Share this article



THE KIDNAPING OF THE LUNIK Sydney Wesley Finer CIA declassified

The Cold War and the emerging space race were in full swing in the late 1950s. CIA kept President Eisenhower regularly apprised on the progress of the Soviet space program, which became a subject of worldwide attention following the successful 1957 launch of Sputnik—the first artificial satellite and the first manmade object to be placed into earth’s orbit. The Soviets’ achievement, which indicated that they had intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of striking the United States, stunned the American public and set off a debate in the United States about the “Missile Gap,” and America’s competence in science and technology.

In 1959, a Soviet exhibit of the USSR’s industrial and economic achievements toured several countries. This exhibit included displays not only from Sputnik but also the Lunik or Luna (Lunar) spacecraft—the Soviet’s first lunar probe. In September of that year, the Lunik 2 became the first manmade object on the moon — a feat that only compounded fears in the United States that the USSR was winning the space race. CIA conducted a covert operation to access the Lunik display to learn more about the USSR’s moon program. A team of CIA officers gained unrestricted access to the display for 24 hours, which turned out not to be a replica but a fully-operational system comparable to the Lunik 2. The team disassembled the vehicle, photographed all the parts without removing it from its crate before putting everything back in its place, gaining invaluable intelligence on its design and capabilities. And the Soviets were none the wiser. Sound like something from a movie script? It really happened.

.Getting factory markings from insidea Soviet upper-stage space vehicle.

A number of years ago the Soviet Union toured several countrieswith an exhibition of its industrial and economic achievements. There were the standard displays of industrial machinery, soft goods, and models of power stations and nuclear equipment._ Of greater interestwere apparent models of the Sputnik and Lunilc space vehicles. U.S. intelligence twice gained extended access to the Lunik, the second time by borrowing it overnight and returning it before the Soviets missed it.

This is the story of the borrowing, which required the efforts of many people and close cooperation between covert and overt intelligence components.

On View Abroad

The Soviets had carefully prepared for this exhibition tour; mostof the display material was shipped to each stop well in‘ advance. But as their technicians were busily assembling the various items inone exhibition hall they received a call informing them that another crate had arrived. . They apparently had not expected this item andhad no idea what it was, because the first truck they dispatched wastoo small to handle the crate and they had to send a second.

The late shipment turned out to be the last-stage Lunik space vehicle, lying on its side in a cabin-like crate approximately 20 feetlong and 11 feet wide with a roof about 14 feet high at the peakIt was unpacked and placed on a pedestal. It had been freshlypainted, and three inspection windows cut in the nose section per-mitted a view of the payload instrument package with its antenna.lt was presumably a mock-up made especially for the exhibition; the Soviets would not be so foolish as to expose a real production item of such advanced equipment to the prying‘ eyes of imperialist ‘intelligence.



Or would they? A number of analysts in the U.S. communities suspected that they might, and an operation was laid on to find out.After the exhibition closed at this location, a group of intelligenceofficers had unrestricted access to the,Lunik for some 24 hours. They found that it was: indeed a, Production item from which the engineamf must electrical and electronic components “had “been. removed. They examined’ from the viewpoint of” probable per-formance, taking measurements,. determining its characteristics and wiring format, -estimating engine. size, and so forth.‘

Plans and Problems

As the exhibition moved from one city to another, an intercepted shipping manifest showed an item called “models of astronomic apparatus” whose dimensions were approximately those of the Lunik crate. This information was sent to the CIA Station nearest the destination with a request to try to arrange secure access if the Lunik should appear. On the basis of our experience at trade fairs and other exhibitions, we in factory markings preferred access before the opening of an exhibition to the alternatives of examining it while in the exhibition hall or after it had left the grounds for another destination.’

‘

Soon the Lunilc crate did arrive and was taken to the exhibition grounds. The physical situation at the grounds, however, ruled out access to it prior to the show’s opening. Then during the show the Soviets provided their own 24-hour guard for the displays, so therewas no possibility of making a surreptitious night visit. This leftonly one chance: to get to it at some point after it left the exhibition grounds.



In the meantime our four-man team of specialists from the Ioint Factory Markings Center had arrived. We brought along our specialized photographic gear and basic tools. We each went out and bought a complete set of local clothes, everything from the sldn out.We held a series of meetings with Station personnel over the course of a week, mutually defining capabilities and requirements, laying plans for access and escape, and determining what additional equip-ment we would need. The Station photographed the Lunik crate repeatedly so we would get a better idea of its construction. The photographs showed that the sides and ends were bolted together from within; the only way to get inside was through the roof. We therefore bought more tools and equipment-—ladders, ropes, a nail puller, drop lights, flashlights, extension cords, a pinch bar, a set of metric wrenches, screwdrivers, hammers.

