All language subtitles for Secrets.Declassified.with.David.Duchovny.S02E04.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

[beeping]

[dramatic music]

[Duchovny] Tonight on
"Secrets Declassified,"

Black ops, secret missions
so daring and dangerous,

they were hidden for decades.

Sabotage leaves
a New York City icon scarred.

[explosion booming]

- The blast was so powerful
that it leaves its mark

on the Statue of Liberty.

- Ukraine mounts a modern-day
Trojan horse attack.

- It's the single worst day
for Russian air power

since World War II.

- And the Allies cook up
a daring black op

inside a Nazi
munitions factory.

- He is all alone
with a pile of baguette bombs.

♪ ♪

- These are the astonishing

and sometimes terrible missions
done by governments

and the people
who work for them.

It's time to bring them
to light.

♪ ♪

World War II created
no shortage

of allied heroes,
people who did

unbelievable things
to help defeat the Nazis.

But one U.S. officer's black op
is so extraordinary,

the government kept it secret
for over 60 years.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

[Sami] At the height
of World War II,

the Brenner Pass is

a vital supply route
for Europe.

It's a 77-mile-long
railway line

that carves through
the Italian Alps.

♪ ♪

- Over 24,000 tons
of material per day

comes across Brenner Pass.

Absolutely critical
for maintaining

a German force presence
in Italy.

♪ ♪

- The Allies try
again and again

to bomb key railway bridges
and tunnels

to shut down the pass.

♪ ♪

But every time they get close,

their planes face a torrent
of anti-aircraft fire,

making this an incredibly
costly mission.

♪ ♪

[Duchovny]
The enemy trains thunder on

until one man proposes
a different solution.

- Roderick "Steve" Hall is
a U.S. Army officer

in the 270th Engineer
Combat Battalion.

- He has a unique knowledge
of the Brenner Pass

that no one else
in American uniform does.

Hall spent the 1930s
exploring the Italian Alps,

skiing ravines,
climbing glaciers,

and mapping out trails that
even locals didn't know about.

♪ ♪

[Duchovny] Hall believes
his unique knowledge

of the Brenner
could help the Allies.

- Hall writes to the OSS,

who are the predecessor
of the CIA,

and makes a bold pitch.

He will parachute in
and take out the bridges

that keep the German
supplied in Italy.

- The OSS is initially
reluctant to accept

because they have no means
of extracting him.

He then offers
the checkmate of all,

which is that,
well, if you drop me in,

you don't have to extract me.

I can live in hiding

until the war is over.

- It's this promise
that convinces the OSS

to back his plan.

[Duchovny] The mission is
codenamed Operation Mercury.

And his first target
under the Brenner Pass,

a key railway bridge
near Tolmezzo.

[suspenseful music]

Things get off
to a rocky start.

- On August 2, 1944,
Hall and his team

board a Halifax bomber
bound for northern Italy.

Due to the heavily defended

airspace around Brenner Pass,

the plane is only able

to get within 85 miles

of the target bridge.

[O'Keefe] Hall and his men
have to cross

one of the most rugged,
heavily patrolled terrains

in Western Europe on foot

with limited supplies
and no room for error.

[Duchovny] Hall's bad luck
doesn't end there.

- When Hall jumps, his
parachute lines get twisted,

sending him into a death roll.

[dramatic music]

He fights to untangle them.

And at the last second,
they snap free.

♪ ♪

[Duchovny] Hall survives
and finds his comrades.

♪ ♪

Stranded deep
in Northern Italy

with no way back,
they push forward on foot.

♪ ♪

After a brutal trek
of nearly 100 miles,

Hall and his team finally
reach their first target.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

- Hall scouts the bridge
for weak points.

And the team packs in
150 pounds of dynamite,

plus 25 pounds of plastique,

wiring it all
to the load-bearing columns

for maximum devastation.

- At 1:30 a.m.,
Hall triggers the explosion.

[explosion booming]

Stone, steel, and wood go
flying in every direction.

And Hall and his team
disappear into the night.

♪ ♪

- In a matter of seconds,

a vital German supply route
is wiped out.

But Hall isn't finished.

There are more bridges
on the list.

And after that blast,
he's now got

every Nazi in the area
on his tail.

