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“Letters” from the Embassy
Russia’s ingenious Cold War spy-tech that was almost never discovered [Based on true events]
The information started coming in. Letter after letter it came, and the KGB Agents gave each other a knowing glance. They had done it — the information was coming straight to them courtesy of an exploit they placed inside the American Embassy in Moscow. It was brilliant, really.
Everything the Americans keyed in through certain means — every letter — was flying through the air over radio frequencies, mixed right in with local TV broadcasts, then right to their desks. At least, as long as the batteries had juice. The KGB was already working on a new model that could draw power from the device itself, eliminating the need for a separate power source.
By 1978, the Russians began locating and arresting American spies, who had no idea how their cover was blown. They would be tortured or even executed — and in some cases would swallow their suicidal Cyanide tablet to otherwise control their fate. Losing multiple high-level intelligence assets was concerning enough that the CIA called for a temporary shutdown of intelligence gathering in Moscow.
Charles Gandy, an electrical engineer at the United States’ National Security Agency (the “NSA”) was sent to Moscow in the Spring to…
