[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[Duchovny] Tonight on "Secrets Declassified,"
covert heists so bold, so daring, no one saw them coming
until it was far too late.
From the agent who steals a top secret weapon
with an unlikely getaway vehicle...
- He carts the 10-foot missile
down the runway in a wheelbarrow.
- To the spy turned cat burglar who'll do anything
to accomplish her mission.
- She's completely naked except for a string of pearls.
- And the Mossad plot that's straight from a heist movie.
- They construct a perfect replica of this secret archive
and rehearse their heist down to the minute.
- 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.
♪ ♪
Picking a lock, smashing a window, cracking a safe,
every heist relies on an entry point.
But in World War II, when British special forces set out
to steal top secret Nazi technology,
their only way in is a midnight parachute drop
behind enemy lines.
♪ ♪
- In 1941, the balance of power is shifting
in the skies over Europe.
[Martin] The RAF has won the Battle of Britain
and now is putting bomber aircraft in the sky
to strike targets in occupied territories.
[Sami] Problem is, the British are being shot
out of the sky with alarming precision,
and they don't know why.
Sometimes they're losing dozens of pilots in a single raid.
[Duchovny] These deaths are no accident.
British intelligence soon learns
the Nazis have rolled out a new air defense
over mainland Europe.
[Sami] The Germans have developed a new radar system
code-named Wurzburg.
It's far more accurate than anything they've built before.
- A previous system could detect an aircraft
with an accuracy of about 500 meters.
Wurzburg, on the other hand, allows you to detect
with a precision that's now 25 meters.
[Duchovny] To give its aircraft a fighting chance,
British command needs to figure out
how to blind this new radar.
And the best way to do that is to steal one.
But planning a heist is a challenge when you know
almost nothing about the target.
[Don] Germans have kept their new technology
a closely guarded secret, meaning the British aren't sure
exactly what this new radar looks like.
So their analysts pore over aerial reconnaissance photos
from France looking for leads, and one image stands out.
Near the village of Bruneval, they spot what looks like
a large black bowl perched on a cliff top,
which is exactly the vantage point you'd expect
for a radar scanning the skies.
[Duchovny] Trouble is, this is no easy target for a heist.
[Sami] The site is heavily defended.
Intelligence suggests that there are up to 100 troops
in an encampment just to the northeast,
and there are machine gun positions
all along the shoreline.
So any raiding team will likely be heavily outgunned.
This means they'll need to rely on the element of surprise.
[Duchovny] If the British arrive by boat,
they'll be spotted.
The only way to sneak past the guards is from above.
- Plan is to drop 120 paratroopers
behind enemy lines,
approach the radar installation facility,
and take it by force, then dismantle the technology
and get exfiltrated on the coast by boats.
[Duchovny] The code name for this daring mission?
Operation Biting.
Spearheading the assault will be a parachute battalion
commanded by Major John Frost.
[Sami] Frost is a cool-headed officer,
but he and his battalion are worryingly green.
These kinds of behind-enemy-lines missions
are relatively new, and he's never
led a combat parachute drop.
Some of his men have never even jumped out of a plane.
[Duchovny] Even if the team makes it to the radar alive,
to steal it, they'll need a man
with a head for technology.
Enter Flight Sergeant Charles Cox.
[Jack] Cox is a radar specialist
in the Royal Air Force, and he knows
the British radar systems inside and out.
Cox's mission is to actually dismantle the Wurzburg
and get it out of there.
[Duchovny] After almost three months of planning the raid,
British command gives the green light.
♪ ♪
- Just after midnight, the paratroopers
make their drop over Bruneval,
and almost immediately, things go bad.
[Martin] German anti-aircraft flak
forces a number of pilots off course,
so dozens of men end up miles from the zone.
- The troops eventually regroup at the assembly point
500 yards from the radar, and they still haven't been
located by the nearby guards.
- Frost and Cox can now see their target,
but their surprise advantage is short lived.
As they push forward, the Germans realize
the radar is under attack,
turning every yard into a desperate and deadly gauntlet.
[Don] Under a hail of bullets, Cox reaches the radar.
But it's only then that he realizes most of his gear
was lost in the drop.
With no other options, he begins tearing out components
by brute force.
[Dan] After barely 10 minutes, the German fire
gets so intense that Frost has to give the order to fall back.
The team grabs whatever they can
and then blows the rest sky high.
♪ ♪
[Duchovny] The British have secured the radar's
crucial components.
