Cold War Spies and Intelligence: Comprehensive Fact Check

[narrator] Some just count tanks. [explosion] Others steal blueprints for nuclear bombs.

The Cold War is the battleground for thousands of spies and spotters. [translation] Both sides collected intelligence in order to avert what was considered to be a looming war.

The secret services have few scruples when it comes to procuring intelligence. They pay for acts of treason, which may spell death for those exposed. Do I have an awareness of blood guilt? No, I didn't.

They were spooks with a license to spy. The men of the Allied Military Liaison Missions in Germany were at the forefront of the intelligence war between East and West.

Yet even today, hardly anything is known about their feats. [translation] No other western intelligence service got as close to Soviet military equipment.

But where there are secrets, there's danger, too. We knew that Soviet sentries were trigger-happy. They tended to shoot first and ask questions later... if at all.

Kalashnikov stuck in my neck. Okay, so you don't move, okay. The risks were... pretty enormous.

In fact, how on earth I am still alive, in fact, how any of us are still alive, I have no idea. They were friends.

I understand what it takes to lose a friend. A close friend. [narrator] It's a tour that brings back memories to three Cold War veterans.

White gloves would have been reserved for parades, since their targets were out in the field. Their job was military intelligence.

Their brief, covert observation. Lawrence G. Kelley, a former US Marine, Jean-Paul Staub of the French Army

and Nigel Dunkley of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards. They're browsing through dossiers that were once top secret. We actually served as a kind of carpet sweeper,

vacuuming up everything that might be relevant, because we never knew until the end, what was most important. The threat posed by Soviet military power is precisely documented in the old files.

It's familiar stuff to Staub and Dunkley. Both men were tank experts. As only close-ups photographs would do,

they had to sneak up to their targets. A risky business. Shots from a film showing the British Military Mission in action.

A tank crew has spotted the snoopers. A soldier is approaching fast to apprehend them. It's only by a hair's breadth that the Brits succeed in getting away.

[man] Steady forward. Sometimes they take even greater risks. Like when they were inspecting the inside of a tank.

They climbed onto the tank, opened the hatch, and were stunned to see that the crew was asleep inside! So, they very gingerly closed the hatch, dismounted the tank

and made their getaway. The officers of the military missions are out to get at the military secrets hidden deep inside the GDR,

the Soviet-controlled eastern part of Germany. Their weapons: cameras with special lenses. The missions had ben established

due to an agreement between the Allied Powers of World War Two, the United States, Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union. That was back in 1944.

Procedures were implemented the following year, after Hitler and Germany had been defeated. [translation] The intention had not been to create an intelligence apparatus,

but to use the missions as relays between the Supreme Commands in occupied Germany. The reason for the missions to be established is absolutely obvious. Because we had four headquarters, four commands in Germany.

They had to communicate, to liaise. There are countless issues to take care of across the occupation zones. Provisioning the populace, coping with millions of refugees,

tracking down war criminals and the repatriation of POWs. [speaking German] [translation] So, the missions had a semi-diplomatic, semi-military brief

with a view to getting the Allied administration of the four zones working as well as possible. Yet with the advent of the Cold War,

the victors soon turn into adversaries. The missions begin using their status to collect military intelligence. The Western Allies make forays into in the former Soviet Zone,

now the GDR, the German Democratic Republic, while their Russian counterparts roam the newly founded Federal Republic. It‘s an explosive game, part diplomacy, part espionage.

There are some restricted areas which are off-limits. As for the rest, it's "Thou shalt not be caught." Since their official duty is still to liaise between the Occupation Powers,

the members of the missions enjoy special privileges. They had the same status as diplomatic couriers. Otherwise they had complete diplomatic immunity.

You cannot search them, you cannot detain them. So they could do many things and they had free travel possibilities throughout the country.

So, Americans, Britons and Frenchmen, each accredited by the Supreme Command of the Soviet Army, are entitled to regular forays into East Germany.

The western missions are based in Potsdam, near Berlin. 63 of their members are officially listed for the so-called "tours" under diplomatic status.

The Soviets set up their respective camps in the former American, British and French zones of occupation in Western Germany. Both sides soon make use of their "diplomats in field dress"

to systematically spy on the other side. Their observations are a welcome addition to the output of classical espionage. [jet engine roars]

[explosion] The most sensitive area during the early years of the Cold War is nuclear research. At this stage, only the USA has the capability of delivering an A-bomb.

Yet spies such as Klaus Fuchs... Julius and Ethel Rosenberg... or Rudolf Abel

are risking their lives enabling the USSR to become a nuclear power. August 1945. Americans celebrate the victory over Japan and the end of World War Two.

Three weeks later, a Soviet cypher clerk in Canada switches sides. When they debrief him, western counter-intelligence experts are alarmed. [cheering]

For the rest of his life, Igor Gusenko will only appear in public heavily masked. The defector has good reason to fear the revenge of the KGB, since he has alerted Washington to the presence

of countless Soviet moles in American institutions. [translation] Gusenko was a key figure in a process which could be described as the discovery of the Soviet Union

as an aggressive, expansionist dictatorship. His interrogation helped expose a network within the Canadian, but most of all within the US administration,

whose branches, and I mean nearly all of them, were infiltrated by communists. The Gusenko file triggers an all-out counter-spy offensive

against suspected communists throughout the United States. The secrets of the nuclear program are at stake, especially since American engineers

are testing ever more powerful bombs over the Pacific Ocean. [explosion] Possession of the A-bomb is crucial for the balance of power

during the Cold War. As long as the United States is the sole nuclear power, its position is nearly unchallengeable.

From the American perspective, it's a state of affairs best kept that way as long as possible. [Geiger counter clicking]

In 1950, the FBI exposes a spy-ring centered around Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. The couple had passed secret information about the American nuclear program

on to the Soviet Union. The Rosenbergs themselves were comparatively small fry. Their prominence is mostly due to their spectacular trial and its circumstances.

The prosecution succeeded in presenting a star witness from inside the spy ring, Rosenberg's brother-in-law. To save his own skin, he testified,

and this of course meant that others would take the rap. David Greenglass, Julius Rosenberg's brother-in-law, had provided the secret documents.

Yet, there are other, more important, nuclear spies working for Moscow. [explosion] In 1949, the Soviets successfully test a nuclear device.

Without their American informers, they might have needed several years more of their own research. Their most important source of information is Klaus Fuchs,

an exiled German physicist working for the Manhattan Project, America's nuclear program, and a member of the German Communist Party since 1933. In 1949, by then in Britain, he comes under suspicion.

He hands himself in and is sentenced to 14 years in prison. The explanation for this comparatively light sentence, far below the death penalty, is quite simple.

Fuchs had committed treason, yes, but the beneficiary of his betrayal had been an Allied power, since from 1941 until the end of the war,

the USSR had been fighting on the side of Britain. An extenuating cause that is denied to the Rosenbergs. They are executed for having spied for the new arch-enemy of the United States.

The verdict on Mrs. Rosenberg was a judicial crime. She should never have been sentenced to death, since her involvement had been a relatively minor one.

But the court was determined to set an example. [archive reporter] Julius and Ethel Rosenberg had paid their debt to society with their lives.

[narrator] Their execution is portrayed as a fitting punishment for having betrayed the United States. 1985.

US military spotters on tour in East Germany. keeping a low profile while trying to catch a glimpse of the Soviets' brand-new main battle tank.

Stalking a tank had its risks. Watching videos from the 80s, military mission veterans Dunkley, Kelley and Staub

recall what it was like to sneak up on their prey. [indistinct audio on video footage] A Soviet-built T-80. A prime catch.

[Dunkley] T-80 was... hot. T-80 was the brand-new tank. And it was the pride and joy of the Soviets at the time.

And it was a pretty bad shock for NATO to discover it was good. It was an outstanding tank. [Kelley] The fire control system of the T-80 was very important as well.

Tank modernization in GSFG was well underway, And this was a critical aspect of it. Major Arthur D. Nicholson and his driver, Jessie Schatz,

are approaching a tank firing range near Ludwigslust in north-east Germany. We knew that Soviet sentries were trigger-happy. They tended to shoot first and ask questions later... if at all.

Yet, Nicholson has set his mind on the tanks' hangars... which are next to a restricted area. The two men scan the surroundings for Soviet sentries.

