The Hero of Watergate - Security Guard, Frank Wills ...his sad story.

Frank Wills - Security Guard
The Hero of Watergate

A native of Savannah, Georgia, Wills moved to Washington D.C. in 1971. He took an $80. per week job as a security guard with a company called GSS manning the midnight-to-7 a.m. shift at the Watergate office complex.

Wills' claim to fame...
Wills (24 years old) stumbled upon a "third-rate burglary" taking place in an office leased to the Democratic National Committee.

In the early morning of June 17, 1972, while making rounds, he noticed a piece of adhesive tape covering the door latch on a door between the basement stairwell and the parking garage. Wills suspected the cleaning crew (they left earlier) had taped over the door latch to prevent it from locking. He removed the tape and went on with his duties.

Meanwhile… James McCord, the leader of the buglers and a former CIA employee, noticed the tape was missing. Rather than calling off the intrusion, he just re-taped the door.

Wills made his rounds again – at approximately 1:55 am – and saw the tape had been replaced. It was not the cleaning crew! Wills called the police.

If Wills had not performed his security guard duties diligently, there probably would not have been a Watergate scandal.

The result... Eavesdropping alters American history, and a president resigns.

Washington DC police arrested five men wearing surgical gloves and carrying bugging equipment in the sixth-floor offices of the Democratic National Committee.

Recognized...
Wills received recognition for his efforts. He received an awards from the Democratic Party and Southern Christian Leadership Conference (the Martin Luther King Award - its highest honor). He played himself in the movie "All the President's Men" starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman - written by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

For a while, he was sought after by the Washington press corps. Attorney Dorsey Evans was his agent. Reporters were charged as much as $300 for interviews. Some paid. Plans were made for him to lecture, but were abandoned as his 15 minutes of fame waned.

Forgotten...
In 1973 - he left GSS due to their unwillingness to provide paid vacations. He had trouble finding full-time employment after that. In the Washington Post he was quoted as saying... "I don't know if they are being told not to hire me or if they are just afraid to hire me." By the late 70's, he had moved in with his ailing mother.

In 1983 Wills was sentenced to a year in prison for shoplifting – a pair of sneakers.

On the 25th anniversary of the break-in (1997) Wills was bitter. In a Boston Globe interview, he said: "I put my life on the line. If it wasn't for me, Woodward and Bernstein would not have known anything about Watergate. This wasn't finding a dollar under a couch somewhere."

Gone...
Frank Wills died broke on September 27, 2000 at age 52 in a hospital in Augusta, Georgia. Brain tumor.

Bob Woodward said, "He's the only one in Watergate who did his job perfectly."

50 Years Ago Today – Watergate

The full story is here.

Watergate Break-In 50th Anniversary Video

Former Counsel and staff of the Senate Watergate Committee, along with the special prosecutors, lawyers and journalists who played a role in the political scandal, mark the 50th anniversary of the break-in. video

Spend the night at the Watergate

7 Movies to Watch on the 50th Anniversary of Watergate

Just coincidence? 

You decide.

“History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” This observation, attributed to Mark Twain, is particularly apt as the 50th anniversary of the “third rate burglary” at the Democratic National Committee’s Watergate building office that led to the only resignation of a US President, coincides with the 2022 televised hearings of the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.

50 years of Watergate in pop culture (podcast - 28 minutes)

Watergate related news the Security Scrapbook has followed over the years.

When New York City Was a Wiretapper’s Dream

by Brian Hochman, Director of American Studies and Associate Professor of English, Georgetown University

On February 11, 1955, an anonymous tip led two New York Police Department detectives and two New York Telephone Company investigators to an apartment on the fourth floor of a residential building at 360 East 55th Street in midtown Manhattan. 

In the back bedroom of the unit, the group discovered a cache of stolen wiretapping equipment that turned out to have direct lines into six of New York City’s largest telephone exchanges: PLaza 1, 3, and 5; MUrray Hill 8; ELdorado 5; and TEmpleton 8. 

The connections blanketed an area of Manhattan running from East 38th Street to East 96th Street, a swath of the city’s most expensive real estate.

“There wasn’t a single tap-free telephone on the east side of New York,” professional wiretapper Bernard Spindel remarked of the arrangement. (Spindel was in all likelihood the source of the anonymous tip.) News of the discovery made the front page of the New York Times a week later. more

A History of Wiretapping in the United States

A podcast by, Brian Hochman, Director of American Studies and Associate Professor of English, Georgetown University

Our privacy was not first invaded by J. Edgar Hoover. They’ve been listening in for far longer than that. Wiretapping is nearly as old as electronic communications. Telegraph operators intercepted enemy messages during the Civil War. Law enforcement agencies were listening to private telephone calls as early as 1895. Communications firms have assisted government eavesdropping programs since the early 20th century―and they have spied on their own customers, too. 