Now the men must battle their way down
to the beach for extraction.
But when they reach the sand, the navy vessels
are nowhere to be seen.
- When they're on the verge of abandoning hope, at last,
the navy spots their flashlights.
Six landing craft surge onto the beach,
and Frost's men sprint aboard, dodging bullets
as they drag the radar components with them.
[Duchovny] At 3:15 a.m., Major John Frost
is the last man to leave French soil.
In just three hours, this British battalion
has pulled off one of the boldest heists of the war.
- The stolen components reveal exactly how
the German Wurzburg system works.
Within months, the British develop countermeasures.
- Over the course of the war, these countermeasures
are credited with saving more than
450 aircraft and 4,500 lives.
[Duchovny] For decades, the theft of the radar
remains a closely guarded secret.
Then, in 1970, journalist George Millar
tracks down the surviving members of the operation
and unearths the truth.
Four years later, he publishes his book,
"The Bruneval Raid"...
♪ ♪
Finally revealing the full story
of Britain's intrepid heist.
When the Brits wanna steal a Nazi radar,
they deploy a team of elite commandos.
When the KGB has an opportunity to steal a NATO missile,
it puts its faith in a German playboy
armed only with a wheelbarrow, a carpet, and a postage stamp.
♪ ♪
[Hakeem] In 1967, the public's appetite for ground wars
is rapidly fading.
So the Americans and the Soviets,
they both see air power as key to controlling the battlefield.
[Martin] At this point, there's one thing that
the Western world has
that the Soviet Union doesn't have yet,
and that is an extremely effective air-to-air missile.
[Duchovny] It's called the Sidewinder AIM-9D.
[Hakeem] This upgraded missile is a big problem for Moscow
because it's clear evidence that their tech
is lagging behind.
♪ ♪
[Duchovny] It would take years for the Soviets
to develop a rival weapon from scratch.
But in West Germany in 1967, one man offers the KGB
a faster way to catch up.
Steal one.
He's not a hardened spy but an architect
with a thirst for adventure.
[Jack] Manfred Ramminger is a quite colorful character,
known to be a bit of a playboy.
He's an amateur race car driver.
But he also owns a construction company, and it's going under,
and he needs a quick influx of cash.
[Duchovny] One night at a card table
in the town of Ingolstadt,
Ramminger spots the ultimate opportunity
to wipe out his debts.
[Greg] Seated across from Ramminger
is a West German Air Force pilot, Wolf-Diethardt Knoppe.
As the drinks flow, our pilot mentions
to the flamboyant architect that security is pretty lax
at the nearby NATO base.
[Martin] He even boasts that it would be possible
to walk onto that base, steal a missile,
and get away before they even noticed it.
[Duchovny] Ramminger believes that stealing a Sidewinder
could earn him a handsome reward from the Soviets.
So he quietly floats this idea to a KGB contact,
and he gets the green light.
But he can't pull it off alone.
[Martin] Ramminger is going to need Knoppe
to carry out this heist,
and that's because Knoppe has base access.
Just because the security is lax,
that doesn't mean that it's nonexistent.
[Duchovny] With the promise of a big payday,
Knoppe doesn't need much convincing.
One late October night, the playboy
and the disgruntled pilot make their move.
- That evening, a thick fog rolls over the base,
which is perfect. It provides cover.
Beyond that, there are no guard dogs.
They've been locked away for the night
while the base is being treated with rat poison.
[Andrew] Two men cut through the perimeter fence.
Knoppe goes into the warehouse that holds the missiles,
disables security, and has full access
to the Sidewinder missiles.
- Getting in, that's the easy part.
Somehow, they now have to carry this 9 1/2 foot,
165 pound weapon off the base.
Their solution comes straight out of a backyard shed.
[Andrew] They actually find an old wheelbarrow nearby.
And they put an active missile on the wheelbarrow
and wheel it off the base.
[Duchovny] They push their cargo back to Ramminger's
waiting Mercedes.
The problem is, sedans aren't built
for smuggling Sidewinders.
- They attempt to load the missile
into the trunk of the car.
The missile won't fit.
At this point, they smash out the back windshield
of the Mercedes so that they can
put this missile in the car, having it stick out the back.
- He wraps the protruding missile in an old carpet
that he happens to have in his car.
- The cherry on top is that he ties a small flag to the back
of the rug, which assures them that they won't be pulled over
if a police officer happens to see their oversized load.
