Chapter 8 Chapter Six

In the trenches of the Cold War, A-Second was the front line of MI5, and Winterborn and I were commandos.Winterborn was a good comrade in arms of mine.He served in the Army and traveled to China, Japan, Ceylon and Burma before joining MI5.Can speak fluent Chinese and Japanese.He had tried to be a field marshal, but hadn't succeeded.His plans of action were always thought out, down to the last detail, often complex, but always executed with military precision.However, he was not a man without taste, and the purpose of each operation he participated in was not only to gather intelligence, but also to have a little fun from it.We did have fun.For five years we had wiretapping and theft at the behest of the state all over London, while the pompous top-hatted officials in Whitehall pretended not to know about it.

Winterborn and I are a natural match.We all firmly believe that almost every aspect of MI5 is in dire need of modernization, especially in the area of ​​technology.I focused on coming up with ideas, and he helped me weed out the unrealistic from the suggestions, pick the ones that sounded good, and plan how to implement them. When I first partnered with Winterborn, he was complacent about the task he had just completed in the second division of the A division.The mission's codename is "Party Operations."It was a typical Winterborn move -- a perfect combination of thoroughness and good luck. A counterespionage specialist from F4 learned from within the British Communist Party that the files of the entire secret party were kept in the apartment of a wealthy party member in Mayfair.So the second division of Division A was ordered to formulate an action plan and sneak into the apartment to copy the files.

The apartment was closely monitored, including visual inspections, tapped phone calls and intercepted letters.Soon, MI5 had an unexpected stroke of luck: the housewife in the apartment called her husband, who was at work, and said she was going out for an hour.She told him she put the key under the straw mattress.Less than twenty minutes after Leconfield Building tapped the phone, we showed up around the apartment and plastic-printed a model of the key. We made careful arrangements while the owner of the apartment was on vacation in the lakeside area for the weekend.Winterbourne sent a team of watchmen to keep an eye on the occupants of the apartment in case they decided to return early.We set up a number of pedal-operated microfilm cameras in the Leconfield Building, ready to remake the archives. A working team from the second section of Division A entered the apartment and picked the lock of the filing cabinet containing the files of party members.The contents of all drawers in each cabinet were photographed with a Polaroid camera.Each file was carefully removed and numbered in the apartment so that it could be returned after use.The archives were then loaded in bundles to the Leconfield Building, where they were reproduced in sequential order.All told, more than 55,000 files were copied that weekend, yielding an invaluable trove of intelligence about the British Communist Party.

"Party Action" enabled MI5 to fully grasp the organizational situation of the British Communist Party.Each file contained a statement, written by the applicant himself, explaining why he wanted to join the party.In addition, there are complete personal details, including detailed environmental conditions when joining the party, work done for the party, and contacts in the party organization. Among the materials seized by Operation Party Affairs were files on secret members of the American Communist Party.Some of them wished not to reveal their identities, others because the party wanted them to.Most of these secret party members were not contemporaries of the secret party members of the 1930s.Most of the secret party members in the 1930s later joined the ranks of spies, and the new generation of secret party members mainly came from the Labor Party, the trade union movement, civil affairs agencies or other government departments.These party members had to go underground because of the new censorship imposed by the Attlee government.The British Communist Party was very popular in the years after the Second World War, especially the trade union movement, mainly because we were allies with the Soviet Union during the war.The Communist Party of Great Britain became increasingly active in labor disputes, and the latter years of Prime Minister Attlee's life were terrified.In the late 1940s, MI5 began to focus on monitoring and weakening the activities of the British Communist Party in the trade union movement.When "Operation Party" was launched in 1955, almost every level of the British Communist Party was infiltrated by technical surveillance or spies.MI5's access to the core party material of the British Communist Party ultimately proved its ability to control the situation after the war.Ironically, less than a year after the Soviet invasion of Hungary, the British Communist Party's prestige began to decline.

After MI5 obtained this batch of party affairs materials, the British Communist Party could no longer pose a serious threat to national security.Since then, MI5 has been able to find every active party member, especially the clandestine ones, and monitor their activities to prevent them from obtaining classified material.The party materials are all stored in the "Y box", which has always been useful.By the early 1970s, the British Communist Party later protested that it had abolished the system of secret membership and was now only an open party. I began to take part in operations against the British Communist Party in the late fifties.Winterborn and I installed an additional telephone in the King Street headquarters of the British Communist Party.Knowing that its buildings are constantly under technical surveillance, the British Communist Party keeps changing locations for important meetings.There was an intelligence officer at the King Street headquarters who reported to his F4 superiors that the meeting of the Executive Committee had been moved to a small conference room at the end of the house.This small conference room has no windows, and we also learned from the intelligence officer that there is no telephone in the conference room.This prevents us from eavesdropping with special devices.It wasn't until the sixties that we figured out why there was no telephone in this conference room.It was one of the first leaks Anthony Brent made to the Russians after the special device had been installed on King Street.The Russians also told the British Communist Party to remove all calls from confidential places, but the British Communist Party did not fully believe this, and they only took precautions on top secret matters.

Winterborn and I took my car to King Street and sat outside studying the facade of the house, trying to figure out the best way to bug the conference room.On the lower left side of the wall facing the street is an old coal chute, which has been disused for many years.It seems that this coal chute provides us with the greatest convenience.We asked the intelligence officer where the coal chute leads, and he said it leads directly to the meeting room.I suggested to Winterborn that we could make a fake door, exactly like the one on the coal chute, put the fake door over the old one, and put a radio receiver between the two doors , to transmit the sound through the keyhole.

Winterborn immediately made arrangements.He started by designing a new door with spring clasps that snapped over the coal chute.The old door had been dark brown and worn out from weather and weather, and the new door would obviously have to be painted the same colour.So we got in touch with Gaston's Architectural Research Station.Winterborn scraped a bit of the paint off with a screwdriver as we casually walked through the place one night.It is then sent as a sample to the Construction Research Station for identification.After identification, they got us some of the same paint.Using a spray gun and a bucket of water, we successfully painted the new door to give it a weathered look.I was in charge of installing the radio microphone on the door.I attached a small plastic sound tube to the keyhole in the door and the microphone to the other end.The rest of the space is filled with batteries, which allow the microphone to operate continuously for six months.There was a telephone booth at the end of King Street, and the receiver was hidden in it.Fortunately, the phone booth was located just within firing distance of the microphones, so that the phone lines could carry the signal back to the eighth floor of the Leconfield Building.

