Original subtitles

Tonight on "Secrets Declassified,"

secret units, unseen and unheard,

shaping events from the shadows,

from a CIA heist high in the Himalayas...

They're elite cat burglars

risking their lives to steal the world's

most guarded secrets.

Or a surprising secret agent under deep cover...

It wasn't just a whale.

It looked like part of an intelligence operation.

And a covert unit with a dirty secret.

Now, the CIA can do a lot of things.

But they cannot be caught producing porn.

These are the astonishing and sometimes terrible things

done by governments and the people who work for them.

It's time to bring them to light.

During the Cold War, the U.S. Navy creates

a secret unit called Red Cell.

Its mission?

Stage mock attacks on U.S. naval bases

to test for vulnerabilities.

And it's successful.

A little too successful.

By the mid-1980s, the United States

is the world's preeminent military superpower.

There isn't a nation on Earth that can match it.

It has the best equipment, the most advanced technology.

Yet, there is a critical weakness.

There have been a string

of high-profile attacks

against U.S. military installations.

These have highlighted that the U.S. military

is vulnerable to small terrorist units.

In 1984, the Navy creates

Red Cell as a solution and launches it

against its most secure bases.

This mission is unlike anything

the U.S. Navy has ever sanctioned before.

It's like mock terrorism against itself.

To lead the unit,

the Navy picks Richard Marcinko,

a man who doesn't just think outside the box,

he blows it up.

Richard Marcinko, real-life Rambo,

he's one of the U.S. Army's best fighters.

But his reputation for flouting the rules

gets him desk duty.

He's a loose cannon that might be the perfect fit

for the Red Cell operation.

So he's placed in charge.

He recruits 13 Navy SEALs and one Force Recon Marine.

Now, officially, Red Cell's HQ

is assigned to the Pentagon.

However, in reality, Marcinko runs his unit

from his favorite Virginia dive bar,

Shooter McGee's.

And it's here that the team spend their nights

drinking, brawling,

and planning covert operations.

Soon, barroom bravado

becomes real-world threat.

Over the course of several months,

Red Cell runs a string of increasingly bold operations.

They infiltrate the world's largest

naval base in Norfolk, Virginia,

and plant dummy explosives.

They bypass security at Naval Base New London.

And they launch fake attacks on submarines.

With each success, Marcinko pushes harder,

until he sets his sights on the biggest target of all.

It's 1985 in California.

President Reagan is on vacation

at his ranch in Santa Barbara.

And about an hour down the coast,

Air Force One, the world's most defended plane,

is parked at a secure naval base,

Point Mugu Naval Air Station.

Marcinko and his team plot their attack.

Red Cell stakes out Air Force One,

probing it for weaknesses, looking for points of attack.

And they also hit local bars,

where they steal ID cards from sailors.

That is illegal.

But Marcinko plays by his own rules.

On August 30th, Marcinko gives the green light

for the operation.

One of his team members, disguised as a commander,

drives up to the base with radio equipment,

weapons, and dummy explosives hidden in the vehicle.

He sails right on through, no questions asked.

They're able to get out onto the airfield.

And several members get off and attach fake explosives

to the side of F-18 fighter jets.

Then it's time for Air Force One.

They steal a weapons carrier,

load it up with fake 500-pound bombs,

and drive it straight up to Air Force One,

all unchallenged.

Had this been a real attack,

they could have blown up Air Force One,

as well as a host of F-18 fighters

for good measure.

Eventually, Marcinko's team

is detained by base security.

For the Navy, it's a major embarrassment.

In a real attack, the president and his plane

could have been blown up.

It's a wake-up call.

And security is completely overhauled.

A brand-new unit of specially trained Marines

is created to protect U.S. Navy installations.

The attack on Air Force One marks

the high point of Red Cell's operations.

Soon after, Marcinko's team takes their mission

one step too far.

In March of 1986, a naval security officer

is kidnapped by Red Cell,

ostensibly for a training exercise.

Red Cell interrogates him so violently

that he suffers lasting injuries.

He's thrown against walls.

He's kicked. He's punched.

He's waterboarded.

