Page 24 - Robert Booth News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

The building. but unfortunately, there was no proof they were going outside their regular diplomatic duties and responsibilities. what we had was a lot of smoke and no fire. >> unfortunately, after that meeting, the policy continued that the russians would not be escorted within the state department. and from our observation, the activity continued. robert and i put our heads together again. it's our job. we have to find out what's going on. so we started a second round of the surveillance program. >> at the beginning of the second operation, we noticed that russian diplomats were arriving at ...

Counter intelligence in the united states. my counterpart at the fbi washington field office arranged for me to come down and meet with him and another agent. they said, robert, this is a catalog of russian diplomats coming to visit the state department. >> most of them were diplomats, had been in their ministry of foreign affairs, but the fraction were spies. intelligence officers serving under diplomatic cover. they're trained in all the trade craft of recruiting people, detecting, evading surveillance, planting bugs. >> and he says they're coming in numbers and frequency the likes we've nev...

Survey of what radio frequencies are there when he's there? and then what's there when he's not there? do the overlay and eliminate the common frequencies and only be left with ones that are there only when he's there. and that would be him. i get a call from my headquarters program manager. hires' the name and number of a guy that you need. >> who was the guy? >> it was somebody within the intelligence community, but i'm not at liberty to say. and after a week, the guy who gave me the equipment, he identified one specific frequency, an unauthorized signal that came on and then went off with g...

Here. >> we thought they could be outright stealing documents. they could be planting bugs, anything like that. but, you know, frankly, we didn't know what they were doing. that was the concern. >> unfortunately, after six weeks, we were no closer to the answers we were seeking than when we began. all that we confirmed was they were coming to the main state department building in numbers and frequencies that simply was inconsistent with diplomatic dialogue. we were unable to go beyond that. >> when it was done, robert took it up within his chain of command to present it to the higher ups and s...

From the conference call into the conference room which had a reel to reel tape recorder. there was a funny kleenex box that never moved from the back of the car. that's where the antenna was. and my office was located on virginia avenue. >> you could see the street below and the prime parking area that gusev would ultimately want to be at. clearly visible from robert booth's windows. >> there were times when i would hear on the radio gusev's off the park, meaning he's left the russian embassy. i'd just get out of my seat and have a cup of coffee. there would come the malibuski up the street. ...