At last the national news media are reporting on what many people for many months have believed is the biggest national security scandal in the country: the fact that Soviet agents in Washington, D.C. are eavesdropping on most of the long-distance calls made to or from our Government offices.
The Rockefeller Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States originally had nine pages on this subject in its 1975 report, but all but two paragraphs were deleted because Henry Kissinger didn’t want to upset detente. Senator Church’s Committee Report on the CIA referred to this situation with one paragraph, stating simply that we can’t do anything about it.
Ignoring the problem did not make it go away. A computer complex in the Soviet Embassy has the capability of monitoring 12,000 telephone conversations a minute and of picking up all telephone conversations transmitted by microwave within twelve miles of the Soviet Embassy.
The Soviets are carrying on this massive eavesdropping from each of their six pieces of property in our country. These are located in Washington, D.C., the United Nations, Long Island, Maryland, San Francisco, and Chicago.
By monitoring American telephone calls, the Soviets can get access to all kinds of secret military and economic information known to executive branch officials, members of Congress, and some private citizens. Out of the traffic of unimportant phone calls, Soviet high-speed computers sort out those containing sensitive information.
There is widespread speculation that such telephone eavesdropping may have given the Soviets secret economic information which enabled them to make the deals for their huge grain purchases in 1972, which ultimately became known as the Great Grain Robbery.
It is even possible that “Deep Throat,” the mysterious informer who passed inside information about Watergate scandals to the press, may have been somebody in the Soviet Embassy who learned the secret tidbits by telephone monitoring.
The United States has similar monitoring equipment in our U.S. Embassy in Moscow, but it is only about ten percent effective because the Russians jam it by beaming radiation at our Embassy. This is what causes the high radiation readings at our Embassy.
Scientists and physicians are divided on the question of how harmful this is to the health of American personnel and whether it caused the several cases of cancer among U.S. diplomats who have been stationed there. U.S. protests against this deliberate radiation of our Embassy have fallen on deaf Soviet ears.
The recent news stories which detail the facts of Soviet Embassy eavesdropping on American telephone conversations suggest that there are only three solutions to this problem: burying all the telephone lines underground, or installing scrambling or coding devices. All these methods would cost millions and perhaps billions of dollars.
There is one simple solution, however, that would stop it immediately at no cost. Just tell the Soviets to stop their outrageous eavesdropping or else we will close their embassy and consulates and expel their espionage agents and electronic experts.
For years, the liberals have defended the practice of extending diplomatic recognition to Communist countries on the argument that our embassies serve as valuable “listening posts.” It is now abundantly clear that the Soviet Union is doing ninety percent of the listening.
