During the Cold War, the United States invented nuclear-powered wiretaps, which were secretly installed on Soviet submarine cables

Beginning in 1969, in order to improve its own communication efficiency, the Soviet Union began to build military cables on the seabed of the Sea of Okhotsk, specifically responsible for connecting military bases between Moscow and the Far East.

In order to prevent anyone from damaging the cable, the Soviets set up a notice board on the sea above the submarine cable, warning the passing ships not to destroy the cable, otherwise they would be severely punished. Although many people now think that the Soviet Union's approach is a bit of a silver three hundred and two here, there is no doubt that no one really dared to act rashly here at that time.

After all, this cable is completely located in the territory of the Soviet Union and the sea is the Soviet military port, no matter who eats the bear's heart and leopard dare not do anything to this cable. But what the Soviets never expected was that shortly after the cable was built, a large amount of Soviet information was leaked out through this cable.

This made the high-ranking officials of the Soviet intelligence service extremely angry, and they built a sonar detection network on the seabed, not sparing any sonar signals, but never achieved any results.

All the Soviets did not know what means the other side used to obtain information from this cable.

In fact, when the Americans learned of the existence of this submarine cable, they immediately moved their minds, and they always wanted to modify the cable to obtain Soviet intelligence. But the secrecy of this cable was too tight, and the reason why the Soviet Union dared to set up warning signs above the cable was that it was also accurate that the Americans could not penetrate into the waters so close to the Soviet Union.

The Deployment of the Soviet Union in the Far East was always unclear to the Americans, but if the cable could be monitored, it would be equivalent to every order issued by the Soviet Union from Moscow to the United States. Such a huge intelligence value is a pity for americans not to try it. Therefore, the United States gathered intelligence experts from all over the country to study what means were used to intercept the signals sent by the Soviet submarine cable.

American experts believe that the Soviets had arranged a large number of sonar testing nets nearby, which made it no longer possible to enter them with a big swing. But the things that can make sounds on the seabed are not only ships, which tend to make a lot of noise when sailing underwater, but there are also a lot of clutter on the seabed.

As long as the underwater noise is below 60 decibels, there is no doubt that the submarine can integrate itself into the clutter without being captured by the sonar monitoring network. The Americans immediately mobilized top talent from various universities to begin the development of silent submarines, which cost the United States a total of $60 million. You know, that's $60 million from the late 60s of the last century, which is more expensive than an aircraft carrier.

But there is no doubt that this modified submarine can be fully integrated into the underwater environment when sailing underwater, and its noise is far less than 60 decibels, and no matter what kind of radar sonar detection device can not detect the existence of this submarine. At this time, there is still a problem in front of the Americans, that is, how to find the location of this cable.

Although the Soviet Union set up a noticeboard, the Sea of Ehock was too big, and even if the submarine could successfully dive into the Soviet sea, it would be difficult to find a submarine cable in such a wide ocean than to find a needle on the seabed.

Therefore, the Americans decided to install searchlights and cameras on this submarine to find the cable visually. This allowed the Soviets to alarm without radar or sonar equipment, which was easy to find the wire.

Because the U.S. plan is entirely a gamble, but the Americans can't find a better way. After determining how to sneak into Soviet waters, the Americans immediately began designing eavesdropping devices.

As we all know, during the Cold War, the spies between the United States and the Soviet Union could be said to be colorful. Both sides used all kinds of means to amaze ordinary people to eavesdrop on each other, and the Americans paid a bloody step this time. They brought in a large group of scientists to study how to get a bugging device to run underwater for a long time.

Eavesdroppers that could run for a long time abounded during the Cold War, such as the Soviet Union's most famous Golden Lip Program, which had been eavesdropping on the United States for more than a decade without being discovered. Because there is no electronic structure in this eavesdropper, only the simplest resonance is used to complete the transmission of information.

But if you want to listen to a cable in the vast ocean, it is obviously impossible to do it with resonance. So the Americans thought of a permanent energy facility, that is, nuclear reactors. When this idea was proposed, even many U.S. military executives were frightened, but after they calmed down, they thought they could try it.

Bell Labs in the United States was commissioned to design the nuclear-powered bugging device. First of all, they developed a super-power electromagnetic signal amplifier, so that they can directly receive the information transmitted by the cable from the outside without puncturing the outer skin of the cable.

The electromagnetic signal amplifier is installed in a eavesdropping device with a length of 5 meters. The reason why it is so large is that this bugging device not only has to accommodate an electromagnetic signal amplifier, but also contains the energy of the device, that is, the radioisotope battery developed by Bell Labs, which is actually a scaled-down version of the nuclear reactor.

With the blessing of the nuclear reactor, the bugging device can work for up to 50 years. In the context of the Cold War, this was definitely a semi-permanent device. Of course, the Americans were not stupid, they considered that if the Soviets found that the cable was eavesdropped, it was very likely that they would move the cable and other means.

So when this eavesdropping device was installed, the device was not particularly robustly installed. If the cable is moved significantly, the device will automatically fall off. When the device fell on the seabed, the Soviets would never discover the secret.

The American side named their plan the Ivy Bell, which can be said to be very clever, the Ivy naturally refers to the long cable, and the bell of course refers to the eavesdropping device.