[tense music]

- German troops begin
hunting them.

♪ ♪

They're burning villages

trying to find this team.

♪ ♪

[Duchovny]
Hall stays one step ahead,

relentless in his mission.

Over six months, the team
destroyed five more bridges

and cut off three
Nazi supply routes.

♪ ♪

Now another threat closes in--

the deadly Alpine winter.

- By January 1945,
Hall has been

living outdoors for months.

Temperatures are regularly
dropping below freezing,

and Hall now has frostbite
on his feet.

- His comrades are
telling him that

he needs to rest,
he needs to recover

from his exhaustion.

But he just won't stop.

[Duchovny]
Hall straps on his skis

and heads off
to the next target.

[solemn music]

This time, he doesn't return.

- He's captured,
tortured during interrogation,

and dies in captivity.

[tense music]

[Duchovny]
For over 60 years,

Hall's remarkable story
stays buried.

Then in 2008, OSS historian
Patrick K. O'Donnell

unearths it from a cache
of newly declassified files.

♪ ♪

He hunts down Hall's
surviving comrades

and, piece by piece,
rebuilds the story

of Roderick "Steve" Hall,

an unknown hero
whose valor and sacrifice

is finally revealed.

Some black ops go boom.

Others barely make a sound.

To help end the Vietnam War,
the CIA greenlights a mission

to wiretap a military hotline
using a helicopter so quiet,

the enemy never
hears it coming.

[explosions booming]

[tense music]

- It's 1971, and the Vietnam
War has been going on

full-tilt for six years.

The American public is
now putting pressure

on the government
to end the war,

and troops are actually
starting to come home.

[Sami]
Peace talks are underway.

But President Nixon
finds himself

in the middle
of a diplomatic deadlock

that is just so absurd that--
and this is no joke--

after 10 weeks, the only thing
negotiators have agreed on

is the shape
of the conference table.

[Martin] Henry Kissinger
is Richard Nixon's

national security advisor.

Kissinger feels a concern
that the North Vietnamese

are not negotiating
in good faith.

He turns to the CIA
in the interests of

developing a more accurate
intelligence picture.

[dramatic music]

[Sami] The CIA has learned

that about 15 miles
from the city

of Vinh,
a single phone line carries

the North Vietnamese military's
most senior communications.

♪ ♪

[Duchovny] Laying a tap
on this line could hand Nixon

Hanoi's playbook in real time.

♪ ♪

But there's a catch.

- The phone line runs about
150 miles into enemy territory.

Reaching it means
flying a helicopter

deep behind enemy lines.

And this is further

than any covert flight
of the war.

♪ ♪

[Duchovny] Very little about
a helicopter is stealthy.

- A conventional helicopter
can be heard for several miles.

Using one will blow
the mission's cover

and also get the team
shot down.

Somehow, the team need
to source a helicopter

that the enemy
won't hear coming.

[tense music]

- Enter the Quiet One,
a stealth helicopter

in the works at the Pentagon's
top research lab.

[suspenseful music]

- Instead of four rotor blades,
it runs five.

It cuts down on the thump

that these rotor blades
tend to make.

They also use
oversized mufflers,

which soften the entire
exhaust signature.

[Duchovny] At 400 feet,
it registers just 71 decibels,

earning its title

as the world's
quietest helicopter.

♪ ♪

But quiet isn't the same
as combat-ready.

- Landing in North Vietnam
would be catastrophic.

So the Quiet One needs
to make a 300-mile

round trip without stopping.

- The CIA modifies it
with a 500 horsepower engine,

twice the standard,

so it can fly long haul
without refueling.

- They also give the air crew

forward-looking
infrared screens,

allowing these crews to fly
in complete darkness.

- To top it off,
the whole chopper is coated

head to toe in experimental
radar-absorbing black paint.

- By October of 1971,
two prototypes are ready

and shipped to a secret
air base in Taiwan.

[dramatic music]

[Duchovny]
Now Kissinger just needs

the right team
for this black op.

- The CIA wants to keep
this mission deniable

for the U.S. government.

So they sent in two
American helicopter pilots

to train the Taiwanese on how
to fly the stealth helicopter.

♪ ♪

[Hakeem] Training turns out
to be a disaster.