The riskiest job of the operation was the fitting of the false door to the coal chute in King Street.The work will be carried out within sight of Communist Party buildings, and they are constantly on the lookout for any suspicious activity.Winterborn had a typically complicated scheme.He decided to install it late on a Saturday night, because that's when the theaters were closing and the streets of the Royal Opera House would be packed.He mobilized all the officers of A2 and F4 who could come, and their wives, and had them flock to King Street from all directions at the appointed time.Winterbourne had carefully arranged for us to arrive in two batches, pretending to be very drunk.We meet on the sidewalk and say hello to each other.Winterborn knelt down behind the crowd, and with his hand drill drilled four small holes in the wall of the coal chute for the spring catches of the false door.In order to avoid showing traces, he caught the fallen brick ash with a handkerchief.In less than a minute our noisy socializing began to fade away, but Winterbourne, with steely will, patiently drilled the hole, took the false door out of his overcoat, and fitted it where it should be .

The operation was code-named "Pin Needle", and it was successfully completed according to plan.For months, MI5 heard every important meeting of the British Communist Party.But in the end the microphone was found.A British Communist chief was listening to the radio and suddenly switched to our frequency, and the howling noise woke him up to the presence of a device.The British Communist Party ransacked the entire building in order to find bugging devices.Fortunately, Winterborn's wife was visiting relatives in Norway at the time, and Winterborn was living in a suite on the top floor of the Leconfield building.As soon as the microphone was exposed, he hurried to remove the false door and took it back to the office like a trophy.

The biggest microphone tap that Winterborn and I ever did was at the Lancaster Building.All the British colonial meetings of the 1950s and 1960s were held in this palatial mansion.After Macmillan became prime minister, the pace of change in colonial affairs became more pronounced.MI5 is primarily responsible for the security and intelligence gathering of all British territories and the Empire itself.MI5 came under increasing pressure to provide intelligence analysis as the colonies negotiated their independence.It was obviously impossible to eavesdrop on the Lancaster Building effectively in a small way.We had no way of knowing which rooms were to be used, which made it difficult for us to collect intelligence.Winterborn and I suggested that Section 5 install an integrated microphone system throughout the building, ready to be used whenever needed.The Colonial Office readily acceded to our request.The Lancaster building was closed for a two-week "renovation", and a team from Division A and Division Two moved in.Winterborn and I had thought through the room beforehand and had drawn up a wiring diagram showing where each mic would go.We monitored the entire installation process.Throughout the 1960s and 1970s we used this comprehensive system whenever high-level diplomatic negotiations took place in London.

Our main mission was to counter the Soviet Union and its allies, but bugging the headquarters of the British Communist Party and spying on Third World delegations would ultimately interfere with this main mission.When I was in the second section of A, my first operation against the Russians was code-named "Choir".The operation actually started a few months before I joined MI5.At that time Winterbourne was engaged in an operation to bug the Russian Consulate on Bayswater Road.It has a house next door that is undergoing repairs and is ready for a new owner.This is an opportunity, and MI5 sneaks in pretending to be a decorator.Winterborn installed a new device, a sounding microphone developed by John Taylor in his Dollis Hill laboratory. A sounding microphone is a large, high-sensitivity microphone primarily used for wall-tapping.The bugging device was mounted inside the wall, eighteen inches from the wall being tapped.Between this distance, drill a quarter-inch diameter hole with a hand drill half an inch and a half, stop half an inch from the target wall, and hand-dig a needle-nose-sized hole. round holes (the tool we used was a size sixty drill bit).On the other side of the wall, there was little to see with the naked eye.A smooth plexiglass tube was placed in the eighteen-inch space to allow the sound to pass into the microphone.The microphone was hooked up to the street line, and the signal was sent back to the Leconfield building over a telephone line, where the amplifier amplified the sound until it could be heard clearly. Six months after the 'choir' microphone was installed in