THE WALLS HAVE EARS AT NEW EMBASSY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706360003-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 2, 2011
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: November 30, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
~ Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/02 :CIA-RDP90-009658000706360003-0
oxe~E..,~., -
The walls
have ears at
new embassy
By Gregory Spears
/nQuirer Washin;ton aurtau
WASHINGTON -The new U.S.
Embassy being built in Moscow
is riddled with Soviet listening
devices planted in its main struc-
tural components, according to
several members of Congress
who received secret briefings re-
cently about its problems.
They said that an elaborate and
far-reaching network of spying
equipment was concealed inside
precast concrete construction
units, including beams, walls and
floor slabs, and that the devices
may be impossible to remove
without wrecking the building.
Construction has been stopped
at the nine-story building, al-
ready three years behind sched-
ule and with more than $20 mil-
lion in cost overruns, while U.S.
officials decide what to do. The
building is not occupied.
"We'll either have to make a
decision to go ahead land attempt
to remove the devices) of we'll
have to blow the building up,"
said Rep. Dan Mica (D., Fla.),
chairman of the House Foreign
Affairs international operations
subcommittee, which oversees
U.S. Embassies. "The building it-
self is a monumental disaster."
Sen. Lawton Chiles (D., Fla.)
confirmed that espionage equip-
ment had been found within the
building, which was begun in
1979. He said the devices were
imbedded in prefabricated build-
ing components manufactured
outside the building site and
without U.S. inspection.
An agreement signed in 1977
required the United States to em-
ploy Soviet laborers and materi-
als in its new embassy. Only nine
U.S. government inspectors were
permitted inside the 10-acre job
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
30 November 1986
site, according to Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State Richard N. Derta-
dian, director of the Office of For-
eign- Buildings.
.Dertadian said he could not dis-
cuss the existence of any listening
devices in the building. He did say a
painstaking inspection was under
way that would not be completed
until the spring or summer.
He said he doubted that the build-
ing would be torn down. "If we were
to tear that building down now and
try to do it again, how to get our
materials and people in and out
would be a real bilateral problem,"
he said.
Soviet workers have been locked
out of the construction site since
August 1985, after it was discovered
they had been doing concealed work
not called for on building plans, Der-
tadian said.
The listening devices were found
by U.S. officials using equipment
Mica likened to a CAT-scan machine,
capable of producing three-dimen-
sional views of the interior of build-
ing components.
What was discovered "would make
James Bond look old-fashioned,"
Mica said. "The entire building may
be a [sgyingl device. That's part of
the problem."
U.S. intelligence experts estimate it
will cost $30 million to $40 million to
attempt to rid the building of the
bugs, Mica said. But they may never
be assured of secure communica-
tions in the building -the heart of a
$192 million U.S. Embassy complex
that was supposed originally to cost
$89.1 million -because it might be
impossible to remove the devices
without destroying the building.
The intelligence experts are
weighing the possibility of crippling
the spy system by destroying its
transmission equipment but leaving
some Soviet spy gear buried within
the embassy walls. The risk is the
Soviets may be able to reactivate the
bugs, Mica said.
Searchers found "an .entire beam
that's an antenna," Mica said.
"Maybe you disconnect the transmit-
ter that hooks up to that beam, but
maybe somebody else will hook up a
new transmitter."
House Foreign Affairs Committee
Chairman Dante Fascell (D., Fla.)
said he favored salvaging the build-
ing because "there is no secure
place, and no way to get a secure
place, in Moscow." Fascell toured the
building in March.
He said U.S. officials would have to
use their ingenuity to outwit Soviet
eavesdropping equipment. "Every-
body might have to learn sign lan-
guage -maybe that's far-fetched,
maybe it's not," he said.
Fascell also said he did not want
the dispute over the embassy build-
ing to further disrupt already
strained U.S.-Soviet relations. "You
have to find some way not to force
this fight into the other fight, the
arms control effort," he said.
The two nations agreed in 1977 to
build new embassies in each other's
capital cities. Under the agreement,
the Soviets are prevented from occu-
pying thetr new Washington em?
bassy, which is unfinished on the
inside, until the United States moves
into its new embassy in Moscow.
The current U.S. Embassy in Mos-
cow is a SS-yearold converted apart-
ment building. Dertadian described
it as "the worst embassy building I
have ever been in," and said it was
vulnerable to spying because it abuts
another building.
In 1978, embassy employees doing.
some repair work after a major fide
discovered a tunnel filled with sans)='
five listening equipment alongside
the embassy. In 1983, U.S. officials
reportedly were concerned that ~~.
Soviets were beaming low-level mi?
crowave signals at the U.S. Embassy'
that could interfere or intercept em=
bassy communications.
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/02 :CIA-RDP90-009658000706360003-0