02x04 - Black Ops

[bunniefuu]

Tonight on "secrets declassified,"

black ops, secret missions
so daring and dangerous,

they were hidden for decades.

Sabotage leaves a New
York City icon scarred.

The blast was so powerful
that it leaves its Mark

on the statue of Liberty.

Ukraine mounts a
modern-day trojan horse attack.

It's the single worst
day for Russian air power

since world w*r ii.

And the allies cook up a daring black op

inside a n*zi munitions factory.

He is all alone with a
pile of baguette bombs.

These are the astonishing

and sometimes terrible
missions done by governments

and the people who work for them.

It's time to bring them to light.

World w*r ii created no shortage

of allied heroes, people who did

unbelievable things to
help defeat the Nazis.

But one U.S. officer's
black op is so extraordinary,

the government kept it
secret for over 60 years.

At the height of world
w*r ii, the brenner pass is

a vital supply route for Europe.

It's a 77-mile-long railway line

that carves through the Italian alps.

Over 24,000 tons of material per day

comes across brenner pass.

Absolutely critical for maintaining

a German force presence in Italy.

The allies try again and again

to b*mb key railway Bridges and tunnels

to shut down the pass.

But every time they get close,

their planes face a
torrent of anti-aircraft fire,

making this an incredibly costly mission.

The enemy trains thunder on

until one man proposes
a different solution.

Roderick "Steve" hall
is a U.S. army officer

in the 270th engineer combat battalion.

He has a unique knowledge
of the brenner pass

that no one else in
American uniform does.

Hall spent the 1930s
exploring the Italian alps,

skiing ravines, climbing glaciers,

and mapping out trails that
even locals didn't know about.

Hall believes his unique knowledge

of the brenner could help the allies.

Hall writes to the oss,

who are the predecessor of the CIA,

and makes a bold pitch.

He will parachute in
and take out the Bridges

that keep the German supplied in Italy.

The oss is initially reluctant to accept

because they have no
means of extracting him.

He then offers the checkmate of all,

which is that, well, if you drop me in,

you don't have to extract me.

I can live in hiding until the w*r is over.

It's this promise that convinces the oss

to back his plan.

The mission is codenamed
operation Mercury.

And his first target
under the brenner pass,

a key railway bridge near tolmezzo.

Things get off to a rocky start.

On August 2, 1944, hall and his team

board a halifax b*mber
bound for northern Italy.

Due to the heavily defended

airspace around brenner
pass, the plane is only able

to get within 85 miles
of the target bridge.

Hall and his men have to cross

one of the most rugged,
heavily patrolled terrains

in Western Europe on foot

with limited supplies
and no room for error.

Hall's bad luck doesn't end there.

When hall jumps, his
parachute lines get twisted,

sending him into a death roll.

He fights to untangle them.

And at the last second, they snap free.

Hall survives and finds his comrades.

Stranded deep in northern Italy

with no way back, they
push forward on foot.

After a brutal trek of nearly 100 miles,

hall and his team finally
reach their first target.

Hall scouts the bridge for weak points.

And the team packs in


plus 25 pounds of plastique,

wiring it all to the load-bearing columns

for maximum devastation.

At 1:30 A.M., hall triggers the expl*si*n.

Stone, steel, and wood
go flying in every direction.

And hall and his team
disappear into the night.

In a matter of seconds,

a vital German supply route is wiped out.

But hall isn't finished.

There are more Bridges on the list.

And after that blast, he's now got

every n*zi in the area on his tail.

German troops begin hunting them.

They're burning villages
trying to find this team.

Hall stays one step ahead,
relentless in his mission.

Over six months, the team
destroyed five more Bridges

and cut off three n*zi supply routes.

Now another threat closes in...

the deadly alpine winter.

By January 1945, hall has been

living outdoors for months.

Temperatures are regularly
dropping below freezing,

and hall now has frostbite on his feet.

His comrades are telling him that

he needs to rest, he needs to recover

from his exhaustion.

But he just won't stop.

Hall straps on his skis

and heads off to the next target.

