Gordon Corera - Russians Among Us

Because of his computer skills, Murphy would later lecture Moscow Center on the technical limitations of the communication system and how hard it was to encode a message. This was gold dust for the FBI, since it helped them further understand the workings of the SVR’s top secret system. At one point he explained to Moscow that if the FBI were ever to get hold of the material the illegals had been given, they would have both the instructions and the passwords in one fell swoop. Which of course they had already done. His complaint was absolutely correct, and it was fortunate for the FBI that the SVR did not listen.

When the FBI’s Boston team went into the Heathfield and Foley house in 2006, they now knew what to look for. One of the computer disks looked similar to the New Jersey find and it too required a twenty-seven-character password. Traces of deleted electronic messages were found that FBI technicians were able to recover. These were drafts of messages sent to Moscow using steganography. Other illegals would also use the technique. The break into the communications was critical for the case. “For us, that was a gamechanger,” Tony Rogers of the Boston FBI field office later said.

The FBI could not only read the messages going back and forth between the illegals and Moscow Center but—thanks to the bugs in the house—they could even hear the illegals sometimes discussing what they thought of what Moscow Center was telling them to do and how it made them feel. That was something even their SVR controllers would not know. “That’s everything,” says Alan Kohler. “There’s nothing going on with this cell that we don’t know about.”

This allowed the FBI to stay one step ahead of the illegals. If they were planning a covert meeting, then there was no need to follow the spies to find out where it was and risk being spotted. Since you knew exactly where and when the meeting would take place, you could simply stake out the location ready for them to arrive. But even more important, it provided an insight into what orders they were being sent from Moscow and what intelligence they were sending back. Their overall mission was set out in a message sent to the Murphys: “The only goal and task of our Service and of us is security of our country. All our activities are subjected to this goal. Only for reaching this goal you were dispatched to US, settled down there, gained legal status and were expected to start striking up usefull [ sic ] acquaintances, broadening circle of your well placed connections, gaining information and eventually recruiting sources.”

This was the mission of the illegals. To pose as Americans, bury themselves deep, and then identify people who could help Russia. And in Moscow, there was a new master for Russia’s spies. He was one of their own and a man for whom the importance of spying—and catching your enemy’s spies—was utmost in his mind.

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