News Articles about SpyDrive^®

• Washington Post: The Spy on the Wall Tour: Washington's Cold War Monuments

• Government Executive: Spy tour brings government employee espionage to light

• CNN: Tour uncloaks Washington's spying past

• Insight magazine: Living the Spy Life in Washington

• AP: Ex-CIA, KGB Agents Offer Spy Tour

• Washington Business Journal: Not so top secret: Tour uncovers spy sites

• St. Petersburg Times (FL): Espionage's Greatest Hits--Live!

• Guardian (UK): 'K Street, 4pm, come alone'

• Continental Airlines magazine: Spies Like Us

• Washington Times: No secrets are kept on cloak & dagger circuit: Cold War nostalgia is red hot

• Los Angeles Times: Ferreting Out Areas Where Moles Thrive

• BBC: The World's Spy Capital

• UPI: Washington--Espionage Battleground

The Spy on the Wall Tour: Washington's Cold War Monuments
By Vernon Loeb, Washington Post
January 24, 2001

Seven blocks on R Street in Georgetown are all that separate the rise and the fall of American intelligence, from the mansion of World War II spy master William "Wild Bill" Donovan to the mailbox where CIA traitor Aldrich H. Ames left signals in chalk for his Soviet handlers.

David Major calls it "Spy Street," standing in front of a tour bus one morning last week, microphone in hand. He is midway through "SpyDrive," a tour of 30 Washington espionage sites that twists and turns through most of the major spy cases of the past 50 years.

This may sound like just another cheesy Washington tourist attraction, but the running commentary provided by Major and his sidekick, Oleg Kalugin, is well worth the price.

Major spent a career chasing foreign spies for the FBI and ultimately became counterintelligence adviser at the Reagan White House. Kalugin was a Soviet spy in Washington – the youngest major general in KGB history.
"What we're going to show you is buildings and monuments," Major says as the bus pulls away from the Grand Hyatt Hotel downtown. "But…you're going to see it through the eyes of a counterintelligence officer and an intelligence collector."

The SpyDrive (www.spydrive.com), which runs a couple of times a month, is a commercial spinoff of a tour Major started running several years ago for corporate executives and U.S. government personnel to make the point that the nation's capital has long been a major playground for all manner of foreign spies – and still is.

"Since this is the most important city in the world, it is a very, very viable target," says Major, a stout, bearded man in a black leather jacket. "This is not something stuck in the past – it faces every single one of us in the future."
What he's trying to tell his busload of spy tourists, many of whom have a certain law enforcement look, is that a little paranoia is not necessarily a bad thing, especially if you're an executive steeped in trade secrets or a government official with a security clearance. If you think you're being followed on the streets of Washington, maybe you are.

"Russian espionage is now on the rise," says Kalugin, a small, dapper man who is now a permanent resident alien and works as an instructor at Major's training firm in Alexandria, the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies. "The U.S. used to be Enemy Number 1. Now it is Priority Number 1."

There is, of course, no more famous monument to espionage in Washington than the old Soviet Embassy on 16th Street, now the Russian ambassador's residence. Kalugin calls it "the hub of intelligence operations in this country."
Major points to the front door that three of the most damaging American spies – Ames, Navy warrant officer John Walker and National Security Agency employee Ronald Pelton – walked through to begin their careers in treason.

Major, who saw Walker in handcuffs immediately after his arrest in 1985, knows the case inside and out. He tells the driver to pull up 10 feet and directs everyone to look down an alley north of the embassy at the back door, where the Soviets spirited Walker and Pelton out of the building to avoid detection by an FBI surveillance team.

Pelton, who told the Soviet Union that U.S. intelligence had tapped its underwater cable and was intercepting all of its North Sea Navy communications, lived in a row house a few blocks away at 525 P St. NW at the time of his arrest.

On K Street in Georgetown, famous espionage terrain, the tour passes Chadwick's, the pub where Ames handed over seven pounds of top-secret material to his KGB handler, including the names of 20 CIA assets in the Soviet bloc, 10 of whom were subsequently executed. Then there's Martin's Tavern on Wisconsin Avenue, where Vassar graduate and Soviet courier Elizabeth Bentley operated in the '30s and '40s.

And just a block up Wisconsin, there's Au Pied de Cochon, the French bistro where KGB defector Vitaly Yurchenko bolted from his CIA handlers in 1985, walked to the new Soviet Embassy at the top of the hill and un-defected – a route retraced by the SpyDrive bus.

There's debate to this day in U.S. intelligence about whether Yurchenko was a legitimate defector or a KGB plant. But Kalugin – who debriefed Yurchenko upon his return to Moscow – says the KGB believed he was a genuine defector who simply grew disenchanted as a ward of the CIA.

Kalugin worked for 12 years as a spy in Washington before returning home to run the KGB's foreign counterintelligence program. He was elected to the Russian parliament in 1990 after the fall of the Soviet Union before coming back to the United States as part of a joint venture with AT&T.

