The Operation Gold:Berlin Story

Once World War II ended, a new sort of warfare arose. After Nazi Germany fell, new alliances formed. The US, North Korea, and China fought a deadly stalemate on the Korean Peninsula in the early 1950s when the Soviet Union created the atomic weapon using stolen American data.

In the last days of World War II, East-West espionage focused on Berlin, the Allied prize. Both factions fought for control of the split city. In 1954, the CIA launched Operation Gold, a risky scheme to tap communication links from western France to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The Berlin Tunnel event, one of the most daring Cold War spy operations, started.

Operation Gold began in Vienna in 1948. Vienna was a hub of espionage after the war, like Berlin. Vienna, like Berlin, had four military zones run by Britain, the US, France, and the USSR. One of their finest operatives, Peter Lunn, investigated Soviet communications in Vienna because the British wanted to learn more. Lunn discovered that Soviet military headquarters in Vienna was connected to Moscow via Austrian telephone connections. All Moscow communications to its military nerve center in Austria went via the Imperial Hotel, utilizing trunk lines in Schwechat. MI6 acquired a nearby building, paved it with reinforced concrete, and constructed a 70-foot tunnel from the basement to the wires. Operation Silver was the plan.

MI6 created a Harris Tweed import firm to hide its true aim from the Soviets. MI6 was pleased when the firm grew, enabling the spies to operate covertly. Eventually, the British and CIA communicated their results and worked together to share the intelligence bounty. The phone taps gave MI6 the Soviet Union's order-of-battle strategy and high-level military preparations from Moscow. The 1948–1952 Operation Silver success inspired the CIA's Berlin tunnel project a few years later.

After Berlin was partitioned after World War II, the US established its military headquarters there in July 1945. In Zehlendorf, Berlin, the American portion bordered the British zone. The CIA, under the cover name BOB (Berlin Operating Base), commenced activities from a large home there.

Soviet intelligence efforts focused on Berlin. Russia ruled their region with an iron grip, targeting the US and conducting a massive espionage operation in the city, including informers, double agents, and other suspects. The secret intelligence section and X-2 counterintelligence were two key CIA departments at BOB. These two units may defeat the Soviets in Berlin.

As BOB activities grew, they went beyond military intelligence. BOB agents focused on the city's enormous Soviet-controlled sector's economy. Infiltrators and other covert assets helped BOB break into the Soviet intelligence headquarters in Berlin, Karlshorst. Tracking the late 1940s Russian atomic weapon development was one of BOB's greatest achievements. It informed Washington that the Soviets were extracting uranium ore, a bomb component.

The U.S. Army provided logistical and transportation support for BOB operations in Berlin. BOB reported to Theater G-2 (Intelligence) under General Edwin Sibert. BOB became Europe's greatest intelligence outfit and kept Washington informed throughout the 1948 Berlin blockade. BOB was well-positioned to provide essential knowledge when Operation Gold was planned.

Based on the Vienna operation's success, the CIA's senior brass studied how to replicate the British achievement in Berlin, beneath the Russians' and their East German partners' noses. The greatest CIA scientists concluded that attacking the subterranean cables underneath the city was the most apparent solution after an intensive analysis. CIA experts realized that above-ground listening sites could not monitor wires. However, underground taps were unlikely to be identified. In 1953, a CIA double agent tapped the East Berlin telephone exchange and patched local phone lines to West Berlin while no one was watching to verify this claim. The tap was so effective (it was never found) that the CIA began Operation Gold.

The strategy was scientifically tested in 1953, with every possibility played out. The completed concept was forwarded to CIA Director Allan Dulles for approval after study. Dulles, a WWII OSS spymaster, spotted a promising idea and chose to pursue it. The greatest CIA clandestine operation of the Cold War began with his approval.

BOB agents decided to start excavating in Berlin's Altglienicke area after due consideration. For cover, the CIA started building an Air Force radar installation and storage in February 1954. The Soviets monitored the CIA's Berlin operations, but they didn't notice when the Americans started erecting the building; they believed it was another military post.

CIA briefed British about Operation Gold. Bad idea in hindsight. The briefing included Soviet mole George Blake, a British intelligence officer. Blake made detailed notes and informed his case officer, Sergei Kondrashev, shortly after the encounter. Soviets had a choice.