- Ramminger then drives more than 300 miles
down the Autobahn with his stolen NATO missile
hanging out the window.
[Duchovny] Now Ramminger just needs a way
to get the stolen Sidewinder to Moscow.
His masterstroke?
Stick it in the mail.
- Now, you can't mail a full missile,
so they dismantle it. They take it apart.
They mail these individual pieces to Moscow.
The cost for shipping a top secret weapon?
80 bucks.
[Duchovny] For his trouble, Ramminger receives $81,000,
the equivalent of $700,000 today.
But his bold heist doesn't go unnoticed forever.
- In the months that follow, a routine inventory check
reveals that a missile is missing.
[Jack] This triggers an investigation,
and suspicion falls on Knoppe relatively quickly
because he's been partying and waving around his big payday
and drawing a lot of attention to himself.
♪ ♪
[Hakeem] Both he and Ramminger are arrested.
Their trial sparks a surge of press coverage.
They're found guilty of treason, espionage,
and grand larceny, and they're sentenced
to three to four years in prison.
[Duchovny] It's a disgraceful end for Ramminger.
But for Moscow, the gamble pays off.
[Martin] The Soviets begin a process
of reverse engineering the weapon.
And soon thereafter, they release
their own heat-seeking air-to-air missile.
♪ ♪
- It's said you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
So in World War II, when the Allies want to steal
their enemy's top secret naval codes,
they turn to the master of the honey trap.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[Catherine] In early 1942, the Allied forces
are planning to invade North Africa
to draw Nazi forces away from Soviet Russia.
One significant obstacle is that the ports
that they're targeting in North Africa
are controlled by Vichy France.
- In simplest terms, Vichy is a puppet government set up
to rule unoccupied France but really for and in behalf
of Nazi Germany.
[Duchovny] To prepare for this invasion,
the Allies need intel on the movements
of the Vichy French navy.
But to do that requires one crucial item.
[Martin] The Vichy French navy communicates
using encoded messages.
The codes that can crack those messages
are kept in a series of code books
at the French embassy in Washington D.C.
[Catherine] If they can get their hands
on these code books, this would allow them
to monitor the Vichy fleets during their invasion.
[Duchovny] Stealing these code books from a secure location
will require the mother of all heists.
To pull it off, British intelligence
turns to one of its most daring
and unconventional agents.
[Kavitha] Amy Elizabeth Thorpe is
a beautiful American socialite turned spy
who is also an MI6 agent, known by her codename, Cynthia.
[Catherine] Cynthia's methods are unorthodox.
She doesn't use gadgets or disguises.
Her weapon of choice is intimacy.
- She's a master of the honey trap,
using her charms to garner secrets
from even the most guarded target.
[Duchovny] Getting her hands on the Vichy French
naval codes will be Cynthia's toughest assignment yet.
[Catherine] She looks for someone
she can target with her charms and finds her mark
in Captain Charles Brousse, who is the person in charge
of the embassy press.
- He doesn't have direct access to the information she needs,
but he can get her into the building.
And so she seduces him.
[Greg] Two months into their affair,
Cynthia tells Brousse that she's a spy
and that she needs access to this cipher,
to these code books.
He's not on board.
[Duchovny] Brousse knows the odds are stacked against them.
The embassy is under round-the-clock guard,
and the ciphers are locked inside a safe.
But Cynthia won't take no for an answer.
- She gives him an ultimatum.
Either you help me or I'll find someone who will.
- Brousse chooses his heart over his head.
Together, they begin to plot a daring heist.
Cynthia knows the code books will be easier to grab
under cover of darkness.
But getting inside after hours will require a personal touch.
- Cynthia has Brousse bribe the night watchman
to let them use the embassy as a private spot
for their affair.
[Catherine] Brousse tells the guard
that it's the perfect location because
he can then tell his wife that he's working late.
- For weeks, the pair use the embassy as their love nest.
Soon, the guard barely questions their presence
and gives them pretty much free rein to recon the site.
[Duchovny] The next problem,
how to get into the code room safe.
- Through her intelligence contacts,
Cynthia recruits a safecracker known as the Georgia Cracker.
[Sami] He's highly skilled,
but he's also a hardened criminal.
However, in wartime, your options are limited.
[Duchovny] In June 1942,
Cynthia and Brousse make their move.
- Tonight, the familiar guard is nowhere to be seen,
which throws them for a bit of a loop,
but Brousse unlocks the door.