Winterborn, it suddenly fell silent.There was an MI5 agent who sometimes worked as a handyman and decorator for the Russians.Since the man's name was Nutkin, he was nicknamed "Squirrel."He told us that the room next door had been repainted.It appears that the pinhole may have been sealed with paint.Still, we're mystified. Before installing the microphones, Winterborn had obtained the detailed dimensions of the wall from Nutkin.Based on these dimensions, he designed a pinhole exit behind the lime flakes on the delicate cornice fourteen feet above the floor.It seemed unlikely that anyone would paint so carefully that the pinholes were sealed.Winterborn and I decided to dig it up again and check it out. This new operation requires careful planning.Repairs to the house next door to the consulate have been completed and it is now a busy office with regular visits.We learned that some of these visitors were Russians who had come to check security.So we had to do it quietly at night.To work fourteen feet above the ground required scaffolding, and lime and paint were needed to repair the damage.Winterborn brought a movable ladder frame and quick-drying maintenance materials, which were specially developed by the Architectural Research Station for the Fifth Division, and packed them into small packages and sent them to the office to avoid attracting the attention of the consulate.The consulate is constantly vigilant about its surroundings. A week later, Jagger and I took a taxi to the end of Bayswater Road.It was still winter, and the streets were dark and crowded with pedestrians. We walked towards the consulate with a sense of lightness.Open the door with the famous key made by Jagger, and enter the next room.We opened a briefcase containing tools and a small radio receiver.The observation station opposite the consulate has been notified to monitor the movement of the consulate.We turned on the receiver so we knew if someone was going into the next room, and when someone got in, we stopped working. Every microphone installed by MI5 is registered in Branch A's index room with details of technical performance, operating history and exact location of installation.The specific location of the installation is the most important.Jagger silently set up the workbench, and I took the time to study and triangulate the wall drawings we had brought from the index room at A.We started scraping the lime with our hands, and the work was intense.Each piece of lime had to be caught by hand so that it did not fall to the floor, and the piece was then bagged away.We worked for an hour and dug out the microphone, which was sealed in the wall with a layer of clay.I removed the wires and got out the plexiglass tubing that led to the next room. The No. 60 drill bit we used had a special latch on it that turned the bit slowly so that no lime chips or paint flakes would fall into the adjoining room.I inserted the drill bit and held the drill body steady with my hands.Jagger turned the handle slightly, and after only two turns, he hit a hard lump, and the needle hole was blocked by something.Obviously, this lump is not paint.In the light of the headlights of passing cars, we exchanged puzzled glances.We started turning the rig again, but again we hit a hard lump.Suddenly, the drill was able to move, but then hit another obstacle.I gently withdrew the drill, and Jagger boxed it up to take back to Leconfield House for inspection.I put a sound tube in the hole.From the pipe I heard the ticking of the clock in the next room.No doubt we had drilled into the adjoining room as originally planned, and just behind the slivers of lime on the cornice. We quickly put the mic back in the wall, reconnected the wires, and sealed the hole with lime.We had to grind here for three hours waiting for the lime to dry so we could repaint where the paint had peeled off.We sat and smoked while the receiver blared on and off.Even in this vast and silent midnight, East and West are still dancing the Cold War waltz.Surveillance cars still track Russian diplomats through the dark streets of London, but the consulate is silent. The next day, Winterborn and I were on the eighth floor listening to the "choir" mics, which were muffled at low volume, but clearly still working.The only problem was that no one was speaking in that room.All I could hear was the continuous clicking of a typewriter.We went down to the basement and examined the No. 60 bit with a microscope.It bears a trail of lime, three-eighths of an inch long.I don't know who this Russian maintenance worker is, but he is really serious about his work! Winterborn squinted into the microscope and said, "What is this repainting? It's totally impossible to put lime three-eighths of an inch thick in a pinhole. It's poured with a syringe. " About a month later, "Squirrel" Natkin had a chance