Operation Silver (1949)

This article is about 1949 wiretapping operation. For 2007 operation in Afghanistan, see Operation Silver (2007).

Operation Silver was a British intelligence operation which ran from 1949 to 1955 that covertly tapped into the landline communications of the Soviet Army headquarters in Vienna.

The operation was considered a success (see Corera's MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service, pp. 46-47), but the details were passed on to the KGB by George Blake in October 1953. The operation ended only when Austria regained full sovereignty. The British monitoring station was disguised as a shop, which sold tweed clothing.

In 1951, when the American CIA planned a similar operation in Berlin, the British revealed Operation Silver to the Americans and the two countries then jointly ran Operation Gold.