You are assigned to Operation Tinker Bell as COMSEC officer and will get immersed in a true Cold War espionage atmosphere where you experience the modus operandi of your fellow CIA officers and their KGB counterparts. Your task is to decrypt all messages, sent between Langley, its stations abroad, and agents in the field. All necessary crypto tools, keys and clear instructions are provided. Get your name on the Wall of Honor!

You will experience real spy tradecraft first-hand, including illegal border crossings, fake passports, safe houses, the dreaded East-German Stasi and Czech StB secret police. Clandestine meetings are supported by Britisch intelligence, CIA transmitter sites in West Germany, and the U.S. Army Security Agency provides SIGINT support. The Cold War at its height, with authentic details, many historical photos, as real as it gets.

Historical Context

The 1961 U.S. invasion of Cuba ended in disaster, the 1962 Cuban missile crisis almost caused nuclear war, and John F. Kennedy was killed in 1963. It's 1964 and the Cold War is raging. U.S. secretary of defense McNamara increases military aid to South Vietnam and President Johnson prepares to enter the Vietnam conflict. There is still no peace in Korea and the Iron Curtain split Europe in half. Increasingly more East Germans flee to the West, and political tension grows in Czechoslovakia.

The Operation

March 17, 1964. KGB Colonel Alexander Rogozin contacts the U.S. Embassy to Turkey and CIA officer Robert Novak from the Soviet and Eastern Europe Division is sent to Ankara to meet Rogozin. Novak’s assessment is that Rogozin is disillusioned in the Soviet political system, his military career and his marriage. He wants to defect to the United States and his knowledge of communications technology and cryptology could be valuable to U.S. intelligence.

The CIA Science & Technology Directorate and the National Security Agency are most interested. Novak is assigned to Rogozin as his case officer and CIA headquarters in Langley designates the codename GYMNAST to the defector. Novak persuades Rogozin to return to Moscow, assume his normal duties and collect additional intelligence before defecting in the near future. Rogozin’s contact person in Moscow is Roman Danilov, a CIA operative under the cover of UP journalist, attached to the U.S. embassy to Moscow. The first meeting between Danilov and Rogozin is scheduled for April 5.

On the day of the meeting, Danilov leaves his apartment at Povarskaya street 29 at 11:35 hours Moscow time. The next morning at 08:15 local time (00:15 in Langley) CIA station Moscow contacts its headquarters in Langley. Danilov failed to report after his meeting with Rogozin and is nowhere to be found.

The subsequent investigation confirms that Roman Danilov disappeared without a trace. There's no word of KGB Colonel Rogozin and the defector turns out to be dangle, a bait to identify CIA agents, or a KGB staged recruitment that went horrible wrong. That same morning, Danilov is officially reported missing. Bill Hensley, head of CIA’s Soviet Division, is furious about the loss of his operative and Robert Novak is ordered to track down Rogozin by any means available. Operation Tinker Bell, the search for the fake KGB defector, has begun.

Your Task

Start by visiting the COMCEN, the CIA's inner sanctum, to update your knowledge of how Langley and its stations abroad communicate with each other by cable, and with agents in the field by clandestine radio transmissions. You will learn to use the 1960s state-of-the-art TSEC/KL-7 cipher machine for secure communications between CIA stations and embassies, and one-time pad encrypted messages, sent by numbers stations or by operatives in hostile environments.

Next, examine all Case Files to familiarize yourself with all the people involved. It is important to know all code names and agent ID's, which are used in all communications. All relevant intel is available in the Comms Registry Section. To decrypt the messages, you must retrieve the appropriate keys or one-time pads in the Crypto Room. More info about expressions and abbreviations is available in the Lexicon.

To understand the tools and environment in which you will be operating, catch up reading about the TSEC/KL-7, numbers stations, one-time pads and Cold War signals. Our blog covers Signals Intelligence and USMLM operations and you can listen to historical recordings from Cold War radio. The risks are great, and the stakes are high. Knowing your opponent makes the difference between success and operatives losing their lives. This is the real deal, so don't make mistakes!

Keep a detailed record of all decrypted messages to submit your work later on. To gain a better understanding of the operation, we advise you to carefully examine all information such as places, services, unit, and names that you find in the messages. Also check the red info buttons underneath photos for additional information about certain locations and some of the info buttons translate non-English webpages.

Submit Your Messages

Once finished, send an e-mail with your name, country, and in attachment all decrypts in one .txt file (UTF-8 format in Notepad or TextEdit). If you successfully complete the operation, we engrave your name in the Wall of Honor. It is not allowed to publish any plaintext solutions. If you have questions or comments, feel free to contact us. The Wall of Honor was only established in 2020 and those who completed the mission earlier can contact us.