THE SECRETS OF MOUNT ALTO

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403370001-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: May 1, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
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:E~.1.y.~.. WASHINGTONIAN
May 1987
The Secrets of Mount Alto
How the Soviets Beat Us at theEsmbassy Game and Built
a Fancy Fortress Within Listening Distance of A lmost Everything
~7- ByRonaldKessler
During the building of their new
Washington embassy atop Mount
Alto above Georgetown; Soviet
counterintelligence experts discovered
electronic bugs in, among other places, a
toilet partition delivered to the construc-
tion site. After that, the Soviets insisted
on inspecting every inch of building ma-
terial as it arrived.
Eight Soviets were assigned to ob-
serve construction. Nothing moved on
the site without their approval. So that
listening devices couldn't be mixed into
concrete before it hardened, precast con-
crete was forbidden unless it was formed
on the site under Soviet eyes. All struc-
tural steel was examined by X-ray, cost-
ing the Soviets $50,000 extra.
Windows and door frames were taken
apart and put back together at a cost of
$ 180,000. Instead of the usual thin mar-
ble slabs glued onto backing, the Soviets
demanded two-inch-thick marble with
no backing so bugs could not be hidden
in the epoxy glue holding the two pieces
together.
Meanwhile, under a reciprocal agree-
ment, Americans in Moscow worked to
construct a new American Embassy.
Built of prefabricated parts assembled
off-site, the unfinished building is so
riddled with bugs that the embassy may
never be usable.
The outcry from Congress and the
White House over bugging at the new
embassies has also focused attention on
their relative locations. The American
Embassy in Moscow is located on Mos-
cow lowlands, the opposite of the high
perch enjoyed by the Soviets here.
"It's a very desirable location," says
a former National Security Agency offi-
cial of the Soviet's Mount Alto site.
"The higher the antenna, the more you
can pick up. The benefit [of the Soviets'
location] is access to any microwave
link. You can record it and listen later. "
Says a former high-ranking CIA offi-
cial of the Mount Alto site: "It's the
Ronald Kessler is on leave from the Washington
Post. He is the author of the book The Richest Man
in the World: The Story of Adnan lhashoggi.
Splendid in white marble and secure behind the latest technological equipment, the
new Soviet Embassy and residential compound affords a high point that makes
electronic eavesdropping easy. In the aerial photo below, the compound is bordered by
Tunlaw Road at the bottom and Wisconsin Avenue at the top. The compound's
apartments are on the left, and the reception building is on the right.
Continued
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most serious, single institutional Soviet
threat to the US. "
The embassy affair involves a con-
gressman who didn't want the Russians
as his neighbors in Cleveland Park,
Presidents from both parties who pre-
ferred not to upset the Soviets, and the
same bureaucratic lassitude that allows
the government to pay $640 for toilet
seats.
Most of all, says a former FBI of-
ficial, the embassy affair involves
"stupidity."
At night, the new Soviet Embassy com-
plex on Mount Alto looks like an aban-
doned spaceport, with its white marble
buildings and mercury vapor lights that
give off an unearthly glow. A self-en-
closed mini-city of restaurants, hotels,
offices, apartments, health clubs, and a
car wash, the embassy is surrounded by
twelve-foot-high, electronically operat-
ed gates scanned by infrared cameras.
The new Soviet Embassy sits 349 feet
above sea level, one of the highest points
in Washington. From their aerie, the
Soviets have an unobstructed view of the
Pentagon, State Department, White
House, and the CIA. They can tune in to
secret communications between Air
Force One and the White House or be-
tween the Pentagon and the National Se-
curity Agency.
The Soviets can-and do-listen in on
most microwave communications,
which include most long-distance calls
as well as facsimile and data transmis-
sion circuits. Using high-speed comput-
ers, they can hone in on calls of inter-
est-ones placed between particular
phone numbers, for example, or those
mentioning "Trident" or "CIA." By
briefly listening in on a sampling of
calls, they can choose which ones to
send to Moscow for transcription.
"I dare say they can hear our conver-
sation if they want to," says a former
member of the President's Intelligence
Oversight Board, discussing Mount Alto
with me over the phone.
In the long run, the US government's
decision to give the Soviets the Mount
Alto site may be more damaging to US
security, according to intelligence
sources, than the fact that the KGB tem-
porarily had the run of the US Embassy
in Moscow last year.
The struggle between Washington and
Moscow to provide their diplomats, and
spies, with suitable diplomatic quarters
goes back to 1933, when the two coun-
tries established diplomatic relations and
each wanted to build a large embassy in
the other's country.