Such breaches of privacy once provoked outrage, but today most Americans have resigned themselves to constant electronic monitoring. How did we get from there to here? 

Hochman explores the origins of wiretapping in military campaigns and criminal confidence games, and tracks the use of telephone taps in the U.S. government’s wars on alcohol, communism, terrorism, and crime. more

A History of Wiretapping in the United States

Our privacy was not first invaded by J. Edgar Hoover. They’ve been listening in for far longer than that. 

Wiretapping is nearly as old as electronic communications. Telegraph operators intercepted enemy messages during the Civil War. Law enforcement agencies were listening to private telephone calls as early as 1895. Communications firms have assisted government eavesdropping programs since the early 20th century―and they have spied on their own customers, too. Such breaches of privacy once provoked outrage, but today most Americans have resigned themselves to constant electronic monitoring. 

How did we get from there to here? Hochman explores the origins of wiretapping in military campaigns and criminal confidence games, and tracks the use of telephone taps in the U.S. government’s wars on alcohol, communism, terrorism, and crime... more

Letterlocking: How Secrets Were Kept Before Gummed Envelopes

Mary, Queen of Scots used a "spiral locking" technique to seal the last letter she wrote before her execution, indicating that she wanted the contents to remain secret, according to research published in the Electronic British Library Journal.

An example of letterlocking -- where people doubled letters as envelopes to ensure the security of a document -- the fallen monarch used a spiral locking process to seal a message that was "a last will and testament and a bid for martyrdom," the research published on Friday says.

Letterlocking was used widely throughout early modern Europe, and was an essential process of ensuring the security of letters before mass-produced gummed envelopes were manufactured in the 19th-century

It played a crucial role in the "history of secrecy systems," enabling "global correspondence in the early modern period as fundamentally as computer coding underpins digital communication today," the research paper says. more

History: Beverly Hills Spy

How a WWII-Era James Bond Betrayed the Allies

To his glamorous friends in Hollywood, Frederick Rutland was a dashing British war hero and a fixture of L.A. high society. To his Japanese handlers, he was Agent Shinkawa, an asset who provided critical intelligence in the lead-up to Pearl Harbor...

Rutland wasn’t the cloak-and-dagger type — he was one of the best known, and most well-liked, figures in L.A. society circles. “Squared jaw; well poised; highly intelligent; good personality; modest; gives appearance of affluence and breeding,” read the 300-page FBI dossier on Rutland, which was only recently declassified. more

TSCM History - 17 Years Ago Today - Sergio (Sarge) Borquez

via Rick Hoffmann...

   I am sorry to report the passing of Sergio (Sarge) Borquez at
approximately 4:30 a.m. on April 20, 2004.  Sarge died of heart failure.

   For those who did not have the pleasure of knowing him, Sarge was one of
the early TSCM professionals.  He joined the Drug Enforcement Agency
shortly after separating from the U.S. Army where he served with the 101st
Airborne (if I recall correctly) during the Korean Conflict.  While with
the DEA he studied technical surveillance and became a specialist.  At one
time Sarge was in charge of providing technical surveillance in the 7
western states.  He was also responsible for installing the DEA's very
first wiretap.  There is a photo of Sarge climbing a telephone pole to
reach the ready access boot to install the tap.  It is a terrific picture.

   Sarge was a humble man who did not discuss his exploits with many
people.  I am privileged to have known him, and to have benefited by his
instruction.  He will be missed  by all who knew him. 

Spy History: The CIA Heart Attack Gun

You can say that the gun looks like a toy at best, especially with that ridiculous scope, but from the descriptions of the American senator Franck Church, the weapon is scary, to say the least, even to today’s standards.

The CIA needed a weapon to take care of the targets on their blacklist without living any sort of trace that would bring up suspicions in the media. One of the hot targets was Fidel Castro, the Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976. Killing people from a distance was the go-to choice, but every bullet can be traced back. Getting too close to the target would risk the agent being compromised.

This is why the CIA gave the task of creating a new secret weapon to Mary Embree. Embree started working at the CIA as a secretary in the audio surveillance department. With time she got promoted to the technical services department where she was asked specifically to research a new poison that would induce a heart attack on its victim but undetectable in a post-mortem verification.

The technical team came up with a gun that would shoot poisoned projectiles that would dissolve inside the target and induce a heart attack which would be undetectable upon post-mortem. Embree wasn’t able to confirm if the gun was used to assassinate someone, but she did confirm that animals, as well as prisoners, were used to test the weapon.

