Discover the real story of Operation Ivy Bells, the most daring Cold War espionage mission in history. Discover how the United States Navy and NSA utilized the USS Halibut to position a secret wiretap on a Soviet underwater communication cable television deep within the Sea of Okhotsk.
TL; DR: In 1971, the United States Navy carried out a "suicide mission" to tap a top-secret Soviet military cable television 400 feet underwater. For a decade, Washington listened to the Kremlin's unencrypted nuclear command traffic-- till an insolvent NSA analyst named Ronald Pelton sold the trick to the KGB for simply $35,000. This is the story of the billion-dollar whisper that blinded America.
♂ THE IMPOSSIBLE TAP
Throughout the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union thought the Sea of Okhotsk was an impenetrable "inner sea." They were so positive that their top-secret communications in between the Petropavlovsk nuclear base and Vladivostok were sent totally unencrypted. They didn't recognize the United States had actually developed a 20-foot inductive tap that could tape-record every word without ever cutting the wire.
SEABED WARFARE and BETRAYAL
From the specialized saturation divers of the USS Halibut and USS Seawolf to the high-stakes intelligence analysis at Fort Meade, this documentary checks out how little procedural leaks-- like a "Do Not Anchor" sign on a Soviet beach-- altered the international power balance. However even the most sophisticated military technology has a powerlessness: human greed.
⏲ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - The Cable Television That Wasn't Expected to Talk 02:30 - The Forbidden Sea: Why Okhotsk Was Untouchable 08:15 - Discovering a Needle: The "Do Not Anchor" Sign 15:40 - The Magic Trick: Tapping Without Breaking the Wire 22:10 - Deep Work: Saturation Divers in the Black 30:05 - Turning Silence Into Gold: The NSA Harvest 38:50 - The Whatever Window: Ivy Bells Technique 46:20 - The Weakest Link: Ronald Pelton's $35,000 Betrayal 54:15 - The Discovery: When the Ocean Gave Up the Secret 1:02:40 - The Hunt for Pelton: Vitaly Yurchenko's Tip-Off 1:10:15 - Consequences: The Arms Race Relocations Undersea 1:18:30 - Lessons From a Cable Television: What Ivy Bells Proved 1:25:00 - The Long Echo: Modern Undersea Espionage
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