The Cold War of the 20th century gave historians and specialists a wealth of factual material about the confrontation between two ideologies, about political, economic and informational large-scale battles and secret battles behind the scenes. The latter can be safely attributed to the operations of the special services, among which the most active, without a doubt, are the Soviet KGB, the German STASI, the American CIA and the British intelligence MI6.
ROMEO FROM THE WOLF OFFICE
The youngest special service was the German STASI, it was she who, during her relatively short biography, managed to gain the reputation of a dynamically developing secret organization with an actively operating wide network of agents. The most effective in the STASI system, historians of the special services call intelligence or General Directorate A, created and for many years led by General Markus Wolf - a talented organizer, intellectual, author, inspirer and curator of multi-way operational combinations and activities that, like a rake in a guarded garden, are actively "Cleaned out" political secrets and military secrets of the FRG and its allies.
One of the most productive operational measures of General Wolff is considered a series of operations codenamed "Romeo", which were successfully carried out back in the mid-60s of the last century. In accordance with the approved plan, Main Directorate "A" began to search, check and recruit handsome young bachelors. All of these officers were undergoing intensive training at the STASI special school, and soon General Wolff had a large enough team of young intelligence officers to carry out particularly delicate assignments. Romeo, as Western historians called them, had to identify and evaluate direct and promising intelligence capabilities, then actively courting, seek reciprocity, and then quietly but purposefully lead secretaries, assistants, personal assistants and even responsible ladies-employees who worked in government agencies and political parties, in the special services and military departments of Germany and other NATO countries.
The far-sighted Markus Wolf sent his scouts to the southern resorts of Europe, chosen by unmarried West German women who yearned for the sun and various entertainment, including bedding. Most STASI officers have played their roles as Romeo in different talent and skillful ways, but equally effectively. And when one of the ladies-agents decided to confess to the priest, General Wolf's scouts in such a difficult situation organized and fully fulfilled the desire of their agent, preventing the leak of operational information. A real scout must have the creativity of an actor, and STASI officers have proven this many times, often improvising in various operational situations.
As a result of these in their own way complex and long-term love relations, the STASI intelligence received stable channels for the receipt of political and military documents of varying degrees of secrecy. According to the estimates of the official departments of Germany, up to 50 ladies-agents with various levels of access to secrets, including in intelligence and military counterintelligence of the FRG, worked for the STAZI.
KGB SHOULD YOUR SHOULDER
Historians attribute the success of the Romeo events entirely to the STASI, but the KGB of the USSR provided special and irreplaceable assistance to the intelligence of the GDR. The fact is that in the process of obtaining all the valuable information, the most laborious and especially risky was to copy secret documents. In most cases, this had to be done at the workplace, for which the STASI Operational and Technical Service first used one of the first Soviet special cameras "Arnika", rightly named by General Wolf as the best undercover technique of the 1960s. On the basis of "Arnika" talented designers of the GDR made their own camera with camouflage "Ladies Handkerchief". The set completely fit into a set of personal items that ladies-agents could use on their office desk, working with highly important and classified documents.
However, the reliability of such camouflage drew fair criticism, in connection with which the STAZI and the KGB began a joint search for the most suitable camouflage cover for the secret, in KGB jargon, photocopying of documents. In 2002 Detlev Vreisleben, a well-known German historian of special equipment used by the STASI, in Photo Deal No. 3, spoke in detail about the Soviet micro-camera "Lipstick", which was used to shoot especially important documents right on the desktop.
The appearance of a camera in lipstick was preceded by a lot of work by operational KGB officers to choose the most suitable manufacturer, then a special laboratory of the KGB OTU created several mock-ups, and after repeated tests, a new unique special equipment was transferred to the intelligence of the GDR. The ladies-agents appreciated the excellent camouflage and simple control of the micro-camera, which could be used to photograph and correct their makeup at the same time. The photo was taken by rotating the bottom of the lipstick tube. At the same time, turning in one direction cocked the shutter and the film was rewound one frame. And accordingly, when the lipstick was rotated in the other direction, the shutter was released all the way and the document lying on the table was photographed.
Lipstick manipulation did not arouse suspicion in anyone, especially since ladies-agents always carried regular lipstick in their purses and another, exactly the same, but with a microphoto camera inside. KGB veterans told the author of the article that all stages of the creation and operational implementation of "Lipstick" were under the personal control of Vladimir Kryuchkov, head of the KGB PGU.
OUTSTANDING SPECIAL EQUIPMENT HEROES
Today, digital technology has almost completely replaced classic film cameras, which has led, for example, to the loss of the leading position in the photo market of the famous company "Kodak", which did not have time to reorganize itself to meet the changing interests of buyers. The same thing happened with a huge arsenal of special film photographic equipment, which, with the advent of digital technologies, remained unclaimed and is now stored in warehouses, waiting for the next inventory, which usually ends with the destruction of the once unique and very expensive samples.
Along with the destruction of special photographic equipment, the very history of the design, creation and use of a special film photographic arsenal of the KGB, which was considered the best among the leading intelligence services in the world in terms of the number, range and frequency of modernization of models, as well as the volume and quality of the information received, is slowly disappearing. For example, Peter Wright, deputy director of the British counterintelligence MI5 for scientific and technical issues, expressed his sincere admiration for the "pocket copier in a cigarette case" discovered in 1961 in the possession of Konon Molodoy, a well-known Soviet illegal intelligence agent. The first camera in the world was built into the cigarette case, making copies by rolling over a document.
It must be said that the design, development and production of special photographic equipment have always been unattractive directions for the Soviet and Western concerns of the photographic industry. Compared to conventional cameras, special photographic equipment was usually ordered in small quantities, which was disadvantageous for the main production indicators of photo-optical enterprises. In addition, all stages of the manufacture of special photographic equipment, from the development of sketches and drawings to the testing of prototypes and production samples, had to be classified. For this, special secret departments and workshops were created at the enterprises, all employees of which received the appropriate permits, issued after a thorough check of the candidate by the KGB.
The fulfillment of all admission requirements was closely monitored by counterintelligence officers, whose main task was to prevent the leakage of any information about the special equipment produced, the materials and technologies used. And the developers and designers themselves did not have the opportunity to speak at large domestic or international symposia with reports on their inventions, new implemented ideas, or simply proudly boast of the samples of new products of their teams. Even memoirs and simple printed memoirs were strictly forbidden for specialists of all levels of this special KGB photographic industry, closed from prying eyes.
This article is a tribute of respect and memory to those many and still unknown, real heroes of the invisible front of the Cold War: development officers, designers and mechanics, as well as veterans of the operational and technical service of the KGB PGU, who created a unique arsenal of Soviet operational equipment and developed its methods. use. Including this masterpiece of the twentieth century - a microphoto camera in lipstick, with the help of which the intelligence services of the GDR and the KGB received invaluable documentary materials.