Sometimes the area, the training area I mean, was sensitive, and sometimes it wasn't. But we all knew that a sentry was normally posted there.

Lawrence G. Kelley flew attack jets with the Marines before he was posted to the American Military Mission in Germany. By 1985, Kelley is second in command.

"Nick" Nicholson has become a good friend of his. Kelley knows only too well what happened that Sunday afternoon. LUDWIGSLUST

Four months earlier, a tour of the French Military Mission had come under fire near those very hangars. Nicholson isn't in the least deterred by the accident.

Quite the contrary. Possibly that could have indicated that something important really was there. And I am certain that Nicholson considered that point.

Hardly recognizable under its tarpaulin, a T-80. To a military spotter, a first shot is like a trophy. The Soviets had begun to deploy their most modern tank

in the southern parts of East Germany. By 1985, there are rumors of its presence in the north. But there is no proof yet.

[distant gunfire] NATO's headquarters want just that, visual evidence.

Nicholson probably hopes to find it right here near Ludwigslust. Nicholson and Schatz do not detect any sentries around. But there is one...

a bit further off, in the bushes. Nicholson advances to reconnoiter the area behind the hangars. Nicholson was proud, well-educated, motivated and ambitious,

and in my opinion, he had an above average affinity for risky actions. Whatever he may have seen there... he decides to retreat.

But the sentry had indeed seen the tour. And relatively early. And he reported that fact to the Guard officer

over a system like a field telephone. "Missiya, Missiya," he said. "A mission tour is in the area!" And the Guard officer asked, "well, where is it now?"

And the sentry replied, "it's gone." To which the Guard officer answered, "well... When it comes back, you know what to do."

Nicholson and Schatz do indeed return. But the sentry doesn't know how to proceed in accordance with standing orders. And even if he does, he doesn't adhere to the rules.

He watches on, as Nicholson gets out of the car again. Then things get out of hand. -Come back! -[gun shots]

Shots ring out. Nicholson is hit by a bullet. The sentry holds Schatz at gunpoint, keeping him from administering first aid. When a physician arrives an hour later, Nicholson is already dead.

Schatz detected the sentry at essentially the same instant as the first shot. And he ducked. The shot whizzed narrowly over his head.

Either the second or the third shot hit Nicholson "center of mass," below the heart and somewhat inside the rib cage. Sergei Savchenko remembers the events well.

In March 1985, he is stationed in Wünsdorf, the seat of the Soviet Supreme Command in East Germany. He's an interpreter with the section dealing with

the western military missions. When I came, I think it was something like between 6 and 7 pm, to the headquarters, I did not have any idea what was going on.

I could see that everybody was excited. While his superiors hasten to Ludwigslust, he handles any incoming news.

This way, Savchenko soon gets first-hand knowledge of what has happened. When they came to Ludwigslust, to the place itself, of course everybody was shocked.

Because... to see the body lying almost next to the vehicle. And to see Jessie Schatz inside and a group of Soviet officers around. Photographs that have long been top secret.

It soon becomes obvious that procedures have been gravely mishandled. And not only by the sentry. If you put a sentry with a weapon, with ammunition anywhere,

according to the Russian regulations, it has to be a post. And this post has to be clearly marked on the ground or terrain. There has to be an fence or barbed wire.

There were no signs. No fence. There was no nothing. This sentry was nowhere to be seen. Jessie Schatz is kept in the car for six hours.

That is how long it takes Lawrence Kelley and his boss, Colonel Lajoie, to reach the site. Only to be confronted by Soviet officers with allegations

that the Americans alone are responsible for what has happened. The argumentation became incandescent, with extraordinarily sharp accusations,

and the tension mounted continuously. The Soviets initially demanded to detain and interrogate Schatz, to seize and search the vehicle,

and to perform an autopsy on Nicholson's body. The Americans reject the Soviet demands. They merely agree to a joint autopsy.

Nicholson's body was transported back to a Soviet morgue in Potsdam in a Soviet ambulance, and I escorted it. Colonel Lajoie had given me the mission of ensuring that Nicholson's body

was accorded the proper respect. It's a somber drive to Potsdam. Kelley is cowering inside the Soviet ambulance next to his friend's body.

Underway, I looked at Nicholson again and again, and mentally asking him each time, "Nick, how could this possibly have happened?" The death of Major Nicholson turns into a major incident.

His coffin is transported back to the United States, observing full military honors. Nicholson is survived by his wife and their only child.

The government pays its respects to him as a fallen hero. [cameras click] Major Arthur Nicholson was an outstanding officer,

murdered in the line of duty. We grieve with his wife and small daughter. We can only hope that the Soviet Union

understands that this sort of brutal international behavior jeopardizes directly the improvement in relations which they profess to seek.

Our deep sympathy goes to all his friends and relatives. May he rest in peace. Three years will pass until the Soviet authorities

half-heartedly acknowledge their responsibility for the shooting of an American officer in peace time. I said to myself why can we not admit

that the soldier was not the best solider in the Soviet army. And in fact he was not the best soldier in the Soviet army. If we admit that then we can say to the Americans

that we are sorry that it happened. But it happened because we had a bad soldier and because we had an inadequately organized post.

That's it. It will not affect the relations between our countries. Because in any army, you can find a bad soldier. Due to their briefs, Savchenko and Kelley meet regularly.

As interpreters for their respective top brass they even begin to appreciate each other. Yet for Lawrence Kelley the tragic death of Nick Nicholson

still casts a long shadow. It is dramatic. And I understand the reason why Larry Kelley...

speaks about all that with such... passion. They were friends. And I understand what it takes to lose a friend.

A close friend. Major Arthur Nicholson paid with his life for trying to photograph a Soviet tank.

The Allied Museum in Berlin. Lawrence Kelley, Jean-Paul Staub and Nigel Dunkley stand in front of a display case remembering Jessie Schatz.

The tragedy near Ludwigslust affected him badly. Up until then, he was known as an easy-going guy full of clever ideas. Like hawking so-called "Berlin Watches" to tourists.

Larry Kelley still recalls the details. Schatz was a natural-born wheeler-dealer. He peddled trinkets of various kinds in the mission

and at flea markets all over Berlin. Souvenirs mostly, sometimes watches. Problem was,

that his business, as he preformed it, was only marginally legal, if at all. And the command ultimately told him to cease and desist.

Former Staff Sergeant Schatz died in 1996 at the age of 42. A Candy-bomber. A reminder of the Berlin Airlift,

eleven dramatic months which marked the beginning of the Cold War back in 1948. Intelligence about the intentions and capabilities of the other side now becomes of paramount importance.

Thousands of agents and spies risk their lives to bring it home to their masters. The airlift ensures the freedom of more than two million people.

The Soviet stratagem to strangle West Berlin has failed. Yet, as tension between the opposing power blocks mounts, so too does the hunger for secret information.

[speaking German] [translation] Both sides collected intelligence in order to avert what was considered to be a looming war

and to achieve more safety for their own side. That's why, apart from so-called open sources, you'd want additional, secret information.

And that was the province of the intelligence services and the military missions. Thus, Berlin becomes the hub for military reconnaissance men,

secret agents and informers of all kinds. April 1953. Seven British subjects return home from the Korean War. For almost three years

they had been held captive by the Communist regime in the North. Among the returnees, here in the center, is George Blake, an operative of MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence service.

There may be no sign of it yet, but he has come back to work as a mole for the KGB, Russia's secret service. Three years later.

In East Berlin, a 450-meter tunnel is triumphantly exposed by the communist media. Americans and British had combined to tap telephone cables

on the other side of the Iron Curtain. The Berlin Tunnel was an operation, whose sheer size was, and still is, without precedent.

Planning included, it ran for more than two and a half years, and it tied up enormous resources, in terms of money and personnel-wise, both British and American.

Moscow accuses the West of a war-like act. The CIA and their counterparts at MI6 had driven the tunnel from west to east with utmost care.

Yet Blake blows the operation long before the tunnel is finished. For the time being, however, his masters let their opposite numbers carry on with their eavesdropping.

The output seems well worth the effort. 50,000 magnetic coils of telephone calls, mostly between military stations. Even today, after many files have been declassified,

the CIA still maintains that they were able to retrieve a treasure trove of information out of these more than 500,000 recorded phone calls.