This time, he doesn't return.

He's captured, tortured
during interrogation,

and dies in captivity.

For over 60 years,

hall's remarkable story stays buried.

Then in 2008, oss
historian Patrick k. O'Donnell

unearths it from a cache
of newly declassified files.

He hunts down hall's surviving comrades

and, piece by piece, rebuilds the story

of Roderick "Steve" hall,

an unknown hero
whose valor and sacrifice

is finally revealed.

Some black ops go boom.

Others barely make a sound.

To help end the Vietnam w*r,
the CIA green lights a mission

to wiretap a military hotline
using a helicopter so quiet,

the enemy never hears it coming.

It's 1971, and the Vietnam
w*r has been going on

full-tilt for six years.

The American public
is now putting pressure

on the government to end the w*r,

and troops are actually
starting to come home.

Peace talks are underway.

But president Nixon finds himself

in the middle of a diplomatic deadlock

that is just so absurd
that... and this is no joke...

after 10 weeks, the only thing
negotiators have agreed on

is the shape of the conference table.

Henry kissinger is Richard Nixon's

national security advisor.

Kissinger feels a concern
that the north Vietnamese

are not negotiating in good faith.

He turns to the CIA in the interests of

developing a more
accurate intelligence picture.

The CIA has learned that
about 15 miles from the city

of vinh, a single phone line carries

the north Vietnamese military's
most senior communications.

Laying a tap on this
line could hand Nixon.

Hanoi's playbook in real time.

But there's a catch.

The phone line runs about


Reaching it means flying a helicopter

deep behind enemy lines.

And this is further than
any covert flight of the w*r.

Very little about a helicopter is stealthy.

A conventional helicopter
can be heard for several miles.

Using one will blow the mission's cover

and also get the team shot down.

Somehow, the team
need to source a helicopter

that the enemy won't hear coming.

Enter the quiet one, a stealth helicopter

in the works at the
Pentagon's top research lab.

Instead of four rotor blades, it runs five.

It cuts down on the thump

that these rotor blades tend to make.

They also use oversized mufflers,

which soften the entire
exhaust signature.

At 400 feet, it registers just 71 decibels,

earning its title as the
world's quietest helicopter.

But quiet isn't the
same as combat-ready.

Landing in north Vietnam
would be catastrophic.

So the quiet one needs
to make a 300-mile

round trip without stopping.

The CIA modifies it with
a 500 horsepower engine,

twice the standard,

so it can fly long haul without refueling.

They also give the air crew

forward-looking infrared screens,

allowing these crews to
fly in complete darkness.

To top it off, the whole chopper is coated

head to toe in experimental
radar-absorbing black paint.

By October of 1971,
two prototypes are ready

and shipped to a secret
air base in Taiwan.

Now kissinger just needs

the right team for this black op.

The CIA wants to keep
this mission deniable

for the U.S. government.

So they sent in two
American helicopter pilots

to train the Taiwanese on
how to fly the stealth helicopter.

Training turns out to be a disaster.

The Taiwanese pilots
are told to push the aircraft

beyond what they're capable of.

One of the helicopters crashes
and is damaged beyond repair.

Down to their last quiet one,

the CIA upends its original plan.

By late 1972, the CIA has no choice.

The U.S. pilots will have to
fly the mission themselves.

So on December 6th,
they give the green light

for the most covert flight
of the entire Vietnam w*r.

The aircraft delivers the team to the bluff.

The team scramble off of it.

The aircraft then
quietly returned to the air.

Placing the wiretap
should be the easy part.

But there's a problem.

The telegraph Poles
are not made of wood

like they expected,
but they're of concrete.

The special climbing
gear they bought won't bite.

The commandos muscle
their way up the pole

by hand, which wastes precious time.

Undeterred, they reach that spot,

install the wiretap, scramble back down.

The quiet one descends in silence,

the commandos climb back aboard,

and they head for base.

A few weeks later, the Vietnam w*r

comes to an end when the
Paris peace accords are signed.

Many believe that the
intercept by the quiet one

gave kissinger the leverage that

he needed to close the deal.

