Operation Silver Sturgeon

CIA Safehouse E9, the main headquarters for the joint CIA-MI6 team during the events of Operation Silver Sturgeon.

## Chronology

### Next

Space Shuttle Challenger DisasterOperation Red Whistle

## Overview

### Objective(s)

* Reverse-engineer Operation Tsikada and turn it against the Soviet Union (Failed)
* Locate and eliminate Anatoly Barkov (Failed)

### Outcome

Operation failure:* Soviet POW Anastasiya Makarova escapes back to the USSR and rejoins the KGB.

**Operation Silver Sturgeon** was a joint operation between the American Central Intelligence Agency, the Israeli Mossad, and the British MI6, aimed at hunting down and eliminating Anatoly Barkov, the head of Operation Tsikada. It was also considered a test run attempt to see if the effects of Operation Tsikada could be reverse-engineered and used against the Soviets.

## Background

The CIA learned of Operation Tsikada from Soviet defector Yuri Belov and CIA operative Agnes Peterson. Intrigued with the nature of the entire project, the Central Intelligence Agency decided to reverse engineer the project and use it against the Soviets in an attempt to gain an edge in the Cold War between the United States of America and the USSR.

## Course of the operation

### Capture of Anastasiya Makarova

Anastasiya Makarova, a KGB agent and Tsikada operative, was tasked with locating and assassinating ex-KGB officer Yuri Belov before he could blow the whistle on Operation Tsikada to the Americans. Unbeknownst to her, Yuri successfully reached American soil and coordinated an ambush along with the CIA, leading to a shootout between the KGB officers and a team of CIA agents led by Vietnam War veteran Martin Sullivan.

Anastasiya was apprehended after a failed attempt to kill Martin Sullivan with her Makarov handgun after it jammed on her; Martin was able to incapacitate Anastasiya while she tried to clear the jam following a brief hand-to-hand fight.

### Converting Makarova into "Andromeda Bell"

Following Anastasiya's capture, the CIA attempted to interrogate her on Barkov's location for days, but nothing worked. Eventually, Sullivan got the idea to brainwash Anastasiya through the CIA's MKUltra Program. Reverse-engineering the brainwashing techniques used by Tsikada agents, Anastasiya was subjected to painful psychological torture, neuroactive drugs and hypnosis. Adding to this, with the assistance of MI6 operative Erin Barker, Sullivan was able to use his combat experience in Vietnam to create a bond with Makarova, implanting fake memories of the war into Makarova's head and altering her personality and identity to make the POW believe she knew Sullivan for years. Once the training was completed, Sullivan codenamed the asset "Andromeda Bell." He also used a trigger phrase-"We have a job to do."-whenever he wanted Bell to remember their fake memories and to keep her in check so she couldn't escape back to the USSR.

In addition to the fake memories, Bell was secretly given more drugs to force her compliance.

### Dismantling the KGB leadership

For the next several months, the joint CIA-MI6 strike team, thanks to Bell, systematically demolished and dismantled Operation Tsikada by either assassinating or capturing heads of the Tsikada program. During this time, Makarova's memories began to resurface, though she kept her CIA handlers in the dark regarding this matter to trick them into believing the brainwashing was still in effect. Makarova, a successful con artist prior to being a KGB agent, was able to successfully fool her CIA handlers for months.

While brainwashed, Makarova remembered that her handler and a major Tsikada lieutenant, a Turkish-born Soviet named Mehmet Ozberk, was plotting to escalate the Cold War by stealing American nukes and detonating them in Europe, with the goal of implicating the United States and destroying NATO from within. She specifically remembered that her original mission as part of Tsikada was to obtain intelligence on the nukes' location so Tsikada sleeper agents within the CIA could steal them.

### Betraying the CIA

Despite the numerous losses and casualties inflicted on the Tsikada personnel, the CIA-MI6 strike team was no closer to finding Barkov. They once again drugged Bell/Makarova, whom Sullivan had strapped to a gurney. Sullivan defended this extreme measure by assuring Makarova/Bell that it was a "necessary evil" to stop Barkov.

Thanks to a remnant of the CIA programming still in effect, Makarova/Bell complied. Sullivan made Bell run through different scenarios they created of a mission in Vietnam where Bell encountered Barkov inside a Soviet bunker inside North Vietnam. Her subconscious, however, fought back against the drugs. Later, she heard the voice of Barkov himself telling her she was being fooled by the Americans. Her biggest memory was of a meeting between herself and Barkov plotting a mission to assassinate Martin Sullivan before he could escape to the United States with the intel on Tsikada, revealing that Sullivan had been conducting lone wolf operations against Tsikada for months.

Following this, Sullivan admitted that her identity was fake, courtesy of the MKUltra Program, much to Makarova's confusion. Following this, her memories fully returned but she once again attempted to fool the CIA operatives by feigning compliance. When it came to Barkov's location, however, Makarova lied and claimed he was hiding out in Duga.

### Ambush at Duga

During planning, Makarova secretly reached out to her handler, Mehmet Ozberk, and told him to set up an ambush for the joint British-American strike team at Duga. Later, after deploying to Duga, Makarova finally revealed her deception, much to the outrage of the joint CIA-MI6 strike team. Before Sullivan could execute Makarova for her betrayal, Makarova gave the signal for the Tsikada operatives to strike, resulting in a vicious gun battle between the joint CIA-MI6 squad and Tsikada operatives personally led by both Ozberk and Makarova, during which most of the British-American team was slaughtered, including Sullivan.

### Blowing the whistle

Makarova, however, had a change of heart when it came to executing the plan to frame the US for nuking NATO. She told Ozberk that she no longer wanted to be part of a plot that resulted in "unnecessary collateral damage." A confused Ozberk, assuming the brainwashing was still in effect, recommended that she undergo psychiatric evaluation to see if any remnants of the brainwashing was present.
Makarova then blew the whistle on Operation Silver Sturgeon, revealing Sullivan's plot to draw Barkov out of hiding and kill him. She argued that Tsikada had already won; Sullivan and his entire team being now dead, the only people who knew the truth of the operation was the remaining CIA operatives involved. She then told the Tsikada agents possessing the nukes to "stand down until further notice."

She then further explained that all Sullivan wanted to do was to kill Barkov and shut down Tsikada. Because of that, the Americans were no better than Barkov. She instead proposed an alternate operation that didn't involve any collateral casualties: a massive disinformation campaign that would paint the CIA and, by extension, the entire United States government, as terrorists;. As emphasis, she held up the radio Barkov intended to use to signal the detonation of the stolen nukes.

Ozberk, understanding, approved of the operation, though he was somewhat skeptical of how effective the alternate plot was. Much to his surprise and delight, the ensuing operation, codenamed Red Whistle, worked wonders for the Soviet Union, as well as the Warsaw Pact at large.