Chrysostom confessor. As the Soviet "bug" listened to the US Embassy
For eight years, Stalin received secret information from the US embassy in Moscow faster than the American president himself. This was made possible thanks to the brilliant work of the Soviet Chekists, who undertook the unprecedented operation Confession.
At the end of 1943, the outcome of World War II was already obvious to the leadership of the countries allied with the anti-Hitler coalition. And in these conditions, the questions of the structure of the post-war world acquired the utmost importance. Stalin was well aware that the British and American partners in the anti-Hitler coalition could not be trusted - the union with them was only forced, caused by the common struggle against Nazism, and as soon as Hitler was defeated, the USSR would again become the worst enemy for the West. Therefore, intelligence activities were actively conducted not only against Germany and its satellites, but also against the United States and Great Britain.
It was at this time that Stalin received information about the ingenious inventions of the Soviet scientist Lev Termen — the endovibrator “Chrysostom”, and the “Buran” system. Invented them by Lev Theremin in one of the closed "sharashki", where he was in 1939 year after his arrest by the Soviet special services. Theremin was arrested shortly after he returned to the USSR from the USA, where he spent ten years - from 1928 to 1938.
A hereditary nobleman, Lev Termen was a cello graduate of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, and he also studied at the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of Petrograd University. When the First World War began, Lev Termen was drafted into the army, where he received training at the Nikolaevsk Engineering School and at electrical engineering officer courses.
As a electrical engineer, Termen served in the reserve electrical battalion serving the radio station in Tsarskoe Selo. Then Theremin worked as head of the laboratory at the Physicotechnical Institute. He is the author of the world-famous musical instrument "Theremin."
In 1928, Theremin went to the United States, where he was engaged in the development of alarm systems for US prisons. Apparently, it was at this time that he was recruited by Soviet foreign intelligence, taking an active part in the creation of Soviet trade missions in the United States.
Invented by Leo Theremin device was really advanced for its time. The "bug" worked without additional power sources, and was activated by radiation from a remote source. That is, the power source of "Zlatoust" could be located a few hundred meters from the place where the "bug" was installed. This invention radically changed the whole system of organization of listening to the necessary objects.
After Stalin received information from Lawrence Beria about the invention of Theremin, he ordered to audition the upper floors of the American Embassy in Moscow. It was there that were the most secret negotiations of American diplomats. And if the lower floors of the embassy were long and tightly “stuffed” with Soviet listening devices, then Soviet security officers could not get to the upper floors of the embassy for a decade.
Lavrenty Beria began to think about how to put the listening equipment on the upper floors of the embassy. In the end, he came to the conclusion that the only way was to give the US ambassador to the Soviet Union, Mr. Averell Harriman, some souvenir gift. Subordinates delivered a large variety of souvenirs to the study of Lawrence Pavlovich - from the Scythian black alder shield to the wastebasket from the elephant's foot.
But besides Beria, technical specialists also studied souvenirs. They were not impressed by any of the potential gifts - special conditions were required for “Zlatoust”, which allowed to establish the “bug” and to achieve its action with maximum efficiency. In addition, there should have been a guarantee that Averell Harriman would not give the souvenir to his subordinates, would not throw it in the room for gifts, but order him to install it in his office on the top floor of the embassy.
Throughout 1944, Soviet intelligence agents studied the tastes and preferences of the American ambassador. In the end, it was possible to establish that Averell Harriman loves expensive souvenirs made of precious wood. It was the diplomat's passion for collecting wooden objects that could have become the fishing rod to which Mr. Harriman could have been hooked. Therefore, it was decided to build a “bug” in one of the wooden objects, and to transfer the object itself as a gift. But a simple gift would have caused legitimate suspicions among Americans. And the Soviet security officers came up with how to hand it to Harriman without any questions.
From 4 to 11 February 1945 was held in Yalta, the famous Yalta Conference. There were the most distinguished guests in the city, which one can imagine - US President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. And just by coincidence, 9 February 1945, in the pioneer camp "Artek" located in the Crimea, was to celebrate its opening after the German fascist occupation and in honor of the twentieth anniversary of the camp itself. Therefore, the head of the Soviet diplomatic department, Vyacheslav Molotov, invited Roosevelt and Churchill to attend the solemn event.
Naturally, both Molotov, and Stalin, and Beria perfectly understood that Roosevelt and Churchill would not go to Artek - they had nothing more to do. But instead of themselves, according to the rules of etiquette, they had to send some high-status guest. And with a probability of 90%, the American ambassador to the USSR, Averell Harriman, could represent the American side (in the photo).
9 February 1945, the pioneer camp "Artek" met foreign guests. For the ceremony, fresh roses from Sukhumi were specially delivered. The children's choir sang the “Star Banner” in English and at that moment the pioneers brought the sparkling coat of arms of the United States of America into the hall.