The Taiwanese pilots are told
to push the aircraft

beyond what they're capable of.

One of the helicopters crashes
and is damaged beyond repair.

♪ ♪

[Duchovny]
Down to their last Quiet One,

the CIA upends
its original plan.

- By late 1972,
the CIA has no choice.

The U.S. pilots will have
to fly the mission themselves.

♪ ♪

So on December 6th,
they give the green light

for the most covert flight
of the entire Vietnam War.

[Martin] The aircraft delivers
the team to the bluff.

The team scramble off of it.

The aircraft then quietly
returned to the air.

♪ ♪

[Duchovny] Placing the wiretap
should be the easy part.

But there's a problem.

- The telegraph poles
are not made of wood

like they expected,
but they're of concrete.

The special climbing gear
they bought won't bite.

♪ ♪

- The commandos muscle
their way up the pole

by hand,
which wastes precious time.

♪ ♪

[Martin] Undeterred,
they reach that spot,

install the wiretap,
scramble back down.

♪ ♪

[Sami] The Quiet One
descends in silence,

the commandos climb
back aboard,

and they head for base.

♪ ♪

[Duchovny] A few weeks later,
the Vietnam War

comes to an end when the Paris
Peace Accords are signed.

[Hakeem] Many believe that
the intercept by the Quiet One

gave Kissinger
the leverage that

he needed to close the deal.

[Duchovny] While Kissinger
takes the spotlight,

the Quiet One disappears
into CIA silence,

and its black ops mission
is buried.

♪ ♪

Then in 1982, historians

Ken Conboy and James Morrison

start to piece together
the truth

through hundreds of interviews
with those involved.

♪ ♪

Over a decade later,

they reveal the full story
to the world.

♪ ♪

- In the lead up to D-Day,
the Allies are scrambling

to knock out a Nazi armament
factory in France.

That's when they mix together

the perfect recipe
for victory--

3 cups flour, 2 cups water,

and 40 pounds
of plastic explosive.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

[Hakeem]
It's April of 1944,

and D-Day is just weeks away.

The Allied Commanders
are working overtime

to weaken the German defenses
that they're going to face

when they invade Normandy.

- An important target is
the National Munitions Factory

that's located in
Saint-Médard-en-Jalle,

just outside of Bordeaux.

♪ ♪

[Duchovny] The Allies drop
268 tons of bombs

in an attempt to raze it
to the ground.

But it's back up within days.

- Knocking out a factory
is not as simple

as it seems from the air.

[Sami] So Britain's wartime
sabotage unit,

the SOE, devise a black op--

send someone behind enemy lines
to blow it sky high.

[Duchovny] It's a black op
at its boldest,

high reward and high risk,

which is why Britain calls on
an unlikely recruit,

a 20-year-old
French Aristocrat.

[Hakeem]
Robert de La Rochefoucauld

is a young count
from one of France's

oldest noble families.

He flees to Britain
once his father

is imprisoned by the Germans.

While in Britain,
he learns of a new covert unit

known as the SOE,

or the Special Operations
Executive.

They were formed by Churchill
for the purpose

of carrying out sabotage
missions in occupied Europe.

[Sami]
Robert arrives in Britain

at the perfect time
for the SOE.

Their operatives
on the continent

keep getting caught,
because they're given away

by their schoolboy French.

So they're looking to recruit
eager French exiles

to carry out
sabotage missions.

♪ ♪

[Duchovny] Rochefoucauld is
the perfect fit--

gung-ho, willing, French,

and desperate
to avenge his family.

♪ ♪

He's given the mission
to take out

the munitions factory
at Saint-Médard-en-Jalle.

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

[Hakeem] On May 7, 1944,

Rochefoucauld
and another SOE agent

head to southwestern France
in two Halifax bombers

loaded with weapons,
ammunition, and explosives.

[Sami] The two men parachute
into the countryside,

where they link up
with the local resistance

and begin plotting how to take
down the Saint-Medard plant.

[Duchovny]
Early surveillance reveals

the scale of the challenge.

- The place is crawling with
guards who run regular patrols,

and they stop the workers
at random

to make sure that none of them
are smuggling in explosives.

[Duchovny]
Then the team spots a way

for a native Frenchman like
Robert to just walk right in.