to see the house, which had been completely redone inside, with a soundproof panel on the wall it shared with the next door, and a secretary was typing in it.The Russians understand as well as we do that the Common Wall is the easiest place for wiretapping.But, as far as we know, they don't know there's a sounding microphone in the wall.However, it appears that they probably found the pinhole and plugged it. In July 1955, I confronted the Soviets again.This time in Canada.The Royal Canadian Mounted Police requested technical assistance from MI5 during one of their operations.They're going to install microphones at the Russian embassy in Ottawa.The Russian embassy, ​​an old three-story building on the edge of the Rideau River, had recently been burned in a fire.The Royal Canadian Mounted Police intends to install wiretapping equipment during the rebuilding process and needs the latest equipment, so they contacted MI5. When I arrived at the airport, I was met by Terry Guernsey, Chief of Counterintelligence Section 2, RCMP.The assistant who came with him was a Welshman named James Bennett.Guernsey is a Canadian, lanky, calm on the surface, but extremely weak on the inside, often revealing his fiery temper.He was trained by the British Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service.Returned to Canada in the early 1950s.He believed that mounted police officers in police uniforms were simply not fit for the delicate work of counterintelligence.So he began to recruit some civilian intelligence personnel, and single-handedly built the Second Division into one of the most modern and enterprising counterintelligence agencies in the West.Guernsey pioneered many of the ideas that have played an important role in Britain and the United States, such as the use of electronic computers to track Russian diplomats in the West.But he is often suppressed and restricted by the traditional forces from the Mounted Police.This traditional force believes that uniformed mounted police have inherent advantages over civilian personnel.This struggle exists not only with Canada's intelligence services, but also with the FBI in the United States.Guernsey believes that only the British approach is right because they distinguish between criminal detective work and intelligence-gathering work, which are two distinct technical fields.In order to make Section II independent from the control of the main force of the Mounted Police Force, Guernsey fought many struggles.But this effort nearly ruined his entire career.Guernsey was never forgiven by senior officers in the Mounted Police, and he was eventually relegated to England to serve as a liaison officer between the Mounted Police and MI5 and MI6.He was later forced to retire due to poor health. In 1956, when I first went to Canada to help plan Operation Earthworm, Guernsey was still popular.Over dinner that day, he described the progress of the operation to me.The construction contractor for the rebuilding of the Russian embassy has been successfully won over by the Mounted Police, and the Mounted Police officers have been disguised as workers to work on the construction site.In addition, some help was received from Yegor Guzenko.This person used to be a cipher clerk at the Russian embassy, ​​and defected to Canada in 1945.With his help, Guernsey found the precise locations of KGB and GRU confidential offices and confidential rooms.The confidential office is in the northeast corner of the building. After studying the plan, I concluded that the Satyr's specifications were not up to the task.The so-called "forest" is a resonant microphone that emits microwaves from the outside to make it work.Since the distance between the microphone and the safety zone is too far, its effect cannot be guaranteed.It seems the only thing we can use is a wired unit.The great advantage of this device is that, if it is cleverly installed, it will be so seamless that it will be almost impossible to detect.The best way to do this is to hide the microphone in an aluminum lattice window on the side of the target building.Guernsey got a sample window frame from the builder.The weight of this kind of window is very light, and it can be pushed and pulled left and right. It is ideal if you want to hide things inside.When the two windows and doors are locked together, there is a ventilation channel in the frame, which can keep the sound quality good, and the metal window frame can effectively weaken the magnetic field generated by the microphone, so that it is not easy for the detector to find the microphone. However, the most vexing problem is how to hide the microphone wire.According to design specifications, the walls of the new embassy were two feet thick, the concrete interior walls were fourteen inches thick, with two inches of space in between, and the exterior wall veneer