While kissinger takes the spotlight,

the quiet one disappears
into CIA silence,

and its black ops mission is buried.

Then in 1982, historians Ken
con boy and James Morrison

start to piece together the truth

through hundreds of
interviews with those involved.

Over a decade later,

they reveal the full story to the world.

In the lead up to d-day,
the allies are scrambling

to knock out a n*zi
armament factory in France.

That's when they mix together

the perfect recipe for victory...



and 40 pounds of plastic expl*sive.

It's April of 1944, and
d-day is just weeks away.

The allied commanders
are working overtime

to weaken the German
defenses that they're going to face

when they invade normandy.

An important target is the
national munitions factory

that's located in Saint-médard-en-jalle,

just outside of Bordeaux.

The allies drop 268 tons of bombs

in an attempt to raze it to the ground.

But it's back up within days.

Knocking out a factory is not as simple

as it seems from the air.

So britain's wartime sabotage unit,

the soe, devise a black op...

send someone behind
enemy lines to blow it sky high.

It's a black op at its boldest,

high reward and high risk,

which is why britain
calls on an unlikely recruit,

a 20-year-old French aristocrat.

Robert de la rochefoucauld

is a young count from one of France's

oldest noble families.

He flees to britain once his father

is imprisoned by the Germans.

While in britain, he
learns of a new covert unit

known as the soe, or the
special operations executive.

They were formed by
Churchill for the purpose

of carrying out sabotage
missions in occupied Europe.

Robert arrives in britain

at the perfect time for the soe.

Their operatives on the continent

keep getting caught,
because they're given away

by their schoolboy French.

So they're looking to
recruit eager French exiles

to carry out sabotage missions.

Rochefoucauld is the perfect fit...

gung-h*, willing, French,

and desperate to avenge his family.

He's given the mission to take out

the munitions factory
at Saint-médard-en-jalle.

On may 7, 1944, rochefoucauld
and another soe agent

head to southwestern
France in two halifax bombers

loaded with weapons,
ammunition, and expl*sives.

The two men parachute
into the countryside,

where they link up
with the local resistance

and begin plotting how to take
down the Saint-medard plant.

Early surveillance reveals
the scale of the challenge.

The place is crawling with
guards who run regular patrols,

and they stop the workers at random

to make sure that none of
them are smuggling in expl*sives.

Then the team spots a way

for a native frenchman like
Robert to just walk right in.

Rochefoucauld observes that

the workforce in the factory,
they're French civilians,

and what that means is that
he has an opportunity now

to blend in.

He can pass for French
because he is French.

To convince the guards at the gate,

Robert has to look like a real employee.

So the team scour the
workers and eventually find

a close match, who,

desperate to stop the
Nazis, hands over his ID.

It's a major risk for both men, to be sure,

because being caught would
almost certainly mean death.

Getting Robert inside is one thing.


is a much bigger problem.

So the team looks for a
cover no guard would question.

They noticed that most workers

coming to the plant each morning...

carrying a baguette.

It might be possible to smuggle

small amounts of plastic
expl*sive inside baguettes.

In France, nothing raises less suspicion

than the humble baguette.

But how can you engineer it
into the perfect secret b*mb?

Robert needs a baguette
with the right structure

for concealing expl*sives.

So it's not as simple as just popping

over to the local bakery.

Any ordinary baguette

might be too dense to hollow out,

too brittle to hold a charge,

or too dry to seal up convincingly.

The team starts baking.

They shape dough around the cavity,

make it firm but make it pliable,

and then load it with plastic expl*sives

and seal it with a flour and water paste.

It's black ops by baking.

Now it just needs to fool the guards.

Robert starts out with a small amount

of plastic expl*sives,

which he smuggles past the guards,

knowing that if anything
looks out of place,

the entire operation is over.

He slips away just long enough

to plant the expl*sives at critical points

around the factory, including fuel tanks

and munition stores.

Once one a*tillery shell gets detonated,

it has enough expl*sive
power to detonate

all of the shells around it.

