The idiom "listen to the corner" is familiar to everyone, and it is a metaphor for eavesdropping on other people's conversations.
But if I told you that there was once a little "listening corner" device that "listened" to the corner of an American ambassador for seven years, and in the end it almost caused a diplomatic incident?
That's right, during the Cold War in the 50s of the 20th century, the Soviet KGB intelligence agency designed a listening device called the "Golden Lips", which was hidden in a sculpture of the American coat of arms, which was placed by the Soviets in the US Embassy in Moscow and eavesdropped on the US ambassador's every move for seven years.
This is simply a thrilling spy war drama, and that "golden lip" is the biggest hero of this spy war.
What kind of information did it help the Soviets obtain? How did it come to the Americans? Let's go into this "spy war" that spanned seven years and space, and find out.
KGB "Customized Gifts"
Shortly after the end of World War II, the "Golden Lips", a small monitoring device, was born under the design of the KGB.
At that time, the leader of the Soviet Union, Stalin, knew well that in order to gain the upper hand in the Cold War with the United States, it was necessary to grasp the movements of the opponent.
So he ordered the KGB to devise a device that could monitor the U.S. Embassy for a long time.
The designers of the KGB searched for the gutten and finally came up with an idea - to disguise it as a gift and send it to the embassy.
They installed an ingeniously designed miniature radio device in a sculpture of the U.S. national emblem.
This coat of arms is 1.5 meters long and 60 centimeters wide, and is made of seven types of wood, including precious mahogany, black wood, red mountain wood, and red sandalwood.
After the KGB decided on the design of the gift, the biggest question was - to whom should it be delivered? The ideal target would undoubtedly be the US ambassador to the Soviet Union, so that the "Golden Lips" could gather the most information.
The ambassador to the Soviet Union at that time was George Jr. F. Kennan.
Born in Missouri, this career diplomat holds a Ph.D. in Eastern European history and linguistics.
He was called "the architect of U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union" and was an expert on the Soviet Union in the eyes of the U.S. government.
If such a central figure can be monitored for a long time, it will undoubtedly be of great significance for the Soviet Union to obtain the movements of the American decision-making level, so the KGB decided - it must be Ambassador Kennan!
So the KGB patiently prepared and waited for the opportune moment to "give gifts" to Ambassador Kennan.
In February 1945, the Yalta Conference was held in the Soviet Union, where Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin gathered to discuss the post-World War II European landscape.
During this period, the Soviet Young Pioneers sent an invitation in the name of Ambassador Kennan to take time to participate in the activities of the Black Sea Young Pioneers summer camp, and then the KGB took the opportunity to send a sculpture of the national emblem containing the "golden lips" to the embassy.
Unexpectedly, Ambassador Kennan gladly accepted the invitation.
He warmly expressed his gratitude to the representatives of the Young Pioneers and said that he was looking forward to the friendly exchanges with the children.
In return, he hung a huge sculpture of the national emblem in the most prominent center of his office and told K.G.B. agents that it was the most striking gift he had ever received.
So, the "Golden Lips" moved into the ambassador's office, which was in a perfect location, and all kinds of conversations in the embassy would be recorded by it.
The KGB agents could not contain their excitement when they looked at the results of "deliberation".
Ambassador Kennan's naïve and unsure of the goodwill unleashed by the Soviet Union made him the most perfect "clown" in this spy drama.
And the KGB also took advantage of this, allowing the "Golden Lips" to lurk for a long time.
The embassy conversation was all in the air
After the sculptures of the national emblem were "in place", the KGB could not wait to begin their "work".
According to the declassified documents, the KGB has set up a secret department called the "reception room" to be responsible for the monitoring of the embassy in Moscow.
In the building opposite the main entrance of the embassy, they set up a huge basement with hundreds of listening devices on the walls.
Agents in the "Meeting Room" work 24 hours a day, using state-of-the-art technology to "listen" to every move inside the embassy.
They installed a device codenamed "RPK" in a van parked near the embassy.
This is the companion receiver of the "Golden Lip", which is connected to a transmitter hidden in the coat of arms, and as long as the transmitter is turned on, it continuously emits high-frequency electromagnetic waves to the embassy.
The frequency of these electromagnetic waves is much higher than that of ordinary radio stations, and it is difficult to detect them by ordinary detection equipment.