was four inches thick.We looked for details on Russian electronic detectors in MI6.According to them, the Russians only probed the inside of the wall, never the outside.Apparently the Russians were afraid of being seen probing their rooms and considered it indecent.I told Guernsey that the best solution would be to put the wires in that two-inch space, protected by fourteen inches of concrete, which would be hard to see anyway.In particular, MI5 has developed a new type of thin wire, which produces a very weak electromagnetic field. Construction has started and we have to try to keep the wires from Russian security.They often come to the construction site to check the work of Canadian construction contractors.Below each eight-foot-deep concrete plinth, we buried large bundles of electrical wiring and covered the surface with asphalt.Every night when the main project was being built, mounted police members disguised as workers entered the construction site, pulled a section out of a large bundle of wires, and put it into the space.There were to be eight wires in all, each numbered from one to twenty, so as to fool the Russians if they were found.It was an amusing gimmick, and the Russians would appreciate the joke if they tore down the building to find those wires. The hardest job was connecting the wires to the microphones.The windows in the northeast part of the house have been successfully installed.A Mountie officer was on hand to make sure the sashes were in place.It took all of us during the months of construction to get the wires into that two inch space.But to connect the wires and the microphone, there is no way to escape the eyes and ears.So we had to ask an engineer to go up to the shelves as high as the fourth floor and connect them from the outside.This work was carried out by one of Guernsey's technicians.This young engineer did a good job. In the freezing cold of nearly minus 40 degrees Celsius in the middle of the night, this burly man, with welding tools in his satchel, climbed to the roof to work.He installed the eight microphones one by one, then carefully connected the wires and soldered each connector firmly. After the wires were connected, Mounted Police technicians began digging a twenty-yard tunnel under a security building next door to the embassy (the security building belonged to the Mounted bundle of wires under the post).The wires were then brought into the security building ten feet below ground and covered with three feet of concrete.All eight wires are connected to an amplifier hidden in the garage of the security building, and the power is provided by the output line of the Mounted Police Headquarters.Each microphone worked fine when tested. However, just as this almost flawless operation was coming to an end, a bad luck suddenly struck.There was a worker who didn't know that all the wires coming from the upstairs windows were concentrated in the area of ​​the outer wall near the northeast corner of the new embassy to our security building, where he installed fuel tanks and The metal buckle is knocked down to support the ventilation duct.There was a metal clip that went right through the bundle of wires buried in the ground and knocked out all the mic connectors. There was no choice but to enter the building again, but this time the action was more risky than the last one.Construction work is nearing completion and the Russians will soon be moving in.If discovered, the Russians would not believe that the workers, disguised as Mounted Police officers, were innocent.They re-entered the embassy building on a very cold night.With some difficulty, six of the eight wires were dug out from under the metal clasp and reattached.There were two other wires, so I had to get rid of them, and just use the metal buckle to install them in the wall.Despite the loss of two microphones, at least one microphone remained functional in each of the targeted houses, and the accident was thus averted. After the Russians moved back to their embassy, ​​we heard speech on the microphone.GRU officials chatted enthusiastically about how the furniture should be arranged.Forty-eight hours later the Russians suddenly withdrew from their offices.Soon, we found out from the Russians' embassy materials that they planned to build secret KGB and GRU offices in another part of the building, possibly powered by a separate generator. These microphones continuously transmit voices back to Mounted Police headquarters.Soon the microphones were sending back the sound of a scanning group at work.The Mounties had been aware of the group's arrival for days, and we didn't have confirmation until they started working the northeast corner, banging on walls looking for cavities and checking the ceiling with metal detectors.The group tossed for twenty days in the room with the microphone, as if they