Yet why does the KGB let this continue for so long? Even if they managed to plant some amount of disinformation on the eavesdroppers, there are still several hundred thousand genuine phone calls

for their enemies to analyze. [speaking German] Soviet Intelligence had decided to sacrifice their own military's secrets

to protect their source, George Blake. This is the most plausible explanation. For the KGB, it's a move that pays off.

Blake exposes countless MI6 operations, even betraying agents in Eastern Europe, agents he himself has recruited. In 1961, the mole's cover is blown.

Blake is sentenced to 42 years in prison. In 1966, he pulls off a spectacular escape. His escape is basically an extension of his experiences in the war.

He had been a prisoner of war in North Korea. He had had to survive under the most adverse conditions. There was torture, all these things.

You don't know if you will ever get out alive. But he had survived, and this had made him feel that he could cope with anything. He never ceased to believe in himself.

To him, it was just another kind of war, and he wanted to win that war for his own sake. And that meant escaping from jail.

Blake scales the prison wall and escapes to Moscow. What had made him a traitor in the first place? I wonder if Blake ever was on the British side.

He was a Brit, of course, but in his autobiography, he states right at the beginning that he was convinced that a world in peace is only possible under Communism.

And that he wanted to contribute to changing the world order in this direction. Blake uses his occasional appearances in front of a camera to justify his actions.

That his acts cost former colleagues their lives... this is not something he's wanting to hear. North of Magdeburg.

A museum of Soviet trucks and other military hardware. Nigel Dunkley, Jean-Paul Staub and Lawrence G. Kelley close-up with their former objectives.

Among them, the redoubtable air-to-ground missiles of the SA-6 series. [speaking French] [translation] It was the first time that I had seen the SA-6 this close.

It was an extremely powerful weapon system, and definitely one of the best of its era. On the grounds of the former Soviet barracks,

the three Cold War veterans look on with professional nostalgia as the curator unpacks the once closely guarded components. Electronic modules which set the frequencies

at which the missile received its target data. [Dunkley] We would have been very happy to bring back that to Berlin. Devices like these were of prime interest to NATO experts.

To procure them was easier said than done. [Kelley] Analysts in various headquarters always had wish lists and justifiable wish lists.

But they couldn't possibly know the risks that we would have to run to make their wishes come true. Fulfilling some of them would have been tantamount to suicide.

That's why the decision as to whether the potential results were worth the risk was left to the men on the ground. But the expert's eye detects some intriguing details

about the missiles' origin. I had my doubts because the color of the equipment, the lighter green, was not usual for Soviet forces.

Soviet equipment produced in the Soviet Union and used in Soviet forces was normally darker. And indeed, apart from some labelling in Cyrillic,

there is faded lettering in Polish. To Lawrence Kelley, it's clear evidence that the missile originally belonged to a unit of the Polish Army.

His hunch was right. The Warsaw Pact armies' air-to-ground arsenal ranked high with NATO reconnaissance.

Over Vietnam as well as in the Middle East, Soviet-built missiles had proven to be a deadly weapon. Electronic countermeasures may enhance the pilots' chance of survival.

Their development, however, depends on exact data on the set-up of a missile. At the close of the 1950s, the American's U-2 is regarded as the ultimate spy-jet. Out of reach for any missile, they fly over testing areas,

nuclear factories and military bases. Their pilots regularly venture into Soviet airspace with a sense of impunity, photographing from a height of 20 kilometers.

Until May 1st 1960. To Francis Gary Powers it's just another mission. Yet this time, the Russians have a surprise in store.

When the U-2 crosses the Urals, they launch their latest anti-aircraft missile. [rattling] Powers is lucky to be able to eject

and to survive the descent hanging on his parachute. To the Americans it's a most embarrassing incident, forcing them to cancel all further spy flights over Soviet territory.

On August 19th 1960, Powers is tried for espionage by a military court. The Soviet authorities make full use of the opportunity to brand the United States as warmongers.

Powers is sentenced to ten years in prison. Three years later. Another trial in Moscow. This time in the dock, Oleg Penkowski,

a high-ranking officer of the GRU, the Soviet military intelligence service. He had switched sides and betrayed information about Moscow's nuclear potential

which had been cause for deep-seated fears in the West for more than a decade. [speaking German] [translation] Penkowski had access to highly sensitive material,

but most notably about the development of missiles and their intended deployment. To the Americans, this was, of course, of the utmost importance. The cause of Penkowski's treason?

He had felt slighted by his superiors. Penkowski, by then a colonel, was expecting his promotion to general. He had had a fine career,

but suddenly found himself at a dead end after a security check had revealed that his father had been a general in the Tsar's army.

From then on, his promotions came to an abrupt end. His career was more or less over, and that's what made him break his allegiance to his country.

In 1960, Penkowski contacts the other side and delivers detailed insights into Moscow's military arsenal. Types of missiles, their range and numbers,

plus information about the air defense system which blew the U-2 out of the sky. Penkowski also warns of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's

aggressive nuclear policy. Two years later, U-2 planes spot Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. American analysts identify them as SS-4 and SS-5...

which can carry their warheads as far as Chicago. Thanks to the information supplied by Penkowski, the photo interpreters know exactly what to look for,

since each type of missile requires a distinct set-up. And this was the pattern that Penkowski had passed on to the Americans. Once their experts had found it on the aerial photographs,

they knew that this was a launch pad for a specific type of medium range missile. US President John F. Kennedy imposes a naval blockade around Cuba. Should these offensive military preparations continue,

thus increasing the threat to the hemisphere, further action will be justified. The world is on the brink of a nuclear war.

Skillful diplomacy, and a good deal of sheer luck, avert a nuclear apocalypse. Penkowski is arrested a few days prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis, tried and sentenced to death as a traitor.

The impacts of his treason are far-reaching. Both sides begin to build and deploy intercontinental ballistic missiles. Back then, there is no chance of intercepting them.

He who shoots first dies second. Yet, there are new, highly efficient tools for reconnaissance and espionage. Satellites orbit the earth and capture stunning high-resolution images.

In August 1960, the Americans launch their Corona program. Its satellites can monitor the Soviet Union without any interference from below. The capsules containing the exposed shots

still have to be ejected by the satellites and picked up in mid-air. Both sides expend billions on their respective programs. But the satellites prove to be superb guardians against any surprise attack.

The quality of their photographs improves rapidly. As a consequence, both sides try hard to conceal their secrets by camouflage. And to catch a glimpse, you need agents on the ground,

just like the officers of the military missions in both parts of Germany. Each vehicle transporting sensitive equipment was issued with cloaking devices.

Tarpaulins were a must. And a challenge for snoopers who would pride themselves on being able to sniff out what was underneath.

Tarpology was an art form. In order to become a master of tarpology you had to learn by heart every single type of camouflage

used to cloak the other side's weaponry. We had to know what was underneath the tarpaulin. And so we did. The Soviets had various ways and means

of camouflaging and disguising their equipment it was all part of what they called maskirovka, but they didn't fool us.

In the end, we could identify virtually everything. Oh, yes! [laughs] We most certainly did. Even if they had to resort to cutting holes in the tarpaulin.

Spy planes come in many guises. In the airspace around Berlin, the western missions use small aircraft to peek down into Soviet army barracks

or to shadow their opponents' field exercises. The air corridors to West Berlin, too, are systematically used for covert reconnaissance, focusing on military infrastructure on the ground.

There are three corridors, each 32 kilometers wide. A fifth of Eastern Germany can thus be photographed practically without any risk.

Yet there are incidents. The RB-66 is a highly specialized reconnaissance plane. In 1964, one of them shows up in the middle corridor heading for West Berlin.

US Airforce footage gives a rare impression from inside the labs for high end espionage hardware as it was installed in an RB-66 jet. There are cameras, antennae,

sophisticated radar, jamming devices, signal recorders. Yet the corridors aren't meant to be spy lanes.

Any suspected bending of the rules may lead to a dangerous encounter. [gunfire] In March 1964, Wolfgang Preisler is working as a chauffeur

with the US mission when he gets the order to take a tour officer to the crash site of an RB-66 near Gardelegen, in the middle of a restricted area.