As soon as they are launched, the "Golden Lips" radio in the coat of arms is activated.
The "Golden Lips" does not need an external power supply, it can use the received electromagnetic waves to generate induced current to power itself, which is the biggest innovation of this equipment.
When the people in the room speak, the sound causes the extremely thin metal diaphragm inside the "golden lips" to vibrate slightly.
This vibration changes the charge distribution on the receiving antenna and re-emits it from the "golden lip" in radio form.
After receiving the reflected signal, the receiver in the van can recover the sound signal, which is the content of the conversation in the room, by analyzing changes in the intensity, frequency, and phase of the radio waves.
The whole system does not need to be operated manually, and the agents in the "reception room" only need to turn on the equipment to listen to every move in the embassy at any time, and the whispers of American officials continue to flow into the ears of the KGB.
Since the "Golden Lips" itself does not require batteries, it can work for a long time.
In addition, it is hidden in the national emblem, which is extremely difficult to find, and it is simply an excellent eyeliner for the KGB!
In the past seven years, all kinds of secrets of the US Embassy have been collected by the "Golden Lips" and conveyed to the KGB.
As the opponent of the two great powers in the Cold War, the Soviet Union obtained a wealth of valuable intelligence through this means of surveillance.
The alertness of the British spotted
As an important source of intelligence for the KGB, the discovery of the Golden Lip was undoubtedly a disaster.
However, it backfired, and it was discovered by the British in 1952, and the process was quite dramatic.
In that year, a British Air Force major, Eric Eyshaw, was listening to the communications of the Soviet Air Force when he accidentally intercepted a mixed anomalous signal.
Based on his years of experience in radio communication, he judged that this was a reverberation generated during a two-way radio transmission.
What surprised him even more was that the reverb clearly contained the content of the Americans' dialogue in English.
It is very likely that this is a Soviet surveillance signal! Esshaw quickly reported his findings to the military.
Soon, British intelligence confirmed that the Soviets were indeed using some kind of covert equipment to spy on the internal talks of the U.S. Embassy in Russia.
This shocking news was immediately passed on by the British to the CIA.
The CIA realized the seriousness of the problem and recommended that the U.S. diplomatic department conduct a comprehensive investigation of the embassy.
In this way, the "golden lips", which had been hidden in the embassy for 7 years, were finally inadvertently discovered by American technical experts.
When they removed the sculpture of the national emblem from the wall and disassembled it, a small metal installation appeared in front of them......
The secret of the "Golden Lips" was revealed.
The CIA judged that this technology was not like the native American process, and it was most likely designed by the Soviet KGB.
In the end, they simply shipped the national emblem back to the United States, along with the bugging device, for reverse engineering research.
After the discovery of the Golden Lip Incident in 1952, the U.S. government, for various reasons, did not choose to publicly blame the Soviet Union.
For a while, the surveillance scandal was put on hold.
It was not until eight years later, in 1960, that it finally became the fuse that ignited the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.
In May of that year, an American U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance plane was shot down in Soviet airspace, causing an uproar.
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was so angry that he canceled on the spot the invitation of US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was preparing to visit the Soviet Union.
This gives the United States a great opportunity to fight back.
They disclosed the "Golden Lips" eight years ago for the first time, saying that it proved that the Soviet Union had been conducting surveillance in the embassy for a long time, and there was no so-called "friendly" relationship.
This accusation instantly caused an uproar in Western society, and public opinion was in an uproar.
Many Western countries have condemned such acts as an inexcusable major espionage incident on the part of the Soviet Union.
The disclosure of the "Golden Lips Gate" also directly dealt a blow to Khrushchev's prestige, and Western society speculated that he must have known about it a long time ago, and he was embattled and embarrassed for a while.
Although the Cold War has long since ended, the spy war of various countries has never left the field.
For example, in recent years, the head of the physics department at Princeton University has been accused of making efforts to obtain intelligence for China.
It shows us that activities such as espionage infiltration and surveillance are still important pawns in the great power game.
Resources:
Operation "Golden Lips", Guangming Daily
"Bugging Device in the National Emblem", Yao Zhengang, Xu Shishuai
The Development History of Radio Frequency Identification, Lang Weimin, Chu Kaifeng, Wu Peiren