It seems that Marcinko's finally lost sight

of the difference between security tests

and real violence.

Marcinko is stripped of command.

And in a separate case, the law catches up with him.

He's placed under criminal investigation,

convicted on federal charges, and sentenced

to nearly two years in prison.

Red Cell is officially disbanded.

You know, some people would argue

that Marcinko was somebody who never knew

what the limits were.

In 1992, Marcinko is released.

Soon after, he publishes

a tell-all memoir called "Rogue Warrior"

that blows the lid off of Red Cell.

The book becomes a bestseller, a dramatic final chapter

in Marcinko's controversial career.

Some secret units destroy targets.

Others destroy reputations.

In the 1950s, the CIA forms a secret unit that fights

the Cold War not with guns, but with a fake sex tape

code-named Happy Days.

In the depths of the Cold War,

the CIA calls on a secret unit

so adept at bizarre, covert operations,

they're kept completely off the books.

The man in charge? Ex-FBI agent Robert Maheu.

Maheu's unit is founded in 1954.

And its main strength is the litany of unusual contacts

it can draw on.

Maheu's little black book stretches

from the mafia to Hollywood's rich and famous.

In 1957, the CIA gives Maheu

his toughest mission yet--

stage a fake romantic encounter on film

to blackmail a global leader.

Indonesia is the world's sixth most populous nation,

making it a pivotal power broker in Southeast Asia,

which is a key battleground in the struggle

between the USA and the USSR.

Indonesia is led by President Sukarno.

He is a charismatic dictator

that Washington considers to be a wild card.

For years, he's been carefully courting

both the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

Now the CIA spots an opportunity

to bring Sukarno to heel.

They learn that on a recent trip to Moscow,

Sukarno became involved with a blonde flight attendant,

who was actually a KGB agent.

This flight attendant has since visited

President Sukarno in Indonesia a number of times.

CIA sources also know that the KGB has filmed

compromising footage of President Sukarno

with his flight attendant/ KGB lover

in a suite in the Kremlin.

And of course, they've done so for blackmail purposes.

The CIA now sees an opportunity.

If they can embarrass the president of Indonesia

by pointing out that he's dating a KGB agent,

perhaps then they could twist his arm

into working for the U.S.

The problem is, how can the CIA

leak a film it doesn't have, one that's locked away

by Soviet intelligence forces?

So it comes up with a radical idea--

fake it.

Now, the CIA can do a lot of things.

But they cannot be caught producing porn,

and certainly not one starring the leader of another nation.

So this needs to be a totally off-the-books operation,

conducted by a team who can make this film

without any trace leading back to Langley.

Enter Robert Maheu's secret unit

and its network of Hollywood contacts.

The CIA shows Maheu

photographs of the Kremlin suite

and Sukarno's blonde lover.

Both will have to be exact

for the fake film to be believable.

Maheu gets straight to work.

And he knows exactly who to call.

At the top of his address book

is the Academy Award-winning actor

and famed singer Bing Crosby,

the voice behind "White Christmas,"

and his brother Larry.

Maheu convinces the Crosbys to do

their part for their country.

So they find a small Hollywood studio,

and they convert it into a replica

of the Kremlin suite,

as seen in the CIA photographs.

The Crosbys supply Maheu with a camera

and teach him how to use it, keeping the film's crew

to an absolute minimum and maintaining secrecy.

The biggest challenge is finding the right cast.

He needs perfect doubles for Sukarno and the KGB agent.

For help, he turns to local law enforcement.

First, they find a doppelganger

for this KGB agent.

She's, in fact, an informant for the police.

For a convincing Sukarno,

a Hispanic-looking former roommate--

with help from Bing Crosby's makeup artists,

they're able to turn him into a near-perfect replica

of the Indonesian president.

With the set and cast in place,

the cameras are ready to roll.

In the dead of night, Maheu, his team, and the two "actors"

shoot their fake tryst.

The set is dressed to the tiniest detail,

and lighting mimics the grainy look of hidden surveillance.

After months of planning, filming is over

in just a few minutes.

What happens next is disputed.

One story goes that worrying

about the consequences of putting together a fake film,

the CIA got cold feet and never released it.