After the exhibition the displays would be carried by truck fromthe exhibition grounds to a railroad station and loaded onto freightcars for their next destination. For the interception we had to choose between the truck run and the rail haul. The initial preference wasfor the latter; it seemed the freight car carrying the Lunik might mosteasily -be Sl1\1I1l;‘6d onto a siding (preferably into a warehouse) for a night and resume its journey the next hmoming. A detailed check of our assets on the rail line, however, showed no good capability for doing this. Careful examination of the truckage to the station, onthe other hand, revealed a possibility.

Lunik on Loan

_

As the exhibition materials were crated and trucked to the railyard, a Soviet checker stationed at the yard took note of each itemwhen it arrived. I_-Ie had no communications back to his colleagues at the fair grounds, however. It was arranged to make the Lunikthe last truckload of the day to leave the grounds. When it leftit was preceded by a Station car and followed by another; their jobwas to determine whether the Soviets were escorting it to the rail yard.

When it was clear that there were no Soviets around, the truck wasstopped at the last possible turn-off, a canvas was thrown over thecrate, and a new driver took over. The original driver was escortedto a hotel room and kept there for the night.

The truck was quickly driven to a salvage yard which had beenrented for the purpose. This yard was open to the sky but had a10-foot solid wood fence around it. With some difliculty the truckwas backed in from a narrow alley and the gates closed; they justcleared the front bumper. The entire vicinity was patrolled byStation cars with two-way radios maintaining contact with the yard and the Station.

Action was suspended for half an hour. Everything remained quietin the area, and there was no indication that the Soviets suspectedanything amiss. The Soviet stationed at the rail yard waited for ashort time to see whether any more truckloads were coming, thenpacked up his papers and went to siipper. After eating he proceededto his hotel room, where he was kept under surveillance all night.

The markings team, in local clothes and without any identification,were cruising in a car some distance from the salvage yard. We0were now given the all-clear to proceed to the yard and start work.We arrived about 7:30 p.m. and were let in by a two-man watch-and-communications team from the Station. They had put all our equipment and tools in the yard, and food and drink for the night.

Our first task was to remove enough of the crate’s root to get in.It was made of 2-inch tongue-and-groove planks nailed down with5-inch spikes. Two members of the team went to work on these,perspiring and panting in the humid air. The effort not to leave traces of our forced ‘entry_was made easier by the fact that the planks had been removed and put back several times before and so were already battered.

While this was going on there was a rather unnerving incident.When we had arrived at the salvage yard it was dark; the only lights were in the salvage company’s office. Now, with two men on top ofthe crate prying up planks, street lamps suddenly came on, flooding the place with light. We had a few anxious moments until we learned this was not an ambush but the normal lamp-lighting scheduled for this hour. .

Photographers at Work

The other two of us were meanwhile assembling the photographicgear and rigging up the drop lights with extension cords. We hadladders up at each end of the crate, and when the planks were offwe dropped another ladder inside each end. The Lunik in itscradle was almost touching the sides of the crate, so we couldn’twalk from one end to the other inside.

Half the team now climbed into the front–nose–end with oneset of photographic equipment and a drop light. They pulled thecanvas back over the opening to keep the flash of the strobe unitsfrom attracting attention. They removed one of the inspectionwindows in the nose section, took off their shoes so as to leave no telltale scars on the metal surface, and squeezed inside. The payload orb was held in a central basket, with its main antenna probe extendedmore than half way to the tip of the cone. They filled one roll offilm with close-ups of markings on it and sent this out via one ofthe patrolling cars for processing, to be sure that the camera wasworking properly and the results were satisfactory. The word sooncame back that the negatives were fine, and they continued their work.

We on the other half of the team had tackled the tail section_Our first job was to gain access to the engine compartment by re-moving the Lunik’s large base cap; this was attached to its flangeby some 130 square-headed bolts. We removed these with a metricwrench and by using a rope sling moved the heavy cap oil to one side.

Inside the compartment the engine had been removed, but itsmounting brackets, as well as the fuel and oxidizer tanks, were stillin place. At the front, end of the compartment, protruding throughthe center of a baflle plate that separated the nose section from the engine, was the end of a rod which held the payload orb in place.A four-way electrical outlet acting as a nut screwed onto the endof this rod was keyetl by a wire whose ends were enmsed in a plasticseal bearing a Soviet stamp. The only way to free the orb so as to let the nose team into the basket in which it rested was to cut this wire and unscrew the outlet.

We checked with Station personnel and were assured they could duplicate the plastic, stamp, and wire. So we decided to go ahead and look for markings in the basket area. We cut the wire and passed it to one of the patrolling cars. The pair in the nose sectionphotographed or hand-copied all markings in the basket area whilewe did those in the engine compartment. The Soviets, in removing all electrical connections and gear, had overlooked two couplings in the basket; these we took back to headquarters for detailed analysis.Before we had finished, the new seal—-wire, plastic, and stamp–was delivered to the yard.