Operation Ivy Bells (jan 1, 1971 – jan 1, 1981)

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Beginning in the early 70s the US Navy, CIA, and NSA banded together to execute Captain James Bradley’s idea to wiretap a soviet underwater information line. The plan was entirely theoretical, and based on the notion that the Soviets had just created a nuclear-armed submarine base, Bradley only believed that there was a communication line running between the base and Moscow's Pacific Fleet headquarters in Vladivostok, Russia. The operation meant that multiple divers would swim 400 feet deep into the Sea of Okhotsk, kept alive by a tube that pumped warm water into the diver’s suits. Bradley’s hypothesis was that they could find the line through signs that were often left for boats warning boaters not to lower anchors due to underwater cables.
They successfully discovered a 3 in wide cable on the seabed and attached a 20 foot long recording device over the top of it. The Soviets were confident enough in that specific communication line that the US was able to extract copious amounts of unencrypted information from the line. Each month divers would extract the recording and replace the tapes, bringing them back to the US to analyze. This became one of the most successful missions of the cold war, until its discovery by the Soviets 1981, which the US later determined was a leak from one of the NSA employees, who was paid 35,000 dollars.


“National History Day Winner 2021 Operation Ivy Bells.” Naval Order, www.navalorder.org/national-history-day-winner-2021-operation-ivy-bells.
Carle, Matthew. “Operation Ivy Bells.” Military.com, 8 Nov. 2017, www.military.com/history/operation-ivy-bells.html.

-Danique Weisbeek

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