US triggered massive Siberian explosion

THE US covertly transferred technology to the Soviet Union that contained hidden faults, including software that triggered one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever seen, a senior official in the Reagan White House has revealed.

Thomas Reed, a former Air Force secretary, was serving in the National Security Council when, in January 1982, he said President Ronald Reagan approved a CIA plan to sabotage the Soviet economy.

Is his book At the Abyss: An Insider’s History of the Cold War, Reed described a huge explosion in a Siberian natural gas pipeline which he says “was just one example of “cold-eyed economic warfare” against the Soviet Union.

At the time, the United States was attempting to block Western Europe from importing Soviet natural gas. There were also signs that the Soviets were trying to steal a wide variety of Western technology.

Then, a KGB insider revealed the specific shopping list and the CIA slipped the flawed software to the Soviets in a way they would not detect it.

“In order to disrupt the Soviet gas supply, its hard currency earnings from the West and the internal Russian economy, the pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines, and valves was programmed to go haywire, after a decent interval, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to pipeline joints and welds,” Reed said.

“The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space,” he said, adding that US satellites picked up the explosion. Reed said that the blast occurred in the summer of 1982.

“While there were no physical casualties from the pipeline explosion, there was significant damage to the Soviet economy,” he writes. “Its ultimate bankruptcy, not a bloody battle or nuclear exchange, is what brought the Cold War to an end.

“In time the Soviets came to understand that they had been stealing bogus technology, but now what were they to do? They had no way of knowing which equipment was sound, which was bogus. All was suspect, which was the intended endgame for the entire operation.”

Reed said he obtained CIA approval to publish details about the operation.