By 1963, the Soviets thought they had
just the right site in Washington. It was
the Bonnie Brae estate owned by Na-
These exclusive
exterior and inte-
rior photographs
are of the as-yet-
unoccupied recep-
tion building on
Mount Alto. In the
low-lying build-
ing are the am-
bassador's living
quarters, recep-
tion and banquet
rooms, and a
greenhouse.
thaniel H. Luttrell Jr., a Woodward &
Lothrop heir, at 6036 Oregon Avenue,
Northwest, near Rock Creek Park in
Chevy Chase DC. But the property was
zoned for residential use, and the idea of
a Soviet Embassy didn't bring joy to
Luttrell's neighbors. In 1964 they got a
court ruling that blocked a zoning
change.
We, meanwhile, were eager to move
out of the old apartment house that
served as our embassy on Ulitsa Chay-
kovskovo in central Moscow. The Sovi-
ets proposed that each country lease gov-
ernment-owned land for their embas-
sies, a move that would obviate the ob-
jections of neighbors in Washington.
"To be fair to the Soviets, they did
offer us some very good properties,"
recalls Malcolm Toon, a former Ameri-
can ambassador to the Soviet Union. He
negotiated with the Soviets for the ex-
change of land, though the decision of
where to place the American Embassy
was left mainly to another American am-
bassador, Llewellyn Thompson. The
State Department said no to some of the
more attractive Moscow River locations
and chose land behind the existing chan-
cery because it was centrally located.
In Washington, the Veterans Adminis-
tration in 1965 moved its hospital from
Mount Alto to a larger site near what is
now the Washington Hospital Center.
The General Services Administration
notified the State Department that the
12.8-acre plot above Georgetown was
available. When the land was shown to
the Soviets in 1966, they were not initial-
ly overjoyed; they worried about all the
Wisconsin Avenue traffic and indicated
they were looking for a quieter, more
residential neighborhood.
Enter Richard W. Shear, a former
Marine who describes his tastes as run-
Continued
a
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..... .......... -- ..,... , ..., auauug i'on viuwai. a;.i.. 11M. h I M sccuon, On ule ri iii vi uIc
key." At 50, Shear, a real estate broker, in the late 1960s, 80 percent of all long- complex as one looks at it from Wiscon-
retains his soldier's crew cut and hard distance calls traveled by microwave sin Avenue, is a living area with a
Rooney headed the House Appropria-.
tions Subcommittee with jurisdiction
over the State and Justice Departments'
budgets. Delivering frequent tirades
against "striped-pants entertaining,"
Rooney struck terror in the hearts of
State officials.
Shear met with Rooney off the floor of
the House. Their meeting was brief.
"I'd rather," the congressman said,
according to Shear, "have a nigger liv-
ing next tome than a Russian. "
That was the end of Shear's efforts.
In October 1967, the Soviets accepted
Mount Alto.
When he read about the State Depart-
ment's plan to lease the Mount Alto site
to the Soviets, Shear met with the Sovi-
ets at their 16th Street embassy and pro-
posed they buy Tregaron instead.
After 30 meetings during a year of
negotiations, the Soviets agreed in prin-
ciple to buy Tregaron. The State Depart-
ment was willing to approve the pur-
chase. But Congressman John J.
Rooney, a Brooklyn Democrat, lived at
3228 Woodley Road, just two blocks up
the road from Tregaron's rear entrance
at 3029 Klingle Road.
Crusty, pink-cheeked, and balding,
magnificent red-brick mansion at 3100 that the Soviets could easily intercept
Macomb Street, Northwest, in Cleve- long-distance calls was well known.
land Park. Joseph E. Davies, a former Another former intelligence official
American ambassador to Moscow and says the CIA, NSA, and FBI each pre-
former husband of Marjorie Merri- pared studies critical of the Mount Alto
weather Post, had died, and Davies's site. Former CIA counterintelligence
three daughters were looking to sell it. chief James J. Angleton says President
body. Twenty years ago, working for rather than wire. Because of the curva-
the Weaver Brothers real estate firm, he ture of the earth, microwaves require
was looking for a buyer for Tregaron, a repeaters every 28 miles, and the fact
In Moscow, the search for space for an
expanded American Embassy had taken
on a new urgency. From the start, con-
struction of both embassy compounds
was to proceed simultaneously in both
nations' capitals, and our State Depart-
ment wanted to get locations approved
quickly.
In a recent official briefing paper, the
State Department maintained that US in-
telligence agencies had been asked for
their comments on the proposed Mount
Alto site and raised no objections.
