On March 31, 1987, the US "Washington Post" published news on the front page: The US State Department announced that all soldiers (28 soldiers) of the US Embassy in Moscow serving as security guards will be sent to the Marine Corps. Recall the country; the United States will fully investigate the most destructive embassy spy case in history allegedly caused by two of the soldiers.
This is the first serious incident of this kind since the US Marine Corps began to serve as the guard mission of the embassy abroad in 1948. At the same time, news broke out in the press that wiretapping devices were often installed in the new embassy built by the United States in the Soviet Union. These two events shocked the entire United States.
Introducing the "spy" into the room
One night in February 1987, there was silence around the US Embassy on the Moscow Garden Ring Road, and the embassy building was quiet. At this moment, two US Marines, Sergeant Clayton Longtree and Corporal Arnold Bressey, are responsible for guarding the US Embassy. Suddenly, in front of the embassy, several dark shadows appeared, and they sneaked into the US embassy quietly. Led by Longtree and Bressy, they tiptoed into the confidential room of the American Embassy. These people are Soviet KGB agents.
The Confidential Room of the U.S. Embassy is located on the 9th floor of the embassy building. It is a plastic room-in-a-room. People call it a "bubble room". This room is not big, there can only be 7 people in it, there is only one table in the room, there is a typewriter next to it. This room is equipped with special anti-eavesdropping equipment. It is a confidential conversation room in the embassy. Many confidential matters in the embassy and even the country are discussed in this room. There are also top-secret documents in this room.
Usually, the 9th floor is guarded by Marine Corps soldiers, who conduct cross-examination of every visitor. The working area in the embassy is not allowed to enter the Soviet employees working in the embassy, and the office in the working area is not cleaned by Soviet employees. The diplomats in the embassy clean themselves. It is really difficult for the Soviets to get close to this confidential room. Carry on. But now, these KGB agents have entered the confidential room without any effort.After they entered, Longtree asked Bressy to watch the wind in front of the door and walked into the house to help them get into their intense work. Some of them skillfully place bugs in some places or equipment in the room, some flip through top-secret documents, and some quickly use cameras to "click and click" to take pictures of documents. These technical tasks are really familiar to them.
One hour passed calmly, two hours passed again, everything went well, and more than three hours passed. While they were working on all this attentively, suddenly, a Soviet agent accidentally touched the alarm system. "Bell..." Just as the alarm bell rang, Longtree stepped forward to cut the circuit. This time the Soviet agents panicked. They quickly put everything back in place, and then, with the help of Longtree and Bressey, quickly left the US Embassy.
Love at first sight
Longtree and Bressie have done this more than once. From July 1985 to March 1986, they repeatedly allowed Soviet agents to enter the U.S. Embassy to install bugs and steal secret documents.
Sergeant Longtree was transferred to the US Embassy in Moscow in September 1984 as a security guard. Soon after he arrived at the embassy, Violetta Xiena, a Soviet employee who worked as an interpreter at the embassy, caught his attention. Xie Na is recognized as a beautiful woman in the embassy, with her beautiful hair draped over her shoulders, big eyes, tall figure, and a well-fitting dress, which is especially charming. She-is the central figure in this embassy spy case.
Some people in the US embassy said that Ms. Xie Na was indifferent to most people, but "love at first sight" with Longtree. Once, they had a "coincidence" at a Moscow subway station. Longtree plucked up the courage to ask the girl to accompany her, Xie Na agreed to his request in a friendly manner. Her conversation and demeanor made Longtree even more fascinated by her. The next day, Longtree waited at the gate of the embassy when Xie Na was off work and took her to the door of the house. Since then, the two fell into "love".
When they were in love, one day, when Xie Na was out with her family,Bring Longtree to her home. In Xie Na's home, Longtree had sex with Xie Na.
In January 1986, when they met again, Xie Na introduced her "Uncle Sasha" to him. Uncle Sasha asked about his life in the United States with concern and discussed his favorite topics with him. After several meetings, Uncle Sasha directly asked him to provide information and documents from the US embassy. Only then did Longtree know that Uncle Sasha was a KGB agent. His real name is Alexei Yefimov.
According to U.S. Marine Corps investigators, during his stay in Moscow, Longtree provided the Soviets with a list of American personnel engaged in intelligence work in the Soviet Union, their addresses and photos, as well as a design drawing of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Longtree once introduced the Soviets to the military attache's office and communications center of the US Embassy several times, allowing them to "check the equipment, installations, documents, and confidential documents in the room."
