The Big Breach - Index of

The Big Breach; From Top Secret to Maximum SecurityCompliments of http://www.192.comRussel proposed to strengthen his department and start running naturalcover operations into the heart of Russia. He renamed the section UKA,bringing its nomenclature in line with other natural cover stationsbased in Century House. Then he badgered personnel department forreinforcements. One of the first to join was Spencer. He was bored ofhis job as a targeting officer and wanted to get into natural coverwork. Russel allocated him a desk in my office and put him to workrunning MASTERWORK. Platon Obukov, a Russian diplomat in his 20s, wasthe son of a former Soviet deputy foreign minister who had worked onthe SALT II disarmament talks. MASTERWORK's own direct access at theRussian foreign ministry was not important, but his father was stillinfluential in Moscow and MASTERWORK had indirect access to this.Spencer planned to meet MASTERWORK for debriefing sessions in Tallinn,capital of the new Baltic republic of Estonia. It was a safe locationbecause Estonia was cosying up to the West, yet Russians could stilltravel there freely without a visa or passport. Spencer chose to travelas a journalist so went down to I/OPS to beef up his credentials. I/OPSlooks after MI6's media contacts, not only to provide cover facilitiesbut also to spin MI6 propaganda. For example, during the run-up to the1992 UN Secretary General elections, they mounted a smear operationagainst the Egyptian candidate, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who was regardedas dangerously Francophile by the CIA. The CIA are constitutionallyprevented from manipulating the press so they asked MI6 to help. Usingtheir contacts in the British and American media, I/OPS planted aseries of stories to portray Boutros-Ghali as unbalanced, claiming thathe was a believer in the existence of UFOs and extra-terrestrial life.The operation was eventually unsuccessful, however, and Boutros-Ghaliwas elected.`Flippin' outrageous!' Spencer laughed as he came back from his visitto I/OPS. `They've got the editor of a magazine on the books. He'scalled SMALLBROW,' he chuckled. `He's agreed to let me go out toTallinn undercover as a freelancer for his magazine - the onlycondition is that I have to write an article which he'll publish if helikes it. Cheeky bastard wants a story courtesy of the taxpayer!'Russel's ambition to expand the role of UKA hinged on his ability toconvince C/CEE that natural cover operations into Russia were practicaland secure. To help persuade them that such operations could be carriedout by a VCO (Visiting Case Officer) he asked me to research coverlegends suitable for use in Russia. There would be no possibility of meactually using the cover in Russia - being fresh off the IONEC, suchresponsibility would not be entrusted to me. My job was just to do thegroundwork for somebody else to take over later. Nevertheless, it wasan interesting assignment.No natural cover is unbreakable as no matter how carefully it isresearched, it can never be as rich and varied as a real life. To plugevery hole would be futile and expensive, so I needed to tailor thecover to match the likely inquisition by the Russian defences. Thisentailed first examining the sort of jobs that could be done in Russiaunder natural cover. The most likely would be one of the simple taskswhich were time-consuming for a station officer to undertake, such asletter-posting. Posting an SW letter to an agent is fraught with riskbecause even after dry-cleaning for several hours, perhaps even a wholeday, it cannot be guaranteed that surveillance has not observed theposting and dropped a marker letter on top. When the postbox ispage- 72 - To purchase the original limited edition hardback version of this bookplease call 08000 192 192 or go to http://www.192.com