"Now I am back to the old trade that I never thought I would resume again," says Kalugin, who is still a Russian citizen. "But old habits never die."

On R Street – "one of the spy streets in Washington," Major says – the bus slows in front of a mansion on the corner of 30th, former home of "Wild Bill" Donovan, director of the Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the CIA, during World War II.

Just up the street is Dumbarton Oaks, the 19th-century mansion and surrounding gardens that would be described on some tours as an important research library in Byzantine and medieval studies. On the SpyDrive, it is the place where Navy analyst and convicted spy Jonathan Pollard met his Israeli handler.

A little farther down, at 37th and R, is the famous blue mailbox – Ames's "signal site." The CIA malcontent and alcoholic, who started spying in 1985, would mark the box with chalk so that the KGB would know to check a prearranged "dead drop" for a new cache of top-secret reports. It's just a plain blue mailbox now.

Indeed, what makes the SpyDrive an intriguing jaunt through town is its mix of buildings like Alger Hiss's row house at 2905 P St. NW, and monuments like a spot on Sheridan Circle – "right where that red car is right now," Major says – where a car bomb planted by Gen. Augusto Pinochet's intelligence service in 1976 killed former Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and his American colleague Ronni Moffitt.

Spy Tour Brings Government Employee Espionage to Light

By Kellie Lunney, Government Executive magazine

January 19, 2001

• John Walker, U.S. Navy Warrant officer: Walker provided coded Navy communications to the Soviet Union from 1967 to 1976, and was arrested in 1985. Eighty percent of top-secret ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore information was supplied to the Soviets, who then shared the data with the North Vietnamese.
• Ronald Pelton, former National Security Agency employee: Pelton sold the Soviets sensitive information about U.S. electronic eavesdropping techniques, and was arrested in 1986.
• Aldrich "Rick" Ames, GS-14 CIA officer: Ames worked for Soviet and then Russian intelligence for money from 1985 until his arrest in 1994.
• Earl Pitts, former senior FBI special agent: Pitts specialized in counterintelligence work and spied for the KGB from 1987 to 1992. He was arrested in 1996.
• Mariano Faget, GS-17 senior officer at the Immigration and Naturalization Service: Faget spied for Cuba and was arrested in 2000.

Spy Spots

Here's a rundown of some everday places in Washington D.C. that have a place in espionage history:

Aldrich Ames, infamous CIA officer and Russian spy, received his first $50,000 from the KGB [Soviet intelligence] at the The Mayflower Hotel (127 Connecticut Ave. NW). Shortly thereafter John Walker, a Navy warrant officer who was also spying for the Soviets was arrested. Fearing he might be next, Ames sold to the KGB the names of more than 10 CIA and FBI sources that might expose him. The transaction took place at Chadwicks Restaurant (3205 K Street, NW) in Georgetown.

Oleg Kalugin, retired KGB major general, used to meet sources at the following locations when he worked in Washington:

• Army Navy Club (901 17th Street, NW)
• Occidental Grill (1475 Pennsylvania Ave. NW)
• National Press Building (corner of 14th and F streets)

Karl Koecher, a former CIA employee and Czech intelligence agent, and his wife frequently met at the Exchange Restaurant, formerly located near the Farragut West metro, to develop sources and to engage in "wife swapping" with other couples.

Elizabeth Bentley, a former courier for Soviet intelligence who later broke with communism and revealed spy rings to the FBI, used to meet sources at Martin's Tavern (1264 Wisconsin Ave. NW) in Georgetown.

R Street, in Georgetown, was home to Duncan Lee, a U.S. intelligence officer who spied for the Soviets during World War II. P Street, in Georgetown, was home to Alger Hiss and Lauchlin Currie; an American and Canadian who turned Soviet spies.

Jonathan Pollard, a Navy intelligence officer who spied for Israel met with Israeli intelligence officer Col. Aviem Sella at Dumbarton Oaks(1703 32nd St. NW).

 

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Tour uncloaks Washington's spying past

By David Ensor, CNN

February 23, 2001

 

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- It's not just the capital of the United States. It's the capital of espionage.

Beyond Washington's museums and presidential monuments, just about anywhere you look you can see the ghost of intelligence collection. And the SpyDrive's there to guide you, offering a unique monthly tour through Washington's cloak-and-dagger past.

The guides of the SpyDrive tour know what they're talking about. One is David Major, a former FBI counterintelligence officer who also served in the White House. The other is Oleg Kalugin, a retired major-general who was the Washington-based chief of KGB international counterintelligence.

A key stop on the $55, two-and-a-half-hour tour is the old Soviet Embassy on 16th Street.

On their way to commit treason, three of the most damaging American spies walked through its doors: the Central Intelligence Agency's Aldrich Ames, Navy Warrant Officer John Walker, and Ronald Pelton of the National Security Agency.

