Chapter 10 chapter eight

The U.S. Capitol is a scene full of vitality, pink flowers, blue sky, white marble, and the dome of the building glistens under the sunlight.I've always enjoyed visiting DC, especially in the spring when London is so tedious.MI5 valued family background, and money was tight in their hands. Like many younger people who joined the secret intelligence work after the war, I felt that the United States was the great hope and the backbone of Western intelligence work.I welcome with arms raised America's advantage. Ironically, relations between British and American intelligence services were at their post-war low in the late 1950s.After the Suez Crisis, almost all cooperation between MI6 and the CIA collapsed.The contradictions between the two sides are deepening day by day, not only on the Middle East issue, but also on the Far East and Africa issues.Many veterans of MI6 found it unacceptable that they had been relegated to a lowly role in the Anglo-American intelligence relationship after a period of war in which they held a controlling position.

For different reasons, there was also disagreement between MI5 and the CIA.The CIA was a new agency, flexing its muscles on the world stage.Its goal was intelligence gathering, and the CIA was not allowed to act in London without being notified by MI5.Both Hollis and White believed that the CIA had effectively broken this tacit agreement. Behind all the difficulties there was the distrust created by the Burgess and McClain defections and the public cleansing of Philby.MI6 is no longer viewed in the same light as it used to be, especially when MI5 was unaware of any of the three with whom Philby was intimately connected. In the eyes of Americans, it is a manifestation of criminal incompetence.The formerly close wartime Anglo-American intelligence relationship has been hit by a turbulent wave, GCHQ has been relatively less affected.Under the terms of the 1948 British-American agreement, GCHQ had a formal cooperative charter with its American counterpart, the National Security Agency.

After Hollis became director, he decisively tried to improve relations with the FBI.Hoover's anti-British sentiments were notorious, dating back to the war.At that time the British Security Coordinating Committee was established in New York, headed by Sir William Stephenson, the so-called "Dauntless Man".While the British Security Coordinating Committee was engaged in anti-German activities in the United States, Hoover strenuously rejected the notion that any group had the right to collect intelligence on American soil, let alone foreign-controlled agencies.For years, he refused to engage with Stephenson's men.The Burgess and McLean incidents further deepened Hoover's prejudice, and for a while even MI6 officials were not allowed to go to the FBI, and MI5 was not allowed to have access to reports from FBI sources.

In 1956, Hollis visited Hoover with the intention of improving relations and persuaded him to include MI5 in the list of intelligence distribution areas.Oddly enough, Hollis and Hoover got on well, but both were sensitive to violations of their respective interests.Hollis was inherently weak, making him a submissive to the brusque and irascible Hoover.Hoover, like many other Americans who made their fortunes through individual efforts, had a strong sense of snobbery.When Hollis, a master spy of the British upper class, begged him with his top hat, his domineering arrogance was somewhat shaken.

I became an important peacemaker.Hollis claimed that my appointment as MI5's chief scientist was evidence of his commitment to modernizing intelligence and stepping up the fight against Soviet espionage.After Hollis visited the United States, Hoover invited me to visit the headquarters of the FBI to see the scale of their technical equipment.I am very interested in this visit.From the first day I joined MI5, I felt that the key to long-term success was to restore relations with the United States, which would give access to their technical resources.But my point of view has no market.Imperial fantasies persisted in Leconfield House, and Cumming, for example, despite being the chief of MI5's technical division, never made a single visit to the United States, nor did he see the reason for doing so.

My first impression of the FBI was the scale of the technological power at their disposal, which was beyond anything MI5 could have imagined.As rich as they are, I can't help feeling that they're not putting it to good use.They mainly rely on buying instruments in the market, but they do not develop them themselves.Although they had an impressive network of microwave radios connecting the substations, their radios were standard Motorola equipment used in police cars and taxis.The only interesting part of the FBI's technical work is their use of fingerprinting methods for espionage.There are no records of fingerprints in the MI5 archives.I think that's an advantage conferred by the FBI's half-cop status.

