In Cold War Spy Games, a Coup for the CIA Wasn't All It Seemed
In the CIA's Berlin tunnel operation, Soviet authorities found equipment used to tap telephone lines to Moscow and elsewhere. The announcement of the discovery bolstered the reputation of the CIA, to the delight of U.S. spymasters. (Associated Press)
Shortly after Soviet officials disclosed a U.S. wiretapping operation in East Berlin in 1956, reporters were shown the tunnel. CIA officials reveled in the news coverage. (Associated Press)
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, January 28, 2008; Page A01
BERLIN -- On a rainy day 52 years ago, the cover was blown on one of the biggest espionage plots of the Cold War. Soviet and East German forces announced that they had found a quarter-mile-long tunnel that the CIA had burrowed into East Berlin as part of a massive wiretapping operation.
Though the audacious project had come to a crashing end, news of the discovery generated unrestrained glee across the Atlantic at CIA headquarters. America's spymasters were thrilled by the world's response: admiration for the CIA's daring and technical prowess, and a general assumption that the agency had roundly snookered the Soviets.
"Worldwide reaction was outstandingly favorable in terms of enhancement of U.S. prestige," the CIA wrote in an internal history of the Berlin Tunnel project that was declassified last year and recently made public. Western allies in particular reacted with "unconcealed delight to this indication that the U.S., almost universally regarded as a stumbling neophyte in espionage matters, was capable of a coup against the Soviet Union, which had long been the acknowledged master in such matters."...
http://www.washingtonpost.com
Там есть ещё и снимки туннеля...
