Customer Reviews

Voices Under Berlin: The Tale Of A Monterey Mary

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I am conflicted about reviewing VOICES UNDER BERLIN.

Author T.H.E. Hill has competently written an amusing story of the spy business from his personal experience as a Russian speaking linguist in Berlin in the 1970s. This was twenty years after the discovery of the celebrated and infamous Berlin spy tunnel of 1955-56. He presumably uses the tunnel operation and that time frame to give his narrative a better known historical background. I applaud his imagination and competence in listening in to Soviet phone conversations and understanding the significance of what he was hearing. Not all translators are able to "hear between the lines" as his hero Kevin was able to do. I'm confident that Hill himself is as competent as his highly skilled, imagined Kevin.

In mid-June 2009, Hill contacted me about having just learned of my personal participation at the 1955-56 tunnel site from Colonel Robert T. Browne's recent manuscript EXPERIENCES WITH THE CIA'S 1950'S BERLIN SPY TUNNEL. Browne was assigned to the Washington, D.C. side of the project, which was code named Project Stopwatch Gold, and had asked me to add my story as an appendix to his, which I was pleased to do. Browne had learned of my involvement this past March 2009 after becoming aware of my 2005 Amazon review of British historian David Stafford's 2002 documentary of the British side of the project, titled SPIES BENEATH BERLIN. Hill informed me that he was sending a complimentary copy of his VOICES and hoped I'd review it. Hill's title is clearly an echo of Stafford's.

While VOICES was entertaining and even fun at times (I did laugh some!), my conflict resulted from the cognitive dissonance of actually having been there at the time of Hill's story and being the only U.S. Army Russian-speaking linguist on site, which was much different from the multitude of U.S. Army linguists in Hill's story. Hill has had to remind me often that his story is fiction. I keep forgetting that, because it was close to what really happened! But not quite.

For example, Hill describes the white-knuckle event of snow melting atop the tunnel dig, which I personally witnessed. This was because the British engineers hadn't considered taking the heat out of the tunnel before the snow season, which would obviously and dramatically have revealed its location to all those above ground who might be watching. Hill places this event during the 1954 digging of the tunnel and before it was operational, but I was there when this event happened in October 1955. This was well after the tunnel was operational and could have blown the entire project. But it didn't.

I admit that Hill's ingenious, imagined solution of deploying pup tents to cover the bare strip pointing like an arrow to the warehouse was clever. However, the fact is that the operational compound did not cover all the territory of the bare strip. The bare strip was mostly in East German territory, which began at the east fence of the compound and thus was not available for U.S. Army bivouacking.

Another example was Hill's description of the dirt being taken from the tunnel and simply "dumped" into the huge cellar beneath the warehouse designed to contain it. When I first inspected the tunnel in October 1955, I noticed this dirt and remember chuckling to myself about its cleverness. No one had briefed me about this beforehand. It wasn't dumped, but rather stored in boxes neatly stacked as originally planned. When I pointed out this minor fact to him, Hill replied that had he known about it, he could have done more interesting things to the chapter called The Dead Man in the Tunnel.

Still another conflict was the nature of shifts and the method of processing the tapes. In 1955-56 we had no such developed procedures for verifying the information translated. I never knew who might review my output, but one incident stands out when the CIA Section Chief (the real boss) came to my desk to have me erase a section of a particular tape. Even though I was merely an enlisted man, I never reported to the Army officers or NCOs who were there as cover. My reports went directly to the CIA agents on site and my relationships with Agency people were always polite and respectful. There were two exceptions.

The first was when "Smitty" (Richard E. Smith), a fellow Monterey Mary from the same Army Language School (ALS) graduating class, called me on the telephone at Captain and Executive Officer Livingston's office using the name "Mr. Green". How he ever found me or knew to call that operation is still a mystery to me. I didn't have a clue as to who could be calling me until I recognized Smitty's voice speaking Russian and instinctively replied in kind. Livingston went white and began signaling frantically with gestures across his throat for me to get off the phone immediately. Instead of obeying his hysterical behavior, I began speaking stumbling Russian with a more college type American accent. That was even worse! Livingstone went ballistic and launched himself at the phone, cutting off the connection himself. It turns out that Smitty was himself under cover, knew nothing about my function, and thought by speaking Russian as "Mr. Green", I would get the clue to his situation. What a mess! To have anyone speaking Russian at that site was classified information. What a royal chewing out I got! Dumb! Very dumb!