Marked mailboxes, restaurant rendezvous

Just a few blocks away is the house where Pelton lived. Then there's the mailbox Ames used to mark with chalk when he had secrets for the Soviets and wanted to meet.

Another point of interest is Chadwick's, the restaurant where Ames gave the Soviets a list of Russians spying for the United States, leading to at least 10 executions.

Oleg Kalugin, a retired major-general who was the Washington-based chief of KGB international counterintelligence, shares his perspective on the SpyDrive tour

"I can think of no place in Washington in which more damage had taken place than there," Major said.

Then it's back to the 1950s and the home of State Department official Alger Hiss. Was he really a Soviet spy? Kalugin thinks so.

"One day he wrote to me -- I was in Moscow at the time -- asking to state publicly that he was not a KGB agent, and I did state publicly that he was not a KGB agent, because he was a GRU agent," Kalugin said, referring to Soviet military intelligence.

'Classified pillow talk'

But it isn't just the Russians who spy in Washington. The tour passes by the apartment building that Cuban spy Jennifer Miles, working undercover as a South African diplomat, used to receive gentleman callers.

"Her mission in the diplomatic staff of the South African government was to meet people from the State Department and get involved in classified pillow talk," Major said.

At Chadwick's restaurant, CIA agent Aldrich Ames gave the Soviets a list of Russians spying for the United States -- information which led to at least 10 executions

It also shows where Navy intelligence analyst and Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard came -- thinking he would be safe -- at the Israeli embassy.

"And the guard said, 'You have to leave.' … When he was forced out of the compound, he was arrested," Major said.

'Playground' for spies

But back to the Russians. No spy tour is compete without a look at the French bistro, Au Pied de Cochon. This is where a U.S. security man took Vitaly Yurchenko, the KGB defector, to dinner.

"So he gets up and goes to the bathroom, but in fact he goes out the side door, and the security officer sits and waits and waits, and he never comes back," Major said.

Yurchenko went to the new Soviet Embassy and proceeded to undefect, or redefect. So was he ever a real defector?

"He was a genuine defector. Yurchenko was a real traitor," he said.

And just one of the many international spies who have seen and still see Washington as their playground.

Living the Spy Life in Washington

By Timothy W. Maier, Insight magazine

February 19, 2001

Ex-CIA, KGB Agents Offer Spy Tour

By Deb Riechmann, Associated Press

July 31, 2001

Espionage's Greatest Hits--Live!

By Paul De La Garza, St. Petersburg Times, Florida

March 28, 2001

WASHINGTON -- Without even trying, Yuri Shvets is funny.

A one-time agent of the KGB, the spy agency of the former Soviet Union, Shvets cracks up his audience with very serious but often hilarious war stories.

Like this one, which shatters the myth of the KGB as remarkably adept at the art of recruitment. "Most human sources which KGB had in the United States walked in," he said. "They recruited themselves. It was a gift to the KGB.

"KGB officers were just sipping coffee. Smoking cigarettes. Reading the Washington Post. They're waiting for somebody to walk in and say, "Hello, I'm yours.' "

On a recent Saturday, a group of mostly tourists boarded a bus downtown for a once-a-month tour known as "SpyDrive."

The tour features 30 Washington espionage sites -- mailboxes, restaurants, apartments -- used by some of the nation's most infamous spies during the past 50 years. It would seem that the spycraft would have dwindled with the end of the Cold War. The fact is: Washington is crawling with spies.

Last week, in response to the arrest of FBI Agent Robert Hanssen on charges of spying for Russia, the United States ordered the expulsion of 50 Russians it identified as spies. Russia retaliated, saying it would expel 50 Americans at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

Although tour organizers declare at the start that Hanssen has only been charged and not convicted, they do mention his name repeatedly. Also featured, among several Americans convicted of spying against the United States, are the CIA's Aldrich Ames, Navy analyst Jonathan Pollard, Navy Warrant Officer John Walker and National Security Agency employee Ronald Pelton.

Spy buffs almost certainly would find the spy sites fascinating, like Chadwick's, the pub in Georgetown where Ames gave his Soviet handler the names of 20 CIA assets in the Soviet bloc, 10 of whom were executed. Or Au Pied de Cochon, the French bistro where KGB defector Vitaly Yurchenko, Shvets' boss, humiliated his CIA handlers. He went to the bathroom, crawled through a window and walked to the Soviet Embassy. Analysts still wonder whether his defection to the U.S. was a KGB ploy.

But it is the war stories and the people telling them that make the nearly three-hour tour worth getting up early. After all, a mailbox is a mailbox.

Shvets was joined by Peter Earnest, a retired CIA officer, and by John Gaskill, a retired FBI agent. The trio works for the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, which sponsors the tour and provides training and research to the government and the private sector.

"You're getting veterans of the Cold War represented up here," Gaskill says. "We do not have a Chinese representative yet, but we're working on it."

