Speaker 1:

Washington is the only capital where the concentration of espionage activities is simply unparalleled. Inevitably, it is the hub of the centre ... the nerve centre of espionage.

Speaker 2:

If there's a city in the world, where it isn't safe to have a secret, it's Washington D.C.

Keith Melton:

If you leave your coat, if you leave your jacket, do you ever think that it's very, very easy to put in a small, tiny microphone, a transmitter, or a little what they call a hearing aid battery, that can be very easily put in the lining of your jacket? Inserted in less than one minute. So, you take your coat back with you, and you go on to your meeting, and you're a walking radio station.

Speaker 4:

On World News Tonight, the FBI agent accused of betraying-

Speaker 5:

They were acts of betrayal and treason. An FBI agent, accused of meeting a-

Speaker 6:

The cold war is over, but the intrigue is not. The FBI might be deeply embarrassed by the unmasking of one of its own, but to many Americans, it's another enthralling development in an unfinished story.

Speaker 5:

An American citizen and FBI agent, is accused of selling U.S. Government documents to the criminal.

Oleg Kalugin:

Romance. It's adventure. It's excitement. It's fear. It's murder. It's deception. It's a seduction.

Speaker 8:

Oleg Kalugin knows all about secret agents. He should. He used to be one. In fact, he used to be the KGB General in Charge of Soviet Counter Intelligence. This popular restaurant, barely a block from the White House, was one of his favourite haunts.

Oleg Kalugin:

But, the intelligence collection remained unabated. In fact, Russians now more than ever, interested in technological espionage and scientific espionage.

Speaker 9:

With the collapse of the USSR, I am joined, as thousands of my colleagues and private business owners.

Speaker 8:

These days, General Kalugin is a local celebrity.

Oleg Kalugin:

My office was on the top floor of this building. All day-

Speaker 8:

His cover, well and truly blown.

Oleg Kalugin:

The Soviet Embassy was not only the nerve centre of espionage, it also was a centre which attracted potential spies who would walk in.

Speaker 8:

What began as a cautionary tour for U.S. Government Employees, hosted by the KGB General, and some retired FBI and CIA agents, has grown into a sellout tourist attraction.

Oleg Kalugin:

Something goes wrong, they will stay in the shadows and-

Speaker 8:

Each passenger pays $35 to hear the former adversaries tell tales of surveillance, safe houses, and a double life of the mail box, like the one at 37th and R. A gentle stroll from the Russian Embassy.

Oleg Kalugin:

They may pass by this mail box. They will read what's on it, dusted in chalk, a cross or maybe a line, a small innocuous signal of what would mean that you have to come for an emergency meeting.

Speaker 8:

What do your former colleagues, even if they're still in the intelligence game, what do they think about the spy drive tour?

Oleg Kalugin:

Most of my colleagues detest me at best. Despise, detest, hate. Most of my former colleagues. Even Mr. Putin, who is another colleague of mine, he was my subordinate years ago. He declared publicly that I am a traitor.

Speaker 8:

Returning home is impossible. But, the money on the Spy Drive Tour is a lot better [crosstalk] than the KGB pension, and it's just the beginning.

Oleg Kalugin:

Conversations of spouses like Henry Kissinger and other.

Keith Melton:

Just a standard pair of shoes. It could be your pair of shoes. However, at the point they were ordered, someone modified them, and what they did was put in, literally, a complete radio station. There is a complete transmitter, a microphone, there's a tiny airway, that is here for the sound to reach the microphone. And, it's all activated by this pin.

Speaker 8:

The shoes belong to America's Ambassador to Czechoslovakia, the pin was activated by his maid who was working for East German Intelligence.

Keith Melton:

How do you introduce a listening device into a closed area? Their answer was very clever. Just have the Ambassador carry it in.

Speaker 8:

And the man telling the story, is a CIA technical advisor.

Keith Melton:

And, this is a complete covert photography system.

Speaker 8:

And, America's foremost collector of spy gadgets.

Keith Melton:

Where better to hide a camera, then in a camera case? This little trap door opens on the side. By putting my hand here, I can take a picture here.

Speaker 8:

Just in here?

Keith Melton:

Uh-huh. Here.

Speaker 8:

That's extraordinary.

Keith Melton, is a modern day Kube.

Keith Melton:

The KGB, in the 70s, late 60s and 70s, actually studied the James Bond films, because they believe that the films were predictive of long-term MI6 and CIA planning. That the technology that they saw there, could indeed, be used against them.

Speaker 8:

He's also one of the forces behind a $28 million plan to build Americas first Spy Museum. Three stories of espionage history and gadgets along with a Spy Café and souvenir shop. Just across the road from FBI headquarters.

Keith Melton:

Nothing like this has ever been done before. It will be ... It has been done to the level that will excite a professional at the same time, it will intrigue an eight year old.

Speaker 8:

The professionals in the spy game in Washington, have in fact, had their own collection of Cold War artefacts for years. But, unlike the proposed Spy Museum, their collection isn't open to the public. We've been allowed in to see it. Only on condition that we don't film the exterior of the building, or the various security check points we have to pass through to get in. It feels a bit like the Cold War, and this sign is where we have to turn the camera off.

Speaker 10:

Eight. Zero. Zero. Eight.

Speaker 8:

Inside CIA headquarters, you can listen to a short wave message to a Russian spy or see walnut shells that were used to hide codes, and a cigarette pack, and cigarette case that can take pictures.

Toni Hiley:

What it really is, is a Soviet roll-over camera. We have one of the most important collections of intelligence artefacts to-

Speaker 8:

My guide through the CIA exhibition, is Curator Toni Hiley.

Toni Hiley:

And, this one's been modified to become a button hole camera. You can see the buttons on the front, and it would have been mounted inside the jacket. A little document camera, here that is only for photographing documents, and on a roll of film, this could photograph about 200 documents.

Speaker 8:

That tiny camera? 200?

Toni Hiley:

That tiny camera, yes.

Speaker 8:

Why? Why no American Intelligence exhibits in here?

Toni Hiley:

Well, what we've shown you primarily, are KGB and Nastasi East German Intelligence equipment. Those two organisations no longer exist or still does. Therefore, our technology is still active and being used in the field still.

Oleg Kalugin:

The New York Times was penetrated in my time. The Washington Post was-

Speaker 8:

And perhaps, that explains the greatest lure of all about the murky world of espionage.

Oleg Kalugin:

To manipulate the media. To place in the media-

Speaker 8:

Because, no matter what's shared with us now, there are always more secrets and more surprises ahead. For after years of existing in the shadows, Washington's former spooks are convinced that they're about to spend their Cold War yarns into gold.