To explain the strange scope on top of the weapon, besides being a pistol, the gun had had the ability to shot the poisoned projectile from 100 meters with good accuracy, hence the scope. more

Spy History: KGB Spy in 1961 Used X-Ray to Crack U.S. Top-Secret Lock

In late 1961 [Robert Lee Johnson] received the top-secret clearance and was admitted into the vault as a clerk. At long last the KGB was in. […] Over the following weeks the infiltration began in earnest as he successfully copied the vault keys using clay molds supplied by KGB operatives. 

In October of 1961 he received a specially manufactured X-ray device from Moscow that he was instructed to place over the final lock in the vault; KGB technicians could then deduce what combination unlocked the vault by studying the cogs inside the locking mechanism...

On 15 December 1962, Johnson accessed the vault for the first time and looted its contents. The operation, extensively rehearsed beforehand, went exactly as planned and by 03:15 the following morning some of America’s most sensitive cryptographic and military information⁠—some of it classified higher than top secret⁠—was on its way to Moscow. more

Spymaster’s Prism by Jack Devine (book)

In Spymaster’s Prism the legendary former spymaster Jack Devine details the unending struggle with Russia and its intelligence agencies as it works against our national security. 

Devine tells this story through the unique perspective of a seasoned CIA professional who served more than three decades, some at the highest levels of the agency. He uses his gimlet-eyed view to walk us through the fascinating spy cases and covert action activities of Russia, not only through the Cold War past but up to and including its interference in the Trump era. Devine also looks over the horizon to see what lies ahead in this struggle and provides prescriptions for the future.

Based on personal experience and exhaustive research, Devine builds a vivid and complex mosaic that illustrates how Russia’s intelligence activities have continued uninterrupted throughout modern history, using fundamentally identical policies and techniques to undermine our democracy. He shows in stark terms how intelligence has been modernized and weaponized through the power of the cyber world.

Devine presents his analysis using clear-eyed vision and a repertoire of better-than-fiction spy stories, giving us an objective, riveting, and candid take on U.S.-Russia relations. He offers key lessons from our intelligence successes and failures over the past seventy-five years that will help us determine how to address our current strategic shortfall, emerge ahead of the Russians, and be prepared for what’s to come from any adversary. more

• Hardcover : 304 pages
• ISBN-10 : 1640123784
• ISBN-13 : 978-1640123786
• Item Weight : 1.74 pounds
• Dimensions : 5.98 x 9.02 inches
• Publisher : Potomac Books (March 1, 2021)
• Language: : English

 

Antonio Prohías - 100th Anniversary of his Birth

Antonio Prohías arrived in New York in May of 1960 with just $5 in his pocket, pressured to leave Cuba after Fidel Castro accused him of being a CIA agent.

It took a Cuban illustrator to really capture the essence of Cold War intelligence and counter-intelligence for the MAD-reading public. After penning one too many cartoons that were critical of Fidel Castro, Prohías — who was a prominent cartoonist and illustrator in his home country — headed for New York, writes Eric Grundhauser for Atlas Obscura. At the time, he didn’t speak a word of English.

“In New York, Prohías took work in a factory during the day, while working up his illustration portfolio at night,” Grundhauser writes. He changed the appearance of one of his characters from the strip he published in Cuba, El Hombre Siniestro, and gave him a counterpart: Spy vs. Spy was born. 

“The sweetest revenge has been to turn Fidel’s accusation of me as a spy into a moneymaking venture,” Prohías said in a 1983 interview with the Miami Herald. “One of these days I am going to have to make a sign saying, ‘Thank You, Fidel.’ ”

On the 100th anniversary of his birth last Sunday — the Cienfuegos native died in Miami in 1998 — Prohías is still spreading laughter with his Cold War spies, who pummeled each other brutally with whatever sophisticated weapons they could grab from the black humor bag of their creator. more & more

10 Years Ago This Month - Merry Christmas, kid.

"Mommy has a new toy she would like you to play with."

 

 

 "Find out who's telling the truth—and who's not—by giving your suspect a lie detector test! Attach the sensor to your suspect's finger. Ask tough questions to really make 'em squirm! The indicator lights light up when your suspect isn't telling the truth. Busted!"

You better watch out
You better not cry
Better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town
He's making a list
And checking it twice;
Gonna find out Who's naughty and nice
Santa Claus is coming to town...

(original post)

 

SHOCKING 2020 UPDATE...

The latest model lie detector toy for kids electrocutes them if it thinks they are lying.

 

From the sales pitch... 

