...The discovery of a “shoe bug” then prompted SY (US State Department - Division of Security) to modify its ACRs (Acoustic Conference Room)...In 1969, Harry G. Barnes, Jr., Deputy Chief of Mission in Bucharest, Romania, called a classified conference, which met in the “bubble.” SY officer
Lou Grob was monitoring the meeting from another room and heard the conversation. He immediately informed the Administration Officer (the RSO’s superior) that there was a bug in the ACR. After searching, they found something resembling
Don Adams’s “shoe phone” from the 1960s television series Get Smart!--the bug was located in the heel of Barnes’s shoe.
Barnes had had the butler take his shoes out to be modified, and someone had installed the bug in the process. After this incident, SY officers covered ACRs with Reynolds plastic wrap to reduce the radiation of low-power devices such as shoe bugs until the proper security modifications could be made.
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