From the Mercury News:
At the time, the United States was attempting to block Western Europe from importing Soviet natural gas. There also were 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 writes.
``The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space,'' he said, adding that U.S. satellites picked up the explosion. Reed said in an interview 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? By implication, every cell of the Soviet leviathan might be infected. They had no way of knowing which equipment was sound, which was bogus.
Cool story, though maybe not so true.
Posted by Nils Blutig at March 3, 2004 12:05 AM | TrackBack