Once inside, they stick to their usual routine,
smoking, laughing, whispering sweet nothings.
[Duchovny] Still, something feels off.
Cynthia senses danger.
Acting on instinct, she strips off her clothes.
[Martin] The guard throws the door open,
and a flashlight beam pierces the darkness,
and it falls on Cynthia's naked body.
[Sami] And Cynthia, wearing nothing but
a string of pearls, gasps and covers herself
in mock embarrassment, causing the guard
to mumble an apology and retreat.
And it's this quick thinking that ensures he won't
disturb them again that night.
[Duchovny] With the guard out of the picture,
Cynthia moves fast.
She lets the safecracker in through a window,
and he gets to work.
[Kavitha] The cracker lives up to his name,
and within minutes, the safe is open
and the code books are out.
- The cracker slips back into the night,
delivering them to the British intelligence team
waiting nearby to photograph them.
And meanwhile, Cynthia and Brousse
endure an agonizing wait.
[Duchovny] Finally, at around 4:00 a.m.,
they hear movement at the window.
[Sami] The cracker has returned.
So together, they put the code books back in the safe
and wipe away any fingerprints.
Then the cracker slips out the window,
leaving Cynthia and Brousse to walk out of the embassy
like nothing ever happened.
[Duchovny] The stolen cipher books are
rushed to Allied codebreakers.
Within days, British and American commanders
can read every Vichy naval transmission.
- This intelligence proves decisive.
When the Allied invasion of North Africa
begins that November, Allied forces are able
to predict the Vichy navy's every move.
[Sami] Cynthia is credited with saving the lives
of hundreds of British and American troops.
[Duchovny] For decades, the full story
of this bold theft remains classified.
Then, just before her death in 1963,
Cynthia shares her diaries with an old friend,
former MP Montgomery Hyde.
Two years later, he publishes a biography
based on her memoirs, finally revealing
this remarkable embassy theft carried out by a socialite spy
armed with nothing but her powers of persuasion.
- Most spies steal secrets.
But when Israel wants to supersize its nuclear arsenal,
its agents set out to steal 200 tons of uranium
without leaving a trace.
[dramatic music]
- In the 1960s, Israel begins a new top secret program
to develop nuclear weapons.
- The country is less than 20 years old,
and it's absolutely encircled by hostile neighbors
that all swear to erase it from the map.
[Duchovny] Israel's leaders believe
their nation's survival hinges on their nuclear arsenal.
But in 1968, they hit a major problem.
- The nuclear bomb takes a tremendous amount of material.
It takes about 4 tons of uranium
to be able to create one bomb.
[Hakeem] Unfortunately, uranium
is incredibly hard to come by.
Its sale is tightly regulated by world powers
like the U.S., who is determined to prevent
nuclear proliferation.
- But as suspicions mount that Israel is trying to create
a nuclear weapon, it's no surprise
that the world is unwilling to share
uranium with the Israelis.
[Duchovny] With no one willing to sell them the uranium
they need, Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad,
decides to steal it and sets a bold plan in motion:
Operation Plumbat.
- Mossad knows that uranium mines and nuclear reactors
are far too heavily guarded for them to steal the uranium
from those targets.
To have any hope of stealing the huge amount of uranium
they need, they'll have to find a weaker link
on that supply chain.
[Duchovny] Mossad settles on a plan
to covertly buy a vast uranium stockpile,
then seize it while it's on the move
and smuggle it to Israel.
Their first step, find a front company
to make the purchase on their behalf.
- Mossad chooses to use a German chemical company
called Asmara Chemie as a cutout
to cover the Israeli connection.
This is a company that creates soaps
and decontamination kits.
- They ask them to buy a large quantity
of uranium on their behalf.
To sweeten the deal, they promise a substantial payday.
[Duchovny] In March, Asmara places an order
with a Belgian mining company for 200 tons of uranium oxide.
- Initially, the mining company is a little suspicious
that they've never heard of this small German firm,
but Asmara's story is that they're expanding operations.
- The mining company is also further convinced
because Asmara Chemie has $3.7 million
in a Zurich-based account, just waiting to be transferred.
- With the money in sight, the mining company's doubts
quickly vanish and the sale moves forward.
[Duchovny] Mossad now secretly owns a large quantity
of uranium oxide, but openly shipping it to Israel
would break European law.
To get it there, it sets the stage
for a heist on the high seas.
