Operation Monopoly

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Operation Monopoly was a covert plan by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to build a tunnel underneath the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C., to gather secret intelligence, in effect from 1977 until its public discovery in 2001.^[1]

The embassy of the Soviet Union was relocated to a new building complex in 1977. The US government feared that with the new location, the Soviets would be able to use new technology to pick up conversations in the White House and the Capitol Building. In response to this, United States intelligence launched surveillance of their own. The FBI purchased a home that was across the street to set up a spy operation on the Soviet Embassy, and in 1977 began to dig the tunnel that would go underneath it.^[2] However, the operation was poorly planned, and construction of the tunnel encountered many problems. Leaks, technical issues, and insufficient knowledge of the embassy's layout caused the operation to fail. FBI assistant director John F. Lewis has noted that the tunnel produced "no information of any kind." The failure of the project is also partially explained by the revelation in 2001 that a double agent in the FBI, Robert Hanssen, had disclosed the construction of the tunnel to the Soviets while it was being built.^[3]