had decided that there was a bug in it.But they never found wires and microphones.By the standards of Russia around the world, the scale of the new embassy is not large, but despite the small interior space, the northeast corner is hardly used except for general consular work.This was the case even after the inspection team left the place.Eight years later, the bug-checkers are back in Ottawa.They went straight to the rooms that housed the microphones and found the wires and microphones in less than an hour.Of the forty-two rooms in the embassy, ​​the inspection team only inspected the six rooms where the microphones were installed. They must have known where to find the microphones! As with Operation Choir, something about Operation Earthworm left me uneasy, partly out of disappointment.From a technical point of view, this operation was a breakthrough, but months of patient preparation were all in vain, and we did not get any information.Of course, the biggest risk Guernsey had in mind when he began planning the operation was to assume that the Russians would set up a security room in the same location as the old embassy.We made this assumption based on the analysis of the power supply situation in the embassy building, which is not unreasonable.It is not surprising that they later decided to build the secret room in another place and hide it.Both the United Kingdom and the United States have begun to realize that the best way to keep the confidential rooms of the embassy from being bugged by microphones is to locate the confidential rooms in the most hidden places inside.The Russians are almost certainly aware of this as well.Secondly, it is best to have your own power supply facilities.However, I was surprised and puzzled that the Russian inspection team was so confident that they aimed at the northeast corner for inspection, as if they were looking for something they knew where to put it. Less than a year later, a similar thing happened again, still in Canada.The Polish government was allowed to open a consulate in Montreal.They bought an old house and started to renovate it.In January 1957, I flew to Montreal to assist the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in installing a microphone.The Mounted Police knew exactly what happened to the Polish intelligence officer at the embassy and where the officer's room was located.However, the interior of the room is being completely remodeled, and it is impossible to install a wired microphone, so we have to install a "Sylvan God" resonant microphone.The house's electrical wiring is being replaced and steel pipes can be used to bury the wires, like the window frames in Operation Earthworm.I calculated that if the "Sylvan God" is installed near the steel pipe, it is actually impossible to be discovered.However, less than two weeks after the Satyr was installed, the Poles ordered the construction contractor to tear down the wall with the bug and build another.The Mounties managed to get one device back, the other was taken by the Poles.Later, the Mounted Police learned from inside the Polish embassy that the Russians had given them a hint that there might be a microphone tap.This time the Russians again took the lead. In addition to what happened in Canada, this kind of thing also happened once in Australia, which was called "Mouse" operation.In 1957, the head of the Australian Security Intelligence Service, Sir Charles Spry, visited London.The organization he heads specializes in gathering intelligence abroad for Australia.Spry called and said he wanted to see me.For a time he was a dashing-looking man with large eyes and a moustache, somewhat pompous in the duties of his work and his pursuit of pleasure.When the Australian Security Intelligence Service was established in 1949, he served as director.Before that, he was the Director of Australian Military Intelligence.But he was determined to set up a regular security intelligence agency similar to the British Security Agency, and together with the officials known as the "Melbourne Land God", he lobbied everywhere for this.These officials share a common language with him.Sprying his iron fist, Spry ran the ASIO for nineteen years, becoming one of the prominent figures of the post-war intelligence community.Later in his career, however, he began to distance himself from his subordinates, and his control over the organization loosened. Spry enjoyed visiting London.In the 1930s, he served in the Indian Army, defending the Khyber Pass.Because of the same background, and the same view of what it means to be a soldier and a gentleman, he has many friends in the British intelligence community who are particular about joining various clubs.He is not an idle fool.As soon as he saw me, he opened the window and spoke honestly.He told me he had just been to Canada and Terry Gussey