♪ ♪
[Don] In Antwerp, 560 drums of uranium ore
are loaded into the hold of a 1,790 ton-freighter
named the "Scheersberg A."
- It's owned by a shipping company that is conveniently
run by a Mossad agent, and its usual crew
has been covertly swapped for an Israeli crew.
- With the uranium safely aboard,
Mossad now sneakily diverts the shipment.
- Asmara tells the Belgian mining company
that, instead of shipping the uranium directly
to their factory in Germany,
they wanna take it to Italy first
for some additional processing.
- The 2,000 nautical mile voyage from Belgium to Italy
will be a long one, which gives Mossad
plenty of time to make this ship's cargo simply disappear.
[Don] The first leg of the journey is uneventful,
but as the vessel passes beneath Southern Spain,
it alters course.
Instead of heading north to Italy,
it sails east.
- In the black stretch of water between Cyprus and Turkey,
the freighter patiently waits.
[Don] Soon, an Israeli vessel, fitted with a heavy winch
and flanked by two gunboats, eases up alongside.
- Under the cover of darkness, a top secret transfer begins.
Drum by drum, all 560 barrels of uranium ore
are winched across.
[Duchovny] By first light,
this furtive transfer is complete
and the world is none the wiser.
[Hakeem] Days later, the barrels of uranium ore
are taken ashore at an Israeli port
and discreetly transferred to a reactor in the desert.
- Meanwhile, the "Scheersberg A,"
now riding noticeably higher in the water,
heads towards the nearby Turkish coast.
[Duchovny] Two weeks after it set sail,
the ship docks in Turkey.
Its 560 drums of uranium ore are nowhere to be seen.
[Don] Months later, the European Atomic Energy Agency
attempts a routine follow-up with the company that
was meant to receive the uranium,
but they get troubling news.
The uranium never arrived.
- An investigation is launched, but coordinating
Belgian, Italian and West German security services
turns out to be impossible,
so that case very quickly loses momentum.
[Duchovny] Israel has pulled off
one of the greatest nuclear heists,
but hardly anyone knows.
Then, in 1977, a former U.S. government official
leaks the story of the missing uranium to the press.
Journalists Elaine Davenport, Paul Eddy, and Peter Gillman
launch an investigation piecing together information
from 200 sources across 17 countries,
and a year later publish their book,
"The Plumbat Affair," finally laying the details
of the heist bare.
- Today, it's estimated that Israel has around 90 bombs
in its nuclear arsenal, and the uranium stolen
in Operation Plumbat was enough to make about half of those.
- In 1951, a Soviet MiG-15 is downed
in enemy waters off Korea.
Despite landing in a minefield,
the plane contains such valuable secrets,
the U.S. decides to steal it anyway.
[dramatic music]
[Sami] In the Korean War, U.S.-led UN forces
are locked in a brutal fight
against Communist powers on the peninsula.
- This is different than the wars we've seen so far
because this is the first war in the jet age.
[Sami] Opposing pilots meet in high-speed,
high-altitude combat.
[Duchovny] In these deadly duels,
there's one fighter that coalition jet pilots fear
more than any other, the MiG-15.
[O'Keefe] The Soviet MiG-15 is considered to be
the cutting-edge fighter at this particular time
simply because of its swept-back wings,
which give it much more maneuverability
at higher altitudes.
[Sami] The MiGs are also armed to the teeth,
so the plane is just a real menace,
forcing dozens of UN command aircraft out of the skies.
[Duchovny] If UN forces want to control the air,
they need to uncover the MiG's weaknesses.
And that means getting their hands on one.
[Martin] The U.S. and UN allies
are on the lookout for a MiG
damaged in combat, ditched, intact enough
to where the aircraft wreckage can be recovered.
But the enemy is not stupid.
They're being very careful.
[Sami] MiG pilots fly in pairs,
each with a wingman providing cover.
They're also largely forbidden from flying
over the sea, where they're vulnerable to attack
from enemy naval forces.
[Duchovny] 12 months into the war,
UN command gets its chance.
[Dan] A MiG-15 is spotted going down
in a fierce dogfight near the mouth
of the Chongchon River, northwest of Pyongyang.
[Catherine] The crash site is located in enemy territory,
but it's on the coast,
and it appears the wreckage sits in shallow water.
[Duchovny] Suddenly, this tantalizing prize
feels within reach.
UN command dispatches reconnaissance aircraft
to find the wreckage.