The second exception was when Col. Helgestad called me to his office to read me the riot act for becoming a prima donna to certain enlisted men. All U.S. Army enlisted personnel besides me were there only in logistical and maintenance support and did not know anything about my role as a linguist. It turns out that at a rare point of physical and mental exhaustion, I had allowed myself to be sucked into a penny-ante poker game one night by several self-styled card sharks who thought they would bait and take me to the cleaners. It didn't take long to figure out their strategy and make beating them at their own game a high priority. I won well over $100 in a week by infuriating them with reverse psychology. This provoked them into a slur campaign to get me out of the operation. Helgestad threatened to send me home as a buck private if I didn't shape up. That's all it took for me to change tunes and I never played with those men again, despite their continuing taunts to recover their losses. Sweet revenge!

Then there was the Second John that came to memory when reading of Hill's description of "Lt. Sheerluck". My Lieutenant once boasted to me directly and with a sly smirk that he and the other officers had orders not to let certain personnel--namely me and the other linguists--be taken, if the tunnel were ever discovered. I hated this guy for his stupidity and steered clear of him from then on.

What motivated me to review Hill's book was his desire to provide families of silent Cold-War ex-spooks with a reference story for their posterity when and if they might ask "Grandpa, what did you do during the Cold War?" This rationale hooked and enabled me to make it through his clever, well-crafted fiction, despite the differences between it and the reality of my life in the Berlin Tunnel. Hill's Kevin uncannily reminds me of myself as being highly focused and motivated with a natural ear for the language, when compared to the other seasoned CIA and SIS agents on site who were not as motivated.

It occurred to me only in writing this review that I was not only the ORIGINAL "Monterey Mary" at the Berlin Tunnel site, but the ONLY ONE during its entire operational life! I am going to buy a boatload of Hill's book to send copies to my family, friends and various acquaintances, IF I CAN GET HIM TO AUTOGRAPH THEM! ;-)

Eugene N. Kovalenko, Ph. D.
Los Alamos, NM

This historical spy novel weaves an interesting fictionalized plot into an important event of the Cold War - the Berlin spy tunnel. The main character is an endearing, eccentric genius who gives the story a feeling of authenticity - the sort of nerdy person seemingly necessary for the success of a serious technical intelligence operation. "Voices" is also the story of two types of managers, 1) those with the smarts and dedication needed to make an operation work, and 2) self-serving careerists and incompetents who make it difficult.

There are some clever puns and plays on names in several languages; for example Gabbie (Gabi) and Sgt Makaronshchik ("Lifer"). For 99% of readers who are not acquainted with the jargon used by GIs and intelligence people in Berlin during the occupation era the author provides a useful guide to English, Russian and German terms and acronyms. The book does a nice job of capturing the flavor of Berlin during the spy-infested period before the Wall.

If you enjoyed the treatment of the Berlin Tunnel in "Battleground Berlin" and wonder what it must have taken to make it successful, you will enjoy this story. The hero has super language skills, and just as importantly, the requisite deep knowledge of the Soviet military and political system - the sort of person with skills needed to win the Cold War. And come to think of it, it's what the country needs to win the War on Terror: more dedicated experts, which is what makes the book relevant for today. "Voices under Berlin" is a good read. You won't be able to put it down.

Terry in Orange Beach, Alabama

T.H.E. Hill's first novel, Voices Under Berlin, depicts the absurdities of military protocol during the U.S. military's spy tunnel operation under Berlin in the mid-1950s. Hill, himself a veteran of Field Station Berlin and compiler of six non-fiction army booklets covering this "early cold war" occupation of Berlin, writes with a convincing sense of authenticity and, through the use of photographs of people and places depicted in the novel, gives the impression that this story is closely based on real events.

Kevin, a military translator, comes across as the one competent and qualified character amidst a pack of bureaucrats and slackers, his translation skills proving key to preparing accurate transcipts of the wiretapped conversations of the East Germans and Russians. But when the transcripts begin to reveal that the Russians are using a female spy to gather intelligence from an American boyfriend, Kevin's loyalty is called into question as the female spy bears a striking resemblance to his German girlfriend, Gabbie.

Unlike traditional spy fiction, Voices Under Berlin relies not on a character villain or white-knuckle plot to entertain. The twin villains here are bureaucracy and incompetence, and Hill exposes the danger they pose to military operations through a series of often-humorous incidents. While this episodic approach to plotting is creative and entertaining at times, a number of the chapters do little to advance the story line. I also found myself bogged down in places by military jargon and inside jokes, although these touches might enhance the novel's appeal for Field Station Berlin Veterans and others with a military background. The author's use of the third-person omniscient viewpoint also made it difficult for me to forge a strong bond with Kevin or the supporting cast.

Hill writes well, and there is a lot of rich detail and historical material to be found here. I just wish that the author had chosen a voice that spoke more directly to me and a plot that created a stronger sense of danger and suspense.