On March 10, 1986, Lontry was assigned to work in Vienna. Before leaving, "Uncle Sasha" asked him to continue to provide information after arriving in Vienna. In Vienna, Longtree really couldn't bear the repeated pressure from Soviet agents, so he surrendered to the CIA official of the US Embassy in Vienna.
Longtree admitted that because he didn't take the initiative to report his relationship with Xie Na and his contact with "Uncle Sasha", he was "getting deeper and deeper" in the "beauty trick" trap set by the KGB.
Corporal Bressy was degraded, fined, and deported to his country in August 1986 for having an improper relationship with Galina, a Soviet cook in the US Embassy. At the time, there was no suspicion that he was engaged in espionage. The U.S. Marine Corps investigators conducted four months of persuasion and investigation work on Bressey. He finally revealed the spy incident that suffered "greater losses than imagined."
After the incident was revealed, the U.S. Marine Corps, in the process of further investigating their problems, arrested another former Marine Corps guard at the US Embassy in Moscow on March 29, 1987, Robert. Sergeant Staffelbeam. Since there is no evidence,He was released again on April 7. In addition, a Marine Corps native soldier Sergeant Joseph Welick who was transferred to the Leningrad consulate to serve as a security guard was also arrested.
The small hole does not fill
The US embassy abroad has always had many problems in terms of security and security. It is not unknown in China. However, due to various reasons such as funding and bureaucracy, it has not been improved until it becomes the embassy in Moscow. Major event.
As early as 1985, the US President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Committee submitted a report to President Reagan , stating that the US Embassy in Moscow was vulnerable to Soviet eavesdropping, and the embassy’s security work was weak, and it was recommended to reduce the embassy’s Soviet employees. Number of people. However, the U.S. State Department complained that it was "excessively expensive" to let U.S. employees replace Soviet employees and did not adopt the report's recommendations. The report also asked the United States to allocate funds to improve the embassy’s security measures. This proposal was also rejected by Congress.
After the espionage case was revealed, two U.S. congressmen went to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow to conduct an on-site investigation. They discovered that in 1986 alone, the number of Marine Corps guards' breaches of security and secrecy regulations was as high as 137 times.
They also discovered that the safe in the embassy for storing confidential documents was sometimes left unlocked all night, and top-secret documents were just placed on the table; sometimes, the Marine Corps guards strictly enforced the security and secrecy regulations, and some people actually did so. Full of complaints, the civilian staff working in the embassy also violated the regulations and casually interacted with the Soviets.
During their investigation in Moscow, they also discovered that there are also many problems with the Marine Corps’ security system.
First is the quality of the Marine Corps guards stationed abroad. Over the past 40 years, the US Marine Corps has been responsible for the guard tasks of the US embassies abroad, and the soldiers sent to foreign embassies are unmarried young people around the age of 20. Generally, they have only undergone 8 weeks of training, and it is difficult to cope with complicated situations. .
Followed by the management of these Marine Corps soldiers. Once the US Marine Corps soldiers are assigned to serve as guards of the embassy abroad, they are immediately transferred to the leadership of the State Department by the Department of Defense, and the State Department does not care about these soldiers at all.Senior Marine Corps officers only visit these soldiers who serve as guards in the embassy twice a year.
In addition, the soldiers were treated as second-class citizens in the embassy, and other embassy staff were often dissatisfied with the guards performing their official duties, so there were frequent conflicts and bad relations between the two sides. The living conditions of the guards are not good and their lives are monotonous. They often go out to drink and have fun, and sometimes get drunk. Some also take drugs and sell drugs, and some are acting indiscriminately, and no one cares about them.
Want to play that card
Due to loopholes in the security and confidentiality of the US Embassy in Moscow, "the Soviets got everything they wanted": the cars, offices, telephones, passwords of Soviet agents in the US embassy Devices, communication equipment, and even typewriters and photocopiers have been installed with eavesdropping devices. The entire embassy building has actually become a transmitting antenna;
The Soviets can effortlessly decipher the US embassy’s transmission to the country and other embassies. The secret telegram can also quickly decipher the passwords used by the United States anywhere in the world;
The Soviets intercepted all password communications between the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and Washington since mid-1985;
The Soviets stole To the United States’ wide-ranging foreign policy materials, including details of the United States’ negotiating position in the Geneva arms talks, the background of the Nicaragua policy, the relationship between Middle East affairs and the United States’ allies, etc.;
The Soviets even in the CIA A wiretap was also installed on the special communications equipment in Moscow...