Earnest introduces himself by offering his resume: "Intelligence collector. Recruiter and runner of agents."

Indeed, the language itself is enticing. Before the tour begins, organizers hand out a glossary of spy terms.

An asset, for example, "is an individual acting under the direction and control of an intelligence service to help collect information or provide another service of intelligence value."

A dead drop, meanwhile, "is a prearranged hidden location for depositing and picking up things, usually messages or money, which typically are hidden inside an object of no apparent value, like a crushed milk carton."

As the bus pulls out, Earnest says that Washington is the spy capital of the world, because of America's prominence. "There is espionage taking place as we drive through the city right now," he says. "People are meeting."

As they pass the microphone to one another, a friendly tension develops between the KGB man and his U.S. counterparts.

Shvets, for example, can't help getting in the occasional dig at Gaskill, who worked counterintelligence for the FBI for 25 years. In other words, like Hanssen, he was chasing people like Shvets.

Shvets, however, who gained notoriety in 1994 with the book, Washington Station: My Life as a K.G.B. Spy in America, said he and his colleagues routinely were surprised at the lax security by the FBI. What the government alleges about Hanssen, for example, that he used the mail to contact his Russian handlers, would never have happened in Moscow. He noted that while the FBI had 300 agents involved in counterintelligence work in Washington, the KGB had 15,000 in Moscow.

"Had a Soviet citizen sent via regular Soviet mail secret documents to his CIA handler stationed in Moscow, I can reassure you that this mail will never reach the destination and, next day, both men would be caught red-handed."

Almost immediately, Gaskill went on the defensive. In Hanssen's case, he said, no one was in a better position to know which surveillance techniques the FBI maintained on which Russian official than Hanssen, a high-level counterintelligence agent.

At one point, Earnest jumped in, noting that it takes so long to catch a spy because "when someone commits espionage, there's nothing missing. What they're stealing are secrets, but often the documents are left in place and there is no evidence of a crime."

In Washington, Shvets said two-thirds of employees at the Soviet Embassy were active-duty KGB officers. The rest were "real diplomats."

Even the diplomats reported to the KGB. "Even a tidbit of gossip from the right place were real important for political decisions," Shvets said.

As the bus passed the former Soviet Embassy, now the residence of the Russian ambassador, he said, "We were packed on the fourth floor of this building like a can of sardines, about 50 field officers in small cubicles."

At one point, Earnest said, the Soviets had developed such an extensive agent network within the U.S. government that it became almost comical. They were particularly successful at the Treasury Department. "The KGB," he said, "actually directed their network not to recruit anyone else at the Treasury. They were already running into each other."

Again, a lot of people simply walked into the Soviet Embassy. The top two reasons people volunteer to spy, based on statistical analysis of all cases, especially among Americans, Gaskill said, are money and revenge.

When somebody walked in to volunteer to spy for the Soviets, the trick was getting him out without FBI detection. "One way was to wrap this person in a rug or a garbage can and carry him over from the side door of the embassy. Then they would load the (cargo) in a van and take it to a remote place in Virginia or Maryland."

While the KGB sprayed the U.S. Embassy in Moscow "with all kinds of microwaves and electronic attacks trying to ferret out what was going on in there," Gaskill said, the FBI wasn't as lucky. "It was a little more ticklish about trying to use any of these electronic waves or whatever," he said, "because the building directly behind the Soviet embassy at the time was the Washington Post."

The United States still had its listening methods.

In fact, because the FBI was monitoring the embassy from across the street, Shvets said, "We never discussed in our station verbally the most important situations. We used to write small letters to each other. We kept our mouths shut."

At times, though, what Gaskill and company would have heard would have seemed odd. At the height of the Cold War, for example, in preparation for an attack against the United States, Moscow ordered its spy network in Washington to collect road maps. When Soviet paratroopers landed on American soil, they wanted to make sure they could get around.

By Max Wooldridge, Guardian

June 5, 2003

Spies Like Us

Deception! Intrigue! Espionage! Operating in the shadows of Washington, DC with John Wilkes Booth, Alger Hiss, and all the rest

By John Patrick Pullen, Continental Airlines magazine

They have a saying in the espionage business: All is not what it seems. That thought echoes in my mind as I stand facing Mary Surratt’s Boarding House, because the building doesn’t look

That the structure no longer functions as a boarding house isn’t a surprise, given the nature of what once transpired here, but only a bronze plaque near the entrance reveals that this is a sushi shack of historical significance. It reads, “604 H Street, N.W. (then 541) is said to have been where the conspirators plotted the abduction of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1865.”

The word abduction is no typo. A few blocks away at Ford’s Theatre, the site of Lincoln’s assassination, a National Park Service Ranger stands by the stage and explains that Booth originally planned to kidnap the president and exchange him for Confederate prisoners. But as the Civil War raged on, Booth elected to kill the Great Emancipator instead, hoping to reignite the sputtering Southern secession.

