Look up the hill. That large white building with the narrow windows running top to bottom. That's the Embassy of the Russian Federation. Formerly the Soviet Embassy. It's been there since the late seventies.
There's a reason it's on this hill. Mount Alto — the third-highest point in Washington. Direct line of sight to the White House. The Capitol. The Pentagon. The State Department. When the Soviets picked this spot, American intelligence panicked. A building that high could intercept microwave communications from every major government facility in the city.
So in nineteen seventy-seven — the same year the Soviets started building — the F-B-I and the N-S-A hatched a plan. If the Russians were going to spy on us from up there, we'd spy on them from underneath.
Operation Monopoly.
F-B-I technicians and N-S-A specialists spent over a decade digging a tunnel. From a house near here, underneath the street, all the way to the Soviet Embassy. Approximately a hundred meters. They tapped ev
ery underground cable and data line servicing the building. The cost — hundreds of millions of dollars. The most expensive listening operation in American history.
The spy house — twenty-six nineteen Wisconsin Avenue, right across the street — was their base. A three-bedroom house with cameras hidden in the windows and skylights. Photographers documenting every car, every face, every delivery. Fo
