How could the gift of the children of the Soviet Union could eavesdrop on the American ambassador for seven years?

ByNelC

After the Second World War, at the residence of the US ambassador to the USSR, it was whispered as "there is an ears on the wall", but, contrary to the words, no wiretap was found at all. As a result, the wood carving donated by the Boy Scout groupNational Circuit of the United States of AmericaIn this era, a wiretapping device made with phenomenal technology was embedded, but it took seven years as a matter of fact before it was found.

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In 1946 Voadimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer, the Boy Scout group of the Soviet Union donated a wooden country chapter to Mr. Averell Harriman, the American Ambassador of the time. The wooden national emblem was decorated for seven years at the door of the American ambassador's "Spaso House" residing in Moscow as a proof of friendship of the allied countries of the Second World War, but in the national emblem There was an embedded eavesdropper "The Thing" unnecessary for batteries and cables.


The thing that invented was the instrument "ThereminAlso known as the inventor ofLech · Sergiervich · TheminMr. Mr. Thermin, who lived in the United States, returned to the Soviet Union just before the outbreak of the Second World War, but immediately sent to the secret laboratory by the Soviet authorities ordered the development of an excellent wiretap for Spaso House It was said that it was.


So what Mr. Themin thought was an eavesdropping device with a thin film functioning as a microphone in the antenna and cylinder. The eavesdropping can be started by adjusting the frequency of the radio signal, and it was able to listen to the interior conversation with a radio receiver from a remote place. It is a wiretapping device made with breakthrough technology at that time that sound waves are blown by radio signal without using power supply, battery, cable, etc. Everyone wiretapped in the wood carving national chapter installed at the door He seemed to have thought that there was a vessel. The fact that the US military who intercepted the radio of the Soviet army and the operator of the British by chance happened to catch the conversation of their diplomat, and that the fact that "the Soviet Union uses high-performance eavesdropping devices" is known became.

When George Kenan took office as a new ambassador in the United States in 1952, a search for a wiretap that was thought to have been set on the wall of Spaso House was done, but "no wiretap was found from anywhere It is reported that. Then John Ford and Joseph Bejian who served as a security engineer at the US Department of State visited Spaso House in the pretense of guests for a more thorough search.

Two people searched throughout the house with a higher performance detection device, and it turned out that the signal was echoed from the door of one room. As we were trying to destroy the door by removing the wooden country chapter which was installed in the door, as the signal reaction moved towards the direction of the national chapter on which the response was standing, the wiretap is not in the door but in the national emblem It seems that it seems to be inside. A small eavesdropper was discovered from the national emblem than the pencil, and the seaweed wiretap was brought down.


The team of the Soviet Union, who was involved in the wiretap of Spaso House later, admits the eavesdropping as "team gathered information to become advantageous in the Cold War."

In addition, Mr. Kenan living in Spaso House with the situation that "There is a wiretapping device somewhere" although I can not find it for a while since my arrival, Mr. Kenan criticized the Soviet Union in the middle of the night in the midnight, He said that he was talking to "invisible eavesdropping device" and said, "Did you really think that I was with a Russian, or were you balancing when you were kidding? How do you feel about the reaction of the Soviet Union? I will be there. "