[Martin]
Rochefoucauld observes that

the workforce in the factory,

they're French civilians,

and what that means is
that he has an opportunity now

to blend in.

He can pass for French
because he is French.

[Sami] To convince the guards
at the gate,

Robert has to look
like a real employee.

So the team scour the workers
and eventually find

a close match, who,

desperate to stop the Nazis,
hands over his ID.

It's a major risk for both men,
to be sure,

because being caught would
almost certainly mean death.

- Getting Robert inside
is one thing.

40 pounds of explosives is
a much bigger problem.

So the team looks for a cover
no guard would question.

[tense music]

- They noticed that
most workers

coming to the plant
each morning--

carrying a baguette.

[Martin] It might be
possible to smuggle

small amounts of plastic
explosive inside baguettes.

[Duchovny] In France,
nothing raises less suspicion

than the humble baguette.

But how can you engineer it
into the perfect secret bomb?

[Sami] Robert needs a baguette
with the right structure

for concealing explosives.

So it's not as simple
as just popping

over to the local bakery.

Any ordinary baguette

might be too dense
to hollow out,

too brittle to hold a charge,

or too dry to seal up
convincingly.

- The team starts baking.

They shape dough
around the cavity,

make it firm
but make it pliable,

and then load it
with plastic explosives

and seal it with
a flour and water paste.

♪ ♪

[Duchovny]
It's black ops by baking.

♪ ♪

Now it just needs
to fool the guards.

[dramatic music]

[Hakeem] Robert starts out
with a small amount

of plastic explosives,

which he smuggles
past the guards,

knowing that if anything
looks out of place,

the entire operation is over.

♪ ♪

[Sami] He slips away
just long enough

to plant the explosives
at critical points

around the factory,
including fuel tanks

and munition stores.

[Paul] Once one artillery
shell gets detonated,

it has enough explosive power
to detonate

all of the shells around it.

[Duchovny] To trigger
this chain reaction,

Robert needs to plant

a network
of hidden explosives.

This means returning
to the factory every day

for an entire week.

[Sami]
Each baguette can only hold

a limited amount
of explosives.

So Robert repeats
the mission

over and over again.

And each visit carries
the very real risk

of being caught.

By the end of the week,
he's planted

eight baguette bombs in total,

enough to blow the factory
to pieces.

[whistle blows]

[Martin] It's May 20, 1944.

As thousands of workers begin
to exit the factory,

Rochefoucauld hides
under a piece of machinery.

[suspenseful music]

[Hakeem] Robert moves quickly,

and he begins attaching timers
to the bombs.

But he knows that
this is incredibly dangerous,

because these devices don't
always work as predicted,

and they sometimes set off
the bombs early.

[ticking]

- By 7:30,
the last charge is armed,

leaving Robert less than
10 minutes to escape.

- Robert finds himself trapped
inside the factory grounds

by an 18-foot wall,

but the resistance
throws him a ladder.

He climbs up over the wall
and disappears into the night.

♪ ♪

[ticking]

[Duchovny] At 8:00...

[explosion booming]

The explosions begin...

[explosions booming]

Stripping the Germans
of crucial munitions

in the run up to D-Day.

♪ ♪

- The secret mission
remains secret

for decades after the war.

It's not until 2017,

when a journalist named
Paul Kix publishes a book

that describes
the baguette bomb incident.

[Duchovny] The full story is
finally revealed,

how a young Frenchman
pulled off

one of World War II's
boldest black ops

with nothing more
than nerve, ingenuity,

and a handful of baguettes.

♪ ♪

- The Trojan horse is
the original black op.

Back then,
it was a wooden decoy

hiding elite Greek warriors.

Today, that kind of mission
comes with something

just as deadly--

GPS and a swarm
of killer drones.

[booming]

- It's December of 2023,
and Russia's ground invasion

into Ukraine has come
to a bloody stalemate.

But in the skies,
it's a different story.

Russia's Tu-95s
and Tu-22M3 bomber planes

are raining missiles
on Ukrainian cities

night after night,

terrifying the civilian
population.

[dramatic music]

[Jesse] These Cold War bombers
are almost impossible

for the Ukrainian
air defenses to stop.