Not surprisingly, all this intrigue took place in the city where deep cover runs rampant and secrecy is big business. It’s likely that more spies operate in Washington, D.C., than anywhere else in the world. The Cold War’s appetite for defense intelligence made spying something of a cottage industry here, and within one block of the International Spy Museum at the intersection of F and 8th Streets, several thousand members of the intelligence community ply their craft every day.

To get an inside view of D.C., you have to blend in with the locals and act as if you belong. That means walking with an ear to the ground, keeping a finger on the pulse of the government, and sleeping with one eye open. And to get access you have to either be an insider or know one. So here’s my mission: to infiltrate a spy ring, or simply to be mistaken for an undercover agent myself. In the home of J. Edgar Hoover and Alger Hiss, I figure it can’t be that hard.

[Assume Nothing]

Thomas Boghardt’s tweed jacket and jaunty accent perfectly match his cover as historian for the International Spy Museum. Boghardt cuts a slim frame, though he’s a shade taller than most. In short, he’d blend into nearly any crowd, and as we settle into a booth at the museum’s Spy City Café, I feel like I’m about to be briefed.

According to Boghardt, two types of spies work under the employ of the U.S. government: agents and analysts. Agents, or case officers, recruit foreign citizens who can provide secret, sensitive information about their government. It sounds like off-shoring to me, which means “the Company,” like many other domestic businesses, has been outsourcing its dirty work for years.

The second type of spy, an analyst, digests information and connects the dots. “Anything that makes a good academic could also make a good analyst,” Boghardt says. Given his impressive academic credentials, it’s hard not to look at him askance, but he insists he’s just an expert and not a spy. I’m left to take him at his word.

In terms of dress code, spies only need to dress the part. “As a travel journalist, you would do very well,” he says. “If that was your cover, you would be doing an excellent job.”

I leave Boghardt and make my way around the museum for a crash course in deceit. Situated in the former headquarters of the D.C. chapter of the U.S. Communist Party, the International Spy Museum documents espionage through the ages, with cool gadgets on display like the CIA’s doggie-doo radio transmitter and the KGB’s lipstick pistol. Interactive exhibits include instruction on committing a “cover” and “legend” to memory and detecting suspicious public activity.

Emerging from the museum with heightened awareness, I am eager to test my newfound skills on unsuspecting strangers. The nearby Willard InterContinental Washington hotel is famous for serving up intrigue in its Occidental Restaurant — legend has it that ABC newsman John Scali and KGB officer Alexander Feklisov cavorted here while helping to avert the Cuban Missile Crisis. But I find the hotel’s Round Robin Bar more my speed. James Bond can keep his martinis; a down-to-earth spook like myself drinks the local microbrew, Foggy Bottom Ale. As I sip discreetly at the bar, my newly tuned listening skills home in on a discussion of sensitive business issues being carried out by two gentlemen nearby. I order dinner, tune my ears to their chatter, and spend the rest of the night trying to act naturally.

[All the President’s Men]

If you’re going to infiltrate the government, I figure, you may as well start at the top. And the next morning, as I enter the White House, I’m as giddy as the gaggle of schoolchildren lined up behind me. This is the first time I’ve been to the presidential estate, and while I’m trying to keep my cover as a travel writer, it’s hard not to get excited when you’re entering the place where the leader of the free world sleeps, showers, and shaves. A park ranger outside says we’ll see only about four or five rooms, but I don’t care. Julius Rosenberg never got this close to the president in his wildest dreams.

Then I’m greeted at the visitor’s entrance by portraits of some of our country’s less distinguished heads of state: Grover Cleveland, Calvin Coolidge, Millard Fillmore, Chester Arthur. It’s hard not to feel a bit underwhelmed. The rest of the tour takes us nowhere near the Oval Office, even though the president is away on state business.

However, we do get escorted into a hallway with a display describing how the Oval Office’s decor has changed to reflect the tastes of each occupant. Richard Nixon had a giant Seal of the President emblazoned on the room’s royal blue carpet. Ronald Reagan’s white sofas revealed the Hollywood glam that the Gipper brought to the White House. And Gerald Ford’s hideous striped couches made the office resemble a 1970s rumpus room.

As I learned in the Spy Museum, however, it was Franklin D. Roosevelt who made the most significant contribution to the room’s decor. In 1940, FDR became the first president to bug the Oval Office, a practice employed later by four other heads of state (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Nixon). And FDR’s paranoia was well timed. As he contemplated running for an unprecedented fourth term in 1944, FDR’s vice president, Henry Wallace, was planning to assume the office, should the president’s health fail (as it ultimately did in 1945). Wallace’s projected cabinet included Harry Dexter White, later revealed to have been a Soviet agent, and Alger Hiss, also later accused of spying for the Soviets. But before the election Roosevelt dumped his running mate for Missouri senator Harry Truman. Had he left Wallace on the ticket, spies might have penetrated the nation’s highest office.