But Maheu said that stills from his film

were circulated in Indonesia, which caused the president

to drop the blonde and eventually led

to his fall from power.

Either way, the story of Hollywood's

most unlikely production stays secret for more than a decade.

In 1976, Alexander Cockburn

exposes the story in an article

for "The Village Voice."

Today, in the age of deepfakes and AI images,

the story seems even more incredible.

But once upon a time, a fake movie was enough

to topple a president.

Secret units are meant to stay hidden,

out of sight and in deep cover,

like Unit 29155, a distinctly unmemorable name

for a team of Russian assassins.

Unit 29155 is a clandestine Russian

military unit that has been in existence since at least 2008.

And they're linked to poisonings and sabotage

across Europe.

For years, the unit works

in total secrecy, unknown and unseen

by the world's governments and intelligence services.

Then in 2018, one operation changes everything.

It's a spring afternoon in the city

of Salisbury, England, and locals find

two people slumped on a bench.

So somebody quickly dials 999,

and first responders go rushing in.

As the hours pass, it becomes clear to residents

that this is no normal incident.

Hazmat suits appear, and a huge portion of the city center

is completely closed off.

Soon, police identify the victims,

Sergei Skripal, a former Russian intelligence officer

who defected to Britain,

and his daughter Yulia.

Investigators discovered that the Skripals

have been poisoned with something called Novichok.

This is an assassination attempt.

And really, there's only one plausible suspect--

Russian military intelligence.

Both Sergei and Yulia

are near death when found.

But after weeks in the hospital,

they somehow survive.

Global news outlets begin to point the finger.

Russian military intelligence is now the prime suspect.

Can investigators find

any hard evidence linking Russia to the attack?

British police investigate.

And months later, they release CCTV stills and video footage

of two men that they believe traveled from Russia

to Salisbury to carry out these poisonings.

And the names listed in the passports

are Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov.

A database search for these names

turns up nothing,

and the investigation grinds to a halt.

This is where Christo Grosev comes in.

At the time, Grosev is the lead researcher at Bellingcat,

an open-source investigative group

that uncovers covert operations.

And Grosev sets about trying to uncover

these men's real identities.

With the men's names offering no clues,

Grosev turns to the only other piece of information he has--

their passports.

Grosev uncovers a crucial detail

reported in the Russian press.

The passport numbers of these two men

are virtually identical, except for the last three numbers.

In a country of over 140 million people,

the chances of two travelers having nearly consecutive

passport numbers on the same plane

going to the same city is almost impossible.

Grosev attempts to trace the two Salisbury

suspects online but finds nothing, which is odd

because in a world where almost everyone leaves

a digital trail, a total absence of information

suggests something deliberate.

It's a hallmark of fabricated identities.

With no other personal details on the men,

once again, the investigation hits a dead end.

That's when one of Grosev's ex-intelligence contacts

gives him an idea.

Why not look at the alumni of Russia's military academies

to search for any high-flying graduates,

men who might have been recruited

by the elite security services,

and match the photos of the Salisbury killers?

One of these places is Russia's Far Eastern Higher

Combined Arms Command School, which is one of Russia's oldest

military academies that has connections

to the GRU, which is Russia's secretive military

intelligence agency.

Grosev begins cross-checking

the school's graduates with award rolls

and keeps hitting one name--

Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga.

Since graduating, he has become a decorated GRU officer

and recipient of Russia's highest honor,

the Hero of the Russian Federation.

When Grosev compares photographs of Chepiga

with Ruslan Boshirov...

They're the same men.

A parallel search of an elite Russian military medical school

finds that Chepiga's accomplice, Alexander Petrov,

matches the image of an Alexander Mishkin.

And Mishkin's car is even registered

to the GRU's Moscow headquarters.

It leaves no doubt.

The two men's arrival before the poisoning

is no coincidence.

They're highly trained Russian killers

operating under state-issued false identities.

Most investigators would stop here.

But Grosev pushes further.

He is determined to uncover the sprawling secret unit

that he believes is behind the Skripal plot.

His big break comes when a Russian opposition paper

exposes a third suspect--

Sergey Fedotov.

