SPYCRAFT:

By International Spy Museum Board Members H Keith Melton (Governing Board) and Robert W. Wallace (Board of Advisors).  Melton and Wallace have co-authored six books and specialize in the tools and craft of espionage.

PART TWO

Beginning on the first floor and working their way up, the sweep teams searched the rooms. At first, they used a broadband RF detector looking for the signal, and then once it was triangulated they used the NLJD (non-linear junction detector) to locate the transmitting element within the target space. A NLJD can detect an unseen junction, or a hidden piece of electronic circuitry, even when the device is not transmitting. It is effective, but slow and tedious to use. 

A bug was detected in a seventh-floor conference room, controlled by the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs. It was skillfully concealed inside a small section of chair rail molding that ran along the wall, about three feet from the floor. It was a troubling discovery located on the same floor as Mahogany Row and Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright’s office and in a conference room often used to rehearse presentations before they were given to the Secretary.

The Russian listening device was concealed in a section of chair molding adjacent to this Seventh Floor window. Melton Collection at the International Spy Museum 

According to the FBI, the device was highly sophisticated in design and placement and had been “professionally introduced” into the HST and the room. An unknown person, or UNSUB in FBI parlance, had been able to survey the room to determine the optimum location for the transmitter, and identify and measure a length of molding hidden behind a section of a curtain that partially obscured the chair rail.  Precise measurements would have been made, and varnish and wood samples collected… all without being detected.  Experts in Moscow then crafted an exact duplicate of the chair rail with a cavity into which they installed a tiny microphone, transmitter and command receiver. The remaining cavity space was filled with flat disc garage door opener type batteries, and the wood stained to match the surrounding molding.

This Russian made replica depicted the interior components of the surveillance device.  The reverse side of the chair rail molding revealed the sophisticated audio transmitter, subminiature microphone and command receiver to turn the device on and off remotely. Melton Collection at the International Spy Museum

Visually, the substitute section of chair rail looked almost identical to the other sections of molding in the room.  Closer examination revealed, however, that the room’s original molding was of pinewood, where the SVR had substituted harder poplar wood. The switch potentially allowed the cavity for the electronics to be precisely milled inside the piece of molding. The final stain was correct, but the replaced section looked slightly different because of the change of woods. Investigators concluded multiple visits to the conference room would have been required to replace the existing chair rail with the new section, and then complete a final test of the audio transmitter.

The device was the most sophisticated Russian audio transmitter the FBI, and the US IC had discovered to date.  The microphone picked up the room conversations, and the transmitter broadcast them to a camouflaged antenna concealed in a Kleenex box in Gusev’s car or the bag he carried when sitting in the park. His vehicle and bag both contained recorders to capture the transmissions. The device’s two significant limitations were: (1) its dependence on batteries for power.  Once depleted, their replacement would require another covert entry to the room, and (2) an operative like Gusev had to be in the vicinity to remotely turn the bug on and off and record the transmitted signal. 

On Friday, December 8, 1999, the FBI moved against Gusev and concluded the operation. Gusev arrived that morning, parked his Malibu, and left for a bench in the park. Unbeknownst to him, the FBI impounded his car and towed it from the area.  The SVR officer was detained at approximately 11:34 AM by a team of FBI and DS (Diplomatic Security) officers near George Washington University’s Smith Center. Respecting diplomatic immunity, the FBI did not handcuff Gusev but escorted him into a waiting automobile for the short drive there to the FBI’s Washington Field Office (WFO). Gusev declined to say anything other than invoking his diplomatic immunity under the provisions of the Vienna Convention. He was declared persona non grata and several days later departed the US on an Aeroflot flight for Moscow. 

The Russian government denied all of the allegations against Gusev, dismissing them “implausible and nonsensical." 

Once the Russian bug was located, US counterintelligence focused on identifying the person that planted the bug and how they smuggled it inside a presumably well-secured building. Likely contributing to the security breach was the 75 percent reduction of the State Department’s Office of Counterintelligence budget between 1993-1999. The number of Departments agents and analysts was cut in half.  Without funds or staffing, the DS security escort program was effectively eliminated, and Russian diplomats, including some SVR intelligence officers, were allowed unescorted movement throughout Main State. Even during this time, however, visiting FBI agents were still required to be escorted throughout their visits.  

Gusev refused to answer any questions, but two possibilities exist. The first is that a skilled (and brazen) Russian intelligence officer, masked as a diplomat, scouted possible target rooms and conducted the visits necessary to install and test the bug.  The second is that someone inside the Department of State, such as an employee, contractor, or trusted visitor, introduced and installed the bug.

Two decades later the mystery remains.  As the 20th anniversary of Gusev’s arrest approaches, “just how did the SVR bug the State Department” continues to haunt the US Counterintelligence community.