An endovibrator (from other Greek: ἔνδον - inside + Latin; vibro - oscillate) is a listening device that does not require a power source and transmitter. Developed by the outstanding Soviet radio engineer L. S. Termen during his imprisonment in a Stalinist sharashka . In Western literature, the device is known as the "Item" ( Eng. The Thing ) [1] .
Content
- 1 principle of operation
- 2 Practical application
- 3 Literature
- 4 notes
- 5 Links
Principle of Operation
The basis of the endovibrator is a cylindrical cavity resonator tuned to external radiation of a certain frequency (most often in the range of 300 MHz). In this case, the own quarter - wave vibrator inside the resonator creates its own re-radiation field. When conducting conversations in a room, the intrinsic resonant frequency of the endovibrator also changes, which, in turn, affects the re-emission field, which becomes modulated by acoustic vibrations. An endovibrator can work only when it is irradiated by a powerful source at the resonator frequency, therefore it cannot be detected by such means of searching for radio bookmarks as a nonlinear locator , field indicator , etc. The exception is radio monitoring .
Practical Application
On August 4, 1945, a delegation of Soviet pioneers, under the pretext of celebrating the anniversary of the pioneer camp, Artek presented a gift to the US Ambassador Averell Harriman, who was invited to the celebration, as a “wooden sign of the US Press ” as a sign of friendship to an ally in the fight against fascism. The ambassador hung a gift on the wall in his office, not suspecting that an endovibrator was built inside [2] .
With the help of an endovibrator, the Soviet special services for 7 years listened to the residence of the US ambassador - Spaso House , located in the building of the Moscow historical mansion ( Eng. Spaso House ) [3] . During this time, 4 ambassadors were replaced, the interior of the cabinet changed more than once, but the wooden Large Seal invariably remained its main decoration.
The endovibrator was discovered by chance in 1951, when the radio operator of the British Embassy, which is located in Moscow 700 meters from the US Embassy, while scanning the ether, heard an English-language speech. Engineer Don Bailey, sent for verification, could not find the bug, suspecting that the Russians had turned off the device at that time. The endovibrator was finally discovered only in 1952, when the premises of the embassy were checked once again when the ambassador was changed [4] .
When in 1960 the USSR put to the UN Security Council the question of American espionage in connection with the incident with the U-2 plane , in response to this, the US representative to the UN showed the “Big Seal” with the transmitter from the ambassador’s office and urged the USSR not to dramatize the usual practice for intelligence services of both the USSR and the USA. In this regard, the American representative expressed the opinion that Khrushchev only used the incident with U-2 as an excuse for disrupting the Paris summit [5] .
Stored at the CIA Museum in Langley .
Literature
- Endovibrator // Eloquence - Yaya. - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1957. - P. 58. - ( Great Soviet Encyclopedia : [in 51 vols.] / Ch. Ed. B. A. Vvedensky ; 1949-1958, vol. 49).
Notes
- ↑ Operation "Armchair" . Website meduza.io (February 14, 2016). Date of treatment February 15, 2016.
- ↑ George F. Kennan, Memoirs, 1950-1963, Volume II (Little, Brown & Co., 1972), pp. 155, 156.
- ↑ Keith Melton, Vladimir Alekseenko . How the USSR spied on the USA
- ↑ The Thing . www.cryptomuseum.com. Date of treatment February 20, 2017.
- ↑ S / PV / 860