A tricky proposal. The likelihood of being able to stay undetected was very slim. So, we knew that but we did get within probably 100 yards,

100 meters of the, uh, crash site. Because we were able to see the embers. Preisler and his tour officer

are pondering how to best approach the crash site proper, since, some distance off, the area is crawling with soldiers. Then they notice something quite unexpected.

The trees around them seem decorated as if for Christmas. A bunch of silver confetti hanging off the trees. And... which was a little odd.

And only shortly... five minutes after, we picked off some of these pieces and looked at them and wondered, you know, where they had come from. The RB-66 had probably released the tinfoil as chaff

in an attempt to blind the Russian radar. Alas, without success. It was only minutes thereafter that the Russian soldiers came and blocked our car, from the front, from the back.

And they detained us for about 12 hours. The three-man crew of the shot down jet are released a few days later. They had survived thanks to their parachutes.

One of them, however, is severely injured. The Americans deny any allegation that this had been a reconnaissance flight. According to them the jet had strayed due to a compass error unnoticed by the crew.

The Soviets are anything but convinced. Sergei Savchenko at the site of his former duty station. In his role as an interpreter with the staff

of the Soviet Supreme Command in East Germany he had become quite familiar with the routines of the western military missions. Basically we kept track of the activities of the mission members.

Of their pranks, their exploits, their deeds, misbehavior. My room was number 13, the boss's room was number 12.

In the corner we had Mr. Lyudomirskiy. Colonel Lyudomirskiy office. And he was nicknamed "Colonel Schlagbaum."

Schlagbaum because his service was responsible for the Glienicke Bridge passage. The checkpoint at Glienicke Bridge

is the gate through which the western missions enter East Germany to proceed to their assigned areas of operation. Every car is registered by the authorities.

Whenever a mission tour passes the bridge, units of the East German State Security are waiting for them. It's the start of a never-ending game of cat and mouse

between the snoopers and their shadowers. On February 10th 1962, the bridge between East and West makes international headlines.

A few minutes before 9 am two men are led towards the middle of the crossing. On the one side, there is Gary Powers of the notorious U-2 incident, at the other end is Rudolf Abel,

an illegal KGB resident in the United States whose cover was blown in 1957. Ironically, neither side was sure that the exchange really was a good deal.

The Americans were gravely concerned whether Powers might at some point have disclosed vital information to his Soviet captors. Their interrogation methods, to which he surely would have been exposed,

were notorious. Doubts were also fueled because he'd let himself be captured alive instead of taking the suicide pill he had been provided with.

That was held against him, as well as the fact that he didn't trigger the automatic self-destruct of his U-2. And so, he kind of fell into disgrace.

The suspicion that Powers might have talked, however, is not confirmed by later research. At the time of his arrest, Rudolf Abel is regarded

as the most important KGB operative in the field of nuclear espionage. He avoids the death penalty, but only just. His sentence, 40 years in prison,

may well have shown that he was more useful to his captors alive in the event of a future spy exchange. His brief had been to sort of resurrect a network of nuclear spies

from the wartime period and to work as an illegal resident in the USA, behind enemy lines, so to speak.

That's what the KGB had trained him for and why they subsequently sent him to America. Yet it's a gross misunderstanding to see Abel as this "master spy."

During the nine years he resided in the USA, he did not personally recruit one single new agent. The Americans had been expecting much more from him

in terms of information than he could deliver. He just didn't know very much. So the famous exchange on Glienicke Bridge

merely repatriated two men who, each in their own way, had disappointed their masters. But the CIA, as well as the KGB, had no choice.

Those who let their agents down won't find any new recruits. The Bridge of Spies. A symbol of the Cold War. Time and again, Nigel Dunkley, Lawrence G. Kelley and Jean-Paul Staub

set out from here into East Germany. They belonged to a hardly known elite of intelligence gatherers... who roamed enemy territory.

They don't think of themselves as spies. Their tours, they say, had been perfectly legal, accredited by the Soviets.

Some covert observation, yes of course, but in a struggle for information, it's the results that count. And, as they see it, they managed to deliver.

We observed the Soviets, up close and personal, as the saying goes, and knew the realities of their Armed Forces better than anyone else. Our knowledge was practical, not theoretical,

and we provided our authorities with an unbiased, first-hand, boots on the ground assessment of Soviet military capabilities. Which was very important at the height of the Cold War.

Whether uniformed snooper with a diplomatic passport or top agent under cover, the bridge at Glienicke has seen them all.

Intelligence gatherers on dangerous missions across secret fronts. [narrator] East Germany in the 1980s. It's the deployment zone for 20,000 tanks.

[man speaking French] [translation] Another one, another one, another one! Since an army's heavy equipment is usually transported by rail,

military snoopers turn into trainspotters. Their brief: to count tanks and to identify units. The men of the western military missions like Lawrence G. Kelley,

Nigel Dunkley and Jean-Paul Staub often lie in wait for days on end. The military missions had been established to sort out problems between the occupying powers in post-war Germany.

Their members enjoy the status of diplomatic couriers, yet they soon use their privileges to spy on their opponents. The Soviets are touring West Germany,

while Americans, French and Brits roam the territory of the German Democratic Republic in the East. Their main objectives: the other side's battle tanks.

A rail track north of Magdeburg. As the memories come back, Kelley, Dunkley and Staub decide to steer their veteran off-roader

to the nearby town of Barleben. Once, this was a perfect spot for spies. [speaking French]

[translation] On some days, you could easily watch half a dozen trains going by as an armored division was either leaving for an exercise or returning. To western snoopers, Barleben was a key location.

From here, the rail track leads directly to Letzling Heath. Back then, this was the most important training area for Soviet units in Eastern Germany.

Out of bounds for western military missions. They could merely look on as the trains entered the restricted area. Always under the eyes of the State Security, or Stasi,

and the Vopo, the notorious People's Police. Sometimes we only had perhaps 20 minutes, or perhaps 30 minutes at the most before the Vopo would be along.

And, of course, it was like a cat and mouse game. On most occasions, they get away. But not always.

A propaganda-video shot by the State Security in 1978. [soldiers shouting] A team of American snoopers is caught in the act.

A tarpaulin across the windshield blinds the driver. A Soviet jeep cuts off the retreat of the mission car. Its occupants surrender.

The license plate of their car is recorded, and their spy-tools are displayed for the camera. The missions are a nuisance for the East German Government.

Walter Ulbricht, the chairman of the State Council accuses them of espionage. [speaking German] [translation] Look here, this camera.

It's 92 centimeters long. Not exactly an amateur device. To Ulbricht, it's evident. The missions are reconnoitering targets for an offensive war.

At least that is his interpretation of the maps they have seized. [translation] This merely confirms that the representatives of the US mission were especially interested in the areas of their envisaged military thrust.

No state enjoys being spied upon. Yet in this case, there is no way to prevent it. [translation] The rules were based on the joint jurisdiction

for all Allied Occupation Zones in Germany. Therefore, Ulbricht had to accept that East Germany couldn't act as a sovereign state in these matters

and had no legal authority to prohibit this kind of espionage. In 1960, espionage is but one problem for the East German state. There is a virtual exodus of its citizens towards the West.

The very existence of Communist Germany is at stake. In 1961, its leaders decide to stop the bloodletting by erecting a wall. They don't care about the human suffering that will be caused

by the partition of Germany. The Western powers accept the wall as unavoidable. [woman sobs]

[crowd cheers] In 1963, US president John F. Kennedy visits West Berlin. Nine months before,

the Cuban Missile Crisis had brought both sides to the brink of a nuclear confrontation. But the most perilous days of the Cold War seem to be over.

-Ich bin ein Berliner. -[crowd cheers] Kennedy pledges to defend Europe's freedom.. with nuclear weapons if need be.

East and West alike expand their strike potential. There is no defense against intercontinental missiles launched from silos or submarines.

And if this were not enough, there are now several thousand tactical nuclear warheads deployed in both parts of Germany.

[engine roars] Rod Saar, a Royal Air Force officer with the British military mission, lies hidden in the dark when a pair of headlights approach.

It's a jeep. It stops. [engine idles]

[engine stops] A Soviet soldier is checking the barbed wire. The slightest noise may give Saar away.

Saar is waiting for Soviet fighter jets which are scheduled to appear in a few hours for practice attacks with live ammunition.