They're actually operating
inside Russian territory

and firing long-range missiles
into Ukraine.

[somber music]

[Duchovny] To protect its
citizens and infrastructure,

Ukraine needs
these planes destroyed.

♪ ♪

So its security service,
the SBU,

hatches an extraordinary plan
to wipe out the whole fleet.

Its name, Operation Spiderweb.

- Ukraine's plan is
simple but bold--

destroy Russia's bombers--
not in the air,

but on the ground
at their air bases.

The planes are parked
in neat rows on the tarmac.

They're minimally defended.

They are sitting ducks
out there.

- The problem is,
these bombers are

thousands of miles
inside Russian territory.

So Ukraine has to find a way

to get to them
and destroy them,

all undetected.

[Duchovny] To do this,
Ukraine plays to its strength.

Instead of using soldiers
or missiles

to strike these planes,
it's going to use drones.

- Since the start of the war,

the SBU has been turning
$500 drones--

you know, the ones that
you might buy in a store--

into lethal weapons.

[explosions booming]

So now they're planning to take
this idea to a whole new level

using a swarm of drones
laden with explosives

to attack the Russian bombers.

[Hakeem] The problem is that
regular store-bought drones

only work reliably
over very short distances.

If the SBU attempts
to operate them

from thousands of miles away
inside of Ukraine,

the battery would die,

the signals would be lost,
and they would crash.

[Jesse] The SBU doesn't want
to send its own operatives

thousands of miles
into enemy territory

to pilot the drones,
because if they're caught,

they will be executed.

- That's when Operation
Spider Web spins a new threat.

If pilots are a problem,

why not build a drone
that doesn't need one?

♪ ♪

[Sasha]
Ukraine's AI industry is

one of the most advanced
in the world.

So the SBU turns
to its top engineers

to develop a drone that can
fly without a remote signal.

[dramatic music]

[Duchovny] By early 2025,
they've cracked it--

an AI drone
that can fly itself

without needing
a human operator.

But to hit its target,
this smart drone has to learn

to recognize a Russian bomber.

♪ ♪

[Sami] The breakthrough comes
when the SBU finds

old Soviet bombers in
a museum near central Ukraine

they can use to train the AI

without ever setting foot
in Russia.

They photograph every panel,
every rivet,

and every weak spot
on the planes.

♪ ♪

[Duchovny]
Hundreds of these photos

are fed into
the AI's database...

♪ ♪

Teaching the drones
to recognize

the bombers from every angle.

♪ ♪

Now the SBU has
a fleet of killer

smart drones ready to fly.

But it still needs to get them
into Russian territory.

- To pull this mission off,
the SBU needs

to get nearly 120 drones,
each carrying

roughly 1.6 kilos of explosive,

and they have to smuggle them
into Russia.

[tense music]

[Sami] The drones are
broken down into parts

and smuggled into Russia
by Ukrainian sleeper agents.

- Here's where the real
ingenuity comes in.

The drones are disguised
in wooden sheds,

but not just any wooden sheds.

They're robotic.

They have
remote-controlled roofs,

specially engineered
by Ukrainian operatives

in a top-secret warehouse.

[Duchovny]
With the push of a button,

the roof can slide back,

releasing the deadly swarm.

In an instant,
this classified mission

would be revealed to the enemy
and the entire world.

♪ ♪

[Jesse] It's May 31, 2025,
and the Ukrainian agents

hire four unsuspecting
Russian truck drivers

to deliver what they think
are ordinary wooden sheds

to different parts
of the country.

- The SBU tracks
the trucks with GPS.

And when the drivers get close
to the Russian air bases,

suddenly, the drivers
get these calls

telling them to stop.

- Seconds later,
the retractable roofs

of the sheds open,
and the AI-guided drones

take off into the air
and lock onto their targets,

the bombers.

[explosion booming]

[Duchovny] That's when
all hell breaks loose.

Bystanders filming
have no idea

they're witnessing
a coordinated attack.

[Sasha] This extraordinary
drone footage

beams back into Ukraine,

and suddenly,
social media goes wild,

with videos of truck drivers

trying to catch these drones

and black smoke billowing
from Russian air bases.

[Duchovny]
The cat's out of the bag.