Grosev discovers he's really Denis Sergeev,

a senior GRU officer.

By looking into Sergeev's travel records,

Grosev sees a chilling pattern.

Wherever Sergeev goes, disaster follows.

A weapons depot explodes in the Czech Republic in 2014.

There's an attempted poisoning of an arms dealer

in Bulgaria in 2015.

Essentially, if Sergeev shows up at passport control,

it pretty much means

the Kremlin has marked a target.

Grosev digs deeper and discovers Sergeev is

a senior figure in a top secret GRU unit

of assassins and saboteurs.

After years in the shadows, the existence of Unit 29155

is exposed.

Using the same techniques that he used

to identify the two attackers of the Skripals,

Grosev keeps going.

And ultimately, he's able to uncover

the identities of dozens of members

of this secret subunit.

And he makes sure that Western law enforcement

and Interpol know exactly who they are.

In one swoop, Unit 29155's operations

are disrupted for a generation.

In 2019, Grosev publishes his findings.

The revelation of a secret Russian hit squad

creates a sensation worldwide.

But for his extraordinary detective work,

Grosev pays a high price.

In early October,

Western intelligence warned Grosev

new Russian operatives had been detected

in Europe, gathering information on his movements.

Grosev's name is now on a kill list.

Grosev exposed Russia's most secret

assassination unit.

Now he's forced into a life on the run.

Some army units get the job done with force.

Others use deception, like the Alamo Scouts

in World War II, who rescued 500 prisoners

in just 28 minutes.

In the midst of World War II,

the United States creates a secret unit

that is so clandestine,

not even U.S. military service people

know that it exists.

They're not shock troops.

They're not commandos.

They're specialist reconnaissance spies.

They're called the Alamo Scouts.

More than 700 men try out, but only 138 are chosen,

the most resourceful and unbreakable.

Their most important mission

begins in the Philippines in 1945,

when a local passes along troubling intelligence.

500 Allied prisoners

are being held in a POW camp near a village

called Cabanatuan, about 30 miles

inside Japanese-held territory.

The prisoners being held

at Cabanatuan don't know it,

but they are in mortal danger.

If liberation looks imminent, the order is simple--

execute them.

It's a job for the Alamo Scouts.

Their mission is to get eyes on the camp

and gather intel for a U.S. Army Ranger rescue operation.

They are masters at sneaking behind enemy lines

without being seen themselves.

They're led by Lieutenant William Nellist,

a combat veteran with a talent for deception and disguise.

He assembles an elite team of 13 men for the mission.

They are literally the best of the best,

trained in jungle survival and guerrilla tactics.

If anyone can get near the camp

without triggering a massacre,

it's them.

On January 27th, the operation begins.

But as the 13 men approach Cabanatuan,

they encounter a problem.

Lieutenant William Nellist discovers

all of the foliage and normal cover they expected

is actually not there.

Cabanatuan is built in the middle of a rice paddy.

The space around it is wide open.

The enemy has guard towers,

and the area is under observation

at all times.

Then Nellist spots

a crumbling shack overlooking the camp.

If he can reach it, he'll have the perfect vantage point

to scout the camp's defense.

Nellist decides that he and another man

will essentially disguise themselves

as Filipino rice paddy workers.

They wear coarse shirts and straw hats

that they picked up from local villagers.

And in plain sight of the Japanese guards,

they head out across the rice paddies

and go to the shack.

If their deception isn't perfect,

the consequences could be deadly.

They eventually reach the shack

located close enough to the camp

that it can function as an excellent observation post.

Inside the shack,

they perform surveillance for over two hours.

They draw a detailed map of the camp,

and they count around 250 guards.

The problem is,

the guard force is more than twice as large

as they'd been led to expect.

And the American prisoners are in terrible physical shape.

They've been weakened by starvation,

torture, and death marches.

In fact, some of the POWs are so weak,

they can barely move at all.

Outmanned and outgunned,

they devise a rescue plan that uses

deception to level the field.

The plan that the Alamo Scouts

come up with, they need something

to function as a distraction.