He hopes to get some revealing photographs. Back then, in the early seventies, Saar has a reputation as a cool, calculating daredevil.

The challenge was really to get to these targets without being interfered with by the Stasi or the Soviets, in particular.

Uh, to be able to get in close. So those were the kind of challenges you faced. But experience was an issue.

So it took time to gain confidence and understanding of the terrain. Saar and his companion intend to hide directly beneath the jets' lane of approach.

At daybreak, their cover must be perfect. Soviet firing ranges and bombing practice areas are prime locations for western military snoopers.

They are out to spot new types of planes and their armaments, and to assess their strike potential. A Stasi guard has detected unwelcome spectators from the West.

An interference Saar would rather avoid. You would sit under the flight line, because the Stasi would not come under the flight line.

They didn't want to have bombs dropped on their heads. So, they avoided that. So that was a kind of different strategy. [chuckles]

[electrical crackling] Rod Saar, well camouflaged under the approach lane. To him, as an Air Force man, flight maneuvers are highly revealing.

In 1971, he is watching an SU-17, NATO codename "Fitter," when its pilot suddenly performs a steep climb.

An unusual maneuver for dropping a bomb. What's behind it? [jet engine roars]

[explosion] Astonished, Saar continues to observe the plane. So the aircraft flew in at 400 feet, low level,

And then it goes into a steep climb, up to 2000 to 3000 feet, and then towards the top of the climb, it releases the bomb which actually then is thrown forward.

It then, in fact, in the end, rolls out and flies off at high speed. So it was simulating a tactical nuclear attack. And here actually is the simulated nuclear weapon underneath the aircraft.

It was the first time that we had seen that. And it indicated the capability for tactical nuclear strike by the Soviets.

Even when the target practice is over, the range itself can be full of interesting finds. Parts of projectiles may indicate their caliber or the use of new metals.

One day, Saar comes across a bomb in the shrubs. A dud. Obviously, the propeller of the detonator had malfunctioned.

On the tour I had two RAF corporals and in a democratic sense I said to these two guys, "Are you happy that we take this unexploded bomb,"

it was about this big, "back to Berlin?" And they said, "yep, fine."

Yet it's a long haul to Berlin. Will the bomb be stable enough to withstand one and a half hours on the notoriously cobbled roads of East Germany?

In the end, they make it back in one piece and present their prey to their superiors. The brigadier suddenly was there and he said,

"What have you got there, Rod?" Because we had a tarpaulin. "Unexploded bomb, sir." "Oh," he said.

[laughing] So, we went into the Air Force operations room. We laid it on a long table. We took the tarpaulin off...

and all my colleagues went! [laughs] So... [chuckles] Then the ordnance people came. They took the bomb away.

I was then going on holiday. I said, "Okay, dismantle the bomb, I want to take photographs." Which I did.

When I came back, they told me, "Well, this bomb was unstable. Please don't bring any more unexploded bombs."

End of story. [laughs] I wouldn't do it today, by the way! [laughs] [narrator] Saar doesn't think of himself as a spy.

They were mere collectors of military Intelligence, he says, with the occasional foray into diplomacy. As in April 1966...

when a Soviet jet crashes into a lake in the British sector of West Berlin. It's a Yak-28, back then the most modern supersonic interceptor of the Soviet Air Force.

To Western intelligence it's an opportunity not be missed. The Yak had taken off in Finowfurt near Eberswalde. At the local air force museum there still is one on display.

Klaus-Peter Kobbe has dug into the story behind the crash. It was the starting point of an ingenious intelligence operation. [translation from German] The British began analyzing the wreck straight away.

The parts still visible above the surface told them exactly what they had before them. And, being experts, they realized immediately

that they should salvage parts of the jet engine, and above all, retrieve the components of the airborne radar. So, the Brits drag their feet.

The RAF experts need time to lift the secrets of the Yak. The Soviets protest. The British Military Mission is called in to diffuse the tension.

As it gets dark, their stomachs are severely tested, but the Brits gain precious time for their technicians. [laughing] I had to drink lots of East German brandy

with the two Soviet Air Force colonels in their jeep. And they said, "We must eat!" And from underneath the seat they pulled out this dirty cardboard box

which had cold liver and garlic. [laughs] I had to eat and drink this dreadful stuff!

The stalling tactics pay off. Meanwhile, an elaborate effort has been launched to recover the Yak's vital components from the crash site.

The divers floated them underwater, the engines and the radar, for about two miles round, where they were taken out of the water and flown back to England for evaluation.

[interviewer] Yeah. Having evaluated, they were flown back. The divers floated them back again and one came up and said,

"We have found the engines!" [laughs] A whole week passes before the engines are returned. As for the airborne radar,

the British claim that they couldn't find it. The Soviets do not believe them. Moscow is said to have ordered the replacement

of all modules of their friend foe identification electronics, as well as all relevant codes, throughout their air force. [jet engines whine]

It's an immense effort, yet unavoidable, since the Yak pilot didn't push the button that would have ignited an explosive cartridge.

This would have destroyed the radar set and the coding block. [speaking German]

We asked the people at the factory who had developed those components what might have happened if the crew had survived the crash. They told us that they would probably have faced a court martial

which might well have resulted in a death sentence. Since the crew perished with their plane, they escape any legal consequences of their failure.

They are even declared heroes. According to the official version, they had given their lives to prevent their jet crashing into a housing area.

Boris Kapustin and Viktor Janov are buried with full military honors. Up until then, the only thing that mattered had been to get hold

of the Yak's secret equipment. The surroundings of Potsdam have always been considered prime locations. A fact that the military missions were well aware of.

Images of the Villa Colonel, filmed in the 1980s, when it was the seat of the French Military Mission in East Germany. [speaking French]

[translation] To us, the villa was a corner of France. A place where you could feel comparatively safe. Today, it is used by the ambassador of Ecuador.

The missions of the Western Allies worked closely together, and there were official receptions where everyone met. [indistinct chatter]

Like here, during a reception staged by the French to celebrate the 14th of July, their national holiday. Events like these are reserved for diplomatic small talk

and celebrating peaceful relations. It was interesting to observe the Soviets from up close. I was very impressed by how much they could drink.

Summer parties at the villa are considerably more relaxed affairs. There is a barbecue, and the members of the missions have brought their families along.

Scenes of an easy-going life at the shores of a lake. [laughter] No one would suspect that these men

are savvy collectors of military intelligence who in no time could switch from diplomatic niceties to covert action hot on the trail of their enemy.

Sigurd Weber and her brother Jens are retracing their personal history. The banks of the Elbe River near Magdeburg had been their childhood playground. And it was at this very spot,

that Sigurd Weber did coolly approach a Soviet soldier to sound him out about pontoon bridges. That's now almost half a century ago,

when Sigurd was a so-called "travel spy" for the BND, West Germany's foreign intelligence service. [speaking German]

[translation] I knew exactly what information I was looking for. I said kuda, meaning "where to?" He looked at me, and then he explained what they were doing,

stuta, what this was all about. He was really quite naive. He just explained everything to me. Bridge laying trucks figure prominently in the BND's handbook for spies.

Engineer units of the Soviet Army are a prime target for western reconnaissance. How quickly they can cross a river is valuable strategic information. It helps to assess the potential rate of advance

of the Warsaw Pact's armored forces. Sigurd Weber, her late husband and her brother Jens were amateur spies. They were not in it for the money,

but had chosen to do their bit to overcome a state which kept its citizens locked behind an Iron Curtain. [quiet chatter in German]

In 1954, Sigurd Weber and her future husband left East Germany and settled in Hamburg. In the mid-sixties they were approached by the BND

and asked whether they would reconnoiter military installations in the GDR when visiting their relatives back home in Magdeburg. Sigurd's brother has stayed behind in the East

and is, by now, thoroughly frustrated. In 1971, his sister talks him into joining their tiny spy-ring. Travel spies were the BND's go-to solution after the building of the Wall.

[speaking German] Up until then, the BND had recruited stationary watchers. These were citizens of East Germany who lived close to barracks or training areas,

and would therefore have some insights into what was going on there. They would document their observations and relay them in secret letters

or sometimes directly to operatives of the BND. The building of the Wall puts an end to this practice. 1961 is a bad year for West German Intelligence, anyway.