♪ ♪

Operation Spiderweb is seen
by millions on social media

everywhere, a daring mission
declassified in real time.

[Hakeem] More than a third
of Russia's bomber fleet

is damaged or destroyed.

This cost the Russians
$7 billion or more.

It's clearly the worst day
for Russian aviation

since World War II.

♪ ♪

- For generations,
the Statue of Liberty

has stood as a symbol
of hope and freedom.

But few know that, to this day,

Lady Liberty bears
battle wounds

from one of the most
devastating black ops

ever pulled off on U.S. soil.

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

- It's 1915, and World War I
is raging in Europe.

The U.S. is officially neutral.

But in reality,
a British naval blockade

is cutting Germany off
from American factories.

They keep churning out
weapons,

but the only ships
leaving U.S. ports

are bound for Britain
and France.

♪ ♪

[Duchovny] To even the field,
Berlin turns to sabotage.

♪ ♪

- The Germans decide that,
since they can't buy U.S. arms,

they're going to destroy them.

But this is a risky plan,
because if they're caught,

this could cause the U.S.
to declare war.

♪ ♪

[Duchovny] Berlin needs
saboteurs on the ground.

So it sends two agents
to New York,

Kurt Jahnke and Lothar Witzke.

- Their first job is
to identify a target.

And there is one
standout option--

Black Tom Island
in Jersey City.

It's one of the largest
munitions depots in the world.

- The explosives are
already in place.

The fuse just needs to be lit,

and a critical weapon stockpile
will be wiped out.

The only problem?

Pulling this off in the city
that never sleeps.

[tense music]

[Martin] Black Tom sits
opposite Manhattan,

just a stone's throw
from crowded piers

and the Statue of Liberty.

♪ ♪

It's also lit day and night,
and it has guards on patrol.

♪ ♪

[Duchovny] So the saboteurs
wait in the shadows,

until luck finally intervenes.

♪ ♪

[Sami] In July of 1916,

a dock strike erupts
in Jersey City.

So security is stretched thin,

which means that Black Tom
is back in play.

♪ ♪

[Duchovny]
On the night of July 29th,

the German spies finally
make their move.

What happens next
doesn't become public

for over two decades.

[Paul] Jahnke and Witzke
head out on their mission.

They sneak across the harbor
out to Black Tom Island.

And when they get there,
they realize that

this is quite
a labyrinth of railcars

packed with highly explosive
munitions.

[Sami] It's summer,

and the air is just filled
with mosquitoes.

So guards huddle around
smoking oil pots

to fight them off.

It's the perfect distraction.

[Hakeem]
Jahnke and Witzke move

silently through the site,

lighting small fires
as they go.

The plan is simple
but devastating,

and that is
to light enough points

to set off a chain reaction

that would tear
through the entire depot.

♪ ♪

[Paul] At midnight,
they're actually able

to climb back aboard
their rowboat

and slip away undetected.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

- At 2:08 a.m...

[explosions booming]

Black Tom erupts.

[explosions booming]

♪ ♪

The blast sends
a shock wave racing

at 24,000 feet per second.

[Paul] Buildings suffered
devastating damage

all along the harbor,

windows are blown out
miles away,

and the explosion registers
a 5.0 on the Richter scale.

[Duchovny]
No one knows who's behind it.

The case stays unsolved
for years,

until investigators catch
an unexpected break.

[suspenseful music]

- In the 1930s, multiple
German intelligence agents

are captured
by the United States.

And in an effort to gain
leniency for themselves,

they actually reveal the story

of the covert assault
on Black Tom Island.

♪ ♪

[Duchovny] Despite this,
the German saboteurs

are never punished
by the U.S. government

or at home.

And Lady Liberty, well,
she still bears the scars.

[Sami]
The blast was so powerful

that it mangled
the Statue of Liberty's arm.

And it did it so badly
that the torch

that the statue's arm
is holding

has remained off limits
to tourists ever since.

- In most spy stories,
the bug is hidden in a lamp

or a phone,
maybe a potted plant.

In this one, the bug
is the entire building.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

[Hakeem] In the 1970s,

the Cold War tensions are
beginning to ease up a bit.

And so, as a gesture
of goodwill and cooperation,

the United States
and the Soviet Union agree

that the U.S. can rebuild
its outdated Moscow embassy.