US Ambassador Averell Harriman was delighted. The emblem was accompanied by a certificate signed by Mikhail Kalinin. The translator translated the text after the text - the emblem was made of the most precious wood species: boxwood, sandalwood, sequoia, black and mahogany, black alder, Persian parrotia, ivory palm. And the gift was made, allegedly, by the pioneers of “Artek”.
Enthusiastic Harriman immediately began to say in a low voice: “Where am I going to go to his day? What a beauty!". And here the Soviet translator Berezhkov, who translated the contents of the certificate to an American diplomat, advised: “Hang the emblem in your office. The British will simply die of envy. ” The USA and Great Britain were allies, but why not pin up the British? In addition, Harriman was truly amazed by the chic gift. And a few days later, the workers had already fastened the coat of arms of the United States of America from the most valuable types of wood right in the office of Averell Harriman.
The embassy staff, who closely monitored the situation around the building, did not pay attention to the change of tenants in several apartments of residential buildings located in close proximity to the diplomatic mission itself. Yes, and no suspicion the most ordinary Soviet inhabitants did not cause. No one could have imagined that in the shortest possible time in several apartments there were equipped workplaces for state security technicians who received and recorded the information coming from Chrysostom.
One of the most brilliant operations of the Soviet Chekists allowed the leadership of the Soviet Union to obtain very important information directly from the building of the American Embassy in Moscow. For seven years, from 1945 to 1952, invented by Lev Theremin, Chrysostom regularly passed on secret information to Soviet security officers. During the time when the Soviet state security intercepted the American embassy, four US ambassadors in Moscow changed. But the "bug" continued to work properly.
Interestingly, the ambassador’s office was regularly examined by American counterintelligence agents for the presence of listening equipment. Studied the Americans and the coat of arms, presented in 1945, by Averell Harriman. But he didn’t arouse any suspicions in them - Zlatoust was hidden in the emblem in a masterful manner, and even the highest-class American specialists could not find it.
Only in 1952, the American counterintelligence managed to accidentally detect the wave on which Zlatoust operated. But to establish the location of the "bug" was not possible. A large-scale search began in the embassy under the guise of general cleaning. Counterintelligence surveyed all square meters of the diplomatic mission, checked any items that were in the offices, including in the office of the ambassador.
Naturally, we paid attention to the coat of arms of the United States. He was carefully removed from the wall and began to explore. Inside the shield, which depicted the coat of arms of the United States, counterintelligence was discovered a very strange device - a small metal wire, a hollow chamber - a resonator and a membrane. But there were no batteries or radio components. None of the counterintelligence inspecting the coat of arms believed that this was precisely the listening device. Experienced officers decided that in front of them was a dummy that the Soviet security officers had specially installed in their coat of arms in order to divert attention from the true “bug” and to let counterintelligence agents on the wrong track.
But in any case, the subject had to be sent for examination. British scientist Peter Wright, having familiarized himself with the device, told American experts what was the matter. Washington was literally shocked by the invention of Theremin - the American counterintelligence never came across such devices. No less a shock was the fact that the device worked on the territory of the embassy for seven years. And what were these years? Nuclear creation weapons, the formation of the NATO bloc, the beginning of the “Cold War”, the civil wars in China and Korea, the division of “spheres of influence” in Central and Eastern Europe ... And it turns out that all the secret information from the office of the American ambassador lay on the table to the Soviet leadership even faster than it did to the american president himself!
For the American special services, the seven-year job “bug” in the US embassy in Moscow was a real disgrace. And for obvious reasons, Americans chose to hide all this history from the world community. Even claims about the organization of listening to the diplomatic mission did not show anyone. It did not work for the Americans and the British to repeat in detail the product of Lev Theremin. But the British bug worked at a distance of about 30 meters, and the Soviet - at a distance of 300 meters.
It was only in 1960, when Soviet air defenses shot down the American spy plane Harry Powers, that Washington made a response statement about the use of a listening device by the USSR state security agencies at the US embassy in Moscow. At the UN meeting, the representative of the United States showed the audience the emblem of the United States and the microphone mounted in it.
Then the coat of arms and microphone were shown at a meeting of the UN Security Council. And it didn’t do without another shame - the representative of India asked the American representative to make a duplicate of the microphone in order to show it to friends during stories about the story with listening. These words of an Indian diplomat finally repulsed the American representatives with a further desire to recall the history of listening to the embassy.
It is known that at present the coat of arms of the United States, once donated to Harriman by the pioneers in Artek, and Zlatoust itself are in the CIA Museum in Langley.
In 1992, under strange circumstances, the laboratory of Lev Termen in Moscow was destroyed and looted. Criminals have not been found. The great inventor himself died on November 3, 1993, at the age of 97, at the same time that the Americans were actually dictating foreign and domestic policy to the then Russian leadership, and there was no question of any serious confrontation with the United States.
