On today’s #WorldAt5 : The spy ring that changed history

Operation Rubicon gained access to half the world’s top secrets, influencing events such as the 1979 American hostage crisis in Iran. Today, the group is finally exposed. (1) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/operation-rubicon-spy-ring-that-changed-course-of-history-exposed-at-last-rhd6sm0q5?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1605288433

The brainchild of an American cryptanalyst, William Friedman, and a a Swedish inventor, Boris Hagelin, the project rendered half of the world’s most secret communications transparent to the US, West Germany and a handful of their closest allies. (2)

From Iran to Italy, and Greece to Brazil, the innermost communications of non-aligned states and even some Nato allies were an open book to the Americans and the Germans.  It turned West Germany into an intelligence superpower and helped Britain sink the General Belgrano. (3)

The gentleman’s agreement between the Friedman and Hagelin allowed Hagelin’s Swiss-based cipher device manufacturer, Crypto AG, to supply secretly weakened machines to US intelligence targets so that the Americans could finagle their way in and read their messages. (4)

In 1970 the company was bought outright by the CIA, which split control of the operation with the West German foreign spy agency, the BND, in a $7 million deal hidden behind an elaborate façade of shell companies. (5)

Initially exposed by a German-led consortium of journalists, and this week picked over by an excoriating Swiss parliamentary report, the full story of Operation Rubicon is now being pieced together by historians, shedding light on a 50 year project. (6)

The operation was ultimately still in effect until the late 1990’s and conflicts in countries such as Lebanon were influenced by the intel gained through Rubicon, making it one of the most far-reaching intelligence operations of the 20th century. (7)