♪ ♪

[Sami] It's the largest
construction project

the U.S. has ever
attempted overseas,

an 8-story complex spread
across 10 acres

and boasting everything
from an auditorium

and classrooms
to a garage, gym,

apartments, and 11 townhouses.

[Duchovny]
Washington sees an opportunity

to project power in the heart
of the Soviet Union.

But the Kremlin sees
an opportunity

to spy on its biggest rival
in their own backyard.

- Any project this big
is chaos.

And chaos means opportunity
for the KGB.

They see it
as the perfect chance

to bug the U.S. embassy

and turn it into a giant
eavesdropping device.

[Duchovny] So the KGB plants
covert workers on the job.

But how do you bug
an embassy in a way

that's impossible
for the U.S. to detect?

[tense music]

[Jesse] The Soviets build
a full-scale mockup

of the U.S. embassy
in a classified site

outside of Moscow.

[Duchovny] Here, they rehearse
the entire operation,

every bug perfected
in private.

This is where
their bugging transforms.

- The Soviets decide that
they're not going to plant

their surveillance devices
in the normal places,

like in lamps and phones
and picture frames and such.

Instead,
they're going to build it

into the very structure
of the building--

inside the beams,
inside the bricks.

Consider it
architectural sabotage.

♪ ♪

[Duchovny] The result is
that the Soviets

can hear you wherever you are.

[Mark] It may be the walls
listening to you.

It might be the floor
listening to you.

It might be the door frame
listening to you.

Or perhaps
it's all of the above.

There's no private, safe space
in the U.S. embassy.

[Sami] Once they've perfected
the operation,

the replica is dismantled
piece by piece.

Bugged door frames, pillars,

even entire sections
of hallway

are packed up
and shipped to Moscow,

ready to be slotted
into the real embassy.

[Duchovny] November 22, 1979,
construction begins.

- Ideally, this process
will be closely supervised.

But in practice,
there's only, like,

20 or 30 Naval personnel
who are there

observing what's going on.

- As construction progresses,
the U.S. runs inspections.

They find nothing.

Then in 1980,
for the Soviets, at least,

disaster strikes.

♪ ♪

[Hakeem] In 1980, a KGB major

named Victor Sheymov

defects to the United States.

He brings with him
a wealth of intelligence

about Soviet surveillance ops,

including the bugging
of the U.S. embassy.

[Sami] Sheymov warns the CIA
that the Soviets are embedding

sophisticated,
nearly undetectable bugs

during construction.

He actually gives them
a chilling message.

He tells them,

"You won't have
a single secret

in the building."

[Duchovny] A KGB major
is warning that

their brand-new embassy is
wired from top to bottom.

The CIA hears them out
and then does nothing,

convinced their inspections
have it covered.

♪ ♪

[Sami] The U.S. is so sure of

their own counter-surveillance
technology

that they think
they'll spot any bug

the Soviets try
to slip past them.

[Duchovny]
Construction in Moscow

continues
for another five years.

And by 1985,
the embassy is 2/3 complete.

The U.S. continues
with routine inspections.

But with time comes
better technology,

and suddenly,
something shows up.

[dramatic music]

- U.S. security teams
notice radio waves

emanating out
of the U.S. embassy.

And they're not quite sure
what this is,

but it doesn't look good.

And what they discover is

a remarkably sophisticated
bugging system.

♪ ♪

[Duchovny]
The U.S. finally realizes

it's been duped
by its Soviet builders.

And the real kicker--
it paid them $55 million

for the privilege.

For years, the embassy is
frozen in limbo,

and inspections drag on.

♪ ♪

Then in 1990,
Victor Sheymov goes public

with one of the Cold War's
biggest "I told you so's."

[Reporter] You worked
in signals intelligence.

Can you tell us a little bit
about those operations?

[tense music]

[Duchovny] Sheymov tells
"The Washington Post"

the CIA had been warned
10 years earlier

but did nothing.

And more expense lies ahead.

- Congress approves
$240 million

to strip the building
to its skeleton

and rebuild it,

but this time with
secured American labor.

Steel is melted,
walls are torn down,

and the Soviet spy maze is
dismantled piece by piece.

