Getty Images

Siberian Pipeline Sabotage

1982

In the early 1980s, the Soviet Union lacked some of the technology it needed to build a natural gas pipeline from Urengoy to Chelyaninsk. At the time, American companies were prevented from selling the technology to the Soviets. According to Thomas Reed, a former U.S. Air Force Secretary, the Soviets sought to steal what they needed from a Canadian firm. In his memoir, Into the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War, Reed claimed that the CIA, working with the Canadian firm, furnished the Soviets with components designed to fail. They also planted software, which Reed describes as a "logic bomb," that would cause the equipment to fail. The result, according to Reed, was the largest non-nuclear explosion seen from space. No U.S. intelligence outfit has corroborated Reed's account, and some Russian news reports have cast doubt on the claim.

next slide previous slide