In December 1970, on a dark and windy night of a month, the Soviet sea surface patrol fleet patrolled as usual. But what they did not expect was that American special submarines had quietly infiltrated soviet territory and began searching for submarine cables installed by the Soviets.

In the beginning, it took the Americans several days without finding the exact location of the cable. Finding a power line on the 570,000-square-kilometer seabed is simply difficult to get into the sky. However, just as the Americans were about to give up, they suddenly saw a Soviet patrol boat driving several fishing boats.

If there are patrol boats that do not allow fishing boats to stay nearby, then there must be cats in this area. So the American captain immediately ordered the submarine to come to this area of water, wait until the Soviet patrol boat left and then check the bottom of the sea. The submarine searched tirelessly for three days where the patrol boat stayed, and finally found its target at a place of 150m under the sea?

Just as the so-called iron shoes were nowhere to be found, the four divers on the submarine immediately rushed out of the submarine. Dressed in clumsy deep-water diving suits, they then began to slip the Ivy Bells over the cables. With the launch of the tape recording function, the eavesdropping operation against the Soviet Union had already begun.

By the time the divers returned to the submarine, everyone lamented that at least the two hundred million dollars that the Americans had prepared for the program had not been in vain. The Americans were also very satisfied with the operation, thinking that they could finally avenge the death of the year, and now it was their turn to sit at their desks and eavesdrop on soviet secrets.

The Soviets also felt inexplicable at first, believing that submarine cables were absolutely safe. It was precisely because of this arrogant personality that the Soviets never used code words or encryption when communicating using submarine cables, which also made it much less difficult for Americans to obtain intelligence.

At that time, Soviet intelligence could be said to have been one-way transparent to the United States, from the deployment of nuclear missiles to the duty of infantry companies, the Americans could know everything clearly. The American wiretapping of the Soviet Union lasted for a decade, and was even described by the CIA top brass as the most valuable deal they had ever made.

However, one day ten years later, when divers went underwater to secretly replace the used tapes, they were surprised to find that the Ivy League, which had been buried here by the Americans, was missing. Even if a big guy more than 5 meters long falls to the bottom of the sea, the diver can quickly find it.

And now that the whole thing is gone, there is only one possibility, that is, it was taken away by the Soviets. The Americans were furious, but they also did not understand why a foolproof eavesdropping program that had been running for a decade would be discovered by the Soviets. This became the CIA's most troublesome question at the time, and the answer to that question would be revealed after 1985.

In June 1985, Colonel Yurchenko, a senior SOVIET KGB official, defected to the U.S. Embassy. At that time, his superiors gave him the task of going to Italy to investigate the disappearance of a Soviet physicist. Unexpectedly, Yurchenko fled to the U.S. Embassy, saying he would defect to the CIA.

According to Yurchenko's description, the Ivy Bell was discovered because of the presence of an internal ghost within the US intelligence service. The news shocked the Americans, who didn't know who the ghosts were. However, Yurchenko said that at his own level, he still had no access to such a high-level secret as the Ivy Bell, but he only knew that the internal ghost's code name was Mr. Lang.

Mr. Long, a NSA employee, said in his correspondence that he liked gambling, owed a lot of money and had borrowed money from colleagues over house repairs. Such a description made the American side instantly understand the scope of its search, and there were very few people in the United States who could have access to the plan, and with such a clear description, the Americans quickly caught an analyst named Pelton.

Pelton has been with the U.S. Intelligence Agency for more than two decades, but he has always been just an analyst and has never meant a promotion. He was very fond of alcoholism, and after drinking heavily, he often liked to gamble money. But this jun gambling skills are not good, often lose everything, his wife and children have left him, and even his own house leaks and has no money to repair.

In order to repair the roof of his house, he once borrowed a sum of money from a colleague, but in the end, because he could not pay it, he was humiliated by his colleagues, which made Pelton think that his life was a failure. Over time, he became suspicious of the United States and eventually decided to sell the Ivy Bells intelligence to the Soviet Union in order to get money to repair the house.

The Soviets spent only $5,000 to learn such important information, and Palton was developed by the Soviets as an informant of the KGB, receiving regular salaries. In fact, the eavesdropping device had been taken home by the Soviets for study. To this day, it is still displayed in the window of the Russian State Military Museum.

The Americans, of course, brought Pelton to justice, and an intelligence analyst ruined a decade-long, $200 million top-secret operation for americans just $5,000. This led to an outraged U.S. court that eventually sentenced Palton to life in prison and confiscated all of his property.

But to the surprise of the U.S. government, all the accounts that found Pelton were only $1 million. It seems that even after defecting to the KGB, this jun still did not change his life of spending days and drinks, and in the end he was still cleaner than his face.

But the story came to an end. Yurchenko was entrusted with a heavy responsibility by the Americans, who believed that Yurchenko would be the key node in their cracking of the Soviet KGB spy network.

But what everyone did not expect was that just 90 days later, Yurchenko returned to the Soviet Union and was reinstated, still working for Russian intelligence to this day. So today, the mysterious former Soviet agent is often thought to have been sent to the United States by the KGB to carry out fishing law enforcement.

And Perton is Yurchenko's name, because it has long been useless, and the KGB has long wanted to cut with him? Some say that Yurchenko brought back information from the United States far more than betraying an outcast, but both the United States and the Soviet Union were silent about the incident.

In short, this eventually became a headless case during the Cold War.