To trigger this chain
reaction, Robert needs to plant

a network of hidden expl*sives.

This means returning
to the factory every day

for an entire week.

Each baguette can only hold

a limited amount of expl*sives.

So Robert repeats the
mission over and over again.

And each visit carries the very real risk

of being caught.

By the end of the week, he's planted

eight baguette bombs in total,

enough to blow the factory to pieces.

It's may 20, 1944.

As thousands of workers
begin to exit the factory,

rochefoucauld hides
under a piece of machinery.

Robert moves quickly,

and he begins attaching
timers to the bombs.

But he knows that this
is incredibly dangerous,

because these devices don't
always work as predicted,

and they sometimes
set off the bombs early.

By 7:30, the last charge is armed,

leaving Robert less than


Robert finds himself trapped
inside the factory grounds

by an 18-foot wall,

but the resistance throws him a ladder.

He climbs up over the wall
and disappears into the night.

At 8:00...

The explosions begin...

Stripping the Germans
of crucial munitions

in the run up to d-day.

The secret mission remains secret

for decades after the w*r.

It's not until 2017,

when a journalist named
Paul kix publishes a book

that describes the
baguette b*mb incident.

The full story is finally revealed,

how a young frenchman pulled off

one of world w*r it's boldest black ops

with nothing more than nerve, ingenuity,

and a handful of baguettes.

The trojan horse is the original black op.

Back then, it was a wooden decoy

hiding elite Greek warriors.

Today, that kind of mission
comes with something

just as deadly... GPS and
a swarm of k*ller drones.

It's December of 2023,
and Russia's ground invasion

into Ukraine has come
to a bloody stalemate.

But in the skies, it's a different story.

Russia's tu-95s and
tu-22m3 b*mber planes

are raining missiles on Ukrainian cities

night after night, terrifying
the civilian population.

These cold w*r bombers
are almost impossible

for the Ukrainian air defenses to stop.

They're actually operating
inside Russian territory

and firing long-range
missiles into Ukraine.

To protect its citizens and infrastructure,

Ukraine needs these planes destroyed.

So its security service, the sbu,

hatches an extraordinary
plan to wipe out the whole fleet.

Its name, operation spiderweb.

Ukraine's plan is simple but bold...

destroy Russia's
bombers... not in the air,

but on the ground at their air bases.

The planes are parked in
neat rows on the tarmac.

They're minimally defended.

They are sitting ducks out there.

The problem is, these bombers are

thousands of miles
inside Russian territory.

So Ukraine has to find a way

to get to them and destroy
them, all undetected.

To do this, Ukraine plays to its strength.

Instead of using soldiers or missiles

to strike these planes,
it's going to use drones.

Since the start of the w*r,

the sbu has been turning $500 drones...

you know, the ones that
you might buy in a store...

into lethal weapons.

So now they're planning to
take this idea to a whole new level

using a swarm of drones
laden with expl*sives

to attack the Russian bombers.

The problem is that
regular store-bought drones

only work reliably over
very short distances.

If the sbu attempts to operate them

from thousands of miles
away inside of Ukraine,

the battery would die,

the signals would be
lost, and they would crash.

The sbu doesn't want to
send its own operatives

thousands of miles into enemy territory

to pilot the drones,
because if they're caught,

they will be ex*cuted.

That's when operation
spider web spins a new threat.

If pilots are a problem,

why not build a drone
that doesn't need one?

Ukraine's AI industry is

one of the most advanced in the world.

So the sbu turns to its top engineers

to develop a drone that can
fly without a remote signal.

By early 2025, they've cracked it...

an AI drone that can fly itself

without needing a human operator.

But to hit its target, this
smart drone has to learn

to recognize a Russian b*mber.

The breakthrough
comes when the sbu finds

old Soviet bombers in a
museum near central Ukraine

they can use to train the AI

without ever setting foot in Russia.

They photograph every panel, every rivet,

and every weak spot on the planes.

Hundreds of these photos

are fed into the AI's database...

Teaching the drones to recognize

the bombers from every angle.

Now the sbu has a fleet of k*ller

smart drones ready to fly.

