More than two decades have passed since the day when the news fell on the heads of the citizens of the USSR, already disappointed in Gorbachev's perestroika, that Vadim Bakatin, the last chairman of the KGB, made an unusual gift of 74 drawings and a short description on one sheet to the American ambassador in Moscow. Most of all, this shocked Russian officers and KGB veterans. Yes, and to ordinary citizens of the USSR who were not privy to the games of the special services, excited by the articles of the media of those years, this event seemed like a bad dream - why, “to give the Americans especially secret documents about the eavesdropping system? This has never happened in the history of national politics and the activities of the special services. " This is how the newspapers and magazines of those years "shouted".
So what did Bakatin "handed over" to the Americans? And how secret and valuable was this gift for the United States? The author of the article will try to answer these questions with the help of copies of all the "Bakatin" documents and relying on his own experience of operational and technical work in the KGB.
EXPANSION "BUGS"
This story began in the late 1960s, when the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs received the long-awaited funding for the construction of more than two dozen new foreign embassies and concluded relevant bilateral agreements with many countries, including the United States. The architects enthusiastically set about preparing the projects, and together with them they experienced quiet joy and special services, for which the construction of new buildings provided great opportunities for the implementation of information retrieval systems. Thus, many talents were able to realize their own ideas and developments - some wanted to show their architectural skills, while others, on the contrary, planned to work as secretly as possible, hiding even from colleagues the place and time of their secret events.
So, for the "bugs" a new environment of "breeding and habitation" was being prepared - concrete with fillers, steel frame of reinforcement, ready-made reinforced concrete structures, finishing materials. The "fields of electronic battle" of the two powers - the USSR and the United States - were designated, which have already begun to prepare construction sites for new embassy buildings in Moscow and Washington. Previous practice has convincingly shown that it is impossible to leave the construction or overhaul of buildings of diplomatic missions without appropriate supervision - "bugs" can crawl into places from where it will be almost impossible to pull them out without destroying the structures of the building frame.
This was well understood in Washington and Moscow, where they began to develop countermeasures and train control inspectors who had to strictly monitor the actions of local builders at all stages of construction, among whom it was necessary to identify secret brigades with "bugs in their bosom."
After the first months of work, the control inspectors began to think about which supervision methodology to adhere to. In theory, it was required to observe every worker and all construction technologies. But in practice, such surveillance is impossible, since tens and hundreds of builders of various specialties work at the construction site, who, moreover, often change as a new building is erected and equipped. Or maybe throw all your strength into the most important premises, where, for example, the ambassador and his cipher clerks are sitting? But then what about the offices of other employees of the embassy, who also work with especially important documents, possess secrets and which can be monitored with the help of "bugs"? The conclusion suggests itself - it is impossible to keep track of everyone, and it is more expensive to divide diplomats according to the degree of importance, since obtaining information about the personal life of a mission employee with the help of a "bug" for his subsequent recruitment can create a gap in the security of the embassy and ultimately lead to a leak state secrets.
In addition to the oversight strategy, tactical issues also had to be addressed. For example, which is better - to secretly observe and record all suspicious actions of the builders or defiantly stand behind them, preventing them from installing a radio bookmark, microphone or laying a secret cable? The latter was not at all pleasant to the security officials of the embassies, who said: “You will scare away all the" bugs "here, and what will we get to assess the technical potential of the enemy? No, gentlemen, comrade controllers, we must give the builders the opportunity to install a couple of "bugs!" But this turned out to be a very delicate problem - where can we allow bugs to be introduced, and where not? Try to find today a brave man who will take responsibility for choosing a room in order to "substitute" it for a "bug"? Most likely, not a single ambassador or head of department will agree to provide their offices for the installation of "bugs" so that in the future they will serve as experts as models for assessing the enemy's capabilities! An ambassador, for example, can declare: "You, the special services, solve your problems yourself, for that you and state security, and leave us alone."