Dick Millen is the technical research officer in the FBI.He is a lawyer, not a scientist, which limits the effectiveness of his work.But he also put on a really good show where they took me down to the shooting range in the basement of FBI headquarters and did a pistol shoot for me.Mirren told me proudly that even "the old man himself," that is, Hoover, often practiced his excellent shooting technique.I also visited the FBI training facility in Seaside, Maryland, where an elderly Native American taught FBI agents advanced marksmanship.He showed us a few tricks, such as shooting a target behind him in the mirror, and hitting a ping pong ball on top of a fountain with a backhand over his shoulder.This is a compulsory course for rough and American intelligence personnel.The FBI's roots in the lawless era of the 1930s are well known, but I doubt that such feats have anything to do with modern counterespionage.

I was not happy to report the Tisler case to the FBI.I could see hints of more than one in Hoover's approach to the case.He hoped that we would not be able to resolve the question of whether MI5 had spies so that he could advise the President to stop exchanging information with the UK.I hope Hollis and my past visits to the United States clear the way for me. I was accompanied on the tour by Harry Stone, MI5's liaison officer in Washington.I've never met a more approachable and friendly person than Harry, a former Irish rugby international who, like Hollis, loves golf and is almost a professional slalom runner.Everyone loves Harry, mostly because he sees his job basically as a social activity.Harry's temperament and knowledge were out of step with the modern era of satellite and computer intelligence emerging in Washington in the late fifties.

Harry hated meeting Hoover, and if confrontation was unavoidable, he took a simple course of action. "Listen, Peter, old friend. Let him talk, and for God's sake don't interrupt him. Remember to say to him when he's finished, thank you very much, Mr. Hoover, . . . I've Booked a table for lunch, we'll need it." The FBI is like a majestic triumphal arch-style mausoleum. We pass through the archway in front of it. Here we are greeted by the FBI Director of Domestic Intelligence, Al Belmonte, and his deputy, Bill Sullivan.Sullivan handles Communist affairs. (Sullivan was killed in a mallard shoot in New England in the mid-1970s, in what was then believed to be an assassination.) Belmont was a tough old-fashioned "gunner," a nickname known to those in the FBI past.He has been in the bureau since its inception.Sullivan was the brawny (but not simple-minded) Belmont's adviser, and both of them believed that the dagger was better than preaching.Belmont made many enemies, but got along very well with me.Like me, he had a disastrous childhood.His father was shot in a street fight, and his mother worked day and night to save money to put him through law school.He was promoted to the top of the FBI by virtue of his hard work and boundless loyalty to the "old man".

Although these two men were tough on the surface and had a high status in the Bureau, they were very cowardly in front of Hoover.I feel that this kind of infinite loyalty is somewhat unnatural.Of course, they admired Hoover.This is because of his early success in turning a corrupt and incompetent organization into an effective and formidable crime-fighting institution.But it was strange to me that everyone knew that Hoover was suffering from an undisclosed disease, and that they never acknowledged it, not even tacitly acquiesced. I spent the better part of the day discussing the Tisler case and the technical implications of "The Rafter" with these two men until it was time to meet with Hoover.We walked through the maze of corridors and saw many young FBI officers, neat, healthy, well-dressed, with short hair and serious expressions.The FBI offices reminded me of a health clinic, with antibacterial white tiles gleaming everywhere.Workers are busy all day, repainting, cleaning and waxing floors frequently.So pure and numb, one wonders if its soul is dark.