[dramatic music]

[Duchovny] By 2000, 21 years
after work first began,

the new embassy
finally opens--

bug-free,
as far as we can tell.

♪ ♪

- The Cold War's
biggest booby trap

isn't hidden in a suitcase
or a duffel bag.

It's buried in a few lines
of stolen software.

And when it goes off,
it triggers

a devastating explosion.

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

- In the 1980s, the U.S. is
the world leader in technology.

From advanced computers
to cutting-edge software,

no other nation comes close.

[Hakeem] The Soviets have
been struggling

for years to keep up
with United States

technology developments.

And the solution that they
come up with is espionage.

They're stealing Western tech
on a scale that is massive.

♪ ♪

[Duchovny] This dependence
on stolen tech

has left them lagging behind,

and now the Soviets are
missing some key software

to build a major gas pipeline.

[Hakeem] The new pipeline
is desperately needed,

because falling oil prices

has wiped out the Soviets'
main source of income.

So they really need to develop
new sources of revenue.

[Mark] The Soviet economy is
very reliant on oil and gas.

But prices have been dropping

over their very high levels
from the 1970s.

And at the same time,
the Soviets are running out

of new sources of oil and gas.

So they're looking for,
like, where can we find more?

Where is their natural gas
that we haven't tapped yet?

♪ ♪

[Duchovny] The Soviets decide
to build a 3,000-mile-long

pipeline to bring natural gas

from Siberia
to Czechoslovakia.

♪ ♪

[Mark] The export of this gas

is extraordinarily
important to Moscow.

It may be worth upwards
of $30 billion to them.

And that's U.S. dollars.

That's hard currency.

♪ ♪

[Hakeem] The Soviets need
special software

to run the pipeline's
pumping stations.

Without it, the system fails.

And of course, it's technology
that they don't have.

♪ ♪

[Duchovny] So naturally,
they look to the U.S.

and a plan to steal it.

What they don't realize is
that this mission

has been leaked
to the White House.

[Andrew] Newly-elected
President Ronald Reagan

is handed
a intelligence report

that's coming from
a recent Soviet defector.

The report is 4,000 pages long,

and it starts to detail
this Soviet operation

targeting U.S. technology.

♪ ♪

- Known as
the Farewell Dossier,

the report even includes
a list of U.S. technologies

the Soviets still need,

including
the gas pipeline software.

Reagan's first instinct

is to expose
the whole operation,

but one advisor sees
an opportunity.

♪ ♪

[Jesse] Gus Weiss is

a national security advisor.

He's worked
with four presidents

as well as the CIA and NASA.

And his specialty is
strategic deception.

Instead of shutting down
the flow of stolen secrets,

what if the U.S. turned
the tables on the Soviets

and fed them doctored software
that could wreak havoc?

[Duchovny]
It's the perfect booby trap.

One stolen program
could sabotage

the entire gas pipeline.

So Reagan uses
the Farewell Dossier

to set the plan in motion.

- The dossier reveals
that the Soviets

planned to steal the software

from a single company
in Canada.

- With help from
Canadian intelligence,

the U.S. is able to plant bugs
in the pipeline software

before the Soviets steal it.

♪ ♪

[Duchovny]
The Soviets install the code,

unaware it's been doctored.

[suspenseful music]

- Over time, it slowly corrupts
the pressure controls

of the pipeline, causing havoc.

[Duchovny] What happens next
is still fiercely debated.

♪ ♪

[explosion booming]

[dramatic music]

- In June of 1982, a section
of the Siberian pipeline

explodes in a massive
ball of flames.

[explosion booming]

Millions of dollars' worth
of Soviet infrastructure

is destroyed in an instant.

♪ ♪

[Duchovny]
The truth stays hidden

for more than a decade...

[solemn music]

Until 2004, when former
U.S. Air Force Secretary

Thomas C. Reed makes

an explosive claim
in his memoir.

Reed alleges
the CIA weaponized

stolen Soviet software,
lines of code,

the stuff of spreadsheets
and keyboards,

triggering a fireball
visible from space.

♪ ♪

From baguette bombs

to drones hidden
in backyard sheds,

black ops evolve
with every era.

But even the darkest missions
ultimately get revealed.