"Bug" Leo Termen
At the end of 1943, the outcome of World War II was already obvious to the leadership of the countries allied with the anti-Hitler coalition. And in these conditions, the questions of the structure of the post-war world acquired the utmost importance. Stalin was well aware that the British and American partners in the anti-Hitler coalition could not be trusted - the union with them was only forced, caused by the common struggle against Nazism, and as soon as Hitler was defeated, the USSR would again become the worst enemy for the West. Therefore, intelligence activities were actively conducted not only against Germany and its satellites, but also against the United States and Great Britain.
It was at this time that Stalin received information about the ingenious inventions of the Soviet scientist Lev Termen — the endovibrator “Chrysostom”, and the “Buran” system. Invented them by Lev Theremin in one of the closed "sharashki", where he was in 1939 year after his arrest by the Soviet special services. Theremin was arrested shortly after he returned to the USSR from the USA, where he spent ten years - from 1928 to 1938.
A hereditary nobleman, Lev Termen was a cello graduate of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, and he also studied at the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of Petrograd University. When the First World War began, Lev Termen was drafted into the army, where he received training at the Nikolaevsk Engineering School and at electrical engineering officer courses.
As a electrical engineer, Termen served in the reserve electrical battalion serving the radio station in Tsarskoe Selo. Then Theremin worked as head of the laboratory at the Physicotechnical Institute. He is the author of the world-famous musical instrument "Theremin."
In 1928, Theremin went to the United States, where he was engaged in the development of alarm systems for US prisons. Apparently, it was at this time that he was recruited by Soviet foreign intelligence, taking an active part in the creation of Soviet trade missions in the United States.
Invented by Leo Theremin device was really advanced for its time. The "bug" worked without additional power sources, and was activated by radiation from a remote source. That is, the power source of "Zlatoust" could be located a few hundred meters from the place where the "bug" was installed. This invention radically changed the whole system of organization of listening to the necessary objects.
Choosing a gift is difficult
After Stalin received information from Lawrence Beria about the invention of Theremin, he ordered to audition the upper floors of the American Embassy in Moscow. It was there that were the most secret negotiations of American diplomats. And if the lower floors of the embassy were long and tightly “stuffed” with Soviet listening devices, then Soviet security officers could not get to the upper floors of the embassy for a decade. Lavrenty Beria began to think about how to put the listening equipment on the upper floors of the embassy. In the end, he came to the conclusion that the only way was to give the US ambassador to the Soviet Union, Mr. Averell Harriman, some souvenir gift. Subordinates delivered a large variety of souvenirs to the study of Lawrence Pavlovich - from the Scythian black alder shield to the wastebasket from the elephant's foot.
But besides Beria, technical specialists also studied souvenirs. They were not impressed by any of the potential gifts - special conditions were required for “Zlatoust”, which allowed to establish the “bug” and to achieve its action with maximum efficiency. In addition, there should have been a guarantee that Averell Harriman would not give the souvenir to his subordinates, would not throw it in the room for gifts, but order him to install it in his office on the top floor of the embassy.
Throughout 1944, Soviet intelligence agents studied the tastes and preferences of the American ambassador. In the end, it was possible to establish that Averell Harriman loves expensive souvenirs made of precious wood. It was the diplomat's passion for collecting wooden objects that could have become the fishing rod to which Mr. Harriman could have been hooked. Therefore, it was decided to build a “bug” in one of the wooden objects, and to transfer the object itself as a gift. But a simple gift would have caused legitimate suspicions among Americans. And the Soviet security officers came up with how to hand it to Harriman without any questions.
Mister Ambassador from the Soviet Pioneers
From 4 to 11 February 1945 was held in Yalta, the famous Yalta Conference. There were the most distinguished guests in the city, which one can imagine - US President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. And just by coincidence, 9 February 1945, in the pioneer camp "Artek" located in the Crimea, was to celebrate its opening after the German fascist occupation and in honor of the twentieth anniversary of the camp itself. Therefore, the head of the Soviet diplomatic department, Vyacheslav Molotov, invited Roosevelt and Churchill to attend the solemn event.
Naturally, both Molotov, and Stalin, and Beria perfectly understood that Roosevelt and Churchill would not go to Artek - they had nothing more to do. But instead of themselves, according to the rules of etiquette, they had to send some high-status guest. And with a probability of 90%, the American ambassador to the USSR, Averell Harriman, could represent the American side (in the photo).
9 February 1945, the pioneer camp "Artek" met foreign guests. For the ceremony, fresh roses from Sukhumi were specially delivered. The children's choir sang the “Star Banner” in English and at that moment the pioneers brought the sparkling coat of arms of the United States of America into the hall.