In November, Heinz Felfe, the head of the BND's counter-intelligence department, is exposed as a KGB mole. It's a colossal embarrassment.

The damage was enormous, since the BND‘s counter-espionage was practically wiped out at a stroke. It took years to rebuild the counter-intelligence department

to something even approaching a reliable working order. Felfe, who by 1945 was a lieutenant in the SS, ends up in the spy trade after his release from British captivity.

He soon belongs to the inner circle around Reinhard Gehlen. World War Two had barely ended when the former head of the Wehrmacht's Foreign Armies East section

offered his expertise to the Americans, who, by now, were keen to establish an anti-Soviet intelligence service in their zone of occupation.

In December 1947, the so-called "Gehlen Organization" sets up camp at Pullach near Munich, funded, at first, by the US Army,

and, finally, by the CIA. It's the nucleus of the later BND. Its recruits include former Wehrmacht officers,

SS men and even diehards of the Gestapo. It's an old boys' network, and security checks are mostly dispensed with. [translation] These people took their bread from anyone would offer it.

Their lives had been uprooted, most of them were unable to build a career in the new, post-war society. Those who had been professional soldiers had no future at all.

There was no German Army anymore, and, according to the prevailing view, there should never be one again. So, they took any offers that came their way.

Re-tracking Felfe's activities reveals treason on an alarming scale. The damage is far worse than initially suspected. [translation] In their post-fact analysis,

the CIA estimated that Felfe had blown the cover of about a hundred of their agents. [narrator] As well as 94 German informers of the BND.

In 1963, Felfe is sentenced to 14 years in prison. Barely six years later, during a spy swap, he is sent back to East Germany. Once there, he is resettled by his masters,

becoming a highly respected professor of criminology. East German propaganda portrays him as a staunch activist for world peace and as someone who joined the right cause after an inner conversion.

[translation] I had to act the way I did. For me, it was about learning the lessons of the past. I had to join the side which, as was my conviction,

could never be the cause of another war in Europe. A self-justification with scant awareness or regrets for the agents he left exposed, and who the KGB may well have liquidated.

To historians, Felfe remains a contradiction and an opportunist of the highest order. Presumably, he just sold himself to the highest bidder.

He was a classic turn-coat. To him, status was immensely important, the recognition he got. So, his motives were neither purely financial nor purely ideological.

A cynical master of deception and betrayal. A man who never queries the actions of his masters in Moscow, not even as Soviet tanks roll in to crush the Prague Spring.

In August 1968, Moscow smashes any hopes of "socialism with a human face" in Czechoslovakia. Western intelligence services are caught by surprise.

CIA memos had doubted Moscow's willingness to risk an invasion. Nearly one hundred Czechs and Slovaks, as well as 50 soldiers are killed. The message is clear. Moscow will tolerate neither reform nor opposition.

[indistinct shouting] An armored recovery vehicle of the East German Army, built on a chassis of a T-72.

Time for some tank nostalgia on the grounds of former Soviet barracks near Magdeburg. An armored personnel carrier,

the type Lawrence G. Kelley, Nigel Dunkley and Jean-Paul Staub once spotted by the hundreds. In the middle of the 1980s, NATO could probably only have responded

to an all-out offensive by Warsaw Pact forces with a nuclear counter strike. The new T-80 was a formidable weapon.

A prime target for military snoopers. And a most dangerous one. [tank tracks rumbling]

Somebody had the clever idea that we should find out the chemical properties of the new armor on such vehicles as T-80.

Simple! Simple. Simple? They just said, "It's okay, just scrape the paint away."

And then take a diamond cutter, I still have one, I still have mine, sorry about that. [laughs] Take a diamond cutter and then scrape a sliver of the metal

away from the front glacis plate of the tank, and then put it in a container and then take it home. In theory at least.

Yet then as now, fortune favors the bold. A British soldier on a Soviet tank. A photograph displaying secret technology,

with an apple showing its comparative size. A T-80 with a new kind of reactive armor. Small boxes containing explosives which were intended to blow up

any oncoming projectiles before they impacted. One of our exceptional tour NCOs, displaying a great deal of presence of mind and decisiveness,

clambered onto the train, removed a small box of explosive reactive armor from a T-80, then quickly dismounted,

re-entered the vehicle and the tour sped off to West Berlin. [engine rumbles]

It‘s a significant coup in the arms race between East and West. 1970. A military parade in Magdeburg. Jens Leck and Sigurd Weber are on a mission from the BND,

counting military equipment. [translation] We had been told to be on the lookout for missile vehicles. There weren't many to be seen, but we managed to spot some.

They were all tracked vehicles with different configurations. We had been trained to register if they were old or new, what type of tracks they had, or how many axles.

Monitoring the strength of the other side's forces is Cold War routine. Yet numbers alone won't do when assessing the potential enemy's capabilities. To get a clear picture of his combat readiness,

it takes observers on the ground. The city of Magdeburg is of special interest for western intelligence. It's the headquarters of the 3rd Soviet Army.

For travel spies, a ride on Magdeburg's streetcars is one of the safer ways to get a glimpse into Soviet barracks. -[Weber] That's line six! -[Leck] I told you.

It's still running! Line six. [narrator] The line is still operating. The barracks have long been demolished.

There was just a short stretch at the turning bay up there, where you could look inside. But only if you were standing. The Webers have been thoroughly trained for this kind of covert observation.

They are not to take any notes. One of them will inconspicuously observe what's happening inside the barracks while the other keeps watch for any security officers among the passengers.

An ever-present risk back then. [translation] The State Security, Stasi for short, had planted a ring of unofficial informers around any military object.

They would count, photograph or film whatever went on. Anything that might be suspicious is recorded, even if it is only a car with a Western license plate.

Taking photographs near military installations is strictly prohibited. Even passers-by are scrutinized. A mother with her buggy might be a spy.

Or a daughter taking a walk with her father while on a visit from the West. This way dozens of travel spies were caught in the act. Sigurd Weber and her brother Jens are arrested in April 1978.

Her husband didn't come along this time and is spared the ordeal. It has never been precisely established how their cover was blown. Sigurd Weber suspects a mole within the Federal Intelligence Service.

Her brother presumes that the State Security had cracked the address they had used to keep in secret contact with their controller at the BND.

The day we intended to leave, my car was damaged. So, I drove to the police headquarters to get a complaint for my insurance company in Hamburg.

When I was stopped on the way, I naturally thought it was because of the damage to my car. Some windows were broken, a side mirror had been ripped off.

So, I thought they had stopped me because of that. I had to leave my car and hand over my keys. I was coaxed into a Wartburg.

The doors were locked at once, and there I was, sitting between two female constables. I refused to believe it at first, but then I thought, "this is it."

Days of interrogation follow. There is no use denying the charges, the Stasi already has proof. For Sigurd Weber, it suddenly becomes clear.

Her controller's assurances that they need not expect any trouble had been nothing more than words. When my brother got 15 years, I said, "Well, that'll be life for me."

But my interrogator said, "No, we also chop off heads." Sigurd is spared the worst.

Yet even a life sentence comes as a shock. She is unaware of any agent swaps and must face the prospect of life in prison. [Weber] Everything was bad. But the isolation really hit me.

Loneliness is terror. In retrospect, that really was the worst. There was no one to communicate with,

I was always alone, in solitary confinement. And they knew that you could break a person's psyche like that. She is released after three years thanks to another spy swap.

The following year, her brother is sent back to the West. The Webers were hunting for the tiniest parts of the overall puzzle, mere ants in the vast world of global espionage.

But there are times when a single agent can undermine the security of a whole nation. The treason committed by John Anthony Walker

is considered to be so devastating that, after his exposure, he spends the rest of his life in prison. He dies in 2014, in the 30th year of his confinement.

Walker begins his career in the US Navy and is trained as a wireless operator. He is then posted to the headquarters of the strategic submarine fleet. While he is only a tiny cog in the communication network

of the world's most powerful navy, he now has access to the most sensitive information. He is working in the field of communication technology and cipher codes.

In 1967, Petty Officer Walker begins to cash in on this highly confidential information. To him it was a business.

He was solely out for money, and there was no political or ideological motivation. He wanted money, and he knew that he could demand a high price. [narrator] Walker's approach is as direct as possible.

