Gift with a secret: how the special services of the USSR installed a wiretap in the office of the US ambassador

The Soviet special services since 1943 (following a direct order from Stalin) tried to install listening devices in the office of the US Ambassador to the USSR William Harriman, writes the author of the channel “History and Culture of Eurasia” on Yandex.Zen.

Photo: Shutterstock

The wiretapping needed a nosebleed, since Stalin wanted to know everything about the development of nuclear weapons in the United States. And to get such information immediately could only be learned from the American ambassador himself.

But no matter how cunning the Soviet secret services were, it was not possible to install wiretapping. The US Embassy security was excellent. Even when NKVD officers started a fire at the embassy and tried to enter it like firefighters, the guards did not allow them further than the zone open to outsiders, putting out the fire themselves.

Perhaps the Soviet special services managed to place some radio bookmarks. But they were not placed in the ambassador’s office. And most importantly, the power supply for the “wiretapping” quickly ran out and it was not possible to replace it.

The head of the NKVD, Lavrenty Beria, set the task of creating an eavesdropping device, the charger of which could work for a very long time.

The Soviet inventor Lev Sergeevich Termen was able to solve this technical problem.

In the 1920s, Theremin became famous for creating an electro-musical instrument, the theremin, an instrument that produced sounds using electricity. Thus, Theremin was the first to create electric music.

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In 1922, Theremin impressed Lenin himself with his theremin, who even played music on it. Also, Lev Theremin was able to additionally show Lenin an electric alarm of his own invention. Lenin liked it, and an electric alarm was installed in the Gokhran, the Hermitage and the State Bank.

Lenin gave a mandate to Theremin, giving the right to perform with the theremin throughout the USSR.

And in 1927, Theremin received an invitation to a music exhibition in Frankfurt am Main.

“The success of his concert at the music exhibition is such that Theremin is bombarded with invitations. Dresden, Nuremberg, Hamburg, Berlin saw him off with applause and flowers. There are enthusiastic reviews from listeners of “music of the air”, “music of ethereal waves”, “music of the spheres”. The musicians note that the idea of ​​a virtuoso is not constrained by inert material, “a virtuoso touches spaces.” The incomprehensibility of where the sound is coming from is shocking. Some people call the theremin a “heavenly” instrument, others a “spherophone”. The timbre is striking, at the same time reminiscent of strings and wind instruments, and even some special human voice, as if “grown from distant times and spaces”” - Kokin L. M. From the Physics and Technology Institute to the Grand Opera // Youth of Academicians: A Documentary Story .—2nd ed., add. - M.: Sov. Russia, 1981. - P. 89-102.

In 1928, Lev Theremin came to the United States, where he lived for 10 years.

He created two companies in the USA - Teletouch and Theremin Studio. Theremin became rich and entered the highest circle of the American elite. From her, the scientist received a huge amount of strategically important information, which then became the property of Soviet intelligence, of which the inventor was an agent.

On September 15, 1938, Lev Theremin secretly left for the USSR.

In the USSR, Theremin found himself in a difficult situation and was left without a livelihood. He could not find a job, and he no longer needed it. In March 1939, he was arrested on charges of anti-Soviet activities.

The scientist was sentenced to eight years in camps, most of which he spent in TsKB-29.

It was such a person as Lev Theremin who, by the will of fate, had to become the inventor who would create a new type of eavesdropping device.

The Soviet secret services were well aware that the US Ambassador to the USSR Harriman collects various crafts from wood.

And then Beria had a plan to give him, on behalf of Soviet children, a wooden copy of the Great Seal of the United States, where an eavesdropping device was to be installed.

And this listening device was invented by Lev Theremin. ONL had the code name “Zlatoust endovibrator” and could work without a power source for a very long time.

On August 4, 1945, a delegation of Soviet pioneers, under the pretext of celebrating the anniversary of the Artek pioneer camp, presented US Ambassador Averell Harriman, who was invited to the celebration, with a gift “as a sign of friendship to an ally in the fight against fascism” - a wooden image of the Great Seal of the United States. The ambassador hung the gift on the wall in his office, unaware that an endovibrator was built inside.

Thus began the secret operation “Confession”. Now Stalin knew everything that the American ambassador knew.

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While this eavesdropping device was in effect, four American ambassadors were replaced. Until 1952, the device sent signals to nearby houses, where employees of the Soviet special services set up safe houses.

The bug in the US press will only be found in 1952. During the radio monitoring of the broadcast, the ambassadorial radio operator heard a speech in English and realized that the signal was coming from the embassy.

For the invention of eavesdropping devices, Lev Theremin was awarded the Stalin Prize, and then generally rehabilitated. He was even given a two-room apartment in Moscow. Until 1964, he worked in the system of closed scientific institutions of the KGB of the USSR.

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