But for days, the pilots come up empty.
Then at last, the jet is spotted.
[Martin] It's 15 miles from where it was last reported,
and it's 19 feet deep in water.
But when the tide rolls out, the water level drops
and reveals part of the wreckage.
[Catherine] The good news is that it's largely intact.
The bad news is, the site itself is a death trap
for any recovery team.
[Sami] The MiG is wedged between these sandbars
and is surrounded by an active minefield.
And even worse, it's within minutes of key enemy airfields
and close to a stretch of sky
that's so crowded with fighters,
it's known as MiG Alley.
[Duchovny] A stealthy salvage team wouldn't stand a chance.
So UN command planners decide on something much bigger.
[Catherine] The UN commanders realize
they need enough manpower and firepower to fight back
if anyone tries to stop them.
So they assemble this massive array of ships.
[Duchovny] On July 21st, this convoy of U.S., British,
and Korean naval vessels sets off.
[Dan] To help them reach the target,
a helicopter drops two marker buoys on the wreck.
Then the flotilla inches its way
through the treacherous channels between the sandbanks.
[Duchovny] When they reach the site, they hit a new problem.
The MiG is sunk deep into the mud, locked in tight.
- Their plan is to hoist the wreckage
out of the water using a crane.
But to thread the crane's slings
underneath the aircraft, they first need to raise it up
by attaching buoys to the fuselage.
- That's work that can only be done by hand.
[Sami] So 50 sailors strip to their shorts,
get onto the sandbank, and work waist deep in mud.
Every few minutes, they dive beneath the murky water
to secure buoys to the jet's frame until it's ready to lift.
- Piece by piece, this priceless aircraft
is lifted from the water.
But just when the recovery is almost complete,
the convoy's might is tested.
[Catherine] A North Korean shore battery
that's located just a few miles away
suddenly opens fire on the Allied ships.
[Dan] Shells are whistling overhead
as this salvage team is trying their best to finish the job.
- This is where the decision to come in force really pays off.
[Dan] Within minutes, fighters swoop in to provide cover,
and one of the ships is able to unleash
a barrage of return fire.
[Catherine] The shore battery is silenced,
but the message is clear.
The recovery team has overstayed its welcome
and needs to get out.
♪ ♪
[Duchovny] With the salvaged jet securely aboard,
the flotilla retreats.
It's carried back to the U.S.,
where the MiG finally gives up its secrets.
- The U.S. is able to figure out what the strengths
and weaknesses of the MiG-15 are,
and they're able now to design new tactics
to be able to take it on in the skies over North Korea.
This is intelligence gold for the air force.
[Duchovny] Washington releases limited details
about the MiG's capture to the press, but the full story
of the perilous mission remains secret for decades.
Then in 2018, the operational reports are first published,
finally revealing a blow-by-blow account
of the secret UN command heist to steal a MiG
from behind enemy lines.
- Most covert heists are planned in meticulous detail.
But in 1956, one journalist simply finds himself
in the right place at the right time
to snatch a top secret document from the Kremlin,
a political speech so scandalous,
it could shatter the Soviet Union.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- By 1956, Nikita Khrushchev has become
the leader of Soviet Russia.
- Khrushchev has ascended to this position
after three years of power struggle
upon the death of Joseph Stalin.
[Greg] The U.S. has been following
Khrushchev's rise closely.
They know he's a shrewd operator
but don't know much beyond that.
[Duchovny] CIA Director Allen Dulles
then catches an unexpected break.
[Martin] Dulles is informed by this wire
that Nikita Khrushchev has just delivered a secret speech
before the Communist Party Congress,
and that this speech scandalized
the thousand people who were in the room.
- Word is that this speech is an astounding
denunciation of Stalin.
It includes his purges, the gulags, cult of personality,
all the things that Stalin has used to hold the USSR together
under his own persona.
- What makes this so very scandalous
is the fact that Khrushchev has labeled
Joseph Stalin as murderous.
♪ ♪
[Duchovny] For Dulles, Khrushchev's incendiary words
present an opportunity.
[Sami] Dulles believes that
exposing these words to the world
could deal a devastating blow
to the Soviet Union's carefully crafted image
and turn the satellite states against Moscow,
all without firing a single shot.
[Duchovny] The problem?
To show the speech to the world,
Dulles needs a copy of it.
- No text has surfaced, and it's rumored that
there are only seven copies,
each bound in red, stamped top secret,
and with explicit instructions not to duplicate.