Hill's Voices Under Berlin use of the Berlin Tunnel Operation, in his novel, as a vehicle for heralding SIGINT collection operations is clever indeed. Of course, it is a spy novel and the standard for the genre is evident: The intelligence gleaned in the book is clear-cut with easy discernable courses of action and counter-action. But the style and presentation is unique and humorous which make for very enjoyable and interesting reading.

But make no mistake about it: The book could be about our military SIGINT sites, be it ASA or USAFSS. Those of us who have witnessed linguists at work scribing tapes--repeatedly replaying the tape and getting more opinions from other scribes, etc., will recognize the similarity. Any ditty-bop morse-operator who has ever called out, "Hey, you had better look at this!", knowing he had reportable intelligence, will feel at home in Voices.. The analyst who remembers slapping his pre-formatted six-ply critic report into his typewriter with an-ever-so-short five-minutes to have the finished product in the com-center and on its way to national-level decision-makers, will identify with Voices.

Voices pinpoints the professional military vs intel-oriented mind-sets that sometimes surfaced at the sites--especially when cross-trainees from the Real Air Force stumbled into our intelligence service. The hapless Lt. Sheerluck provides good comic relief but was obviously a caricature--certainly no body in real life could be so f**ked up.

Kevin is a composite of the analyst/linguist, a first termer with a "golden ear" and an innate ability to absorb foreign languages, not unlike some I knew in USAFSS.
Kevin's intel coups continuously fell in his lap. Having spent 20 year in USAFSS (1955-1975)I must say , this a rarity in the real world of intelligence. But remember it is a novel--and a good one at that. If you are a former spook or just like spy novels, you won't be disappointed. Don Lehmann

This book brought back a lot of memories of the time we spent at Field Station Berlin from 77-79. The novel is set up earlier than that but the characters could have come from the people we interacted daily with. Enough cloak and dagger to make it fun without overwhelming what was taking place until the wall fell.

Thanks to the author of Voices Under Berlin and the other reviewers for sharing. It is especially interesting to hear from those who were actually there in Berlin during those days of the Cold War. It is important that those of us who were there share our stories even if partially fictionalized.

Similar to the shared experiences of combat veterans, our stories are difficult for those who were not a part of it to comprehend. No, we were not in combat, but that potential was always there. The Berlin that we knew was a hotbed of tension and intrigue. Stressful incidents and standoffs were common. For the most part, we were considered expendable. For those reasons, Berlin was also known as a party town to us. Stress and tension had to be relieved some way.

Those of us who were there either gathering military and political intelligence or supporting the efforts of those who did have shared experiences that until recently were known only to a few. Even then, each of us had only a limited view of the bigger picture. We were sworn to keep exactly what we did and where we did it to ourselves for security reasons. We were not even supposed to share information about our work between ourselves unless there was "a need to know" and then only within a secure facility.

That is why the creation of Voices Under Berlin and other related books is a good idea. It affords us the opportunity to fill in some of the gaps or to refresh fading memories. Perhaps there are still some memories better left untold and allowed to fade, but there are other memories that need to be collected and told. Those days were important in the formation of the rest of our lives. They were also important to our nation's security.

Perhaps this and similar stories will inspire more books that can be handed down to posterity before we are all gone and our stories are lost entirely. Each of our contributions however great or small was important to the continuation of
our nation during a difficult period in history and for the most part should no longer be shrouded in governmental secrecy. Granted, some secrets should remain secret, but now that much of it has been declassified, the stories of our contributions should be made known.

To those who served in the various "security agencies" in Berlin, and especially to those one-time enlistees who served in the Army Security Agency, an invitation is extended to come join us at the Yahoo Group for the 78th ASA SOU and share your remembrances of those days before they fade into oblivion. There are also picture and documents to help jog your memory. The author of Voices Under Berlin is a member. Who knows, your story might help to inspire more books and you may even find some old friends within our growing ranks.

This a wry and deadpan account of a very particular place at a very particular time - Berlin under allied occupation in the mid 1950s, when the Cold War was coming up to a steady, simmering boil and the various intelligence organizations in Berlin were playing all kinds of deadly serious games against each other, with varying degrees of success.

One of those operations involved a tunnel dug from a specially constructed warehouse with an unusually deep cellar, in order to install a tap on land lines used by the Russians. This is about the group of military members at the sharp and pointy end of that particular spear, those who listened to the tapes, translated and transcribed, or those whose task it was to keep them all pointed more or less in the same direction. Other characters, who emerge through the transcriptions of their telephone conversations, are various Russian officers - `the voices under Berlin.' For purely civilian readers and at this date, some five decades later, it is just as well that this novel starts with an extensive glossary. Most terms, other than those specific to that location at that specific time, are familiar to anyone who has been in the military, but the purely civilian reader would most likely otherwise be at sea.