He copies some secret documents, drives to Washington DC, walks into the Soviet Embassy and offers the KGB a deal. Money in exchange for secret codes used by the US Navy

to encipher their communication. To the Soviets it's a goldmine. They will be able to trace exercises of US Navy units,

analyze overall strategies, and collect data about weapon systems on board. From now on, the Soviets will be listening in.

[electronic beeping] And what's more, Walker also enables Moscow to pry into the Holy Grail of the American's nuclear arsenal,

the operations of their strategic submarines who are prowling the depths of the oceans along secret routes, ready to launch their nuclear missiles.

A submarine is a lone wolf, silently moving under water without anyone knowing its whereabouts. That is its protection and, of course,

also an essential element of nuclear deterrence. If this secrecy is compromised, that is, if an enemy penetrates the communication systems of your own submarine fleet,

then all its movements would be disclosed and the fleet itself would be next to useless. Walker escapes the radar of American counter-espionage for almost two decades.

A man who sold the security of his nation solely for greed. When he is finally exposed, it's a revelation of nightmarish proportions.

What brought him down was a purely private matter. His ex-wife, they divorced in 1976, feared that he would entangle their adult children in his spy business.

And so, she rang the FBI. To her it was bad enough that her husband was such a nasty piece of work, but as she said, at least I won't let my children go to the dogs.

For her son Michael, however, it's too late. He's allowed himself to be lured into his father's activities and is sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Vietnam, at the end of the sixties. The US Army is engaged in a war against the communist North. In its effort to contain the spread of communism in East Asia,

the US administration makes but poor use of its intelligence services. [gunfire] Memos on enemy strength and morale are often nothing more than wishful thinking

while reports tend to overestimate the effect of American firepower in the jungle. Even highly sophisticated spy jets like the SR-71 Blackbird

do not bring about a decisive change although their crews run the gauntlet almost daily to reconnoiter North Vietnamese air defense and to identify strategic targets.

The enemy defies any effort to bomb them into submission. In the end, the superpower loses the war which had claimed almost three million lives

and became overshadowed by atrocities and massacres. The outcome is a bitter pill for an administration which had misused their intelligence services

to supply its leaders with the information they wanted to hear. It's a busy day in the air above Welzow, south of Cottbus. That's why Rod Saar is there, along with his team.

It's early September 1972. But the Brits aren't alone. Corporal Calvin said, "There is somebody in there in this low pine."

We're in low pine trees. I said, "Fine." Everybody in the car. Car locked, equipment away.

"I will investigate." Saar suspects them to be operatives of the Stasi, East Germany's State Security forces.

Usually, the missions don't really care about them. They may call in the Soviets, but that would merely be a nuisance. My tactic with the Stasi was always to chase them.

Aggressively. If I knew the Stasi were hiding, I would run at them. And I'd run, I'd charge, I'd shout.

Standard aggressive tactic. And this worked. They would run, they would go. But this time, the men in the bushes aren't Stasi.

They are Soviet Special Forces. They changed their tactic. They used... Each airfield in the end had Speznia platoons, special forces platoons,

and they are trying to jump you and their aim, basically, was to be violent. The Speznya or Spetsnaz are among the toughest troops on either side.

Elite units, trained not to back down. At first, they merely observe the British as they move about near the air base. Then Rod Saar tries his usual tactic on them.

They rose up, I ran back. Too late. They got me. A Kalashnikov stuck in my neck.

Okay, so you don't move, okay. Got to the car, smashed the car window, knocked out Corporal Calvin,

didn't touch the group captain, but stole our equipment. Rod Saar is declared persona non grata by the Soviets. It's the end of his forays into East Germany.

He has pushed his luck too far this time. A powerful engine is a trump card on the Allied missions' tours. Superior speed helps to shake off any shadowers

or, if need be, to make a getaway, be it on the road or on rough terrain. By stepping on the gas, you could leave the State Security standing in the dust. [engine accelerates]

Burkhard Mielke was among those who often came out on the losing end of such encounters. During the 1980s,

he works for East Germany's directorate for counter-intelligence. At times, they were speeding along at up to 220 kilometers per hour. With our Wartburgs and Ladas, we didn't stand a chance.

The specially modified mission cars have a range of 1,000 kilometers, whereas a Wartburg would have to refuel twice to cover that distance. Stasi photographs of a mission tour filling up,

showing the size of the additional tank. Cool and composed, these Allied mission officers channel the nonchalant spirit of the easy riders.

Protected by their status and horsepower while their Eastern shadowers record their activities on film. [speaking German]

[translation] Later on, we gave up chasing after them and set up reception committees instead. The missions must now reckon with Stasi units

lying in wait along their tour. Their opponents know from experience where and when the Western snoopers will most probably show up.

Every directorate was trying to impress the ministry. We said, "today is the big day, we'll capture a mission car, get hold of their equipment and teach them a lesson."

Every unit wanted to be the first to achieve this. And so, we came up with a few ideas of our own. It had been decided that State Security

should no longer simply record the missions' activities but actually prevent them. Unbeknownst to the men on the tours, the rules of the game had been changed.

The driver's cab of a truck still arouses painful memories for Jean-Paul Staub. [engine running] -To this day... -[echoing screech]

...it reminds him of an incident overshadowing his years as a tour officer for the French military mission. 1984...

north of the city of Halle. Three days before, a Ural, a heavy truck of the East German Army, took up position in a side road.

It is apparently waiting for the order to move. [man on radio] Maintain your position. Everything according to plan. Roger.

-[engine starts] -[narrator] At about 11 o'clock, on March 22nd, the Stasi prepares to strike. It's target, a car of the French military mission

on its way to observe a major exercise of the Warsaw Pact forces in East Germany. Jean-Paul Staub is riding in the back. We did notice an army jeep coming up from behind.

It seemed like he was intending to chase us. But we were in front, so we sped up a bit, and, under normal circumstances, we would have got away.

But it's a trap. Suddenly there's a truck ahead of them. It's the Ural.

[driver speaks French] [narrator] And it's behaving in a most threatening manner. [speaking French]

[translation] I said to Warrant Officer Mariotti, who was our driver, "Stop, we won't get past him." But I may not have been forceful enough.

Anyway, in critical situations, it's the driver who knows best which decision to take. Both drivers step on the gas.

The soldier in the Ural is determined to block the French car come what may. The result is a fatal crash. Stills from the accident filed by State Security.

The truth is, Mariotti nearly made it. One or two seconds earlier, and we would have got past the truck and sped off towards Halle.

But sadly, it wasn't to be. Mariotti died on the spot. I was severely injured,

and our third man, Warrant Officer Blancheton, had a broken shoulder. No less than three trucks had been positioned ahead of the French vehicle with a view to catching them red-handed in their illicit activities.

[speaking German] I'm no lawyer. Yet to me, the term “negligent homicide” seems applicable here.

They obviously knew someone might get killed, yet they went ahead regardless. After all, the cars involved weren't little Trabants, made of plastic,

but heavy trucks. Philippe Mariotti acted on his driver's instinct, as he had done many times before.

For once, he misjudged the situation. The French Government tries to keep the incident out of the headlines. Both sides are pursuing a policy of military de-escalation.

The death of a soldier must not get in the way of international diplomacy. He was buried discreetly without military honors. An ignominious end to the life of a soldier.

The garden of the former French military mission in Potsdam. In remembrance of Warrant Officer Mariotti, a memorial stone has been laid. His comrades leave their wreaths at the site of his death.

An act that, too, is duly recorded by State Security cameramen. [narrator] Nigel Dunkley, a veteran of the British Military Mission, in a hangar near Jüterbog, a small town south of Potsdam.

He's meeting up with Manfred Müller of the local garrison society. Dunkley is telling him about his missions. About reconnaissance tours in enemy territory at night.

Manfred Müller has several items in his museum that were high on the British Military Mission's wish list in the 1980s. The officers of the Allied Military Liaison Missions

were constantly on the road. As couriers with a diplomatic passport, their original task was to solve problems between the four occupying powers in Germany.

However, they soon exploit their freedom by spying on their opponents: the Soviets in Western Germany and the Americans, British and French in the East,

the German Democratic Republic. Each side is allowed to send out 63 men. An all-terrain vehicle is approaching a Soviet bunker.