But it still needs to get
them into Russian territory.

To pull this mission off, the sbu needs

to get nearly 120 drones, each carrying

roughly 1.6 kilos of expl*sive,

and they have to
smuggle them into Russia.

The drones are broken down into parts

and smuggled into Russia
by Ukrainian sleeper agents.

Here's where the real
ingenuity comes in.

The drones are disguised
in wooden sheds,

but not just any wooden sheds.

They're robotic.

They have remote-controlled roofs,

specially engineered
by Ukrainian operatives

in a top-secret warehouse.

With the push of a button,
the roof can slide back,

releasing the deadly swarm.

In an instant, this classified mission

would be revealed to the
enemy and the entire world.

It's may 31, 2025, and
the Ukrainian agents

hire four unsuspecting
Russian truck drivers

to deliver what they think
are ordinary wooden sheds

to different parts of the country.

The sbu tracks the trucks with GPS.

And when the drivers get
close to the Russian air bases,

suddenly, the drivers get these calls

telling them to stop.

Seconds later, the retractable roofs

of the sheds open, and
the AI-guided drones

take off into the air and
lock onto their targets,

the bombers.

That's when all hell breaks loose.

Bystanders filming have no idea

they're witnessing a coordinated attack.

This extraordinary drone footage

beams back into Ukraine,

and suddenly, social media goes wild,

with videos of truck drivers

trying to catch these drones

and black smoke billowing
from Russian air bases.

The cat's out of the bag.

Operation spiderweb is seen
by millions on social media

everywhere, a daring mission
declassified in real time.

More than a third of
Russia's b*mber fleet

is damaged or destroyed.

This cost the Russians
$7 billion or more.

It's clearly the worst
day for Russian aviation

since world w*r ii.

For generations, the statue of Liberty

has stood as a symbol
of hope and freedom.

But few know that, to this day,

lady Liberty bears battle wounds

from one of the most
devastating black ops

ever pulled off on U.S. soil.

It's 1915, and world
w*r I is raging in Europe.

The U.S. is officially neutral.

But in reality, a British naval blockade

is cutting Germany off
from American factories.

They keep churning out weapons,

but the only ships leaving U.S. ports

are bound for britain and France.

To even the field,
Berlin turns to sabotage.

The Germans decide that,
since they can't buy U.S. arms,

they're going to destroy them.

But this is a risky plan,
because if they're caught,

this could cause the U.S. to declare w*r.

Berlin needs saboteurs on the ground.

So it sends two agents to New York,

Kurt jahnke and lothar witzke.

Their first job is to identify a target.

And there is one standout option...

black Tom island in Jersey city.

It's one of the largest
munitions depots in the world.

The expl*sives are already in place.

The fuse just needs to be lit,

and a critical weapon
stockpile will be wiped out.

The only problem?

Pulling this off in the
city that never sleeps.

Black Tom sits opposite Manhattan,

just a stone's throw from crowded piers

and the statue of Liberty.

It's also lit day and night,
and it has guards on patrol.

So the saboteurs wait in the shadows,

until luck finally intervenes.

In July of 1916, a dock
strike erupts in Jersey city.

So security is stretched thin,

which means that black
Tom is back in play.

On the night of July 29th,

the German spies
finally make their move.

What happens next
doesn't become public

for over two decades.

Jahnke and witzke
head out on their mission.

They sneak across the
harbor out to black Tom island.

And when they get
there, they realize that

this is quite a labyrinth of railcars

packed with highly expl*sive munitions.

It's summer,

and the air is just filled with mosquitoes.

So guards huddle
around smoking oil pots

to fight them off.

It's the perfect distraction.

Jahnke and witzke move
silently through the site,

lighting small fires as they go.

The plan is simple but devastating,

and that is to light enough points

to set off a chain reaction

that would tear through the entire depot.

At midnight, they're actually able

to climb back aboard their rowboat

and slip away undetected.

At 2:08 A.M...

Black Tom erupts.

The blast sends a shock wave racing

at 24,000 feet per second.