Hoover's room was the last in a set of four connected rooms.Belmont knocked on the door and walked in.Standing behind his desk, Hoover looked taller and thinner than in the photo in a bright blue suit.Puckered muscles drooped down his wrinkled little face.He took my hand firmly, but with no relief. Belmont began to explain to him the reason for my visit, but Hoover cut him sharply. "I've seen the report, Al. I want to hear from Mr. Wright." Hoover fixed me with his jet-black eyes, and he interrupted me almost immediately as I began to briefly describe what the Rafter had discovered. "I think you are satisfied with the information provided by our Czech sources...!" When I started to answer, he turned me away again. "Your security organization has a lot to gain from Washington, Mr. Wright." There was more than a hint of threat in his voice. "If these benefits pose a problem for the security of our country, I'm going to have to advise the president. I have to pay attention to a case like this one, especially the problems that the UK has in this case. I need to know if I In a safe position. Am I clear?" "Of course, sir, I fully understand..." Harry Stone was busy examining his shoelaces.Belmont and Sullivan were sitting on the other side of Hoover's desk, half-hidden by shadows, and I was alone. "I think you'll see in my report..." "Mr. Wright, my people have made a summary of your report, and I am very interested in your lessons learned." Before I could answer, Hoover began to furiously curse the West for its incompetence in the face of communism's onslaught.I agree with many of his points, just disgusted by the way he speaks.Our conversation inevitably turned to Burgess and McClain, whom Hoover mentioned almost viciously by name. "In our bureau, Mr. Wright, such a thing cannot happen. My officers are thoroughly vetted. That's a lesson! Do you understand?" I nod. "Of course, Mr. Hoover," Stone interposed. Hoover stared at me again suddenly, and said: "Be fully vigilant, Mr. Wright, be fully vigilant, our bureau is on guard day and night!" He stood up abruptly, which meant the meeting was over. The day after Hoover's ordeal, I had lunch with James Angleton, the CIA's chief of counterintelligence.I met him on my first visit to Washington in 1957.He was quick-witted and determined to win the Cold War for more than mere combative fun.I liked him and he gave me enough hints to encourage me to consider working together. Angleton's star only rose in Washington in the late 1950s, especially after he obtained Khrushchev's secret report denouncing Stalin from his colleagues in Israel.He was one of OSS recruits during the Cold War, trained in counterespionage techniques at the old MI6 premises on Ryder Street.It was Philby who trained him.The young intellectual who graduated from Yale University hit it off with his British instructor who liked to smoke a pipe.In 1949, when Philby was appointed station master of the Washington station, the friendship between the two men deepened further.Ironically, it was Philby who discovered the up-and-coming CIA counterintelligence chief's obsession with plotting.Angleton soon gained a reputation among British intelligence officers for often trying to cash in on the animosity between MI5 and MI6. I took a taxi to Georgetown.Now I understand why so many government officials live in this place.There are elegant red brick houses, tree-lined streets and dense bookstores and restaurants.When I arrived at Harvey's, Angleton was already sitting at a table there.Gaunt and emaciated, he wore a gray suit and held a mug of Jack Daniel's in one hand and a cigarette in the other. "How's Hoover?" he asked me in a hoarse voice when I sat down, as if throwing a pinch of gravel on the road. "You're well informed today, Jim," I replied. There was a forced smile on his pale face, in stark contrast to the funeral suit.I knew he was snooping, and the CIA knew nothing about Tisler or his revelations.We had a tacit agreement with the FBI that we informed them of Operation Raftman, but they had to keep it a secret. "Just routine. You know, making friends with the FBI, that's what London is all about these days." "Waste of time," he said. "I remember you trying to get close to him. But he's always telling us he can't stand Brits." I feel a little angry, even though I know it plays into his favor. "Well, I can't say the CIA is any friendlier." "You've lost a lot of credibility in Washington over the last ten years," he said, pouring himself another glass of wine. "A guy like Hoover," he continued, "looking at Burgess and McClain, looking at what MI5 is doing, always asks, 'What's the point?'" He called the