The CIA appointed William King Harvey, a swashbuckling James Bond-like operative who often carried a pistol, to lead Operation Gold. Harvey quit the FBI for the CIA following a fight with Director J. Edgar Hoover. Harvey was known for drinking a lot of alcohol before lunch and was cautious of anyone who didn't live hard. He joined Staff C, the CIA's counterintelligence branch, since he liked the new agency. One of his early tasks was to expose Kim Philby, the British Intelligence Service's chief Soviet mole in Washington, D.C. Harvey became Berlin's sensitive CIA station commander in 1952.

Harvey surreptitiously recruited many East German double agents, notably communications specialists, as BOB operatives could not enter East Germany. When these spies went west, they brought critical East German government communications intelligence. Operator Gold's most significant double agent, an anonymous source designated “Sniper,” informed BOB of Soviet infiltration of Western interests in Berlin.

Harvey told a few BOB personnel about Operation Gold, described as compartmented information in espionage terminology. He even hid the tunnel from BOB's 1954 second-in-command Robert Murphy. Harvey updated Dulles on the tunnel functioning, and Dulles approved. After covert London discussions with British intelligence, tunnel construction started a year later.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers started excavating in Russian-occupied eastern Berlin. A vertical shaft connecting Soviet telephone wires was built by the British. Before building the Berlin tunnel, the Corps of Engineers erected a replica in the New Mexico desert with the same dimensions. Harvey even deceived West Berlin's mayor by saying the engineers were undertaking geological work underneath the city because the Allies worried the Russians would ruin the sewage system.

Construction of the tunnel was massive. Near the terminus of an East German and Russian-used route, the tunnel reached a cable 27 inches down after 1,476 feet of sandy soil. American tunnel diggers arrived on August 28, 1954, but water stalled them the next month. Clearing the mess required high-powered pumps.

Tunnel building took another month after tunnel drilling concluded on February 28, 1955. The tunnel ran 500 yards below to the Soviet border and 500 yards to the main Soviet switching cable facility when completion. The tunnel has interconnecting parts. The subterranean post monitors lived in three prefabricated rooms with air conditioning. Each room was separated from the passageway by a metal door. The first taps appeared in May 1955. In August, tapping Soviet lines proved complicated. Underground agents began work.

At peak tunnel operation, American listeners could watch over 500 connections, 121 voice circuits, and 4,000 feet of teletype. Operation Gold finished with the CIA having eavesdropped on 50,000 reels of tape, observed 443,000 completely transcribed Soviet-East German discussions, compiled 40,000 hours of telephone calls, and collected 1,750 intelligence reports. The tunnel procedure, known as “Harvey’s Hole,” provided the West with valuable information. The CIA captured all major political and military conversations from East Germany to all Soviet outposts in Europe.

The tunnel almost collapsed due to weather conditions, despite its advanced technology. In April 1956, heavy rain flooded Berlin's tunnel and exposed the cables. On April 21, Soviet maintenance crews found one room in the tunnel. The subterranean CIA officers fled. Harvey allegedly mocked the Russians: “You are now entering the American sector.”

Before leaving Berlin in early 1955, British double spy George Blake informed the Soviets about Allied tunnel plans, according to the CIA's tunnel affair inquiry. The Soviets had to terminate a dangerous operation or lose a crucial penetration agent. They protected their source and let the tunnel run from May 1955 until April 1956, when the Soviet maintenance staff “accidentally” unearthed it. Blake was captured and condemned to 42 years in jail, but he escaped the reinforced Wormwood Scrubs prison in England in 1966 and became a hero in Moscow.

The US rejoiced when the Berlin tunnel operation was disclosed. Press flocked to the story, with the New York Times labeling it “a venture of extraordinary audacity—the stuff of which thriller films are made.” The New York Herald Tribune called it "a striking example of [the CIA's] daring endeavors." Seldom has an intelligence group performed a more competent and challenging job than the tunnel diggers.”

The Berlin tunnel operation was the CIA's first significant Cold War covert action initiative, followed by others. William Harvey received the Distinguished Intelligence Medal from CIA Director Allan Dulles in a private ceremony for his role in the operation. Even well-deserved honors should be kept secret.

References

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/operation-gold-the-cias-berlin-tunnel/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gold

https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/berlin-tunnel-americas-ear-behind-the-iron-curtain/