The Spy in Moscow Station: A Counterspy's Hunt for a Deadly Cold War Threat by Eric Haseltine

Author:Eric Haseltine [Haseltine, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250301161
Google: gZ9aDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1250301165
Goodreads: 39863500
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2019-04-28T23:00:00+00:00

Against this backdrop, the PFIAB, under Anne Armstrong, started asking State pointed questions about security at the Moscow embassy, especially the heavy use of FSNs in Moscow.

The State Department official who briefed PFIAB to justify the use of FSNs did not make State’s life any easier when he confidently asserted that hiring KGB officers was actually safer than hiring Americans to do the same job. The official, Richard Combs, who was the deputy director of the Soviet desk, said that if the embassy hired Americans, they would be inevitable targets for KGB recruitment. Combs said it was safer to have known KGB employees than unknown security risks posed by cleared U.S. citizens who might be recruited by the KGB.8

Baffled by this logic, one PFIAB member came back at Combs, “By this reasoning, you would say that it would be best if all of our embassy positions were staffed by the KGB.”

Together with Gandy’s previous alarms about Moscow security and Combs’s strange testimony before PFIAB the new NSA and FBI reports about embassy security in Moscow caused major headaches for both CIA and State. As early as May 1982, CIA director William Casey felt obliged to brief the PFIAB both on “CIA/State telecommunications” and renewed efforts to bolster counterintelligence against foreign intelligence threats.9

Secretary of State George Shultz, annoyed with the increasing attacks on the security of the Moscow embassy, particularly those originating from Gandy’s work, told his diplomatic security staff that he was tired of hearing about Moscow security and didn’t want to entertain further discussion on it unless someone could bring him a smoking gun proving a breach.

By late 1982, both State and CIA were irritated with NSA in general and Gandy in particular, ultimately leading to what Gandy would later refer to as “the worst phone call of my life.”

According to Gandy, just after lunch on a Friday in the fall of 1982, his secretary, Nancy, popped her head into his office, saying, “The director for you.”

As soon as Gandy picked up, Lieutenant General Lincoln Faurer said, “I’ve got some bad news.”

“Okay.” Gandy felt his stomach tense. In over twenty-five years at NSA, he’d never gotten such a call from an NSA director. “What happened?”

“We just got a memo from D/CIA [director of CIA] ordering us to ‘cease and desist’ all countermeasures activities outside of our core mission. We are directed to ‘go back to making and breaking codes.’”

Gandy felt a heavy lump of lead sink to the bottom of his stomach as he digested that. “Countermeasures activities” was a veiled reference to his Moscow embassy work. Pushing down his anger and disappointment, Gandy said, “Sounds like they’re referring to me and all those alarms I’ve been raising.”

“Sounds like it. You’ve been the lightning rod on these issues for a long time, and your slide presentations on the Russian threat must have finally really gotten to them.”

“Yep,” was all Gandy could muster, feeling numb.

“DCI claims he can’t go anywhere without Cap [Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger] or someone from

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