Although fans of
espionage have recently been encouraged by the resurgence of
activities across the international scene, from Snowden to MH 17, to
Gaza tunnels, some of them still pine for the glory days when America
had manufacturing facilities, telephones had land lines, and the
threat of nuclear destruction was firmly in the hands of the major
powers.
In those halcyon
days, Josef Stalin still plotted our destruction, Mao tse Tung had
just taken control of the mainland of China, the Berlin airlift was
just two years prior and the wall was not yet built, Venona had
revealed to the predecessor of the NSA that the USSR had stolen
nuclear secrets. Stalinist USSR then shocked the world by exploding their own bomb years ahead of when
we expected them to be able to in 1949.
And in those
fear-filled days, when Czech politicians were being thrown out of
windows, one of our spies, either in or traveling to Brasil of all places, told us that the
USSR had smuggled a small nuclear bomb into NYC and was keeping it at
one of the embassies or consulates either of the USSR or of one of
their allies (e.g. Hungary, Poland, etc). The reason of course was to be able to explode it, or threaten to, at a time of
their choosing.
The whole matter was
kept very secret in otder to avoid panic which might result in lowering real estate values or stock market prices. The assets of the most wealthy in this country were threatened and so the FBI began an intense survey of all locations that were in the diplomatic
control of the USSR or its allies. Over 50 different sites were
investigated secretly, usually by using “reliable” assets who
already had access to the site and who could report whether anything
unusual had arrived, or any other preparation had been made at the
site that might indicate the arrival of a nuclear weapon.
The report about the
investigation which was declassified can be found at the link below
and is well worth glancing at. Although it is many pages there is
not that much to read. Perhaps the most interesting fact that I
gleaned was that we had a reliable source inside every USSR or
related embassy or consulate who could report on whether there was anything that might suggest arrival of a nuclear weapon.
I have included a
few pages from the report here as well.
Report on FBI
Investigation into NY Atom Bomb 1951 - 1964
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