waiter and we took our order. "You're totally digressing, Jim," I said. "Things are constantly changing. Ten years ago it would have been impossible for them to appoint me as a scientist, but now I'm there, and new people keep coming in." .” "I went to a British public school," he sneered, "I know the level of your group." "It doesn't do any good to keep complaining about the Burgess and McClain incidents. Those things are over, the world is a smaller place, and we should get back together." I am amazed at how emotional I am suddenly.Angleton sat there all the time, puffing away. "You don't get any help from Hoover," he grunted, "and he doesn't want to help you." This lunch took a long time.Angleton revealed nothing, but asked me many questions over the course of the drink.How is Philby?I told him frankly that I thought he was a spy.Also, although it was 1959, the Suez crisis was still a nerve-wracking affair, and Angleton wanted to know every detail.He even asked me if I could get the Armand Hammer file from MI5.This person is the chairman of the Western Petroleum Company. Due to his extensive business relationship with the Soviet Union, he inevitably attracted the attention of the Western intelligence community.But I think it's a bit rude to do so. "We're friends, Jim, but not that close." Around five o'clock, I walked Angleton into his car.It was a very nice "Mercedes" car.It wasn't long before I learned that, despite his emaciated appearance, he was one of the shareholders in their family's National Cash Register Company, so he liked to spend money.But he was annoyed that he locked the keys in the car that day, unfortunately.I fished Jagger's lockpicking wire out of my pocket and opened the door in less than half a minute. "Yes, Peter, yes!" he said with a broad smile.He knew I was intoxicated at the moment. "By the way," I said, "I'm serious, and if you don't help me in Washington, I'm going to hire someone who will." "Let me see what I can do," he murmured, before getting behind the wheel of the car and driving off without looking away. In fact, despite Washington's skepticism, there were important technological changes in British intelligence services in the late 1950s.MI5 devoted its main energy to developing new technologies, namely "rafters" and "swallowing" technologies. In the first step, we continued to place the Soviet embassy under the surveillance of the "raftman".Hollis persuaded the reluctant Treasury to buy a house for MI5 on top of the secret MI5 funding.The house was squeezed between several Soviet diplomatic buildings.We installed a "rafter" receiver in the attic and dug a tunnel between this new house and the visual surveillance building on the next street, and sent the detected signal inside the embassy back through the cable buried in the tunnel .We had Cyril Mills live in the building as a tenant.He was an MI5 officer during the war and is now the owner of a famous circus.Mills ran his circus business from this building for many years thereafter.If people or equipment were to be transported into the building, or to clear the garbage in the tunnel, it would be done in the fancy car of the "Mills Circus", which was so cleverly covered that the Russians never suspected it . We carefully used several direct receivers for Rafters, each on a megacycle frequency, in order to keep oscillators out of our side, in case the Russians also developed one. A "raftman" technique.The Mystery of Mills' house remained unrevealed throughout the sixties, until one night the alarms picked up two Russian diplomats climbing onto the roof.They broke a skylight, but were scared off by the housekeeper before they could climb in through the roof.Mills filed a formal protest with the Soviet embassy.But we're guessing that somehow the Russians already know of our presence in this building. When the house was all ready, I carried out the experiment of the kind I had planned while reading the "Crownstone" archives in Canada.We systematically picked up the signal to see if the receivers inside the Soviet embassy were listening to the Moscow broadcast to the British secret service.These are high frequency signals (HF), whereas the radios of the surveillance teams are very high frequency (VHF) signals.The Russians used large radio amplifiers on their HF receivers to make the Rafters more difficult.But GCHQ developed a more sophisticated device, and within six months we managed to catch four signals from Moscow that the Russians in the embassy were routinely listening to. The code name for the first signal is "Rough".We received it at 10:30 on a Tuesday night, the Morse signal loud and clear.The Russians were also