And such not at all simple questions faced the Soviet and American controllers, who had already begun their work in Washington and Moscow in the late 1970s. While the tasks were similar, the controllers worked in completely different conditions. At the Moscow construction site, the situation was under the control of the almighty KGB, which, having received the "go-ahead" from the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU back in 1969, methodically implemented operational and technical combinations, including pioneer-student subbotniks and Sundays, which brought complete chaos into the attempts of American specialists to establish a systematic check, accounting and control of imported building materials and finished structures coming from the concrete factories near Moscow.
AMERICAN INSECTS DISABLED IN TIME
In the American capital, the construction of new Soviet buildings was carried out by one of the largest private firms, which, of course, was not formally subordinate to the US government. And she didn’t want to risk her business reputation by being in the center of a scandal in case of detection of "bugs". However, the press conference in February 1980 in the United States sounded like a bomb explosion, at which Soviet diplomats demonstrated more than a dozen "bugs", commissioned by American builders along with new residential apartments. One of the "bugs" found inside a huge reinforced concrete pillar bore the spicy "Fuck you" sign, which shocked Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who was considered a supporter of elegant and flexible diplomacy. Vance disgustedly called the photographs of American special equipment, delicately shown by the head of the USSR embassy, "shit".
However, the Soviet success in Washington subsequently proved to be a Pyrrhic victory, as it freed the hands of the controllers in Moscow, to whose aid specialists from the CIA and the Pentagon came. As the American media wrote, "at the Moscow construction site, they began to actively use the experience of Soviet controllers, who X-rayed concrete columns and boldly destroyed ready-made building structures with jackhammers." CIA specialists in Moscow began to copy the Soviet experience in detecting "bugs" and went further, sending a reinforced concrete column by diplomatic mail to Langley for a special, objective examination.
The results were so overwhelming that the Americans sent a letter of indignation to Gorbachev himself, who was then personally visited by the American ambassador, who showed the "young" secretary general photographs of the suspicious filling of the building's frame. The perplexed Gorbachev tried to calm the ambassador, referring to the specifics of the perestroika he had begun, which, most likely by mistake, affected the new American building in Moscow. Having dealt with the ambassador, Gorbachev ordered the chairman of the KGB, Kryuchkov, to immediately curtail all secret work on the American construction site in Moscow. Vladimir Alexandrovich decided not to quarrel and by his order "froze" all the special work in 1986.
WAR OF EMBASSIES
However, Gorbachev's friendly assurances did not calm the Americans, who expressed their emotions in foreign media, which gave Ronald Reagan one of his strategic anti-Soviet "chips." The US President had previously called the USSR an "evil empire" and has now received "concrete evidence" for this. And to put a little siege on the Soviet leader, who was gaining more and more popularity abroad and with the same rate of loss of support in his country, Reagan billed Gorbachev $ 200 million to rebuild an American building in Moscow. Gorbachev tried to resist and ordered a press conference to be held at the Moscow press center, where the journalists were shown American "bugs" discovered at different times in Soviet missions in the United States.
In response, the US State Department banned the move of the Soviet embassy to new buildings in Washington, which hurt diplomats and other departments huddled in a small old building. An impasse arose with two new complexes in Moscow and the United States, which could not be used in any way.
In the meantime, in Moscow, American specialists began a systematic survey of the structure of their building, covering empty window openings with wooden panels and not being distracted by Moscow workers who were banned from entering the construction site. Pieces of intertwined cables were removed from the concrete frame, strange fittings made of various metals came across in places, and other incomprehensible objects were found, which, according to the project, should not be. Restless politicians with a rich imagination rushed to speak out about the "huge electronic ear of the KGB", which was very much liked by lively journalists, and the media spread this sensation all over the world. However, experts were in no hurry with assessments and more and more often asked themselves the question - what is the essence of this entire complex KGB system?
The way out of the impasse was helped by a case, or rather, Vadim Bakatin, who accidentally fell into the chair of the KGB chairman, who, on the instructions of two presidents, Yeltsin and Gorbachev, presented the US Ambassador in Moscow with a set of drawings with a short, on one sheet, descriptive part. It listed the numbers of columns, beams and girders with elements of special equipment, as well as devices designated with special terms.
Let's try to understand these documents in order to understand the purpose, value and uniqueness of everything that Bakatin “passed”.
