Operation Silver (1949)

Operation Silver was a British intelligence operation in Allied-occupied Austria which ran from 1949 to 1955 that covertly tapped into the landline communications of the Soviet Army headquarters in Vienna. Although the operation was considered a success, the details of it were passed on to the KGB in October 1953 by George Blake, a British double agent.[1]

This article is about 1949 wiretapping operation. For 2007 operation in Afghanistan, see Operation Silver (2007).

The British monitoring station was disguised as a shop that sold tweed clothing. The operation ended only when Austria regained full sovereignty in 1955.

In 1951, when the American CIA planned a similar operation in Berlin, the British revealed Operation Silver to the Americans and the two countries then jointly ran Operation Gold, an operation to tap into landline communication of the Soviet Army headquarters in Berlin using a tunnel into the Soviet-occupied zone. Blake had also informed the Soviet authorities about Operation Gold in its very beginning, and they "discovered" the tunnel in 1956.

See also
  • Operation Gold - a more complex phone tapping operation in post WWII Berlin against the soviets

References
  1. Corera, Gordon (2011). MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service (1st ed.). W&N. pp. 46–47. ISBN 978-0297860990.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.