It is the early 1980s. The British are on the hunt for new types of ammunition that could contain biological or chemical warfare agents.

The bunker should only be manned during military exercises. The intruders can't be completely sure of that, however. They have reached the room that holds the air filters.

How these filters are constructed tells experts which warfare agent they are supposed to protect against. Nigel Dunkley takes part in the hunt for these filters.

In Jüterbog he sees the once highly coveted barrels again. Dunkley never talks about the background of his missions. Most of it is still top secret.

He only talks about what he experienced. It was dark. I dropped the filter that I was removing. The guard heard that, his dog barked.

And so I ran away as fast I could. There's no other expression for it. [narrator] NATO insists on speeding up the investigation.

How are the Soviet filters constructed? What warfare agents did the Soviets prepare for in an emergency? Could it be types of agents the West does not know of yet?

In 1982, at a military exercise area, the British get their hands on the first filter. The news of the captured barrel hits the Ministry of Defence in London

like a bombshell. The filter apparently protects against germs as well, biological particles being scattered by grenades, for example.

In response, NATO is said to launch a research programme to upgrade their own filters. Of course we knew...

...that anything, that was important that we "borrowed," as we would say, um, would probably pretty quickly be replaced.

And so a few weeks later we went back and there was the brand new one. That was the one that we wanted. So we stole that as well. [chuckles]

[narrator] Afghanistan. Soviet troops have been occupying the country since December 1979. Moscow wants to break any resistance

against the communist regime that has been installed in Kabul. The insurgent Mujahideen appear powerless in the face of full Soviet firepower. Attack helicopters dominate the battlefield.

Yet secretly the Americans are supporting Islamist resistance groups in Afghanistan. The war at the Hindu Kush turns into yet another theatre of operations for the secret services.

[speaking German] [interpreter] The CIA launched "Operation Cyclone," which is one of the longest and most expensive CIA operations to date.

In all, the cost of this covert program, which included arms delivery as well as economic aid, amounted to several billion dollars.

[narrator] This money mostly flows to Pakistan, the central hub for the armament of the Mujahideen. The CIA also supplies them

with modern Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. The tide is starting to turn. With Stinger missiles, the Mujahideen can shoot down jets and helicopters.

Soviet troops sustain severe casualties. In the mountains of Afghanistan, the superpower's heavy arms are ineffective.

The alliance of Mujahideen and the CIA win the war. The US bolster a partner who will soon turn against them, while the Soviet Union loses a lot of prestige.

Roughly one million people die, 15,000 Soviet soldiers among them. Hind attack helicopters fly over East Germany.

Scouts from a western military mission observe a manoeuvre. The war in Afghanistan deepens the divide between East and West. Soviet troops exercise new attack strategies.

The Hind pilots impressed me, and I was an attack pilot as well, albeit in jets rather than helos. They flew low,

aggressively, and maintained positive control over their aircraft. I doubt that our own helo pilots could have flown better than many of the Hind pilots that I saw.

[narrator] The military mission's task is to find out whether the Soviets are deploying combat units from East Germany to Afghanistan. They need to produce information, no matter how they get it.

The officers with diplomatic passports put on thigh-length overboots and protective gloves. None of them know what they will have to touch that night.

They check their flashlights one last time. The barracks' rubbish tip is their target. But they are not alone.

The smallest noise could give the scouts away and alert the guard. Examining rubbish tips at night was part of the British "Operation Tomahawk"... activities which had been classified top secret until just recently.

[metallic rattling] A noise alerts the guard, the snoopers scan the area. Could there be a second guard?

It is just a stray dog. All clear. However, scouts feared dogs on night missions,

as Nigel Dunkley remembers. [Nigel Dunkley] There were quite often wild dogs out on the rubbish tips.

These dogs scared me. And I don't mind admitting it. One of them, I remember, came up to me, like they often did, and started sniffing around my leg.

And I thought, this dog must have rabies. It's not acting properly. [narrator] A single dog can put the men in danger. After half an hour, the guard finally gets in his Jeep and drives off.

With the way to the rubbish tip clear, the British scouts are hoping for discarded datasheets on tanks, duty rosters, notepads

and maybe evidence for missions in Afghanistan. Instead, they find rotting kitchen waste. While methodically feeling around for something useful for their analysts,

they get lucky: a grubby postcard with a field post number. They know that such numbers are the key to an army's structure and to its order of battle in the event of war.

Soldiers have numbers, just like the units they serve in... and the tanks they are scheduled to fight in in an emergency. That's routine business to the military missions.

A seemingly endless roster of digits on tens of thousands of vehicles that is often boring but important. [man] N883, so first one was 882.

[narrator] Heavily armed men are protecting a visitor to the cemetery. Ryszard Kukliński, a former officer and traitor in the general staff of the Polish army, fears a revenge attack.

He is visiting his parents' grave in 1998, one year after his death sentence for treason has been reversed and he has been rehabilitated.

[speaking German] [interpreter] Ryszard Kukliński passed on documents on the Warsaw Pact to the Americans for nine years from 1972 to 1981.

With these almost 350,000 photographed documents, he provided the Americans with in-depth knowledge on the Soviet side of the Warsaw Pact.

[narrator] Kukliński contacts the CIA in the hopes of reducing the risk of a nuclear war. A war in which Poland would become a battlefield as well.

He reveals military installations and strategies of the Warsaw Pact. [speaking German] [interpreter] The Americans were wondering whether the Soviet nuclear arsenal

was intended to serve as a threat or whether they would use it in an attack on western Europe. And Kukliński's documents indicated that the Russians

were indeed using their nuclear potential offensively as well. [narrator] Poland in the late 1970s. The labour union "Solidarity" is challenging the communist regime.

Kukliński cautions against a Soviet invasion into Poland, reporting plans to declare martial law to the CIA. When it is finally imposed in December 1981,

the defector has already escaped to the United States. Hiding in boxes, Kukliński, his wife and their two sons are smuggled out of the country via East Berlin by the CIA.

In a transporter, disguised as diplomatic baggage, they escape at the last minute. [speaking German]

[interpreter] In 1984 he was sentenced to death in absentia. The sentence was not reversed until 1997, long after the Warsaw Pact had been disbanded

and Poland was no longer a communist country. Kukliński was controversial, because there was dispute over Poland's status in the Cold War.

Was it a sovereign state? If so, Kukliński would have betrayed Poland and could be considered a traitor even today.

Or was it just a puppet of the Soviets and Kukliński had therefore only betrayed the occupying power? [narrator] Ryszard Kukliński does not fall prey to an act of revenge.

In 2004, he dies of a stroke in his exile in the US. To the present day, he is a controversial figure in Poland. The Warsaw Pact is not the only victim of a master spy however.

NATO is as well. This spy's employer is the Ministry for State Security of the GDR, the Stasi.

His codename is "Topaz," his real name is Rainer Rupp. As a spy, he makes no mistakes. It is not until 1993 that he is arrested and put on trial.

Rupp had been releasing top secret documents on NATO's military strategy and armament plans to East Germany since 1977. [man speaking German]

[interpreter] Rainer Rupp had access to documents you can only dream of. Key documents from NATO headquarters. They were so fantastic, the Ministry of State Security

immediately passed them on to the KGB the minute they received them. [narrator] Rupp is a spy by political conviction. He is sentenced to 12 years on charges of high treason,

which could have been disastrous in the case of a conflict, as the opinion of the court stated. NATO is working towards its nuclear re-armament in the late 1970s,

yet nobody suspects Moscow to have gained this intelligence via its mole "Topaz." Nigel Dunkley on the premises of a former military hospital in Beelitz, a place that still haunts him.

About 30 years ago, he was secretly rummaging through the trash from the operating theatres. [Dunkley] There was a sickly sweet, disgusting, rotten smell.

[narrator] The Beelitz Sanatoriums were built in the late 19th and early 20th century. After World War II, the Soviets move in.

In the 1980s, the military mission's interest in hospitals of the Soviet military is growing. That's especially true for the British, who are hoping that, in Beelitz,

they will gain new information on the war in Afghanistan. The Soviets suffer severe casualties in the Hindu Kush. It is quite possible that some of their wounded

were treated in Germany as well. [explosions] The British want to get to the bottom of that assumption.