"My recollection is we vetted this to
the intelligence community," says Mal-
colm Toon, who had just returned from
serving as American ambassador in
Moscow and was then director of Soviet
affairs at State. "While some said they
would prefer another site, they said they
could live with it. "
Officials who were with the FBI,
NSA, and CIA tell a different story.
"The NSA wasn't even given the
privilege of commenting on it," says a
The State Department wanted
a new embassy in Moscow,
and fast. Security didn't seem
that much a factor.
Johnson's national-security adviser,
McGeorge Bundy, made the key deci-
sion on Mount Alto. Neither Toon nor
Dean Rusk, who was then Secretary of
State, saw the Soviet site as a security
problem. They still don't.
"All this Mickey Mouse stuff was not
considered a central problem," says
Rusk, "because the technology is such
that it doesn't make that much differ-
ence. There are other ways of doing it-
and I'm not going to get into it. "
Rusk knows, as do American intelli-
gence experts, that the Soviets listen to
Washington communications from their
seven other sites around town-from
their scattered trade, military, and other
embassy offices.
But FBI sources argue that while the
Soviets eavesdrop and intercept from
other locations, none gives them the
range and access of Mount Alto. And as
techniques for sorting massive data from
electronic communications become
more refined, the problems resulting
from our handing Mount Alto to the
Soviets may become clearer.
But the State Department wanted a
new embassy in Moscow, and fast. Se-
curity didn't seem that much a factor. In
1969, just after President Nixon took
office, the US signed the Embassy Sites
Agreement, giving each country an 85-
year lease on their respective sites.
In 1972 the Nixon administration and
the Soviets signed a second agreement
governing how the Mount Alto construc-
tion was to proceed.
Together with a Soviet architect, Ameri-
can architect John Carl Warnecke drew
up plans for a Soviet Embassy of marble
that would be built in two phases. Origi-
nally Warnecke wanted red marble, but
the Soviets decided on white.
school, social club, and swimming pool.
The second phase, on the left of the
complex, includes a two-story reception
hall, an eight-story administration build-
ing, and a three-story consulate.
The reception building includes the
ambassador's residence (the Soviet am-
bassador now lives above embassy of-
fices at the Soviet Embassy on 16th
Street between L and M streets, North-
west), six reception rooms, banquet fa-
cilities, an auditorium, a greenhouse,
two halls, and a banquet hall. The ad-
ministration building houses the offices
of embassy personnel. An underground
level has parking for 62 cars and car-
repair and car-wash facilities. The con-
sulate has a projection room, conference
library, offices, and visitor parking.
There are 160 units in the nine-story
apartment building. They range in size
from studios to two-bedrooms, plus
twenty suites for visitors. There is park-
ing for 85 cars. The apartments do not
have private phones; Soviets living there
must make calls from a community
phone. Only Soviet journalists or very
high-ranking diplomats can live outside
the compound.
Adjoining the apartments is a two-
story building that contains a club, a
school with eight classrooms, medical
facilities, a gym, and a pool.
The George Hyman Construction
Company won the contract to build the
first phase, completed in 1979, but it
found the Soviets to be tough customers.
Despite the fact that the Soviets always
paid their bills quickly, the company
declined to bid on the second phase,
which was taken over by a Towson,
Maryland, firm, Whiting-Turner Con-
tracting Company.
When Sharon Credit heard that Whiting-
Turner was going to build part of the
new Soviet Embassy, she asked if the
company needed an interpreter. Then
22, she had majored in Russian studies at
the University of Pennsylvania and spent
five months in Moscow as an exchange
student. The daughter of an architect,
she had worked as a clerk at the con-
struction company for the previous four
summers.
For the next two and a half years,
Credit wore a hard hat and ran interfer-
ence between the Soviets and Ameri-
cans. Five feet, two inches tall and
weighing only 98 pounds, she stood out
on the site not only because she was the
only woman in a group of 200 to 300
men, but because of her eating habits.
While the construction crews brought
lunch pails filled with hefty meat sand-
wiches, Credit ate yogurt or an apple.
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But appearances can be deceiving-she
has a handshake like a trash compactor.
Credit was often in the middle of dis-
putes between the Soviets and the Amer-
icans. For example, in addition to taking
precautions against materials arriving on
the site implanted with bugs, the Soviets
insisted on being told at least a day in
advance of the arrival of any supplies or
materials. That led to scenes when deliv-
eries arrived early or when the markings
on the packing didn't quite match what
the Soviets had been told to expect.
