![]() ![]() Unlike on the East Coast, foreign intel operations here aren’t as focused on the hunt for diplomatic secrets, political intelligence or war plans. ![]() And even more worrisome, many of its targets are unprepared to deal with the growing threat.įog overtakes the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. In fact, they warn-especially because of increasing Russian and Chinese aggressiveness, and the local concentration of world-leading science and technology firms-there’s a full-on epidemic of espionage on the West Coast right now. intelligence officials, that’s true today more than ever. We tend to think of espionage in the United States as an East Coast phenomenon: shadowy foreign spies working out of embassies in Washington, or at missions to the United Nations in New York dead drops in suburban Virginia woodlands, and surreptitious meetings on park benches in Manhattan’s gray dusk.īut foreign spies have been showing up uninvited to San Francisco and Silicon Valley for a very long time. “What,” he replied, “You didn’t expect me to come?” The undercover FBI agents, who knew the whole affair had turned farcical, greeted the Soviet counterintelligence chief. The two Soviet intelligence operatives walked into the office room. The operation, Smith knew, was over-the presence of the Soviet spy boss meant that the FBI’s target had reported the meeting to his superiors-but they had to go through with the meeting anyway. FBI surveillance teams reported that he was being accompanied by a Russian diplomat known to the FBI as the head of Soviet counterintelligence in San Francisco. “Come meet us again.” He agreed.īut the second time, the suspected intel officer wasn’t alone. “We can offer your full claim,” Smith told the man. The goal was to compromise him with repeated payments, then to turn him. When they discovered that a known Soviet spy, operating under diplomatic cover, had filed a claim, Smith and several other bureau officials posed as federal employees disbursing relief funds to meet with the spy. Bush.įBI counterintelligence saw an opening, recalled Rick Smith, who worked on the Bureau’s San Francisco-based Soviet squad from 1972 to 1992. And local Soviet spies, just like many other denizens of the Bay Area, applied for their share of the nearly $3.5 billion in relief funds allocated by President George H.W. Sixty-three people were killed and thousands injured. Freeway overpasses shuddered and collapsed, swallowing cars like a sandpit. The powerful Loma Prieta earthquake, the most destructive to hit the region in more than 80 years, felled entire apartment buildings. SAN FRANCISCO-In the fall of 1989, during the Cold War’s wan and washed-out final months, the Berlin Wall was crumbling-and so was San Francisco. Zach Dorfman is senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. ![]()
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