suggested he talk to me about the ASIO plan to bug the Russians.He explained that since the newspapers reported the defection of the Petrovs, Russia had severed diplomatic relations with Australia and entrusted their embassy to Switzerland.The Petrovs were originally staff members of the confidential office of the Russian Embassy in Canberra.Not long ago, the Russians tentatively planned to return.The Australian Security Intelligence Service wanted to install a bug in the embassy before the Russians moved in.After studying the plans, I persuaded Spry to install a Satyr, and showed him the equipment.The frame of the wooden sash window is the ideal place to install the Satyr.For this I sent an assistant to Australia to oversee the details of the installation.The installation work was successfully completed.I told ASIO not to activate it for a year in case it was discovered, because the Russians might use detectors to detect whether there was any virus inside the embassy building during the first few months of reoccupancy. microwave. Operation "Mouse" was as successful technically as Operation "Earthworm", but no intelligence was obtained.Every sound of the KGB man's room, the sound of newspapers being turned.The sound of strokes can be heard when writing, but the people inside never speak a word. The "mouse" operation was also aborted. 五十年代，人们对军情五处的要求之多，简直难以满足。军情五处的人力和物力显得特别紧张。为此，有个别的官员实在无法承受那样的工作压力，尤其是A处二科的人，因为要参加各种各样的行动，更是受不了。一次行动完结了，又来了一次行动，简直没完没了。我办公桌上堆着的计划、地图、简报和技术报告等，令我感到手忙脚乱。任何时候都很难弄清楚哪些行动结束了，哪些行动还处在筹划酝酿的深谷里。即便是在最乐观的情况下，收集情报也是一件令人伤透脑筋的事。但是每一个职业情报官员，在脑海里总会留有一席空白给那些值得他回忆的往事片断。这些片断由于某种原因而向他们摆出了一个个未能解开的谜。“唱诗班”行动、“蚯蚓”行动、“老鼠”行动等，都聚集在这一席空白地里，被眼前行动的生动局面所掩盖。可是它们并没有被遗忘，直到若干年以后，它们又浮现出来，并产生着新的意义。 情报这个行当，是非常孤独冷寂的。当然也有同志般的忠诚与友谊。可是到了千钧一发的时刻，你总是孤立无援的。你得独自恪守机密，你的生活和工作的节奏总是处在极度的紧张状态中，总是离不了同事们的帮助。但是你总在不断地向前迈进，或奔赴新的工作岗位，或从事新的活动。每走一步，就从中获得新的机密，而与过去的旧机密一刀两断，与别人接触尤其是与外界联系的机会很少，因为你所从事的大多数事情是不允许让外界人士知道的。由于这个原因，情报部门所用的人很多。这是情报这种职业的本质的一部分，干这一行当的人都知道这一点。在我事业的初期，我曾遇到过一个人，他在英国情报部门的遭遇，骤然把这种职业在国家生活中的重要性这一虚伪的面纱揭去。事情还得追溯到我为布伦德里特的委员会研制共振装置上来。当时我花了大量的时间进行研究，让一些鸡毛蒜皮的东西如烟灰缸、装饰物等发出反射经过一定的加工，这些物体在接受到某种频率的无线电微波辐射时，是可以有反射的。如果能研制出一种完美的系统，将会产生较好的效果。这些物体本身不装发报机或接收器，也就不易被人发现。一九五六年，我们已经研制成功一些产品的样品，决定在俄国驻伦敦的大使馆进行试验。 当时军情五处有个情报员叫亨利·柯比，是个宪兵，他常常和俄国外交人员交往。这个计划很简单，由五处设计一个加过工的并可以反射声音的装饰礼品，让柯比把它作为一件礼品送给俄国大使。我们需要知道的第一件事是俄国大使可能接收什么样的礼品，并把它放在书案或办公室里显眼的地方。马尔科姆·卡明建议我去找军情五处的一位反间谍专家克洛普·乌斯季诺夫，他是演员彼得呜斯季诺夫的父亲。 乌斯季诺夫是德国后裔，可他却和俄国外交官员有着千丝万缕的联系，是俄国大使馆的常客。他曾在俄国、德国和英国陆军中担任过职务，这是他与众不同之处。他在两次世界大战之间的那段时间里卷入了情报活动的圈子里，他会讲好几种语言。由于他具有这么一个俄德背景，因此，他便成了一个非常有用的提供情报的源头。希特勒上台后，乌斯季诺夫便开始艰辛地工作，与纳粹作斗争。他向罗伯特·范西塔特请求为英国情报部门工作。范西塔特是英国外交部著名的外交官员，他主张反对纳粹。乌斯季诺夫声称他与当时的德国驻伦敦大使馆的一等秘书沃尔夫冈·朱·普利茨男爵有往来关系。乌斯季诺夫说普利茨是致力于反纳粹的秘密活动的人。军情五处把乌斯季诺夫招进来了，并开始从普利茨那里获得了有关德国重新整顿军备的真实情况的最高情报。这些情报真是些珍宝，或许这是英国在战前所得到的最重要的活情报。乌斯季诺夫和普利茨拉上关系后，两个人成了范西塔特以及丘吉尔晚餐桌上的座上客，把他们知道的情报告诉给这两个著名的人物听。丘吉尔当时还没有上台，普利茨简直就成了这位文质彬彬的英国外交官员的干儿子了。战争爆发后，乌斯季诺夫仍然继续与普利茨往来，尽管普利茨那时已去荷兰担任空军武官了。以后到了一九四〇年，普利茨知道盖世太保要抓他，才决定叛逃。乌斯季诺夫为此冒着个人的危险去了荷兰，把普利茨救了出来，并转移到安全的地方。 我坐上出租车来到肯辛顿乌斯季诺夫的公寓里，期待着见到这位已从秘密世界的生活圈子里光荣引退的英雄人物。事实上，他和他的老伴住在一间破旧的公寓里，周围堆着许多皮封面的古书。他现在只能靠变卖这些藏书来维持他们的生活了。 乌斯季诺夫为我的到来感到兴奋不已。尽管他的生活很艰辛，但是在这场伟大的情报角逐中他仍然扮演着一个竭尽全力的角色。他拿出一瓶伏特加酒和两只酒杯，并着手研究我从办公室带来的计划。他是一个身体肥胖笨重的老人，说话时带着浓厚的喉音和多种语言的土腔。他有一双目光尖锐的眼睛，肯辛顿公园附近的俄国外交官的真实想法全都逃不过他这双眼睛。 “我的朋友，”他用俏皮而顿挫有致的语调说，“如果礼品的价值很高，那么他们会卖掉这种礼品，如果这样，那危险性就大了。他们都是些布尔什维克，喜欢正统的东西，如果送一帧银质列宁像或一座克里姆林宫的模型，也许对他们来说更为神圣。” 我解释说，列宁的半身塑像恐怕不太合适。因为弗拉基米尔·伊里奇的头颅太圆，这种光滑的表面对声波反射的性能较差，而一座克里姆林宫的模型的方案倒是可行的。这种象征着俄罗斯母亲的复杂建筑模型里，很容易隐藏相应类型的凹状刻纹。克洛普·乌斯季诺夫把整个行动计划视为一出趣味浓厚的戏剧的一个片断。他自告奋勇要去拜访俄国大使，这样便能直接地了解到他究竟喜欢什么。 我们讲起过去的事，伏特加酒的酒劲就上来了。尽管他的年纪很大了，但他仍然有很清晰的记忆。当他提起他和普利茨为国家作出的贡献时，泪水流满了他的脸颊，他终于再也忍不住了。 他说：“彼得，我为他们做了这些事情，但他们却把我丢在这里。我们老两口……身无分文。” “可是，你的养老金呢？”我问。 “养老金？我没有养老金。”他满腹酸楚地说，“当你为他们干活儿时，从来就不曾想到以后的事，不考虑晚年，仅仅是因为爱好才去干的。可当你濒临死亡的时候，他们就把你抛弃了。” 我默默无语地坐在那里，他的话令我难以置信。这么一个人竟然会如此沦落风尘，差不多快到了被迫乞讨的地步。我真想问他是什么原因使丘吉尔和范西塔特把他忘记了，可我又感到这只会使他更加心碎。乌斯季诺夫举杯饮酒，聊以平息心绪。 “不过干这行是很有趣的，”他最后说。他用颤抖的手往杯子里倒了些酒。在一阵沉默之后，他又说话了。 “这是我的孩子，他是个演员。”他指着摆在壁炉台上的那张青年彼得的照片说，“你有孩子吗？彼得。”我告诉他我有三个孩子，两女一男。 “叫他不要干这一行。”他悄悄地对我说，“我也不会让我的儿子卷进我们这场游戏里。上面管事的都是些贵人，而贵人则多忘事……” 他又感到一阵辛酸，可顷刻又逝去了。他问了一些军情五处的情况，问到了盖伊·利德尔、狄克·怀特、马尔科姆·卡明，这些人在战争期间都和他有着密切的关系。夕阳西下时，房间里的光线黯淡了，我起身告辞。我们握手道别，他又自个儿沉浸到伏特加酒和旧书堆里去了。 我因为喝过了头，晚上没有干什么事就回家了。第二天上午，我跟卡明提起乌斯季诺夫的问题，他脸上露出尴尬的神情。 “我敢肯定我们在几年前就给他发养老金了。”他的声音提得异常的高，“天哪，可怜的克洛普！我马上去找狄克。” 再继续追问下去也是徒劳。究竟是谁忘了克洛普·乌斯季诺夫，是追问不出来的。官僚们总是在被追究失职时，互相推倭，这早已是司空见惯的事了。乌斯季诺夫还是拿到了他的养老金，可自从那次会面以后，我再也没有见到过他。没有多久，他就去世了，但他的遗孀至少还是得到了一点好处。不久，送一座银质的克里姆林宫模型给俄国大使的计划落空了，外交部不同意。说实话，那天下午在肯辛顿乌斯季诺夫的家里时，我就已经显得漫不经心了。这件事给了我一个终生难忘的教训：军情五处希望它的官员们永远忠诚不渝，直到走进坟墓，而它却不一定以同样的忠诚来回报这些官员。 不管怎样，总的来说，五十年代还是非常有趣的。A处是一个充满着欢声笑语的地方。温特博恩常常说：“如果你能忍受兴奋，那么军情五处的生活是热闹的。”有一次，我们在匈牙利大使馆隔壁的保安楼安装窃听设备。我爬在屋顶上装天线时被一位邻居看见了，他跑去报告了警察，说看见有窃贼在附近。不到十分钟时间，警察就来敲门了，那位邻居也跟警察一起来了，我们顿时乱了手脚。我周围全是些最新的技术设备，地上摊着接收器和电线。温特博恩不知所措，只得打开地板，把价值上万英镑的设备藏到地板下面去。外面的敲门声更加剧烈，有人用壮实的肩膀在撞击房门，想把门撞开。显然，他们听到里面有响动，认定我们正在行窃。后来等屋里的一切稍为归顺了，我才局促不安地打开门来，并解释说我正在利用夜间时间为房间的主人做一些维修工作，这些维修工作都是经过批准的。