• If you tell the truth, no shocking and you can move out your hand safely. But if you tell a lie, you will be shocked by electric. 
• Toys for your friends, Fool's Day Party, Prank gifts, Halloween Prank, Christmas gift.
• It would be a great warm-up game at a party. more

I can't wait to see what 2030 brings.

Snitch Culture Redux, or The Hong Kong So Long

Police in Hong Kong have launched a hotline where residents can report breaches of the national security law imposed by Beijing earlier this year.

The law criminalizes secession, subversion and collusion with foreign forces. It has silenced many protesters since it came into force.

Hong Kong residents can send images, audio and video files to the hotline.

Rights groups say they are concerned the service could be used to target those with opposing political views. more

 It is worth remembering that "Citizen Snitch Surveillance" is a tactic of cultures that eventually fail. 

About one in 100 East Germans was an informer for communist East Germany's secret police in 1989, according to a new study. Political ideology was their main motivation, both in East and West Germany.

The Stasi kept detailed files on thousands of East Germans

Around 189,000 people were informers the secret police of the GDR's communist regime, when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 -- that's according to Thuringia's state office for researching East Germany's Stasi... more

 

See the movie...

Your Weekend Movie – “A Call to Spy” Now Streaming

“A Call to Spy” is now available to watch via streaming services and in select theaters across the United States and United Kingdom...

Premiering on June 21st, 2019 -- the 75th anniversary of D-Day -- at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, the film has gone on to win numerous awards...

In the beginning of WWII, with Britain becoming desperate, Churchill orders his new spy agency—the Special Operations Executive (SOE)—to recruit and train women as spies. 

Their daunting mission: conduct sabotage and build a resistance. SOE's "spymistress," Vera Atkins (Stana Katic), recruits two unusual candidates: Virginia Hall (Sarah Megan Thomas), an ambitious American with a wooden leg, and Noor Inayat Khan (Radhika Apte), an Indian Muslim pacifist. Together, these women help to undermine the Nazi regime in France, leaving an unmistakable legacy in their wake. Inspired by true stories. more

1650 Kircher Musurgia Listening Devices

The book Musurgia Universalis is famous and has been since it appeared in 1650. 

Vol. 2 (Af-x.10): plate between pages 302 & 303

The illustration depicts a piazza-listening device.

The voices from the piazza are taken by the horn up through the mouth of the statue in the room on the piano nobile above, allowing both espionage and the appearance of a miraculous event. more

The modern eavesdropping equivalent is the ventilation plenum. Acoustical ducting is something most people don't consider when concerned about eavesdropping. We do.

The Atlas of Surveillance

Documenting Police Tech in Our Communities. 

Explore 5,300 datapoints in the U.S. collected by hundreds of researchers.

TOGGLE the Legend to reveal how each technology is spreading. ZOOM into any region to see the technologies in greater detail. If an area has no markers, it means it hasn't been researched yet.

Click to enlarge. Go to website to explore. Wired article here.

This Month in Wiretapping History

 1977 - S. Korea - The foreign ministry delivers a letter of protest to Washington over the wiretapping of the office of President Park Chung-hee by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. The agency was investigating an allegation that a South Korean lobbyist paid bribes of up to US$1 million to high-level U.S. politicians at the behest of the South Korean president, who did not get along with his U.S. counterpart, Jimmy Carter. more

'Spy City: The History of Espionage in New York City' Interactive

Secret Passphrase: "Your shoe is untied."

“Upon Secrecy, Success Depends.”
– George Washington

From the Revolutionary War to the present day, covert ops have flourished in the five boroughs of New York City — after all, its myriad of parks, miles of subway, and millions of residents have long created the perfect environment for espionage activity. This is the story of Spy City, your mission begins now.

Join our special guest as we explore the history of espionage in New York City over four centuries of covert activity, from government spies to top-secret programs. more

Wed, Jun 17, 2020 at 1:00 PM
Click link for full info and to get tickets ($10, thanks for your support!):
https://bit.ly/SpyCityNYCJune

The Man Who Hacked Former President Francois Mitterrand's Phone

One of the richest men in France claims to be a former spy who once hacked former President Francois Mitterrand.

The billionaire co-owner of Le Monde newspaper, Xavier Niel, 52, told the Parliamentary Channel that as a teen in the 1980s he worked undercover for the Directorate of Territorial Surveillance after he was caught hacking the French channel Canal+...

Niel claims he was tasked with hacking into the mobile telephone of President Mitterrand in 1986 as well as the car company Renault. In the process he found that Renault was being hacked by people from Australia who were downloading large chunks of data.

“We were doing all this for ourselves as a game and we would pass on the information,” Niel said. “It was just fun. It was thrilling to get around the system. They told us it was impossible.” more