"ELECTRONIC EAR KGB"
The main building frame drawing shows concrete pillars, vertical columns, beams, and parts of a foundation slab. Inside these structures are marked cable routes with intermediate connectors, special containers with additional cables and connectors. On the ends and sides of reinforced concrete columns, plugs made of foam concrete are shown (for quick opening of these places) with "switches" inside, with the help of which new cables with information pickup sensors could be connected in the final period of the interior decoration of the building, when erecting brick and panel enclosing structures (which was not due to the stop of construction). In the drawings of the vertical columns, special "contactless transitions" are also indicated (referred to in the documents as BP). With the help of PSUs operating as high-frequency capacitors, each lower vertical column with a section of the cable route inside could be connected to the next vertical column, and thus all individual cable sections were switched into a single wired system, from the foundation to the upper floors of the building and beyond., to the terminal elements of information retrieval (in case of continuing construction).
According to the description given by Bakatin, “concrete chemical power supplies” (designated as BCIT in the drawings) were placed inside the two building structures, possibly for power supply of electronic units hidden in the same place and two microphones installed, most likely, for acoustic control of the actions of American controllers on the upper floors of the building, where later premises with classified information and electronic equipment of the US Embassy could be located. The presence of microphones in this part of the frame of the still unfinished building, perhaps, indicates an increased attention to the actions of American controllers, who were supposed to carefully monitor all the actions of Soviet builders, and at night and on weekends, visually and with the help of various equipment, inspect the elements of the frame of the upper floors … It can be assumed that, listening to the conversations of the Americans, the KGB tried to understand the results of the inspectors' work in order to hide or remove in time a discovered or suspicious building part with special elements inside.
Another "information for thought" - on drawings No. 61 and No. 65 of horizontal reinforced concrete structures, named in the documents as "girders", "pieces of small diameter plastic pipes" are shown. By analogy with the drawings of the basement, it can be assumed that these elements were subsequently supposed to be used for laying cables of microphones and sensors for picking up information.
The description also indicates the numbers of the two crossbars, where the special sensors "P" are installed, and in some drawings these places are called "sections of insulated reinforcement". It is very likely that such a system could be used as an antenna for receiving radio and magnetic emissions from communication equipment, encryption, etc., which are often located on the upper floors of diplomatic missions.
At the end of the descriptive part of the "Baku" documents, it is said that "the listed elements are not combined into systems for obtaining information and do not present a threat to the security of the embassy at present." Indeed, there is no confirmation in the drawings that the individual parts of the cables are connected into a single wiring system. It is likely that Bakatin "handed over" an unfinished eavesdropping system consisting of a large number of separate cables and connectors hidden in concrete columns and beams, which were subsequently to be connected to sensors, microphones and other information pickup devices. It is possible that these terminal devices were never installed in accordance with the order of Gorbachev and in connection with the halt by the Americans of construction at the stage of planning and finishing the premises.
The documents handed over to the Americans indicate the location of such special systems as concrete-chemical power supplies, high-frequency transitions between vertical columns, methods and places for hiding containers under the surface of building structures, special "P" sensors and much more. The conclusion suggests itself - the "Baku" gift clearly helped American specialists in finding the installation sites and in deciphering the purpose of the KGB special equipment. It can be assumed that the "Baku" documents made it possible for the US State Department to solve the problem of protecting the building in Moscow by demolishing the two upper floors and erecting four new ones, but on its own.
What goals did Bakatin pursue when handing over to the American ambassador a set of once secret blueprints? Perhaps it was a desire to please his bosses, Gorbachev and Yeltsin, and the idea itself could have been suggested to Bakatin by his American consultants, who were at that time in Moscow. We cannot exclude the usual amateurishness of the last KGB chairman, who simply did not understand the irresponsibility of his act and, perhaps, wanted to look original in the midst of the political games of that period.
In various articles about Bakatin's "gift", the opinions were expressed that the Americans themselves, knowing from practice about the ingenious operational combinations of the KGB, could not completely believe all these documents and assume that, in addition to the "donated" special equipment, the Russians have others, not yet implemented systems of information retrieval, which will wait for a suitable situation for their implementation or activation. It is possible that such a time has already come.