[Martin] The CIA realizes
it has to get a copy of this speech,
and it puts its most effective assets on the case.
[Sasha] The U.S. is so desperate
that President Eisenhower authorizes up to $1 million
for the text.
[Duchovny] Then in April, fate intervenes.
♪ ♪
- At Communist Party headquarters in Warsaw,
a young Polish journalist named Viktor Grayevsky
stops in to visit his girlfriend,
who works as a secretary to a senior party official.
[O'Keefe] He happens to notice quite by chance
that there is a document on her desk.
It is red, it is stamped top secret,
and this is a copy of Khrushchev's speech.
[Duchovny] Grayevsky has heard the whispers
about this extraordinary address.
As a journalist, he's desperate to read it.
So he asks his girlfriend if he can
borrow it for the afternoon.
[O'Keefe] She hesitates
because of the security issues.
You're not playing around in the Communist world
with top secret material.
There will be, if they're caught,
the most extreme consequences.
- Grayevsky insists he'll return it
within the next few hours before anyone notices,
so reluctantly, she hands it over.
[Duchovny] At home, Grayevsky reads the speech
away from prying eyes.
What he discovers horrifies him.
[O'Keefe] Grayevsky is, up until this moment,
a massively committed Stalinist.
Stalin was his idol.
But within an instant of reading it,
Grayevsky's worldview is shattered.
- Grayevsky feels as though his eyes have been opened.
And in this moment, he feels he has to act.
He has to get the truth out.
- The problem is, in an age before Xerox machines,
there's no easy way to copy a 58-page top secret speech.
But luckily for Grayevsky, he has some friends who can help.
- Grayevsky is Polish, but he's also Jewish.
And he has this friend at the Israeli embassy.
- Grayevsky slips the red booklet into his jacket
and makes his way across Warsaw to meet his contact.
Inside, Israeli intelligence photograph
every page in the booklet.
- 90 minutes after he delivered the secret speech,
it's given back to him.
He rushes back across Warsaw
to Communist Party headquarters.
He returns the speech to his girlfriend's desk,
where it began the day.
♪ ♪
[Duchovny] Back in the Israeli embassy,
when officials read the speech, they are floored.
- They instantly recognize how valuable the speech is,
and they also see a chance to pander to the Americans.
[Sasha] Sharing this speech will establish
their own credibility to say
we are a force to be taken seriously.
[Duchovny] Israel forwards a copy of the speech
to a delighted Allen Dulles, who immediately orders
his team to authenticate it.
Then, in June 1956, he sends the full text
to "The New York Times."
♪ ♪
[Sami] Khrushchev's words send a shock wave
through the Communist bloc, shattering
the myth of Soviet unity.
- The secret speech hauls Stalin
before a judgment in a way that's so powerful
and so scandalous that it's referred to sometimes
as his second funeral.
[Sami] Its words spur on uprisings
in Poland and Hungary,
weakening Moscow's grip on its empire.
♪ ♪
[Duchovny] As for Viktor Grayevsky,
he develops a taste for espionage.
A year after his impulsive heist,
he joins Israel's intelligence service.
But it's not until 1994 that he breaks his silence
in a "Washington Post" interview,
revealing the inside story of one of the greatest
intelligence thefts of the Cold War.
- When Israel sets out to expose Iran's secret
nuclear weapons program, it attempts one of the largest
physical heists of top secret documents in history,
in a mission so intrepid, even Hollywood wouldn't believe it.
- In 2015, the United States, along with five global powers,
signed a historic nuclear deal with Iran.
- For nearly a decade, Iran has been constrained
by crippling sanctions aimed at curbing its nuclear ambitions.
[Hakeem] Now those sanctions are lifted in return
for Iran pledging to keep its nuclear program
strictly peaceful.
[Duchovny] Much of the world breathes a sigh of relief,
but not Iran's neighbor, Israel.
- Israel is convinced that Iran's continuing
to secretly develop nuclear weapons.
[Hakeem] Having a nuclear-armed adversary
on their doorstep sounds like a disaster.
So Israel sets out to derail the deal.
[Don] Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu,
summons Mossad's new director, Yossi Cohen,
and delivers him a clear message:
we can't just tell the world Iran is lying;
we have to show them.
[Duchovny] Cohen knows exactly the kind of evidence he needs.
Israeli intelligence has learned
of a hidden Iranian archive allegedly filled
with documents detailing its top secret nuclear program.
