The Berlin Tunnel Read online

  CENTRAL

  INTELLIGENCE

  AGENCY

  Extracts from a CIA Report titled: The Berlin Tunnel*

  *https//www.CIA/gov/library/center for the study of intelligence/books and monographs/On the Front Line of the Cold War/ Documents on the Intelligence War in Berlin, 1946-1961. Document V—the Berlin Tunnel

  No single operation more typifies Berlin’s importance as a strategic intelligence base than the construction of the Berlin Tunnel. Probably one of the most ambitious operations undertaken by the CIA in the 1950s, it succeeded despite the fact that the KGB knew about the operation even before construction of the tunnel began!

  The genesis of the tunnel operation lay in Berlin’s location in Europe and its prewar status as the capital of a militarily and economically dominant Germany. The largest city on the Continent, Berlin lay at the center of a vast network of transportation and communications lines that extended from Western France to deep into Soviet Russia and Eastern Europe. This was still true in the 1950s; Soviet telephone and telegraph communications between Moscow, Warsaw, and Bucharest wererouted through Berlin….This became became a factor of crucial importance beginning in 1951 when the Soviets began to shift from wireless communications to encrypted landlines for almost all military traffic….encrypted messages as well as nonsecure voice communications.

  Thus was born the idea of tunneling into the Soviet sector of Berlin to tap into Soviet military communications [known to insiders as Operation Gold]….By August 1953, detailed plans for the tunnel were completed, and a proposal was drawn up for approval by DCI Allen Dulles. After much discussion, this was obtained on 20 January 1954.

  Having learned the location of the underground cables used by the Soviets from an agent inside the East Berlin post office, the Altglienicke district was selected as the best site for a cable tap…The tunnel itself was completed a year later, at the end of February 1955, and the taps were in place and operating shortly thereafter.

  In all, about 40,000 hours of telephone conversations were recorded, along with 6,000,000 hours of teletype traffic. Most of the useful information dealt with Soviet orders of battle and force dispositions—information that was invaluable in the days before reconnaissance satellites….Unfortunately, the whole operation was blown even before the DCI approved the project. On 22 October 1953, US intelligence officers briefed a British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) audience that included KGB mole, George Blake.

  Although the KGB was aware of the potential importance of the tap, its first priority was to protect Blake. Early in 1956, the Soviets developed a plan whereby the tap would be “accidentally” discovered….On the night of 21-22 April 1956, a special signal corps team….penetrated the tunnel in the full glare of a well-organized publicity coup.

  The above extract describes the first time that US Intelligence Agencies built a tunnel into Soviet-controlled East Berlin. This is a fictional account of the building of a second tunnel in 1960-1961 during the period of the closing of the Berlin Wall and the Berlin Crisis.

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  The Berlin Tunnel—A Cold War Thriller

  First Edition

  Copyright © 2018 Roger Liles

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from the author.

  This story is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  LCCN: 2018039198

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-947392-27-4

  Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-947392-28-1

  Published by Acorn Publishing LLC

  West Columbia, South Carolina, 29172

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  “In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger.”

  John F Kennedy’s Inaugural Address —January 20, 1961

  Author’s Notes:

  As the citation from President Kennedy’s inaugural address states, the world in the early 1960’s was a perilous place. The Russians possessed the hydrogen bomb. Both the U.S.A and U.S.S.R. had settled on a policy of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD)—if you strike us with nuclear weapons, we will retaliate in kind. Everyone realized that both Russia and America, perhaps even the whole world, would cease to exist if an all-out nuclear war occurred.

  In reaction, Americans built fallout shelters in their backyards, confident that Armageddon was imminent. The communists dominated most of Europe and Asia. The space race was on—spectacular Russian feats contrasted with a string of failures on the part of the U.S.A.

  By 1960, the Warsaw Pact countries enjoyed a five-to-one advantage in conventional forces in Europe. President Dwight Eisenhower frequently declared that, if the Russians attacked Western Europe, he’d employ tactical nuclear weapons to prevent them from overrunning our allies and American forces stationed in Europe.

  Since 1958, the Russians repeatedly threatened to sign a separate peace treaty with the East Germans. Such a treaty would recognize East Germany’s right to incorporate all of Berlin into a sovereign country. The Russians, utilizing the United Nations and other international forums, inflamed world opinion in support of this planned action. Their saber rattling threatened a crisis, even war, if the West did not capitulate on this issue.

  Since the two million West Berliners relied on the two-way flow of virtually everything, the constant communist threat of another Berlin Blockade was especially compelling.

  In the mid-1950s, the American CIA and British Secret Intelligence Service (MI-6) dug a tunnel and tapped into a buried communication cable located in East Berlin. The frontispiece of this novel contains a one-page excerpt from a CIA report, which describes that monumental feat. More details about that Berlin Tunnel—PROJECT GOLD/STOPWATCH—are available on the internet.

  As far as the author can determine, a second tunnel was never built in Berlin during the Cold War. I’m sure that, at many levels of the American government, it was contemplated. You can almost hear someone say, “All that valuable intelligence is readily available, if only…”

  This is a fictionalized account of how a second tunnel might have been built by the Americans. It is based on real events and seeks to recall a time—1960/1961—and a place, a divided Berlin before, during, and after the dramatic events that surrounded the closing of the Wall and the Berlin Crisis.

  The conditions and events that occurred on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and which divided Berlin, are faithfully recreated. The characters are the product of the author’s imagination. The leaders of this period are quoted, and one is included in the story as a character for dramatic purposes.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to the estimated fifty million American citizen soldiers who, like Cincinnatus, selflessly served their country in the fight against Commu
nism between the conclusion of World War II and the end of the Cold War. As a result of their efforts, the communist grip on the countries of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union ended in the last decade of the twentieth century.