A U.S. Army Air Force's P-61 Black Widow night fighter

will fly in, simulating that it is

encountering engine problems.

And then they'll launch the raid,

recover the prisoners of war using caribou

and bamboo stretchers, move them to safety.

On the night of January 30th, the scouts,

now backed by the 6th Army and local guerrillas,

move into position for the rescue.

Inside the camp,

Japanese guards lounge about smoking.

What the guards don't know is that the attack

is already underway, starting with a diversion.

A P-61 Black Widow night fighter swoops low,

engines roaring, backfiring.

It's weaving.

It all is trying to sell the illusion

of a stricken plane that's about to crash.

And the guards naturally look skyward, distracted.

The rescue raid springs into motion.

The U.S. troops and the Filipino guerrillas

converge on the camp.

The guards are overwhelmed and confused.

They don't realize what's happening until it's too late.

They breach through the fence of the POW camp,

get inside, and begin liberating prisoners.

It all goes down like clockwork.

The raid is over

in less than 30 minutes.

The Japanese suffer nearly 600 casualties,

but not a single Alamo Scout is lost.

Altogether, 500 Allied prisoners are freed.

This is, like, one of the most daring,

heroic operations

the American military conducted during World War II.

Despite their success, for over 40 years,

the Alamo Scouts remain a secret.

The records of their operations are,

for all intents and purposes, just buried.

In 1986, the U.S. Army finally declassifies

the record of the Alamo Scouts.

Two years after

their records are declassified,

the Alamo Scouts are granted

the insignia of a Special Forces soldier.

Over 40 years after

their heroics in the Philippines,

the Alamo Scouts finally receive recognition

for pulling off one of the most daring

POW rescue missions in American history.

Most secret units stay out of sight.

They rely on false identities and clever disguises.

But during the Cold War,

the Soviet Union assembles a team that truly

operates below the surface--

an elite force of highly trained dolphins.

At the height of the Cold War,

Soviet navy commanders are worried.

They're concerned enemy divers could slip into their bases

and sabotage their fleet without being detected.

In the warm waters off the Crimean Peninsula,

the USSR sets up a top-secret training school for dolphins.

The Soviets, by utilizing the dolphins'

incredible hearing and intelligence,

create a highly effective early warning defense system

for any possible inbound enemy submarines.

The Dolphins are fully trained

to trail a signal buoy and kept on standby.

In 1991, the Soviet Union breaks apart.

Modern Russia has no use for these trained dolphins.

So the marine mammal program falls apart

and is just remembered as a relic

of the old Soviet empire.

Fast forward three decades,

and the mammal program resurfaces

in the most unexpected of places.

It's a spring day off the coast of Norway.

Three fishermen spot something strange drifting in the ocean.

As they get closer,

they realize it's a beluga whale.

Now, this is odd.

Belugas swim in colder waters than this.

Also, they typically travel in pods.

So for it to be this far south and to be alone,

something is suspicious here.

As the whale swims by,

the fishermen notice that there's something

caught around the beluga's body.

One of the fishermen dives into the water

to help the animal.

But once in the water,

the fisherman realizes

that this isn't debris wrapped around the whale--

this is a carefully designed harness.

As they haul the harness onto deck,

they spot something strange--

a stamp that says, "Equipment, Saint Petersburg."

This isn't fishing gear.

It's Russian tech.

Just for the record,

no zoo or research institution

has put out a statement saying that

they are missing their beluga.

It is a total mystery where this thing came from.

The mystery quickly makes international headlines,

and news outlets settle on the unsettling conclusion

a Russian spy whale has just surfaced in Norwegian waters.

Locals embrace the theory,

and they give the animal a name, Hvaldimir,

which is a playful mashup of the word Hval,

which is Norwegian for whale,

and the first name of Russia's president,

Vladimir Putin.

The Putin administration

doesn't confirm knowledge of Hvaldimir.

Intelligence journalists

across the world start digging in

to see if Hvaldimir really is

a part of a secret Russian unit.

Footage on social media

of Hvaldimir playing with tourists along Norway's coast

reveals a pretty big clue.

It shows Hvaldimir being playful--

tugging at ropes, nudging boats.

