Now within the works is a retro look again in time at a weird Chilly Warfare caper by the Central Intelligence Company (CIA) due to a forthcoming, star-studded comedy/drama film known as “Lunik Heist.”
Earlier this month, Searchlight Footage, a Disney-owned division, introduced that actors Jared Leto, Lupita Nyong’o, and John Mulaney have signed on to star in “Lunik Heist,” described as a “a wild, roller-coaster journey, stuffed with subterfuge and unlikely heroes.”
The movie relies on a real-life incident that noticed CIA operatives plot to disassemble and examine one of many Soviet Union spacecraft in a single day whereas on exhibit throughout a 1959 expo in Mexico Metropolis.
Audacious plot
In keeping with the Web Film Database (IMDb), Lunik Heist is in pre-production with filming places in Atlanta, Georgia, Mexico Metropolis, Mexico, in addition to Washington, D.C. and Arlington, Virginia.
The film script relies on an article by Jeff Maysh, revealed in January 2021 inside the pages of MIT Know-how Evaluation titled “Lunik: contained in the CIA’s audacious plot to steal a Soviet satellite tv for pc.”
That article by Maysh required important analysis, corresponding to poring over Nationwide Archives and Information Administration (NARA) paperwork in regards to the historical past of the CIA’s Mexico Metropolis station, outdated CIA journals, and finishing up many interviews.
“The second I realized in regards to the Lunik incident, I knew I would discovered my white whale … a heist story set through the house race,” Maysh tells Area.com.
“As I dug deeper into the archives, I spotted this is not simply one other Chilly Warfare spy story. It is like ‘Oceans Eleven,’ solely the massive rating is an interplanetary house station,” Maysh mentioned.
CIA skullduggery
“The Kidnapping of the Lunik” was documented in a “sanitized” CIA historic evaluate that was declassified and publicly posted in 1995. It was written by the CIA’s Sydney W. “Wes” Finer and revealed within the company’s winter of 1967 version of “Research in Intelligence.”
A learn of that doc reveals that the CIA skullduggery in Mexico Metropolis was additionally not wanting for comedic worth, like a Humpty Dumpty replay of placing issues again collectively once more.
The CIA group was confronted with having access to a cabin-like crate holding the Soviet house {hardware} that was roughly 20 toes lengthy and 11 toes broad with a roof about 14 toes excessive on the peak. Introduced into play had been ladders, ropes, a nail puller, drop lights, extension cords and flashlights, together with metric wrenches, screwdrivers and hammers.
“The primary job, re-securing the orb in its basket, proved to be essentially the most ticklish and time consuming a part of the entire night time’s work,” notes the doc. Certainly, the best way the nostril and engine compartments had been designed prevented visible steering to simply reassemble the house {hardware}.
“We spent nearly an hour on this, one man within the cramped nostril part making an attempt to get the orb into exactly the best place and one within the engine compartment making an attempt to have interaction the threads on the top of a rod he could not see,” the doc factors out. “After various futile makes an attempt and plenty of anxious moments, the connection was lastly made, and all of us sighed with aid.”
Covert operators and collectors
The CIA doc observes that there was no indication the Soviets ever found that the Lunik was “borrowed” for an evening.
Certainly, the outcomes gleaned within the heist had been revealed in a Markings Heart Temporary. “They included possible identification of the producer of this Lunik stage, the truth that it was the fifth one produced, identification of three electrical producers who provided parts, and revelation of the system for numbering components that was used right here and conceivably for different Soviet house {hardware},” the doc states.
“However maybe extra vital in the long run than these optimistic intelligence outcomes,” the doc concludes, “was the expertise and instance of effective cooperation on a job between covert operators and basically overt collectors.”
In-house journal
Famous house historian Dwayne Day first revealed a narrative that captured the CIA’s undercover work, noting Finer’s account within the British Interplanetary Society’s “Spaceflight” journal in early 1997, an edifying go-to publication for data on historic, notably Soviet Union house progress.
“Someday in 1996 any person instructed me that an enormous batch of declassified CIA information had simply grow to be out there on the Nationwide Archives facility in School Park, Maryland, so I drove up there to have a look at them,” Day recollects.
“The CIA declassified a whole lot, perhaps hundreds, of articles from its in-house journal often known as “Research in Intelligence.” They had been all photocopied articles in folders in archival bins with a really rudimentary index. It was a laborious course of to request bins after which undergo the folders,” Day instructed Area.com.
Day was on the lookout for something associated to house and after a couple of hours of labor got here throughout the 1967 article by Finer.
Lunik label
“It was a captivating account of an intelligence operation in an unnamed nation the place the CIA secured entry to a bit of Soviet house tools so as to look at it in a single day,” mentioned Day. “I knew that was an incident that had by no means beforehand been reported wherever.”
The treasure trove of declassified objects additionally included fascinating articles about intercepting tv and different indicators from Soviet spacecraft in orbit, Day mentioned.
“Within the 2000s, I often tried to comply with up on the Lunik topic,” Day mentioned. “It took me some time to get it by way of my head that “Lunik” was a Western nickname and never actual.”
Day mentioned he briefly contacted one of many operatives concerned, “and managed to find out about some associated operations to investigate that and different automobiles, however I by no means went after the story intimately.”
Intriguing eventualities
There are some intriguing eventualities maybe related to the CIA’s “borrowing” of Soviet house gear in Mexico Metropolis.
For one, the Soviet Union’s Nationwide Exhibition got here to New York Metropolis in June 1959 and ran till late July. The point of interest of the exhibition was Sputnik, together with full-scale fashions of the primary three Soviet Sputniks — and proudly on show was the “Lunik” mounted to its higher stage.
Did the CIA have a number of alternatives to check Soviet-era house paraphernalia and proper there in New York Metropolis?
“I did know in regards to the American exhibition and so did the CIA who despatched spies, I imagine,” Maysh mentioned. “Nonetheless, Mexico Metropolis and native operatives had been chosen for believable deniability. That is my understanding.”
“It simply goes to indicate what sort of unbelievable tales are gathering mud in authorities archives,” Maysh concludes. “At a time like this, we have to discover extra tales from the times when Individuals outsmarted the dangerous guys and planted our flag on the moon.”
