Soviets Tap in on U.S. Phone Calls From New Embassy Site: Webster

FBI Director William H. Webster acknowledged today that the Soviet Union uses its new hilltop embassy complex to intercept U.S. telephone communications, and a newly declassified State Department letter shows that concern about possible spying from the site dates back two decades.

The letter, obtained by the Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act, shows that in 1966 the National Security Agency raised objections to giving the Soviets access to the site atop Mt. Alto in a prime Washington neighborhood.

Other Administration officials, speaking on condition they not be identified, said Tuesday that the Soviets already are using the new quarters for intelligence gathering.

“We think they are going full bore,” one intelligence official said.

Confirmation at Hearing

Confirmation of that came today at a Senate hearing on the nomination of Webster to head the CIA.

Sen. William V. Roth (R-Del.) asked: “Considering the cost of securing our government communications in the Washington area from intercept by the Soviet Mt. Alto site, do you think it would be desirable for us to require the Soviets to move to some other site in the city? Say, comparable to our location in Moscow?”

Webster replied: “I suppose that that kind of an initiative would be wrapped up in our negotiations with respect to our embassy in the swamps in Moscow. I’m not in a position to say in an open meeting nor am I confident that I have the exact technical awareness to say how much damage they are doing.

“But they are currently in a position in their present location to capture enormous amounts of microwave transmissions and in this city we seem to be tremendously careless about what we say on our telephones and we’ve had a lot of experience with that.

“If we move them, I can’t say that that would end their collection efforts. It might make it more difficult,” Webster said.

Apartment Building Occupied

Administration officials say the Russians have lived in white marble residential buildings, including a nine-story apartment building, in the new Soviet Embassy complex for eight years. American diplomats also are living in residential buildings in the new Moscow complex, alongside the old embassy.

Espionage experts say the vantage point of the Soviets’ new embassy allows them to train sensitive electronic ears at microwave communications channels used by the White House, the Pentagon, the CIA and other key American offices.

A U.S. official noted that the nine-story apartment building would have nearly the same vantage as the office structure.

The U.S. and Soviet governments took years to negotiate agreement on new sites for their respective embassies in Moscow and Washington, finally cutting a deal in 1969 during the Nixon Administration, the era of detente.

“The National Security Agency considers that some problems may exist and is studying the question further. They hope to come to a final decision quite soon,” then-Secretary of State Dean Rusk said in a letter marked secret and dated June 18, 1966, to Atty. Gen. Nicholas Katzenbach.