Sunday, August 1, 2010

ABSORB

The Central Intelligence Agency code name for a technical operation conducted in the  Soviet Union until  February 1986 when a search of a container on the  Siberia Maru, docked in Nakhodka, revealed a hidden compartment containing remote sensors and other sophisticated equipment designed to detect nuclear warheads. The container was to be routed by rail across the entire country, during which time its advanced electronics  would identify and monitor sites where plutonium was stored. The KGB’s apparently fortuitous discovery was  credited initially by CIA mole hunters to Edward Lee Howard, and later to Aldrich Ames.