US Ambassador Averell Harriman was delighted. The emblem was accompanied by a certificate signed by Mikhail Kalinin. The translator translated the text after the text - the emblem was made of the most precious wood species: boxwood, sandalwood, sequoia, black and mahogany, black alder, Persian parrotia, ivory palm. And the gift was made, allegedly, by the pioneers of “Artek”.
Enthusiastic Harriman immediately began to say in a low voice: “Where am I going to go to his day? What a beauty!". And here the Soviet translator Berezhkov, who translated the contents of the certificate to an American diplomat, advised: “Hang the emblem in your office. The British will simply die of envy. ” The USA and Great Britain were allies, but why not pin up the British? In addition, Harriman was truly amazed by the chic gift. And a few days later, the workers had already fastened the coat of arms of the United States of America from the most valuable types of wood right in the office of Averell Harriman.
The embassy staff, who closely monitored the situation around the building, did not pay attention to the change of tenants in several apartments of residential buildings located in close proximity to the diplomatic mission itself. Yes, and no suspicion the most ordinary Soviet inhabitants did not cause. No one could have imagined that in the shortest possible time in several apartments there were equipped workplaces for state security technicians who received and recorded the information coming from Chrysostom.
Seven years of "wiretapping"
One of the most brilliant operations of the Soviet Chekists allowed the leadership of the Soviet Union to obtain very important information directly from the building of the American Embassy in Moscow. For seven years, from 1945 to 1952, invented by Lev Theremin, Chrysostom regularly passed on secret information to Soviet security officers. During the time when the Soviet state security intercepted the American embassy, four US ambassadors in Moscow changed. But the "bug" continued to work properly.
Interestingly, the ambassador’s office was regularly examined by American counterintelligence agents for the presence of listening equipment. Studied the Americans and the coat of arms, presented in 1945, by Averell Harriman. But he didn’t arouse any suspicions in them - Zlatoust was hidden in the emblem in a masterful manner, and even the highest-class American specialists could not find it.
Only in 1952, the American counterintelligence managed to accidentally detect the wave on which Zlatoust operated. But to establish the location of the "bug" was not possible. A large-scale search began in the embassy under the guise of general cleaning. Counterintelligence surveyed all square meters of the diplomatic mission, checked any items that were in the offices, including in the office of the ambassador.
Naturally, we paid attention to the coat of arms of the United States. He was carefully removed from the wall and began to explore. Inside the shield, which depicted the coat of arms of the United States, counterintelligence was discovered a very strange device - a small metal wire, a hollow chamber - a resonator and a membrane. But there were no batteries or radio components. None of the counterintelligence inspecting the coat of arms believed that this was precisely the listening device. Experienced officers decided that in front of them was a dummy that the Soviet security officers had specially installed in their coat of arms in order to divert attention from the true “bug” and to let counterintelligence agents on the wrong track.
But in any case, the subject had to be sent for examination. British scientist Peter Wright, having familiarized himself with the device, told American experts what was the matter. Washington was literally shocked by the invention of Theremin - the American counterintelligence never came across such devices. No less a shock was the fact that the device worked on the territory of the embassy for seven years. And what were these years? Nuclear creation weapons, the formation of the NATO bloc, the beginning of the “Cold War”, the civil wars in China and Korea, the division of “spheres of influence” in Central and Eastern Europe ... And it turns out that all the secret information from the office of the American ambassador lay on the table to the Soviet leadership even faster than it did to the american president himself!
The shame of American counterintelligence
For the American special services, the seven-year job “bug” in the US embassy in Moscow was a real disgrace. And for obvious reasons, Americans chose to hide all this history from the world community. Even claims about the organization of listening to the diplomatic mission did not show anyone. It did not work for the Americans and the British to repeat in detail the product of Lev Theremin. But the British bug worked at a distance of about 30 meters, and the Soviet - at a distance of 300 meters.
It was only in 1960, when Soviet air defenses shot down the American spy plane Harry Powers, that Washington made a response statement about the use of a listening device by the USSR state security agencies at the US embassy in Moscow. At the UN meeting, the representative of the United States showed the audience the emblem of the United States and the microphone mounted in it.
Then the coat of arms and microphone were shown at a meeting of the UN Security Council. And it didn’t do without another shame - the representative of India asked the American representative to make a duplicate of the microphone in order to show it to friends during stories about the story with listening. These words of an Indian diplomat finally repulsed the American representatives with a further desire to recall the history of listening to the embassy.
It is known that at present the coat of arms of the United States, once donated to Harriman by the pioneers in Artek, and Zlatoust itself are in the CIA Museum in Langley.
In 1992, under strange circumstances, the laboratory of Lev Termen in Moscow was destroyed and looted. Criminals have not been found. The great inventor himself died on November 3, 1993, at the age of 97, at the same time that the Americans were actually dictating foreign and domestic policy to the then Russian leadership, and there was no question of any serious confrontation with the United States.
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