listening on the same frequency, and our receivers tracked down the whine of an oscillator.GCHQ has analyzed "Rough" as coming from the Moscow region and broadcasts it twice a week.Cryptanalysts are pretty sure that this Morse code contains real communications.The Radio Transmission Engineering Committee decided to concentrate on tracking "brutal" signals. I went to Courtney Young, who was in D1 (he was in charge of counter-Russian espionage) and asked if he could help us find information on an illegal agent currently operating in the UK , and was listening to a radio communication from Moscow.Young was surprised that I had gone to him, and he said that D Branch had recently been working on a double-agent case.The case convinced him that there was an outlaw operating in the London area.The double agent was a male nurse who had joined the British Communist Party.Years later, he was asked to do some covert work for the Russians. He was reluctant at first, but his contacts told him that it was not about spying, but about posting letters and keeping temporary boxes.After a while, the nurse became frightened and reported it to the police.The case was transferred to MI5 by the Special Division as usual. Young used the nurse as a double agent before returning to fight the Russians.In the short-term, the nurse remains convincing.He lived in the Midlands and was asked by his superiors to rent a flat in his name in Clapham, South London, and was instructed to run some dead letter deliveries on the nearby Clapham Common.Young believed very positively that he was a peripheral member of an illegal spy trained by the Russians, who specially prepared communication equipment and living conditions for real illegal elements before they entered the designated area.But later, all contact between the nurse and the other party was suddenly cut off, and he never received any new instructions.Either the whole operation had aborted, or real illegal agents had somehow infiltrated the area. This kind of speculation is far-fetched, but at least the illegal agent Courtney Young is looking for may be the same person who listened to the "brutal" signal from Moscow.The Clapham area was closely searched by the Radio Emission Engineering Board for any further leads.We drove up to Clapham in our radio-penetrating Rafter and set up base in the walled forecourt of an old bomb shelter.The bomb shelter is under the southern part of Clapham Common.We plugged in the shelter, set up an antenna, and had a range of about half a mile. I sat in the cold, airless Rafter with Tony Sale, watching, waiting, listening. The Rough broadcast was supposed to start at ten o'clock in the morning, and we tuned one receiver to the Rough frequency while the other scoured the surrounding frequencies to see if we could find the oscillator.In the second week, we really hit each other.We heard a strange, owl-like hooting and tuned in to Morse code from Moscow.It was apparently someone listening to a "crude" broadcast less than half a mile from us.Searle and I looked at each other, as if he had smelled the scent of prey, the tape recorder began to turn in a low voice.We recharged the batteries and drove slowly down Clapham Street to the Tube station, weaving among other traffic.At this time the small hotels were full of people.There are some suburban houses along the way, and there are daffodils in the garden in front of the door.The inhabitants of the interior were unaware of the stalking that passed their front. Searle monitored the signal from the oscillator, using the powerful electrical waves it emitted to pinpoint its location.We know that "Rough" is only on air for twenty minutes, and we have seventeen more.When we got to the subway station, the signal got weaker.We raced back to Wandsworth at double speed again, and again the signal faded and disappeared.We headed south for Bulham, but this time the signal was gone altogether before we even left the Common. Only six minutes left.The people in the car couldn't speak a word, and we only had one direction left. Rough must be in the crowded, labyrinthine backstreets of Bataxi to the north.We came to Lachmere Road in this custom built car, and I was so disappointed that I wanted to rush over, and I wanted to shout out the situation through the megaphone and beg to make way for us.But all we can do is stare at the blinking tuning dial, hoping that the sound will increase, not decrease.By the time we crossed Wandsworth Road, however, the signal had faded.Shortly thereafter, broadcasts were shut down in Moscow, and the "rough" signal was never heard again.Serge slapped the car wall hard.I took off my headphones, feeling