Hiss and White kept low profiles for years in D.C., but there are only two ways to go literally underground on Capitol Hill. You can take a ride on D.C.’s subway, the Metro, or take a Capitol building tour. With its high, smooth arcs and dim, functional lighting, the Metro’s architecture itself projects spy chic. Add to that its clockwork punctuality, and it’s equipped to aid any mission. Robert Hanssen most likely took the Metro from the

I take the Metro to Capitol South, where an intern for my local congressman is waiting to show me around the Capitol building. We descend several staircases to the underground tunnels that connect the building to its surrounding offices. These walkways — some wide enough to drive a Chevy Yukon through — connect countless federal workers to the heart of the government and eventually lead us to the Crypt. Here a star marks a spot under the rotunda, at the exact center of the building, where George Washington was to be laid to rest. But Washington’s not here — his widow insisted he be buried at the couple’s Mount Vernon estate instead.

A few floors up, I’m led to the House of Representatives chamber, where I encounter the tightest security of my trip. A clerk takes my cell phone, digital camera, and voice recorder before waving us through a metal detector. As we sit in the gallery, I remark how small the chamber looks — you seem right on top of Congress. The intern points to a bullet hole in one of the tables, and I realize that the security check was more than a formality. In 1954, four Puerto Rican nationalists fired 29 rounds from an upstairs gallery as representatives debated an immigration bill. Five people were wounded, and the table remains as a chilling reminder.

[Moving Target]

The Russians have a saying, Frank Rice tells me: Americans see with blind eyes. As he says this, he drives us past a plain blue mailbox at the corner of 37th and R Streets — a signal site in a tranquil Georgetown neighborhood where CIA officer Aldrich Ames communicated with his Soviet handler by marking the box with chalk. It’s one of many landmarks on the

Rice is friendly, funny, knowledgeable, and good at handling both the tricky roadways and the presentation laptop, so it’s hard to believe he’s not a spy. An African-American with just a touch of gray, he appears to be in his early fifties and also sports non-descript attire that helps him blend in almost anywhere. “I’m the audio/video guy,” he says. “My background has nothing to do with counterintelligence.”

SpyDrive tours are usually conducted by a former American agent paired with a former Russian agent. “They were adversaries all the time,” says Rice. “So basically they can tell you what they were thinking about the same case.” I ask if he’s wary of working with former spies. “When I first started, it was very scary,” he says, laughing nervously. “People actually died because of spying — that’s kind of unnerving.”

Rice takes me past the former Soviet Embassy, where he describes how spies would walk in the front door and later be spirited out the side. At the nearby Treasury Department, he tells me the Soviets actually stopped taking spies because their operatives there were practically tripping over each other.

We continue on past the Exchange, a sports bar on G Street that I had visited the day before. Hana and Karl Koecher, former Czech spies, frequented the Exchange in the 1980s, as did congressional and White House staff members. But it wasn’t just information that was swapped here — so were spouses (on Saturdays). “There were people of influence that the Koechers ended up having rendezvous with,” says Rice.

During the two hours I spent at the Exchange, no one approached me. ESPN played on at least four televisions, and the music ranged from Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle” to Sade’s “Smooth Operator.” Finally, a polite, older whiskey and water drinker sat next to me as I settled up. He was a knowledge management consultant for the government, the kind of man with access to information. But when I told him my cover, he offered no dirt — just an idea he thought would be perfect for the magazine.

Another bar in Georgetown also saw some serious espionage. Chadwick’s, a quaint haunt decorated with police memorabilia, is where Aldrich Ames received a bag of money for revealing the identities of Soviet citizens spying for the U.S. Later, those agents were all mysteriously shipped to Moscow. “And once they got [there],” Rice tells me, “all communiqués stopped.” As I eat a cheese-steak and watch television at the bar, I realize that between here, the Exchange, and all the restaurants we don’t know about, the amount of treason that has been committed in front of ESPN’s SportsCenter is staggering.

The rest of the SpyDrive proceeds like a Who’s Who Among Spies. Within one mile we drive past the homes of Alger Hiss, Lauchlin Currie (an adviser to Franklin D. Roosevelt who was an undercover Soviet agent), and H. R. Haldeman (an aide to Nixon imprisoned for his involvement in Watergate). We also pass Au Pied du Cochon, where Soviet officer Vitaly Yurchenko, who had defected to the U.S. in August 1985, ate his last meal before redefecting to the U.S.S.R. in November of that same year.

Down Georgetown’s side streets, we turn past Dumbarton Oaks, a 19th-century mansion whose grounds are now a public park. Serene and awash in greenery, the beautiful terraced gardens in back are perfect for quiet, leisurely strolls. Every twist and turn in the yard yields another secret path or hidden nook — the perfect place for Jonathan Jay Pollard to unload intelligence to his Israeli handler, which he did from 1984 to 1985. An analyst for the Naval Investigative Service, Pollard sold aerial photos of Palestine Liberation Organization headquarters in Tunisia, information on chemical weapons plants in Syria and Iraq, and Pakistan’s atomic bomb plans. What’s worse, he also revealed how the U.S. got the information.

