Publisher's Synopsis
David Stafford draws on eye-witness interviews and the full range of sources to shed light on a puzzle that surrounds one of the Cold War's most valuable and daring projects: Operation Stopwatch/Gold. This joint CIA and MI6 project was designed to gain Red Army secrets by building a tunnel 800 metres under the Russian sector of Berlin, to tune into KGB intelligence. The tricky operation was successful and carried out for a full year in 1955. But the west was not aware that the KGB knew about the tunnel even before it was built. The KGB-mole in the British secret services, George Blake, had passed on this information prior to the operation taking place. The question remains: Why did the KGB keep the secret to itself? Was the British mole so valuable that the KGB sacrificed Red Army secrets rather than blow his cover? This book is the first to tell the whole story.
