicised and humiliated intelligence agencies. It would be hysterically funny if it did not have such appalling consequences for the West and the unfortunate individuals who got mixed up in Langley's 'Covert' operations.
Mr Earley, a professional journalist, gained access to the prison where Ames was held and interviewed him about his life and work. This material is added to comments by relatives and colleagues which makes it highly readable with its personal touch rather than being just a bland catalogue of one of the most disgusting betrayals of the twentieth century.
There are two things that really caught my eye as I read the book that I felt would be of interest to E2K readers:
A major asset to the CIA's SE Division in 1983 was this highly secret technical operation. The file Ames read contained bits and pieces of info on this subject but it was enough for him to wreck it.
In 1979 the CIA had discovered that the Russians were building a top secret communications centre at Troitsk, 25 miles south-west of Moscow. The centre was connected by a tunnel to FCD HQ at Yasenevo and the HQ at Lubyanka. This tunnel contained cables for phones, faxes and telex messages.
The CIA had obtained the blueprints.
In 1980 the CIA sent a technician to tap thee cables and put in equipment to record and monitor the comms.
This gave them access to some of the KGB's most secret signals. It was one of the CIA's most important operations - wrecked by Ames [Page 117].
On page 124, Ames explains that the KGB knew there was a spy in their Consulate in San Francisco due to a spy camera having been lost by an unknown person and then another member of staff handing it in. They had two suspects who had both returned to Moscow and they had to determine who was the CIA mole. The KGB knew that SW broadcasts were used by the CIA to communicate with agents in Moscow and both men had receivers. At the time the KGB were trying to establish which one was dirty, an engineer at Langley discovered that it was possible to electronically trace SW broadcasts.
He conjured up images of detector vans scouring the streets of Moscow trying to identify the person who had that frequency tuned in. The engineer suggested that the receivers provided to agents should be completely redesigned and a special shield put in to prevent electronic tracking.
Ames argued against this as it was more dangerous to give an agent a modified receiver than believe that the KGB could zoom in on one person. He said that Moscow is vast with 10million people and has numerous blocks of flats. He doubted if the KGB could zoom in on a single radio in a single block.
The KGB took each suspect's radio and bugged it - but unfortunately the CIA did not send any messages, so they heard nothing! They did however catch their prey when Ames told them his name!
©'E' [Thanks 'E' for this splendid insight into this Book].
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