It was Credit's job to explain to the
Soviets that "mortar" marked on bags
was really the same as the "cement"
they were expecting. Brand names had
to be translated into generic names. And
Credit had to explain carefully any slight
deviations in procedures because of
weather conditions or changed schedules
before the Soviets would approve.
For the most part, the Soviets and Amer-
icans worked smoothly together. At the
end of a particularly heated meeting, the
Soviets broke out vodka. And they gave
workers bottles of Stolichnaya for holi-
days.
The American workers were sur-
prised that the Soviets were like every-
one else. The Soviets asked the Ameri-
cans where to find stereos and where to
find women.
One day, a painter cleaning his brush
painted a hammer and sickle on the wall,
then painted over it. Within an hour, the
Americans escorted him off the site, and
he was never allowed back in.
"You could have gotten away with it
anywhere else," says Robert Dunn,
project manager for Howard P. Foley
Company, the electrical contractor on
the job. "On a sensitive job, it was a
stupid thing to do. Every crew was
schooled: `This job is different.' "
The construction people didn't have
their usual worries about protecting their
equipment. When a young man broke
into a Whiting-Turner trailer one night
looking for calculators, Soviet securi-
ty guards apprehended him and called
the police, reportedly after beating the
man up.
Conditions on the work site seemed to
mirror US-Soviet relations. Whenever
an incident caused strain between the
two countries internationally, the work-
ers found that they were subjected to
more security checks.
"It was a microcosm of the Cold
War," says H. Russell Hanna Jr., a
principal of EDAW Inc., which did the
landscape design for the project. "The
relationship would go from friendly to
cool, from cool to friendly."
Every few weeks, a US Army heli-
copter flew over the site to take photo-
graphs. When that happened, everyone
looked upward. The result was that US
intelligence agencies got good pictures
of them.
When the Mount Alto embassy was fin-
ished in May 1985, it had cost $65 mil-
lion, or $119 a square foot. It was built
on time and within one-half percent of
the budget.
The American Embassy on Ulitsa
Konyushkovskaya so far has cost $190
million, or $271 a square foot. The cost
overrun has been $100 million, or 111
percent.
The Soviets got an embassy that is
well built. Its roofs are warranted
against leakage for ten years. The un-
completed American Embassy in Mos-
cow leaks and is plagued by floods.
Although the Soviets were not supposed
to be able to move into their new com-
plex until the American compound in
Moscow was completed, the State De-
partment in 1980 bowed to requests from
then-Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Do-
brynin that some of his employees be
able to occupy the living quarters on
Mount Alto. In exchange, the Soviets
made available to the American Embas-
sy in Moscow some additional apart-
ments, a warehouse, and a recreational
area.
The State Department is hanging
tough on the chancery, forbidding the
Soviets to move into their new offices,
which are ready for occupancy, until
Americans can do the same in Moscow.
Some sources claim that the Soviets are
using parts of the office buildings in the
Instead of forcing the move
fromMountAlto, the Carter
and Reagan administrations
spent billions of dollars to
install scrambler phones at
federal agencies and lay
underground cable.
project's second phase anyway.
Meanwhile, the static over the new
embassies continues to increase. The de-
bate about the embassies includes the
suggestion that the Americans tear down
their new structure in Moscow and begin
again-and force the Soviets to relocate
in Washington.
"The Nixon administration and oth-
ers made political judgments to go
ahead," says James E. Nolan Jr., direc-
tor of the State Department's Office of
Foreign Missions. "They could have ab-
rogated. Even the fact that you signed an
agreement doesn't mean you can't im-
pose other restrictions-even revoke the
agreement and take whatever conse-
quences there are. You're always free to
break it and pay the penalty.
"The intelligence [oversight] boards
have opposed [the Mount Alto construc-
tion] under Nixon, Carter, Reagan, and
probably Ford, too. But it's equally true
that they have never made a case con-
vincing enough to have a President
change it. "
Instead of forcing the move from
Mount Alto, the Carter and Reagan ad-
ministrations spent billions of dollars to
install scrambler phones at federal agen-
cies and lay underground cable.
But that does not really solve the prob-
lem for either the government or private
citizens.
Inevitably, said a September report of
the Senate Select Intelligence Commit-
tee, government employees and contrac-
tors working on secret projects discuss
sensitive information on unsecured
phones.
A Soviet Embassy spokesman sees the
issue simply: "We were given this land
by mutual agreement with the US
government. "
Senator Daniel P. Moynihan, the New
York Democrat, sees it equally simply:
"We just got snookered." ^
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