Later, Rice drops me off at my room at — where else — the Watergate Hotel. The historic landmark will soon host its final lodgers before being converted into condos. Josh Graham, the Watergate’s assistant general manager, gives me a brief tour, but beyond the building’s opulent décor and attentive staff, there’s nothing remarkable. The infamous

The next day, as I hand in my room key, it occurs to me that my mission has ended in failure: I neither uncovered a spy ring nor was suspected of a thing. I peered, I photographed, I lingered, and I loitered, without raising an eyebrow or an alarm. Of the spies I’ve been following — all of whom were caught — some did it for their country, others did it for love. Money was the price for many, and ideology drove the rest. But for me, spying was different — I did it just for the thrill. And maybe that’s why I got away with it. Excitement, when it’s over, disappears without a trace.

No secrets are kept on cloak & dagger circuit: Cold War nostalgia is red hot

By Mark Stewart

The Washington Times

6 June 2002

Oleg Kalugin was a major general in the Soviet KGB. Today he works in Alexandria alongside former FBI special agents and CIA officers whom he battled for years on the espionage front during the Cold War. How did he go from enemy to friend? He chuckles, then says, "It wasn't hard at all. I spent years in the United States. I always treated potential enemies as potential friends. It's part of the intelligence profession, the challenge of converting enemies to friends. Ideologically, we were separated, of course, and that made us enemies, but personally, we were friends, and the people I'm working with now are very nice people."

That's the kind of behind-the-scenes perspective that history and espionage buffs get when they take the SpyDrive, a 21/2-hour bus tour of D.C. sites associated with some of the city's most notorious spy cases. The drive is sponsored by the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, a nongovernmental center in Alexandria that provides counterintelligence and security training, education, and analysis for government agencies and private companies in the Washington area.

Gen. Kalugin, who came to the United States in the early 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union but is not a U.S. citizen, is a professor at the center. He is frequently a co-host for the monthly tours, often with David Major, co-founder of the CI Centre and a retired 24-year veteran of the FBI and the White House's National Security Council. They provide tourists with a real "Spy vs. Spy" first-person feel for the role espionage has played - and plays - in Washington's history.

But Cold War and espionage buffs don't have to settle for just one bus tour to get their fill of spy stories and history. Individuals hoping to build a Cold War Museum on the old Lorton prison grounds also run a monthly spy tour that visits many of the same sites as the SpyDrive does. Then there is the International Spy Museum, which will open downtown in July, showcasing many Cold War espionage artifacts, such as a lipstick-case pistol used by the KGB and a shoe transmitter used by the KGB and TV super agent Maxwell Smart.

It's safe to say that although the Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union a decade ago, in this city, at least, it lives on. Cold War nostalgia is in.

"There's tremendous interest, truly an unflagging interest, in the Cold War," Gen. Kalugin says.

The Cold War clearly lives on at Au Pied de Cochon, a 24-hour French restaurant in Georgetown that gained notoriety as the place where KGB spy Vitaly Yurchenko literally walked away from his CIA handlers in 1985 and re-defected back to Russia.

"He was a regular customer for about eight to 10 months," says Yves Courbois, the owner of Au Pied de Cochon at the time and now the restaurant's general manager.

"He would always come in and sit at the same table with two or three companions for protection, usually the FBI or CIA. He used to eat lobster or salmon, have a drink, and leave. That night, he came in around 11 o'clock, went to the back door and took off, like he was going to the bathroom. Nobody thought anything about it, we were so used to him being here."

Mr. Courbois says he had no idea who his regular guest was until he read the news reports the next day.

"We paid no attention up until then," he says. "It was a surprise to us."

Au Pied de Cochon is a stop along both spy tours, and a plaque on the wall of the restaurant and a display of newspaper articles commemorate the Yurchenko incident.

"I get Russian tourists who come in, and some people in the spy field, and they'll ask questions," he says. "It's very interesting."

Other stops on the SpyDrive include Chadwick's, the Georgetown restaurant where CIA officer Aldrich Ames gave to the Soviets names of those in the Soviet ranks who were spying for the United States; Dumbarton Oaks, the research library and gardens where Jonathan Pollard, a Naval intelligence analyst and Israeli spy, met with his handlers in the 1980s; and the ordinary blue mailbox at the corner of 37th and R streets, where Ames drew chalk marks to alert his Russian handlers when he had information for them.

The CI Centre's SpyDrive opened to the public in January 2001, after a couple of years of being offered to  government personnel who were in the center's teaching and training program. Eventually, Gen. Kalugin says, "someone thought, 'Why not extend the program to the general public and make it a commercial thing?'"

