Spies: Prologue

It also contained something entirely unusual for a family picnic: a $20 million wiretapping device, created by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) engineers for listening in on the enemy's innermost secrets.

The spy drove off into the outskirts of Moscow, the heavily guarded and closely watched capital of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or USSR—America's archenemy in the decades-long Cold War between the world's two superpowers.

The spy drove off into the outskirts of Moscow, the heavily guarded and closely watched capital of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or USSR—America's archenemy in the decades-long Cold War between the world's two superpowers.

The spy drove off into the outskirts of Moscow, the heavily guarded and closely watched capital of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or USSR—America's archenemy in the decades-long Cold War between the world's two superpowers.

Under their armpits, both Seacrest and his wife, who also worked for the CIA, wore special radio receivers that were set to detect a radio frequency used by enemy surveillance teams on the lookout for American spies.

The receivers were connected to "induction" antennas that hung around their necks, concealed beneath their clothing.

The Seacrests listened for a telltale code: dvahd-tsaht awdeen, or "twenty-one."

The KGB watched and followed all US citizens working for the American embassy in Moscow, because, as the Soviets knew, any one of them could be an undercover agent for the CIA.

In Ken's case, he cultivated an image of an unassuming embassy official, interested in learning about Moscow and raising his children.

In Ken's case, he cultivated an image of an unassuming embassy official, interested in learning about Moscow and raising his children.

Over time, through such innocuous routines, Seacrest accomplished the first part of his mission: lulling KGB surveillance teams into dropping their guard.

Over time, through such innocuous routines, Seacrest accomplished the first part of his mission: lulling KGB surveillance teams into dropping their guard.

He appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary man. Beneath that facade, however, this brave spy took the next step toward one of the most difficult assignments of his career.

In the summer of 1945, as Europeans picked through the rubble of their ruined cities and burned-out farms, Soviet and American soldiers eyed each other warily.

These wartime allies stood for opposing worldviews and hostile ideologies, and their recent triumph over Nazism made them less, not more, open to compromise.

Soviet Communists saw the West as their prime adversary in the battle to win the hearts and minds of oppressed people everywhere; America viewed Stalin's government as an enemy of democracy.

Soviet Communists saw the West as their prime adversary in the battle to win the hearts and minds of oppressed people everywhere; America viewed Stalin's government as an enemy of democracy.

Their weapons were the tradecraft of spies—the dead drop, the brush pass, the one-time pad—and their missions almost always had the same goal: to obtain vital information about the enemy.

But their solitary, sometimes-forgotten exploits would help determine the outcome of this very different struggle.

But their solitary, sometimes-forgotten exploits would help determine the outcome of this very different struggle.

The sheer power of nuclear weapons themselves, any one of which could destroy an entire city, established a new principle for military conflict, dubbed "mutual assured destruction," or "MAD."

The MAD principle argued that a first strike against the enemy would almost certainly fail to destroy its entire nuclear arsenal and would lead to an immediate cycle of retaliation. The cycle would then spiral out of control until both nations completely obliterated each other.

What's more, the clouds of radioactive material that spread into the atmosphere (known as "nuclear fallout") all but guaranteed that everyone on earth would perish along with the superpowers themselves.

Thus, instead of victory in the traditional sense, America and Russia sought deterrence as their strategic goal.

The belief was that a nation could deter a "first strike," in the parlance of nuclear strategists, by making sure that the enemy understood that their strike would never succeed.

But the arms race, the ongoing quest by the United States and the USSR to develop new and more powerful nuclear weapons, perpetually upset that balance.

And, most ominously of all, in the mid-1970s the Soviet Union showed signs of pulling ahead, upsetting the balance that had kept World War III in check for nearly three decades.

The KH-11 soon made a tantalizing discovery.
Photographs transmitted by the spy satellite showed Soviet construction crews digging a twenty-three-mile-long trench near Moscow.

If America wanted to understand the USSR's latest ploy in the arms race, they needed someone on the ground, in the Soviet Union itself.

Moreover, the KGB regularly checked the manholes for tampering.

The husband-and-wife spy team kept quiet during the ride. "We wouldn't say much, especially with the kids there," Ken recalled. "They had to be totally unwitting about what was going on."

After leaving his family on their picnic blanket, Ken slipped into the woods and changed into the drab clothes of an everyday Soviet citizen, an outfit the CIA had pieced together from flea markets and thrift stores all over Eastern Europe.

"You developed an intuition about what was there and what wasn't," he said. "After a while you began to get a feel for these things."

Covert CIA teams had previously photographed the site from every angle. Using these images, engineers at the "Farm," a secret 9,000-acre CIA training facility in Virginia, were able to construct a mock-up of the manhole.

And could the United States glean enough intelligence from its $20 million device to head off its Soviet adversary and avert a nuclear war?