The FBI’s spy house on Wisconsin Avenue, in Washington, D.C.
This painfully obvious spy house sits right across the street from the Russian Embassy.
Cameras can be seen in the tinted skylights on the roof.
In the midcentury, the house at 2619 Wisconsin Avenue was attractive to all sorts of homebuyers: It had a big front porch, three stories, and was located in a family-friendly, residential neighborhood. Most attractive of all—to the FBI—it sat directly across the street from the Russian Embassy.
In 1977, the Soviet Union Embassy moved into a new building complex. It follows that, in the chaos of constructing the huge building, the FBI and the NSA would set up a secret spying station directly across the street.
According to most accounts, the house’s cover was negligible. The curtains were always drawn and no mail was ever delivered to the house, yet people were frequently seen coming and going. Cameras could be clearly spotted in the windows, filming all those who entered the Russian Embassy across the street. One local even reported seeing a long telescopic lens sticking out from a window late at night. In an attempt to up its anonymity, two FBI agents eventually moved into the house, though no one who knew of the house was fooled. The house’s owner was listed as “FBI” in public records, and its inhabitant’s occupation as “Clerk – really a spy.”
The FBI’s uses for the house may have gone beyond playing paparazzi. Operation MONOPOLY was a secret plan to dig a tunnel beneath the Embassy to record conversations taking place within the building, in the hopes of gleaning secret information. The problem was that the FBI had little knowledge of the Embassy’s layout. The agency hoped the tunnel would run underneath a conference or break room, but it was just as likely to lie beneath a storage closet.
The tunnel-digging was ill-fated from the start. Water regularly leaked into the tunnel, ruining the high-tech listening equipment, which rarely worked underground anyway. Though the FBI acknowledges the existence of the tunnel, they have never revealed which house in the neighborhood they began digging it from. Speculators believe it was either this observation house on Wisconsin Avenue or an abandoned house around the side of the Embassy on Fulton street. The truth may never be known for sure, as the tunnel has been sealed.
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“it’s the oldest question of all – who can spy on the spies?”
-john le carre – british/irish espionage author
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image credits: mad magazine, antonio prohias, mental floss,
This makes me think of the show The Americans (which I loved). 😀
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I’m going to binge this, as it sounds right up my alley!
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The Americans? It is SO good! You will get involved with these characters.
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I wonder what it is like to live next door. Do we invite them to the barbecue?
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it would certainly be interesting –
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How very interesting
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Yep .. I’m ready to unhitch my spacecraft (ITMIMS)
“I wanted to be a secret agent and an astronaut, preferably at the same time.” – David Byrne
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Wonderful quote
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Haha … it suits my visions of being a Spy in the Sky …
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Thank you for the history, Beth.
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Seems not the biggest secret-
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Sometimes they are poorly hidden in plain sight.
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Yes!
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Secret Agent Man
Coming to a blog near you soon.
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Yay! I loved that song!
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Interesting in deed! My name os Bond, James Bond!!
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Ha!
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Cheers.
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Very interesting Beth…always intriguing the business of spies…
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We know that you know we’re watching you! Oh, how much intrigue in D.C., Beth!!
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Ha Hah! The best way to hide something from someone is to give them something to look at in the other direction. They may look like buffoons and maybe they are but I’ll bet there’s a whole lot going on we never see.
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I’m sure-
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I spy with my little eye – a big waste of taxpayer money.
Fun bit of history.
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Indeed!
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Oh, what a story!
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Right?
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This is so interesting! I had no clue, but it only figures there are eyes all over.
Blessings to you Beth! ❤❤
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Right!
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Obviously, sophisticated tools don’t mean sophisticated thought.
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So right-
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I found this post very funny. Who did they think they were fooling?
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Exactly-)
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I guess we and they knew we and they were spying on each other all the time. But this is hilarious.
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I think so too
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Wow, observing that obviously…
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Right-
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Sounds more like a movie plot than real life. Both funny and fascinating.
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It so does and would make a fun movie
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quite a mad-funny-amusing-‘alarming’?-spy story!
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Yes to all of that!)
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Imagine what tomfoolery is going on right now!
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It is even hard to imagine)
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this is an example of why they say that truth is stranger than fiction.
spy vs spy was always one of my favorite parts of Mad magazine.
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So right and I loved it too!
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👍
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I think being a spy would be so interesting!
🙂
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So interesting
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This is great!
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I loved it!
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Interesting information!
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it really is…
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👍
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Good stuff, Beth! As a former Mad Magazine reader, I loved the Spy vs. Spy reference. The underground tunnel reminds me of Hogan’s Heroes, although I expect the Russians were a little more with it than Sergeant Schultz and Colonel Klink.🤣
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I loved mad as well, always looked forward to the new editions. yes, you. might be right about the tunnel. )
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Too funny and a little sad.
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Yes.both
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Seems to me I saw that the tunnel had been re-discovered and opened, but I can’t find the link. I think someone on FB posted it. I did find this:
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/the-secret-tunnel-the-fbi-built-underneath-the-soviet-embassy.html
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thank you!
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What is it we don’t know….too obvious and joke worthy….
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so much so –
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We are so subtle in this country. No one would EVER catch on. 😉
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hahahahahahaha
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What a story, but no surprise at all. I always loved Spy vs Spy!
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i did too!
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😀
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You know, I love a good SvS story! 🙂
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me too
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The games we play. All this paranoia and for what.
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all for nothing
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That’s fascinating. I wonder was it the basis for a tv series hub watched. I can’t think what it was called at the moment – Homeland, maybe, but I’m not sure.
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Similar goings on – homeland security
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