Operation Ivy Bells

The Most Audacious Spy Operation in the History of the US Navy! Operation Ivy Bells Yakov M. Hirschson At the height of the Cold War, several US intelligence agencies For nearly a decade, American officials had access to Russia’s joined with the Navy to conduct a spy operation as covert as it greatest secrets and knew precisely what malicious plans the was audacious. Highly skilled and specially trained divers snuck Soviet leaders were conspiring against them. When the Soviets into Soviet waters and attached a sophisticated electronic discovered the secret, American lives were placed in jeopardy. bugging device to an underwater Soviet cable. Read the gripping account of Operation Ivy Bells. 104 | ZMAN • March 2012 ZMAN • Adar 5772 | 105 bitter cold front blanketed the eastern A Risky Mission shores of the Soviet Union on that underwater war activity at the Navy Awintry night when the USS Halibut, a The National Security Agency (NSA) intelligenceby Captain Jamesdivision. Bradley, Bradley director was ofa Navy submarine, secretly slipped into the was created in 1952 to oversee electronic heavily guarded Soviet waters deep in the surveillance activity around the world. It war as captain of a small warship that Sea of Okhotsk to carry out an incredible is the largest agency in America’s broad World War II veteran who served in the mission. intelligence community, as well as one of served as commander of a transport ship The submarine proceeded silently to the the most secretive. It has twice as many participated in the Pacific theater. He prearranged point and then ground to a halt. employees as the CIA and carries the submarine service. Later still he became A handful of Navy divers emerged from the highest budget of any individual spy agency in the Vietnam War and later he joined the decompression chamber and dived to the anywhere in the world. was promoted to his position as director The NSA is capable of eavesdropping ofa navalunderwater espionage war officeractivity. and in 1966 he This was a very risky operation. The on any telephone call placed anywhere In his new position, Bradley was Seasea floorof Okhotsk to carry is outhuge, Operation covering Ivy an Bells. area of in the world and can read any e-mail, constantly dreaming of ways to break into 600,000 square miles in the northwestern fax, text message or any other form of the Soviet intelligence centers. One day in 1970 he had a brainstorm. He studied Threat Operations Center of the NSA at Fort Meade, Maryland, the Siberian shore. At that point in the Cold the NSA was primarily preoccupied with the map of the Sea of Okhotsk and its where America's analysts eavesdrop on conversations and Pacific, and is surrounded on three sides by turningcommunication. its satellites, During super-computers the Cold War,and surrounding territories. On one side in analyze possible threats to the US. waters to be Soviet territory, and it protected latest bugging devices to spy on America’s the city of Petropavlovsk lay a missile itsWar borders the Soviet aggressively, Union had barring declared entry these to greatest enemy, the Soviet Union. The NSA submarine base while on the opposite any foreign ships and certainly not granting was even able to listen to the conversations side in the city in Vladivostok, home to the access to American military vessels. Soviet leaders held on their car phones with The Soviet Navy had even planted a the Kremlin! coast, was the headquarters of its navy’s network of listening devices on the sea Although, unlike the CIA, the NSA does Soviet Union’s largest port on the Pacific Bradley knew that the two unwanted guests. Since the sea was the information, relying instead exclusively on headquartersPacific fleet. were in constant contact sitefloor of toregular warn navalthem maneuvers, of the presence the entire of electronicnot send itseavesdropping, men into the the field life ofto ancollect NSA and he imagined that communications area was patrolled by both surface and operative is still not guaranteed. The reason between the two were carried by an underwater craft. The chances of an enemy for this is that NSA agents must accompany undersea cable that stretched from the ship, silently slipping into these waters, military personnel to the front lines as they carrying out a successful operation and install the devices and then listen in to them headquarters and from there all the way Satellite dishes used for eavesropping on international then departing without being discovered, wherever this service may be wanted, thus onmissile to Moscow. base across the sea to the fleet communications at NSA’s UK listening post. were virtually nil. putting them into the battlefront. At NSA “Imagine if we could send a submarine There is no doubt that had the Russian Navy discovered the American submarine is a special memorial to the NSA agents who in its protected waters it would have sunk lostheadquarters their lives in in Fort the Meade,line of duty. Maryland, there toin tohear attach every a microphone conversation to thatcarried cable,” by the vessel immediately. Even worse, there Operation Ivy Bells was masterminded Bradley thought to himself. “We’d be able was a good chance that the Halibut, the most sophisticated submarine in the US Navy’s collectthe cable. accurate We’d know reports exactly of the what strengths Soviet arsenal, would fall into the hands of the andmilitary weaknesses leaders ofare Soviet thinking. military We forces.could Soviets and reveal priceless technological secrets—including the details of Operation Russian navy’s maneuvers in the Sea of Ivy Bells in which it was now engaged. OkhotskWe could and learn at the the same details time aboutwe would the considered the potential The idea opened up the possibility Still, US Navy officials oflearn accessing about Russia’s a gold militarymine of plans.” intelligence overwhelmingly worthwhile that US leaders were dying to get their benefitsthat they of this were mission prepared to be soto hands on. There were just a few small An aerial view of the super-secret NSA headquarters. risk everything in the attempt. Map of the Okhotsk Sea where Operation Ivy Bells took place. problems with Bradley’s inspiration. 106 | ZMAN • March 2012 ZMAN • Adar 5772 | 107.

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