He even retrieves a girl's phone from the seabed.

It becomes clear that

this whale has experience with humans

and may even be trained,

but it's not clear by who or why.

The following month, European journalists

make a breakthrough while trawling through Google Maps.

They're scrolling along the coastline,

looking at clues.

And they spot something

hiding in plain sight in Olenya Bay

near Murmansk.

Floating in the water

are what appear to be large pens,

roughly 20 meters wide.

Murmansk is Russia's key Arctic port

and the base for its main submarine force,

the Northern Fleet.

That fleet comprises more than 30 submarines,

including a bunch that are capable

of launching nuclear strikes.

The freezing waters of Murmansk

are too cold for most dolphin species.

Have Russians begun secretly training

a new mammal to serve as underwater sentinels?

Inside those berths

are white shapes that match

the sizes of beluga whales.

This discovery is only

the tip of the iceberg.

Later that month, more intel is revealed.

A tip reaches Ukrainian marine biologist

Dr. Olga Shpak.

She's told Hvaldimir is actually a whale named Andruha

and went missing from the Research Institute

for Applied Problems in Murmansk.

It's a branch of the Russian military

that has been secretly training beluga whales.

A secret unit of Russian marine troops

is finally exposed by the most unexpected whistleblower.

After his escape,

Hvaldimir lives out the remainder of his days

on the Norwegian coast, living proof

of Russia's latest shadow unit,

this top-secret battalion

of cute belugas that are trained

to guard its submarine strike force.

When a secret unit mission ends in success,

no one ever hears about it.

But when a mission fails,

that's when it makes the headlines.

In the early years of the Cold War,

the CIA creates its own team of cat burglars,

a unit so secret, it operates entirely off the books.

It's known only as The Shop.

They're trained in lock picking, safe cracking,

and silent entry.

And they're the CIA's answer when what they're looking for

is literally locked behind closed doors.

In 1989, the CIA has a problem

only The Shop can crack, high in the Himalayas.

The CIA has intelligence that

a code machine is locked away inside

the East German embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal.

It's the key to unlocking three decades

of encrypted East German communications.

It's an intelligence gold mine.

If they can steal the code machine,

then they can decrypt the intelligence

and tip the balance

between the U.S. and its Cold War rivals.

At this point, the Eastern Bloc is crumbling.

And understanding what's happening

behind the Iron Curtain has never been more critical.

With the stakes so high,

the CIA turns to its most skilled safecracker,

a man named Doug Groat.

Groat is a former Green Beret,

trained in survival and evasion.

But after leaving the Special Forces in 1980,

he joins the CIA.

By 1989, he's a seven-year veteran

of The Shop, trusted with the jobs

no one else can handle.

Groat is ordered to fly to Kathmandu

and steal the code machine.

He's ordered to take the entire safe

because attempting to crack it on-site

would just take too much time.

As with most of his work,

failure means likely death.

Members of The Shop do not have diplomatic immunity.

And that means that if they are caught,

the CIA will deny their existence and disavow them.

Two days before the mission,

Groat's team arrives in Nepal disguised as tourists.

They move into a safe house and begin final preparations.

To give Groat's team a window of time

to carry out the operation,

CIA stationed in Kathmandu

sets up a diplomatic event

about an hour outside of the city.

They know that the East Germans can't deny

an invitation to come to the event...

Which gives Groat's team about three solid hours

to carry out this mission.

Groat and his team need to reach

the East German embassy without any suspicion.

That's kind of hard for a group of white dudes

to accomplish in Kathmandu.

Groat and his team are given

latex masks, complete with black hair

and darker skin tone

to turn them into convincing Nepalese men,

On the day,

the Americans put on their disguises

and begin the operation.

At the closed embassy,

Groat quietly opens the front door.

Inside the embassy, it's too hot to concentrate.

So they have no choice.

They have to remove their masks.

Groat and his team identify the safe,

but it's much heavier than they anticipated.

They drag the safe down the stairs,

load it into a van,

and speed away to the U.S. embassy.

When they reach the embassy,

Groat cracks open the safe to retrieve his prize.

But it's completely empty.

It's a failure.