Gen. Kalugin says he was not surprised at the SpyDrive's popularity. The idea of hearing Cold War stories from participants - especially participants from both sides - has enormous appeal, he says.

The former Soviet officer has much to tell. As a chief of KGB political intelligence he ran several major spy rings out of the Soviet embassy here, including that of John Walker, a retired U.S. Navy warrant officer with top-secret crypto clearance who sold classified material to the Soviets for 18 years and seriously compromised U.S. defenses.

"People have been so interested," Gen. Kalugin says. "It's going to be interesting to anyone interested in real history as it happened, not from a textbook but behind-the-scenes action."

The tours have been so popular that the CI Centre recently added a SpyCruise to its programs, giving participants week-long exposure to the stories and tales told on the SpyDrive. The first SpyCruise went to the Caribbean and Mexico in mid-March, and plans are being made for more cruises.

Gen. Kalugin says the SpyDrive helps stress that espionage in Washington didn't die with the end of the Cold War, and, indeed, the more recent arrest of FBI Special Agent Robert Hanssen and the war on terrorism has reinforced the need for vigilance in the intelligence community.

"I always repeat that intelligence is a great civic duty," he says. "If you wish to protect our country and you want to use your resources, intellectual and otherwise, this is one of the best areas of human endeavor to do it. I want to encourage the young people who come on these tours to join the intelligence service."

In July, Cold War buffs' options will expand when the International Spy Museum opens on the 800 block of F Street. In addition to its collection of intriguing spy gadgets, such as a poison gas gun and a coat with a buttonhole camera, the museum will display historic photographs, interactive displays and other techniques to describe the art and skills of espionage.

Peter Earnest, the museum's executive director, figures the time, and certainly the place, are right for such a museum.

"We had one in San Francisco, but after two years it just didn't get off the ground," says Mr. Earnest, who has spent most of his 36 years with the CIA in its clandestine service. "But this one seems to have caught hold."

The museum has an impressive advisory board of directors, including William H. Webster, the former FBI and CIA director; former CIA Director Stansfield Turner; former Lt. Gen. Claudia J. Kennedy, the only woman to serve as deputy chief of staff for Intelligence in the Army; and Keith Melton, who owns one of the world's largest collections of espionage devices, weapons and equipment.

The museum will be as apolitical as possible, meaning artifacts and displays from all the world's spy and intelligence organizations will be involved. The KBG and Stasi, the former East German intelligence agency, are well represented.

The Spy Museum, Cold War Museum and CI Centre share plenty of talent and expertise. Gen. Kalugin serves on the board of directors of the Spy Museum, and Mr. Earnest is still a professor at the CI Centre and led SpyDrives for a while.

Cold War hot spots:

* Au Pied de Cochon, 1335 Wisconsin Ave. NW. 202/337-6400. The Georgetown restaurant where KGB spy Vitaly Yurchenko walked away from his CIA handlers in 1985 displays a plaque that commemorates the incident. Employees can probably point out where Yurchenko sat.

* Chadwick's Restaurant, 3205 K St. NW. 202/333-2565. In 1985, on the heels of Navy turncoat John Walker's arrest, CIA officer and Russian spy Aldrich Ames met here with KGB officers and handed over the names of 20 agents working for the United States in the Soviet Union. Ten were eventually executed.

* Dumbarton Oaks, 1703 32 St. NW. 202/339-6401. This beautiful 19th-century mansion and gardens, known for its library and research facility, was a meeting place for Jonathan Pollard, a U.S. Navy analyst and spy for the Israelis, and his handlers in the 1980s. Pollard was arrested by the FBI in 1985 outside the Israeli embassy in Cleveland Park.

* The Hiss house, 2905 P St. NW. Alger Hiss, a former State Department official, was convicted of perjury in 1950 for his dealings with Whittaker Chambers, who accused him of being a Soviet spy.

* Martin's Tavern, 1264 Wisconsin Ave. NW. 202/333-7370. This was a favored meeting place for Elizabeth Bentley, a former American Communist who broke with the party in the 1940s and revealed Soviet spy rings inside the U.S. government to Congress in 1948. Her testimony helped spark the "Red Scare" of the 1940s and '50s.

* The Mayflower Hotel, 127 Connecticut Ave. NW. 202/347-3000. Here Ames received his first payment from the KGB, for $50,000.

* R Street, Georgetown. Here, at 2920, is the former home of "Wild Bill" Donovan, director of the Office of Strategic Services, which later became the Central Intelligence Agency. Also on R Street is the house of Duncan Lee, an OSS officer who spied for the Soviets and was a descendant of Robert E. Lee. At the corner of 37th and R is the famous blue mailbox that Ames used to communicate with his Russian contacts. Ames would draw a chalk mark on the mailbox whenever he had top-secret documents to pass on at an agreed-upon "dead drop" location.

Ferreting Out Areas Where Moles Thrive

By Tynisa E. Trapps

Los Angeles Times

8 July 2001