# Does the public know how effective the West was at spying on the Soviets during the early Cold War?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-public-know-how-effective-the-west-was-at-spying-on-the-soviets-during-the-early-cold-war/569974>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 3, 2011, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-public-know-how-effective-the-west-was-at-spying-on-the-soviets-during-the-early-cold-war/569974 "2011-02-03T02:29:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\
**Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-public-know-how-effective-the-west-was-at-spying-on-the-soviets-during-the-early-cold-war/569974/21 "2011-02-07T17:58:55Z")

</div>

Great Seal. The Soviets once managed to conceal a particularly hard-to-detect listening device in a wooden Great Seal of the United States that hung on the wall in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. [Link.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_(listening_device))[Link.](http://www.spybusters.com/Great_Seal_Bug.html) Leon Theremin, famous for inventing the musical instrument of the same name, invented the innovative device. [Link.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9on_Theremin)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-public-know-how-effective-the-west-was-at-spying-on-the-soviets-during-the-early-cold-war/569974/22 "2011-02-08T07:05:14Z")

</div>

Doesn’t really make anything **Declan** said less true, though that is a pretty neat trick there. Consider that he said _for the most part_.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-public-know-how-effective-the-west-was-at-spying-on-the-soviets-during-the-early-cold-war/569974/23 "2011-02-08T08:13:00Z")

</div>

Here is an article about [SOSUS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOSUS) an array of hydrophones to listen to Russian subs. I was interested when this came out because I was offered a job at Bell Labs on this project in 1980. They told me they were listening to whales and other stuff.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-public-know-how-effective-the-west-was-at-spying-on-the-soviets-during-the-early-cold-war/569974.md?page=1)