No wonder that in October 1986, when the US-Soviet heads held a meeting at Iceland, the US trump card was clearly touched by the Soviet Union. . At the negotiating table, President Reagan was often caught off guard by some unexpected questions raised by Soviet leader Gorbachev . An official of the US State Department used this analogy to say, "It's like when we play poker with the Soviets, the Soviets can see in the mirror what card we are going to play."
In August 1986, U.S.-Soviet relations were in crisis when the Soviet Union arrested American journalist Danilov.During this period, the Soviets acquired internal intelligence about the United States' handling of the crisis.
This espionage case has caused such great harm to the national security interests of the United States, and the US government has had to take a series of remedial measures.
President Reagan personally convened two emergency meetings to discuss the embassy espionage case, and appointed a committee to study the security of the embassy. At the same time, he instructed the former Secretary of Defense Laird to go to Moscow to investigate security issues. In addition, four teams were sent to conduct a comprehensive investigation of the case.
On March 31, 1987, the U.S. State Department announced the recall of all Marines who served as guards at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. The soldiers were told that they would perform a polygraph test after returning home. The State Department also ordered the U.S. Embassy in Moscow to stop using all communications equipment, and all telegrams sent to the U.S. Embassy in the Soviet Union were diverted to the U.S. military base in West Germany , and the courier sent the telegrams to the Embassy in Soviet Union.
At the same time, the State Council also decided to "take all necessary measures" during Schultz's visit to the Soviet Union on April 13 to ensure that he communicates with China. Schultz put his own set of communication equipment in a luxurious car and got in touch with the White House in the embassy compound.
The Congressional Investigation Subcommittee, Pentagon and the Presidential Special Committee also made recommendations: Those Marines who are sent to sensitive areas to serve as guards of the embassy should be married, aged over 25, and more experienced. The service period is at least one year, and these guards are subjected to polygraph tests twice a year.
The aftermath is not yet finished
You and me in the US-Soviet intelligence community have caused a diplomatic disturbance. The US and the Soviet Union have launched a tit-for-tat public opinion battle around this incident.
On April 7, 1987, the US ambassador to the Soviet Union, Matlock, took office the second day, and went to the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs to lodge an "formal protest" to the Soviet Union, condemning the Soviet Union for infiltrating the US Embassy through spies and monitoring devices. act. After that, the White House also came out to accuse the Soviet Union of installing monitoring devices in the US Embassy and the new embassy under construction. White House General Office Director Baker claimed that the Soviet Union’s espionage activities through the Americans “obviously violated the sovereignty of the United States”.
In this public opinion battle, even President Reagan joined in. Reagan delivered a speech at the White House on April 7, saying that he was "deeply concerned" about the security of the US Embassy in Moscow, and announced that unless the new US embassy is under construction to ensure security and no eavesdropping device is installed, the US diplomat They cannot move into the new embassy; the Soviets cannot enter the new embassy they have built in Washington until the Americans move into the new embassy. President Reagan also threatened that if the new U.S. embassy under construction in Moscow cannot ensure protection from Soviet eavesdropping, he might order the demolition of the new building worth $191 million.
When this embassy spy case was revealed, at the time when Secretary of State Schultz was about to visit the Soviet Union, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution by a vote of 70 to 30: unless the communications equipment used by the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union Make sure that there is no eavesdropping device installed, otherwise the plan of Schultz's visit to the Soviet Union will be cancelled. The House of Representatives asked Reagan to go to Schultz to "go to a neutral country that ensures communications security" to meet with Soviet leaders.
However, out of diplomatic considerations, President Reagan decided that Schultz would still visit the Soviet Union as scheduled, but instructed Schultz to make the security of the U.S. embassy the "main topic of the talks" when meeting with Soviet leaders. .
The Soviet Union's series of propaganda offensives against the United States did not give way.
The spokesperson of the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs made a speech, saying that he was "surprised" by Reagan's decision to make the security of the US embassy the main topic of the meeting between Schultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze, and accused Reagan of visiting Schultz. Su's "anti-Soviet remarks" on the eve of the Soviet Union was intended to "poisonize the atmosphere".
The Soviet Union also adopted a strategy of offensive and defensive. On April 10, it held an exhibition on the installation of eavesdropping devices at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, and invited Western reporters in Moscow to watch the actual objects and photos: The eavesdropping devices in the pencil include wireless transmitters installed in beams and bricks.The spokesperson of the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs also held a press conference specifically for this purpose, making a big fuss, saying that the United States "is the real spy madness."
After this case was heard, on June 12, 1987, the Marines rejected the charges against Bressy, and Bressy was acquitted and released. Longtree pleaded guilty on August 13, 1987 and was sentenced to 30 years in prison for . The embassy spy case ended here.
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