Buildings suffered devastating damage

all along the harbor,

windows are blown out miles away,

and the expl*si*n registers
a 5.0 on the Richter scale.

No one knows who's behind it.

The case stays unsolved for years,

until investigators catch
an unexpected break.

In the 1930s, multiple
German intelligence agents

are captured by the United States.

And in an effort to gain
leniency for themselves,

they actually reveal the story

of the covert as*ault on black Tom island.

Despite this, the German saboteurs

are never punished by the
U.S. government or at home.

And lady Liberty, well,
she still bears the scars.

The blast was so powerful

that it mangled the
statue of Liberty's arm.

And it did it so badly that the torch

that the statue's arm is holding

has remained off limits
to tourists ever since.

In most spy stories, the
bug is hidden in a lamp

or a phone, maybe a potted plant.

In this one, the bug is the entire building.

In the 1970s,

the cold w*r tensions are
beginning to ease up a bit.

And so, as a gesture of
goodwill and cooperation,

the United States and
the Soviet union agree

that the U.S. can rebuild its
outdated Moscow embassy.

It's the largest construction project

the U.S. has ever attempted overseas,

an 8-story complex
spread across 10 acres

and boasting everything
from an auditorium

and classrooms to a garage, gym,

apartments, and 11 townhouses.

Washington sees an opportunity

to project power in the
heart of the Soviet union.

But the kremlin sees an opportunity

to spy on its biggest
rival in their own backyard.

Any project this big is chaos.

And chaos means
opportunity for the kgb.

They see it as the perfect chance

to bug the U.S. embassy

and turn it into a giant
eavesdropping device.

So the kgb plants
covert workers on the job.

But how do you bug
an embassy in a way

that's impossible for the U.S. to detect?

The Soviets build a full-scale mockup

of the U.S. embassy in a classified site

outside of Moscow.

Here, they rehearse the entire operation,

every bug perfected in private.

This is where their bugging transforms.

The Soviets decide that
they're not going to plant

their surveillance devices
in the normal places,

like in lamps and phones
and picture frames and such.

Instead, they're going to build it

into the very structure of the building...

inside the beams, inside the bricks.

Consider it architectural sabotage.

The result is that the Soviets

can hear you wherever you are.

It may be the walls listening to you.

It might be the floor listening to you.

It might be the door
frame listening to you.

Or perhaps it's all of the above.

There's no private, safe
space in the U.S. embassy.

Once they've perfected the operation,

the replica is dismantled piece by piece.

Bugged door frames, pillars,

even entire sections of hallway

are packed up and shipped to Moscow,

ready to be slotted into the real embassy.

November 22, 1979,
construction begins.

Ideally, this process will
be closely supervised.

But in practice, there's only, like,



observing what's going on.

As construction progresses,
the U.S. runs inspections.

They find nothing.

Then in 1980, for the Soviets, at least,

disaster strikes.

In 1980, a kgb major
named Victor sheymov

defects to the United States.

He brings with him a
wealth of intelligence

about Soviet surveillance ops,

including the bugging
of the U.S. embassy.

Sheymov warns the CIA
that the Soviets are embedding

sophisticated, nearly undetectable bugs

during construction.

He actually gives them
a chilling message.

He tells them, "you
won't have a single secret

in the building."

A kgb major is warning that

their brand-new embassy
is wired from top to bottom.

The CIA hears them out
and then does nothing,

convinced their
inspections have it covered.

The U.S. is so sure of

their own
counter-surveillance technology

that they think they'll spot any bug

the Soviets try to slip past them.

Construction in Moscow

continues for another five years.

And by 1985, the
embassy is 2/3 complete.

The U.S. continues
with routine inspections.

But with time comes better technology,

and suddenly, something shows up.

U.S. security teams notice radio waves

emanating out of the U.S. embassy.

And they're not quite sure what this is,

but it doesn't look good.

And what they discover is

a remarkably sophisticated
bugging system.

The U.S. finally realizes

it's been duped by its Soviet builders.

And the real kicker...
it paid them $55 million

for the privilege.