So when another job goes wrong,

Groat is furious.

it's putting his intelligence team at risk.

In the months that follow, Groat falls out with the CIA

and eventually leaves the agency under a cloud.

Decades later, in 2012,

Groat reveals details of The Shop

to journalist David Wise, who,

through Groat's testimony and other sources,

pieces together details

of this still very top secret unit.

In fact, it's Wise who publishes a bombshell article

revealing the botched Kathmandu job

and sheds light for the first time

on the inner workings of The Shop.

The Kathmandu job remains the only

confirmed operation that The Shop ever carried out,

even though people assume dozens,

if not hundreds, of additional operations

have also taken place.

Were it not for that failed mission,

we'd probably never have known that The Shop even existed.

Spying on your enemies is standard practice.

But when your targets are your own allies,

espionage enters dangerous new territory.

F6 is a subunit of the CIA's Special Collection Service.

Essentially, it's a team of master eavesdroppers.

Formed late in the Cold War, some of their triumphs

include bugging Moscow's phone exchanges

and tapping Pakistan communication networks

to steal nuclear plans.

If you want to listen in

on any conversation on Earth,

these are the people you call.

The United States' relationship with Germany

is facing its biggest strain since the end of World War II.

George W. Bush is making his case

to start the Iraq war.

Germany will not be joining in.

It is a very public snub.

And it makes intelligence chiefs

inside the U.S. government uneasy.

If Berlin is so willing

to openly defy the United States,

that creates fears they're sowing distrust

among America's other allies.

The Bush administration wants to know

what's being said behind closed doors in Germany,

so it turns to F6.

To bug the German government,

F6 places their faith in a newly-developed

piece of computer code that targets a weak spot

in the administration's communications security.

For sensitive business,

the Germans use secure, encrypted landlines.

But they all carry mobile phones,

which bounce microwave signals from tower to tower.

F6 has developed a top-secret program

to monitor these transmissions.

F6 can sift through

the storm cloud of microwaves

whizzing over a city or an entire nation

and pull out any messages linked to that number.

The entire operation can be run

from the U.S. embassy in Berlin.

There, they can place an antenna on high

to trawl the airwaves for sensitive communications

between targeted politicians.

The challenge is installing the antennas

where they won't attract attention.

F6's solution is another piece

of high-tech trickery.

The antennas are placed inside rooms

at the very top of the U.S. embassy,

near windows, which they coat with

a special dielectric film.

What this film does is, it blocks visible light,

concealing the antenna while allowing radio

and microwaves to pass through to be collected.

With the antennas in place, the U.S. now has

a direct line into Germany's inner circle.

For weeks, the U.S. pushes Germany

to support the invasion of Iraq,

all while simultaneously listening

to the private communications of German leadership.

Armed with this intel, they soon realize that

the Germans likely won't budge.

And it's little surprise to the Americans

when Germany refuses to join their invasion of Iraq

in March of 2003.

F6 keeps the phone tap operation

running even after the Iraq war ends.

As Angela Merkel rises to become chancellor

and one of the West's most influential politicians,

her phone remains under surveillance.

On paper, she's one of Washington's

closest allies, yet F6 keeps listening,

undetected and undeterred.

It stays secret for years,

until June 2013, when it's finally revealed.

NSA contractor Edward Snowden

walks off the job in Hawaii,

and he's carrying what will become

one of the most damaging intelligence leaks in history.

He releases this information to journalists.

Overnight, the world learns of

vast and secret U.S. surveillance programs.

Buried among the details is a document

listing the personal number of Angela Merkel

as an active NSA target.

Scandal erupts,

and Merkel calls President Obama to tell him

spying on friends is not acceptable.

Within days, the world learns that

F6 is tapping into the inner circles

of allied governments.

Outrage sweeps Germany and beyond.

The CIA never officially acknowledges

the German eavesdropping operation

or even the existence of F6.

The question is, who are they listening to now?

From an unusual spy in the waters off Norway

to a daring rescue in World War II

and a team of deadly Russian assassins,

secret units operate in every era

and for every government.

When they succeed, no one's the wiser.

But when they fail, the world finds out.