But stealing it will be almost impossible.
- The first problem he has is simply finding the archive.
Iran is vast.
It's much bigger than France, Spain, and Germany combined.
This is pretty much the definition
of hunting for a needle in a haystack.
[Hakeem] Cohen orders round-the-clock analysis
of signal intercepts and human intelligence reports
just to get some kind of angle on its location,
but nothing turns up.
[Duchovny] Then in early 2016, Tehran makes a mistake.
- The nuclear non-proliferation deal requires Iran
to allow international inspections
of its nuclear sites.
That pressure forces Iran to hide
its most sensitive files at a new ultra secret location.
- To avoid scrutiny, they choose
a dilapidated warehouse in the Shurabad district
of Southern Tehran.
- What Iran doesn't realize is that Mossad
is tracking the movements of all
their key nuclear personnel.
[Hakeem] When Israeli agents see
what looks like a huge document archive being hauled
into an old warehouse where key nuclear personnel
keep showing up, they know they've got their target.
[Duchovny] Israel now knows where
the secret files are hidden.
To figure out how to steal them,
Cohen authorizes an undercover
reconnaissance mission to the site.
[Kavitha] Mossad discovers that the files are locked
in heavy safes, but they also identify a major weakness.
There are barely any guards.
[Sasha] Now, this is not an oversight by Tehran.
This is a deliberate tactic to keep
unwanted attention away from the warehouse
by inspectors and spies.
[Duchovny] Luckily for Mossad, it gets even better.
[Don] The two security guards leave at 10:00 p.m.
and don't return until 7:00 a.m.
This temple of Iran's nuclear secrets
is completely unguarded every night.
[Duchovny] Cohen begins preparing an after-hours
smash and grab, but a group of Israelis
will stick out on the streets of Tehran.
So he recruits almost two dozen Iranian dissidents
and trains them up into master thieves.
[Sasha] In a top secret location,
they build a full scale replica of the warehouse,
complete with identical Iranian-made safes.
- The team rehearses every step--
how to disable the alarms, bypass the cameras,
and most importantly, crack open the vaults,
all timed to perfection within a 6 1/2 hour window.
[Duchovny] Now they must turn rehearsal into reality.
At precisely 10:31 p.m., on January 31, 2018,
Cohen pulls the trigger on the heist.
[Kavitha] The team disables the alarm,
then they force open the warehouse's doors
and move inside.
They head straight for 32 2-meter high steel safes.
[Sami] These are heavy-duty safes,
and they don't have time to crack them,
so they cut them open using blowtorches
that burn at 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit.
[Sasha] They focus on six, which contain the blueprints
for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.
[Duchovny] One by one, the vaults give way.
Inside, the team finds exactly what it came for.
[Sami] They make off with a collection of binders and CDs
that are packed with thousands of files, videos, and photos,
inside of which are all the plans
for Iran's top secret nuclear bomb.
- The loot is loaded into two trucks,
and at 5:00 a.m., the Mossad team is gone.
Now this heist becomes a race.
It's 400 miles to the border,
and they have just a two-hour head start.
[Sasha] At 7:00 a.m., the guards return.
The theft is discovered.
A nationwide manhunt is on.
[Kavitha] Iran seals its borders.
Thousands of agents, police officers, and soldiers
are mobilized in an effort to track down the thieves.
[Don] With the borders locked,
they make for a notorious drug smuggling corridor.
And there they bribe the traffickers
to move their bounty safely out of Iran.
Despite the huge risks, every member of the team
makes it home alive.
[Duchovny] Three months later, in April 2018,
Prime Minister Netanyahu takes the stage in Tel Aviv.
In a live televised address,
he makes a stunning declaration--
Iran lied, big time.
[Don] Netanyahu presents clear evidence
that Iran has been secretly pursuing
nuclear weapons for years, even while publicly denying it.
Israel's audacious coup changes global policy overnight.
- President Trump pulls the United States
out of the Iran nuclear deal.
Sanctions are reimposed.
Iran is cast back out into the wilderness.
♪ ♪
[Duchovny] In the years that follow,
tensions between Iran, the U.S., and Israel
continue to escalate,
and President Trump cites Iran's nuclear program
when he sets out his case for military action in 2026.
♪ ♪
From boatloads of uranium to top secret fighter jets,
governments will stop at nothing to take what they want.
But even the most covert thefts are eventually exposed.