For years, the embassy
is frozen in limbo,

and inspections drag on.

Then in 1990, Victor
sheymov goes public

with one of the cold w*r's
biggest "I told you so's."

You worked in signals intelligence.

Can you tell us a little bit
about those operations?

Sheymov tells "the Washington post"

the CIA had been
warned 10 years earlier

but did nothing.

And more expense lies ahead.

Congress approves $240 million

to strip the building to
its skeleton and rebuild it,

but this time with
secured American labor.

Steel is melted, walls are torn down,

and the Soviet spy maze is
dismantled piece by piece.

By 2000, 21 years after work first began,

the new embassy finally opens...

bug-free, as far as we can tell.

The cold w*r's biggest booby trap

isn't hidden in a suitcase or a duffel bag.

It's buried in a few
lines of stolen software.

And when it goes off, it triggers

a devastating expl*si*n.

In the 1980s, the U.S. is the
world leader in technology.

From advanced computers
to cutting-edge software,

no other nation comes close.

The Soviets have been struggling

for years to keep up with United States

technology developments.

And the solution that they
come up with is espionage.

They're stealing western
tech on a scale that is massive.

This dependence on stolen tech

has left them lagging behind,

and now the Soviets are
missing some key software

to build a major gas pipeline.

The new pipeline is desperately needed,

because falling oil prices

has wiped out the Soviets'
main source of income.

So they really need to
develop new sources of revenue.

The Soviet economy is
very reliant on oil and gas.

But prices have been dropping

over their very high
levels from the 1970s.

And at the same time,
the Soviets are running out

of new sources of oil and gas.

So they're looking for, like,
where can we find more?

Where is their natural gas
that we haven't tapped yet?

The Soviets decide to
build a 3,000-mile-long

pipeline to bring natural gas

from Siberia to czechoslovakia.

The export of this gas

is extraordinarily important to Moscow.

It may be worth upwards
of $30 billion to them.

And that's U.S. dollars.

That's hard currency.

The Soviets need special software

to run the pipeline's pumping stations.

Without it, the system fails.

And of course, it's
technology that they don't have.

So naturally, they look to the U.S.

And a plan to steal it.

What they don't realize
is that this mission

has been leaked to the white house.

Newly-elected President Ronald Reagan

is handed a intelligence report

that's coming from a
recent Soviet defector.

The report is 4,000 pages long,

and it starts to detail this Soviet operation

targeting U.S. technology.

Known as the farewell dossier,

the report even includes
a list of U.S. technologies

the Soviets still need,

including the gas pipeline software.

Reagan's first instinct

is to expose the whole operation,

but one advisor sees an opportunity.

Gus weiss is a national security advisor.

He's worked with four presidents

as well as the CIA and NASA.

And his specialty is strategic deception.

Instead of shutting down
the flow of stolen secrets,

what if the U.S. turned
the tables on the Soviets

and fed them doctored
software that could wreak havoc?

It's the perfect booby trap.

One stolen program could sabotage

the entire gas pipeline.

So Reagan uses the farewell dossier

to set the plan in motion.

The dossier reveals that the Soviets

planned to steal the software

from a single company in Canada.

With help from Canadian intelligence,

the U.S. is able to plant
bugs in the pipeline software

before the Soviets steal it.

The Soviets install the code,

unaware it's been doctored.

Over time, it slowly
corrupts the pressure controls

of the pipeline, causing havoc.

What happens next
is still fiercely debated.

In June of 1982, a section
of the siberian pipeline

explodes in a massive ball of flames.

Millions of dollars' worth
of Soviet infrastructure

is destroyed in an instant.

The truth stays hidden
for more than a decade...

Until 2004, when former
U.S. air force secretary

Thomas c. Reed makes an
expl*sive claim in his memoir.

Reed alleges the CIA weaponized

stolen Soviet software, lines of code,

the stuff of spreadsheets and keyboards,

triggering a fireball visible from space.

From baguette bombs

to drones hidden in backyard sheds,

black ops evolve with every era.

But even the darkest
missions ultimately get revealed.