exhausted and resentful.How many more months do we have to be at Clapham to get this close? I lit my thirteenth cigarette of the day, trying to make sense of the twenty minutes.We've been in every direction, but every time we move the signal from the oscillator gets weaker.This confirms beyond any doubt that we have indeed found another receiver besides our own.But this receiver is neither north nor south, nor east nor west.I slowly came to my senses and realized that the Rough was over our heads, within a few yards of the top of the dugout.We drove back to the base, searched the place and found an open wasteland used as a parking lot behind a high wall behind us. The "rough" listening must have been done in a car parked here or something like ours. Back at Leconfield House, I printed the oscillator recordings into a sonar image.The undulations of the sound waves indicated that they were small power ripples whose ripple shape was not of ordinary power frequency, but a frequency similar to that produced by the battery in our Rafter.This coincidence was too painful for me to think about. During the next six months the Radio Transmission Engineering Board sent all the alternates to Clapham to search.We listen in hundreds of different places.Officials scoured every street for faulty antennas and questioned radio equipment vendors, but nothing came of it.While we were searching around, every Tuesday and Thursday night there were still "brutal" signals mocking us from Moscow. In addition to continuing to use the Rafter cars, we also arranged for the Rafter aircraft through the Radio Transmission Engineering Committee.We brought in a transport plane from the RAF with a receiver similar to ours in the car, and flew over London at regular times.We thought that at high altitude it would be possible to find the approximate range of where the receiver was operating in London, and if we found the specific place where the signal came from, we would surround it with a few rafters. For the first time, our plane flying over the Soviet embassy was checking the working condition of the equipment when we suddenly heard the sound of their receiver.Later we heard a series of radio sounds in and around Finsbury Park.As in Clapham, we rushed to the area to search.But like "Rough", this secret agent who has never been discovered is comfortably hiding in the dense forest on the outskirts of London. Flying the Rafter was a total pain in the ass and I spent all night and all night in that dark blue sky listening for signals from Moscow.Headphones on my head muted the noise of the plane's propellers, and below me, in London's vast sea of ​​lights, a spy was also listening to these signals now in the attic or outside in the car.I know I can hear him, but I have no way of knowing where he is.Who is he?Was he acting alone, or was he part of a group?Most importantly, what had Moscow told him in the signal?In the special purgatory that counterintelligence officers inhabit, I was often bewildered by this feeling of knowing and not knowing. Although the "raftman" operation did not work immediately, the "swallow" operation, which could use technical methods to decipher the code, quickly proved to be a great success.Operation Swallow was finalized at a conference in Cheltenham chaired by Josh Cooper, GCHQ's deputy chief of research, in 1957.Cooper understood that further breakthroughs in code-breaking would require close coordination between MI5, MI6, and GCHQ.For the first time ever, he invited people from several relevant departments together. Attending the meeting were Alexander and Denham from Division H (Crypto Analysis Division) of the Communications Headquarters. Division M of the Communications Headquarters was in charge of the anti-clique science department. Chief John Stoller, along with Ray Frawley and myself and our MI6 counterpart Pat O'Hanlon. Besides the Russians, the Egyptians remained GCHQ's first significant target.They used Hagelin machines in all their embassies abroad, in four groups, each using a different cipher permutation.As long as we can make a name for any machine in a certain group, the other machines in the group will be deciphered.Or if we can get a sample of any one of these machines, then several other cipher machines in that group will also be broken.MI6 and GCHQ drew up a list of Egyptian embassies around the world and details of which cipher unit they belonged to, and the committee then estimated which embassy was most likely to make Operation Swallow a success.I spoke to the task force sent by MI6 about how to organize the operation, and within a year we had broken all the cipher suites in Egypt. Although the "swallow" technology can decipher various Hagelin cipher machines, such machines are only available in third world countries.The purpose of Ku Zhou's meeting was to find a way to apply the "swallowing" principle to more advanced cipher machines.Due to the lack of computer power at Communications Headquarters, it was impossible to decipher these cipher machines.My point is simple, we need to turn plans into reality, words on paper will not work. "We have to use the scientific method to explore this problem," I said, "We don't know how far these new breakthroughs will generalize, so we have to experiment. Even if it doesn't work, we can learn things we didn't know before." .” Suddenly an idea popped into my mind.Any ciphering machine, no matter how complex it is, has to encode a clear message into a cipher and a series of random letters.In the 1950s, the most advanced cipher technology was to type the telegraph into a teletype telegraph, and the telegraph was connected to a separate cipher machine, and the encrypted message was output from the other end.The security of the entire system depends on thorough shielding.If there is no electromagnetic shielding between the cipher machine and the text input machine, the echo of the unciphered text may come out of the output line together with the encrypted text.If a corresponding amplifier is used, it is theoretically possible to distinguish this "ghost" message and understand its content. Of course, we have no way of knowing which countries have blocked their crypto rooms and which countries have not.It would take two years to succeed in an operation along the lines I suggested.We know that the Soviet Union must have properly protected its ciphers, and it is meaningless for us to expend all our efforts to try to decipher the Russian ciphers under these circumstances.The problem is to choose the important goals, and the goals that are likely to make us successful. When selecting targets, we felt that the French ciphers were the most suitable for further "swallowing" experiments than the ciphers of other countries.Both MI6 and GCHQ were under pressure from the Foreign Office to provide intelligence on France's attitude to Britain's impending application to join the European Economic Community.GCHQ also studied the cryptographic system used by France in London.They used two kinds of ciphers: one was low-level, and the message was sent back to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs by telex; the other was high-level, for the ambassador's communication, and a cipher machine independently sent the message as an additional security measure .Alexander believed that high-level ciphers could not be deciphered.But low-level ciphers can be broken using the methods I've outlined.Cooper agreed, and Operation Palisades began again. The first mission of this joint MI5-GCHQ operation was to conduct a detailed technical reconnaissance of the French embassy's distribution, in particular to find the approximate extent of the cipher room.I asked the local municipal council to send the architectural drawings of the embassy, ​​and then got in touch with the postal research team.此时约翰·泰勒已退休了，米切尔接替了他的职务。米切尔因为中风而半身不遂，虽然已言语不多，可头脑仍十分清楚。米切尔把法国大使馆的电传和电话的输入和输出线路图都给了我，我把这张图与建筑图参照来看，从而确定了密码室的大概位置。 我们让邮局把法国大使馆的电话弄坏，于是借维修机会进去对密码室一带进行了目测。与埃及人不同，法国的安全人员对我们的每一个行动都进行了监视，可是我们仍然搞到了我们所需要的信息。密码室里没有电话，只有走廊里才有一部电话。密码室和电传室相连，中间只有一块塑料板隔开。 我们用邮政局的线路图进行核实，发现法国使馆的输入线路是沿着大街接进通向海德公园的艾伯特门入口处尽头的人行道上一个盒子里。我和米切尔商量好，在这个盒子里的电缆上装一个宽频带的无线电装置，把捕捉到的信号传递到我们在海德公园旅馆里租用的一间特别操作室里。为了不使我们的行动被人发现，在我们把从那个盒子出来的电线接到旅馆四楼我们的操作室时，我们故意弄坏了旅馆的电话系统。此外，还在线路上安装了特殊的障碍电容，以便保证线路单向工作，不会有任何电文漏回大使馆而使我们的行动被人发现。通讯总部经常截听各国驻伦敦的大使馆的来往无线电和电传通讯，他们在帕尔默街有一些房子，专门干这种事。我们从帕尔默街的房子到我们的海德公园旅馆之间，接了一条含有法国使馆通讯的电线。我们把这条线作为指南，用以核对我们用无线电频率收到的信号是不是从法国使馆来的。 第一天上午，我们听到了那组低级密码的信号，并与帕尔默街收到的信号进行吻合。收听线路与我们自己的电传打字电报机一接通，截取的法国密码便开始咔咯咔咯地在我们眼前输出。很显然，这条收听线路上传送出来的信号不止一种。你只需坐下来，用铅笔把非密码电文与密码电文区分开来，就可以直接读懂密码。 我开始拣出一份译文，发现电传打字电报机上还有另一种信号的踪迹，我把这与声纳图进行了核对并证明我没有搞错，于是我就把通讯总部的技术人员找来了。 信号的高峰与低谷不断静静地掠过荧光屏，低级密码的线条很强，其阴影线条也很容易识别。可另一个信号掠过每个尖峰时，就有一阵低低的杂音出现。 “天哪，”通讯总部的技术人员喃喃地说，“我们连高级密码也收到了，那肯定是从塑料隔板那边传过来的。” 我急忙通知帕尔默街，让他们把高级密码也传送过来，以便比较从两个途径得到的信号。通讯总部的技术人员重新调整了放大器，把信号加强到足以显印的程度。我把帕尔默街送来的信号作为标准，把非密码电文区分出来。不到十分钟，我就搞出了一份电报译文的初稿。这是一份法国驻伦敦大使发给戴高乐总统的私人办公室的电报。 从一九六〇年到一九六三年差不多三年时间中，军情五处和通讯总部每天阅读法国驻伦敦大使馆收发的法国高级密码电报。我们申请加入共同市场的意图虽然没有成功，但法国人在这个期间的每一个举动都被我们监听到了。外交部对这种情报大感兴趣，戴高乐的电报被逐字逐句地制成副本，经常送到外交大臣的红色文件箱里。 实际上，“栅栏”只是生动地表明了情报工作存在的局限性。戴高乐决心抵制我们的申请，无论有多少高级情报都无法改变这个事实。我们的确把关于法国人的独立“核打击力量”的设想之细节捅给了美国人，这有助于鼓励美国人更加不相信戴高乐，但我们从中捞到的好处却是微不足道的。 尽管如此，在外交部，“栅栏”行动仍被视为一次重大的胜利。外交部的常务大臣召见了我，对我在这次行动中所表现出的智谋与天赋表示祝贺。 “这些材料真是无价之宝，”他满脸堆笑地说，“真是无价之宝。”他的话使我毫不怀疑“读懂法国佬的电文通讯”，是继阿让库尔战役、火烧加来港和其他打击习惯于背信弃义的法国人的这些古代伟绩之后的又一次具有巨大价值的成功。