我给了警察一个电话号码，这是一个当地警察特别处的电话号码，让他去进行核实。 还有一次更有趣，那是在波特兰街对波兰大使馆搞的同样的工作。当时使馆隔壁的房间暂时空出来了，安全局A处二科奉命进去安装一系列的窃听器。温特博恩和我带领A处的十二个人去了。安静是很重要的，因为共用墙那边的目标地常常有人看守。我过分虚张声势，一定要每一个人都脱掉鞋子，以免鞋底踩在光滑的地板上发出声音来。我们在严寒中一口气干了四个小时。二楼所有的地板都被揭开了，我耐心地在梁架之间的空隙里穿排电线。突然，有一根电线缠在一根有裂缝的托梁上，我用手去拉，拉不动，于是便一脚踩在托梁旁边的一枚穿钉上，再用手去拉那根电线。就在此刻，穿钉掉了，我往下一沉，撞穿了楼下一层的天花板，一大块被撞破的天花板落到十四英尺以下的地板上。轰隆一声，仿佛爆炸了一枚炸弹，震动了整个波特兰街。响声与灰雾散去，我却被拦腰夹在天花板的破洞里。过了一会儿，四周又是一片寂静。 “我们脱鞋子脱得好啊！”温特博恩干巴巴地嘲弄道。大家都大笑起来，笑声在这间空房子的周围回荡着。 幸好邻居们大概都已经睡熟了，因为后来没有警察跑来过问。贾格尔赶紧修好板条，并用他的快速干燥维修材料重新修补破损处，重新刷上油漆，这时天还没有亮。 他刷完最后一笔油漆，对我说。“彼得，刚才那一下好危险哪！如果你从那朵'玫瑰花'里掉下去，那我们可就全完了。” 但是，类似于这样的事故一般是不会发生的。总的来说，在温特博恩和我的领导下，军情五处的技术工作是具有较高水平的，与军情六处同一领域的工作形成了鲜明的对比。五十年代中期，军情六处能出大纰漏就不会以出小纰漏为满足的。我听说过的最好一例，便是他们的训练工作。他们把一名低级官员放在军情六处的一间公寓里，然后让一队新手去寻找这个官员并审问他。为了避免出事，每次搞这种活动，都要按惯例通知军情五处。 一天下午，A处二科接到从军情六处打来的电话，请求给予协助。军情六处派出去的那支搜索队显然弄错了藏有他们目标的公寓的层数。他们把上一层的房门撬开了，并开始审问住在里面的那个男子。那男子自然说自己是清白的。搜索队认为他的申辩是预谋的一部分。于是，这帮充满热情的新手对照军情六处教科书上“劝说”一栏的教条，如法炮制。“劝说”完毕之后，这个人居然全部坦白交代了。原来他是一个珠宝窃贼，前不久刚盗了些钻石。显然，他认为抓他的人是由黑社会派来对他实行报复的。他把手头藏着的一些小东西都交了出来。 军情六处一个倒霉的官员在电话里恳切地央求我们告诉他该如何处理那个珠宝窃贼以及钻石和被毁坏的公寓，温特博恩听了之后忍俊不禁。后来，他们限令窃贼在两小时之内去欧洲大陆，然后派贾格尔去修好公寓的破损处。 我在A处二科呆了两三年以后，军情六处开始找上门来要我帮助他们规划他们的技术行动。和军情六处一起工作，我一向不感兴趣。老实说，他们总是策划一些在技术上没有多少成功把握的行动。为了便于吸引美国人参加他们的行动，他们总搞一些类似于柏林隧道那种史诗般的宏大工程。可这种宏大的工程一直没有搞成，而时光却在空耗，甚至连少量的、规模较小的、较为理智的行动也没有搞成。他们还热衷于毫无价值的装腔作势，我认为这不利于行动的安全，而且很危险。譬如，在波恩我们拟定对俄国大使馆采取的“蚯蚓”行动就是这样。 军情六处驻当地的官员逛到这个地方，有一次竟然同克格勃的安全警卫人员闲扯了起来。这种事若被当成茶余饭后的闲话还可以，可是登在每周部级情报摘要上反倒几乎没有人看。除了鲁莽瞎干，他们还常常海阔天空地还想，夸大其词地吹嘘，其荒谬程度令人瞠目。我曾在波恩非常合理地建议使用德国电线，以便一旦行动暴露，军情六处可以矢口否认，而把一切责任往当地的情报部门头上推。 军情六处分站站长说：“天哪，彼得，我们不能做那种不道德的事。”他显出一副道貌岸然的神情。 就我所知，军情六处所表现出来的道德全是做样子给白厅或军情五处看的。事实上，军情六处在约翰·辛克莱爵士的领导下已经成了一个累赘。它仍然拒绝正视由菲尔比这个苏联间谍所引起的可怕的后果。它还继续用三十年代的态度以及三十年代的人员设备在现代世界里开展工作，因而导致他们在一九五六年四月犯下了最大的错误——克拉布行动。对此我一点也不感到惊奇。 苏联领导人赫鲁晓夫和布尔加宁乘坐“奥尔忠尼启则号”战舰访问英国，停泊在朴茨茅斯港。他们这次访问英国的目的是打算在适当的时刻改善英苏关系。军情五处决定在赫鲁晓夫下榻的克拉里奇旅馆的房间里进行窃听。在正常情况下，克拉里奇旅馆的电话系统里一直装有特别装置，因为军情五处对住在那里的许多外国人很感兴趣。我们了解到在赫鲁晓夫还没有住进去之前，俄国人就派了一个检查组对这个房间进行了检查。我们决定在这个时候首次启用经过专门改进的特别装置，这是约翰·泰勒在多利斯山实验室研制的。这种新型的特殊装置可以不用垫圈就进行安装，因此不易被人发现。我们可以用短波高频兆周在近距离内使电话工作，遥控设备就装在克拉里奇旅馆附近的格罗夫纳庄园里的一间办公室里。整个工作的效果令人十分满意。在赫鲁晓夫的整个访问期间，我们一直在窃听他的房间，实际上，我们获得的情报是没有什么价值的。赫鲁晓夫是个十分滑头的人，他在旅馆的房间里压根儿就不提任何有点价值的事。记得当时我坐在八楼，译报人员为我翻译他的谈话的大概意思。每次窃听赫鲁晓夫的谈话都是好几个小时，我指望着能从中获得重大价值的谈话内容。赫鲁晓夫对斯大林临终前的情况只字不提，对克格勃头子贝利亚的命运也闭口不谈，相反，他对他的贴身男仆则大谈自己的衣着穿戴。他是一个极其爱慕虚荣的人，每次都花上几个小时在穿衣镜前精心地打扮自己，非常考究在什么地方对头发进行分路。我禁不住想起艾登，只有他才能与赫鲁晓夫比高低。这两个人都是肆无忌惮的，惟一感兴趣的是在世界大舞台上出风头。 正当军情五处仔细地窃听赫鲁晓夫时，军情六处却对“奥尔忠尼启则号”搞了一个拙劣的行动计划。军情六处伦敦站站长尼古拉·埃利奥特负责这次行动，他是伊顿公学前任校长的儿子。这艘战舰的航行速度比原来海军情报处所估计的要快得多。海军部对此一直不了解，于是军情六处想测量一下这艘俄国战舰的螺旋桨。埃利奥特安排了一个潜水员来执行这项任务，此人就是运气不佳的“巨型炸弹”克拉布海军中校。 实际上，这样的行动并不是军情六处的第一次尝试。他们在一年前就试图测量“奥尔忠尼启则号”的船身，当时这艘舰停在苏联的港口内。他们使用的是军情六处的一艘藏在斯托克斯湾的“X”型袖珍潜艇，这种潜艇有供潜水员进出的干船舱，加之潜艇的体积小，可以在不被发现的情况下进入内河水域活动。一名海军潜水员想方设法进入了港口，但终因对方的安全防御工作严密而告失败。 在朴茨茅斯港进行的第二次尝试也以灾难而告终。克拉布身体笨重，年纪也太大了。他一去便不复返。后来一具无头死尸被冲上岸来，初步辨认就是他。军情六处伦敦分站的技术官员约翰·亨利在此之前就通知过我，说六处在筹措克拉布行动。我把这情况告诉了卡明。他从一开始就对这个行动能否成功产生了怀疑。这是军情六处冒险主义的典型例子，设想拙劣，执行情况更糟。我们大家都交叉着手指，祈祷着化险为夷。两天以后，约翰·亨利慌慌张张地来到卡明的办公室，告诉我们克拉布失踪了。 “我告诉尼古拉不要用'巨型炸弹'，他患有心脏病。”他一再说。 我们对这种所谓的心脏病的解释表示怀疑，但也没有时间去仔细思索，军情六处这种好高骛远的秘密行动此时正面临着尴尬地公诸外界的风险。克拉布和他在军情六处的助手曾用他们的真实姓名在当地的一家旅馆住过。 “如果这事传出去，会发生可怕的骚动，”卡明气冲冲地吼道，“我们都要被拖出去游街示众。” 卡明急急忙忙地跑到狄克·怀特的办公室去，要求立即见到他。我们大家成群结队地跑上楼。狄克正端坐在他的桌子旁边，脸上看不到一丝表示欢迎的微笑。他那多年担任学校校长所受的训练又表现出来了，原有的魅力却消失得干干净净。 “俄国人刚刚问过海军部有关潜水员的事，他们只得矢口否认与此事有丝毫关系。我想，恐怕盖子不久就会揭开。”他简单扼要地说。 “约翰，你是怎么卷进这场混乱的？”他突然气呼呼地问。 亨利挨了骂，但仍然解释说，海军几个月来一直在逼着他们搞到“奥尔忠尼启则号”螺旋桨的详细资料。 “你知道艾登是个什么样的人，”他抱怨说，“一分钟之前他说你可以做某件事，一分钟以后他又会说你不可以做某件事。我们以前认为这场冒险是可行的。” 怀特对他的话似乎并不信服。他揉了揉太阳穴，翻着文件。屋角的时钟节奏有致地走着，房间里到处都有恐慌的迹象。 “当然，我们会尽力帮助你，”他终于打破了这可怕的沉默，“今天晚上我去见首相，看看我能否设法不让事态扩大。同时，马尔科姆会让A处二科归你调遣。” 亨利表示感谢，走出了房间。卡明给朴茨茅斯港的海关情报处打了电话，让他们去把旅馆登记簿上那两个人的名字抹掉。温特博恩和亨利赶到朴茨茅斯去收拾残局，但这些努力不能避免发生丑闻。当天晚上，赫鲁晓夫对潜水员的事提出公开的抗议，艾登为此丢尽了脸，被迫在下院作了声明。 伦敦的情报界仿佛像某郡的一个小村庄，大多数上层人物彼此都非常熟悉，以至于可以聚在一个俱乐部里喝酒。克拉布事件发生后的好几个星期里，这个村庄里的村民们仍在窃窃私语，期待着那不可避免的、人人都知道的命运的到来。我是军情五处内部事先知道克拉布事的少数几个人之一，我遵从亨利的劝告，对此一直保持着缄默。 “到处都有破绽，”亨利在克拉布出事不久私下里告诉我，“我们让爱德华·布里奇斯到这里收拾场面。” 此后不久，有一天早上卡明踱进我的办公室，脸上带着不高兴的神情。 “狄克要走了，”他喃喃自语，“他们要他去接管六处的工作。” 我认为，让狄克出任秘密情报局局长的决定是战后英国情报史上最大的错误之一。军情五处在他的领导下，正在朝着现代化的道路踉踉跄跄地迈着步子，虽然这样的征象在五十年代中期还不明显。他既懂得需要改革，又尊重正统的那一套，这恰好能帮助他在不受阻挠的情况下实现他的目标。首先，他是一个反间谍官员，几乎可以称是二十世纪最伟大的反间谍官员，是个训练有素的局长料子。他了解自己的部下，了解存在的问题，他抱有建立一个高效率的反间谍组织的理想。然而，他才刚刚起步，便被某个头脑发热的政客调到一个他不熟悉的机构去，而且那里的人对他的前往怀着敌意。他无论到哪里，永远也不会像在军情五处那样富有成就。 然而，这不单是军情五处的损失。战后英国情报部门的主要问题在于对各个情报机构的相互作用缺乏一个明确的设想。在帝国已经不复存在的时代里，英国首先需要的是一个高效率的国内情报组织。很简单，军情六处是次要的，尤其是在政府通讯总部成立之后更是如此。但是，把狄克·怀特调到军情六处这一做法却抬高了它的地位，从而阻碍了一个合理化的情报机构的成长。他离开军情五处以后，军情五处被人全然忽视达十年之久。如果他留在军情五处，那么军情五处就能够治愈六十年代和七十年代的创伤，在更好的条件下去迎接八十年代的挑战。 怀特的离去实在匆忙。同事们纷纷凑钱买了一套陈旧的英国银餐具送给他，并在军情五处的餐厅里举行了一个欢送会。那是一个依依惜别的场面。我当时与狄克还不熟，熟悉他的人都说他对是否应去军情六处感到犹豫不决，或许他已意识到，这一去便是永远离开了他一生尚未起步的事业。狄克在致告别辞时，声泪俱下。他谈到了战前那段时光，谈到在那时结下的友谊。他感谢卡明鼓励他加入军情五处，他骄傲地谈到在战时取得的成果。他祝愿我们大家一切如愿以偿。最后他赠辞说： “今天下午我见到了首相，他向我保证，说要把军情五处的工作时刻铭记在心上。我高兴地宣布，首相已任命我的副手罗杰·霍利斯接替我的职务，这证实了他对军情五处充满着信心。我相信你们会同意我的意见，军情五处找不到比他更为可靠的继任者了。” 那位身材瘦长、微微驼背的穿着细条纹西服的人走上前去同狄克·怀特握手，那美妙而现代化的时代从此结束了。