  Those Cold War warriors, and the individuals who served in the “Hot Wars” in Korea and Vietnam, deserve the recognition often withheld when they returned home after their service.

  Finally, this book is dedicated to those American servicemen and women ‘who gave the last full measure’ in death or disability during this period.

  Prologue

  Robert

  April 14, 2010

  My quest intensified after an internet search revealed that after fifty years, the code word LUMAR had been declassified. In the months that followed, I spent time each day on Google as I searched for additional information.

  My eleven-year-old grandson Jonathan recently helped me set up a Google Alert to automatically inform me when someone posted something new. My search terms included Berlin Tunnel, U.S. Air Force, and, of course, Project LUMAR.

  Following my regular routine, after lunch I checked my email account. Startled, I discovered my first alert. When I opened the URL and the subject document, a familiar page jumped out at me from my computer screen. Shocked, I pushed back my chair and sat frozen in place. I finally caught my breath, and shouted, “Well, I’ll be damned!”

  Anna rushed from her nearby potting studio, gasping, “Are you okay, liebchen?”

  “Come here! Come around so you can see what I’ve found!”

  “I thought you were having another heart attack or something.”

  “No! No!” I pointed. “Look! Look here! The construction plan I wrote in Berlin almost fifty years ago. It’s on the internet!”

  She moved behind me, smoothed an errant tuft of my thinning gray hair into place. She put both hands on my shoulders, bending forward for a better view.

  I felt her stiffen. She moved her hands to my throat, pretending to choke me. “So is this what you’ve hidden from me all these years!”

  Knowing I’d opened an old wound, I turned to face her. “There was a reason I couldn’t tell you. An important reason.”

  “What might that be?”

  “I signed a non-disclosure agreement with the American government.” I raised my hands in mock surrender. “I could have gone to prison for thirty years for the unauthorized disclosure of information about Project LUMAR, the program I managed.”

  Her face softened. She put her arms around me. “Robbie, if you’d told me about that agreement, I wouldn’t have pressed you so hard for information or been so hurt that you wouldn’t trust me.”

  “I was even ordered not to tell anyone about the non-disclosure agreement,” I explained. I felt both relieved and exhilarated that, at last, I could share this secret with Anna, my wife and best friend of almost fifty years.

  I’d suppressed thoughts about the Top Secret construction program in Berlin, but the old visceral reaction persisted. Perhaps this once highly classified information could still be used by our former enemies, although they no longer existed. East Germany and their Secret Police, the Stasi, as well as the Soviet Union and its KGB, had passed into the history books many years earlier.

  Anna kissed the top of my head. “From the start of our relationship, I knew you were hiding something important, but I trusted you and believed you would tell me one day. I helped you with the charade, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, despite everything that happened to you—to both of us, you helped to preserve my cover. I wouldn’t have succeeded without your support every step of the way, Anna.” I stood to give her a heartfelt hug and kiss.

  “So now that this information is on the internet, you can tell me everything. I’ve always wanted to know the complete story.”

  Anna deserved to know why she’d been the target of Stasi harassment and torture. I positioned her chair next to mine. “Let’s read this report together. Then you’ll finally learn what my construction crew and I were doing in Berlin.” Holding her hand to reassure her, I continued. “See the original classifications on the top and bottom of my plan? TOP SECRET RESTRICTED DISTRIBUTION/US EYES ONLY and the caveat PROJECT LUMAR.”

  “All of those lines have been crossed out,” she observed. “What does that mean?”

  “First, twenty years ago, the document was reclassified to SECRET. You can see that word was also lined through and dated. Last year, a large rubber stamp was used to declare the document I generated officially UNCLASSIFIED.”

  “Early in our relationship, I realized that those communist bastards in the Stasi were making every effort to uncover your secret. My distinct impression was that you, Scott, Mark, and Kurt were dedicated to whatever you were doing. Because I trusted you, I hid my disappointment at being kept in the dark and did my best to help every step of the way.”

  “Yes, you did! There was an excellent reason I couldn’t tell you or anyone what I was doing. If one of the thousands of communist spies who entered West Berlin every day, or their myriad operatives at every level of German society, heard just one word, the whole game would have been over. The communists would have enjoyed another major victory.”

  “What one word, for heaven’s sake?” she asked, clearly intrigued.

  “TUNNEL. Upon hearing that one word, the Russians and East Germans would have immediately begun a concerted search on both sides of the border between East and West Berlin. They would have discovered where we were digging and then used every means, including force, to sabotage my project.”

  “I knew there was a tunnel!” Anna insisted. “During family reunions, our nieces and nephews still talk about your amazing tunnel. But you always avoid those conversations. You’ve even refused to confirm such a structure existed. Finally, you’ll be able to share the part you played in the building of that tunnel.”

  “Yes…Yes, I can!” So many memorable events, I realized. The closing of the Berlin Wall, the Berlin Crisis, and the Tunnel. Memories of those fifteen months came rushing back, as if they’d happened only yesterday. Now, I could share it all with Anna. “Where should I start? The day I arrived in Berlin. Let’s see it was October….October 11, 1960….As the aircraft began its descent….”

  Table of Contents

  Author’s Notes:

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Part Two

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

&
nbsp; Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Part Three

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  Chapter 121

  Chapter 122

  Chapter 123

  Chapter 124

  Chapter 125

  Chapter 126

  Chapter 127

  Chapter 128

  Chapter 129

  Chapter 130

  Chapter 131

  Chapter 132

  Chapter 133

  Chapter 134

  Chapter 135

  Chapter 136

  Chapter 137

  Chapter 138

  Chapter 139

  Chapter 140

  Chapter 141

  Chapter 142

  Chapter 143

  Chapter 144