The Great Gaffe

The story of the new American Embassy building in Moscow may become one of the great construction epics of all time--not exactly on the order of the pyramids of Egypt, the Panama Canal or the transcontinental railroad, but certainly something to be spoken of with the kind of awe and wonder implied in the question: How did they ever do that ? The question isn’t meant to suggest anything even faintly heroic about the embassy story. On the contrary. What makes this tale stand out is the stupefying and inexplicable naivete and laxity that combined to produce one of the more memorable wastes of taxpayers’ money.

By now the story is familiar. Back in 1972, in the heady period then known as detente , the United States and the Soviet Union agreed that each would build a new embassy in the other’s capital. The agreement was reached at the highest level, and it was at the highest level that the Soviets made a proposal. Look, they said in so many words, if you really want to show that we’re pals, and if you really want to make sure that your embassy meets our strict building codes, let us sell you prefabricated modules for the facility. Sure, said the White House. The inevitable result, as a former member of the Senate Intelligence Committee described it, was that the Soviet KGB in effect became the prime contractor for the project.

The first listening devices built into the Soviet-made modules were discovered in 1985--not just a few, but a vast electronic network of super sophisticated eavesdropping equipment that left no part of the new building secure. Investigation since then has led to the conclusion that the building can’t be salvaged and guaranteed against listening devices. President Reagan now says that it must be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up. The total cost for this fiasco could run between $300 million and $500 million. Congress has already made clear its lack of interest in appropriating funds of this kind. And so U.S. diplomats in Moscow are likely to be using the old embassy for a long, long time to come.