The plot hangs on a pair of strands; first, the existence of the tunnel itself - can it be kept secret, and for how long, in a place where the Russians are constantly probing for information, seeking out willing traitors and testing the other allies' intelligence services. The other continuing plot strand is - which one of the handful of American characters has been targeted by the Russians, the object of a `honey-pot' scheme, wherein his German girlfriend is actually a Russian agent tapping him for information? Small clues as to the activities and whereabouts of the woman involved dropped throughout, in transcribed conversations. Is it the talkative student Gabbie, who appears to be having a sweet and traditional romance with Kevin, the brilliant Russian-language expert so adept at transcribing the tapes and so familiar with some of the voices on them that he has begun to think of them as personal friends? What about Blackie, whose nickname might come from his penchant for black-marketing, or for a practical joke involving rubbing sheets of used carbon paper onto the earpieces of his headset? He has a German girlfriend and so does the unspeakable Lt. Sherlock, the military martinet with no perceivable talents save for that of being able to walk away unscathed from the disasters large and small that he himself has caused. The potential security breach probably isn't Fast Eddie, the married sergeant whose wife works at the PX Theater, or the crusty career soldier Master-Sergeant Laufflaecker, he of the parade-ground command voice and limitless ability to scrounge anything at all, just when it is absolutely positively necessary. And it most definitely not is the irascible and experienced Chief of Base, with his penchant for appearing in disguise and his dictate that whosoever acquires a German girlfriend will be reassigned so fast they will have whiplash injuries. The narrative follows the course of a year, enlivened with many seemingly vintage photos of places, objects and people relevant to the story, as well as accounts of a staggeringly varied number of practical jokes. Never underestimate the creative lengths to which extremely intelligent and bored military personnel will go to amuse themselves, especially when confined to spending hours and hours on duty, in the main just watching for something to happen; elaborate charades to divert the bored East German sentries, watching the site from a tall guard tower, the briefing book cooked up for a totally imaginary almost-enemy unit supposedly stationed just across the way, or even just loosening an essential screw in someone elses' headset. Some of these japes are ancient, yet ever-renewed by a fresh generation, sent off post-haste on their first day for a fifty-foot length of flight line and a bucket of prop-wash. "Voices Under Berlin" is well worth the time, to a veteran and non-veteran alike, for a glimpse into another world, another war, half a century ago.

I have never been in the military but have known many who have. Almost universally, they talk about the absurdities piled on absurdities that were a daily part of their life. Officers that were promoted out of the way, how the enlisted played the officers for fools while making them think that they were doing a superior job and trying to follow orders that made no sense.
In this case, the situation is a very serious one, where Allied and Soviet block forces are faced off in occupied Berlin in the mid 1950's. It is after the Berlin blockade and before the construction of the wall, where it was still possible for people to move back and forth between the Allied and Soviet sectors. The author recounts how the Allied forces constructed a tunnel to the Soviet region, successfully tapped a phone line and listened to military voice traffic.
The foolishness is almost beyond belief; one expert in Russian who correctly interprets the meaning of conversations between Russian military officers is reprimanded and transferred for his success. One officer with the last name Sherlock is nicknamed Sheerluck for his amazing ability to succeed far beyond his native ability to achieve it. Some of the practical jokes are incredibly dangerous; at one time two extremely bored American soldiers use a stovepipe and a coke bottle to simulate a bazooka attack on an East German watchtower. They are fortunate that the act didn't get them extremely dead.
This story is similar to the dark humor of the movie and television series M*A*S*H where you laugh at the bizarre nature of the military bureaucracy. That is really your only option as if you stop for a moment and realize that this mentality is what guards the nation against danger you might get scared. However, it is comforting to realize that the mentality on the Soviet side was similarly stiff, unimaginative and more a danger to itself than it was to the other side. The translations of the Russian messages given in the book are proof of that.

Sometimes you can meet with a serious laugh. Rarely does the copy on the back cover really do justice to the book within those covers. Authors and publishers are always good to find a blurb or quote that flatters the author or the book itself. And why not? The cover is there to do two things: hold the pages together, and convince readers to buy the book. Here's what I found at the top of the back cover of Voices Under Berlin:

"The 9539th T.C.U. does to the secret Cold War what the 4077th M.A.S.H. did to the Korean War."

Kevin is a linguist, but not just any linguist. Kevin is the linguist extraordinaire. He can hear between the lines as he listens to the tapped lines of the Soviets in Berlin of post-WWII Germany. He's so good, in fact, that even his co-workers and superiors think he's making this stuff up. His transcriptions and interpretations lead to numerous foiled operations in the Cold War Russian spy network. Blackie offers superb practical jokes (often at the expense of Lt. "Sheerluck" Sherlock, ABD), and Fast Eddie disbelieves most of the reports turned in by Kevin, but learns to report them anyway.


The story is filled with gullible inept officers, madcap antics by the enlisted men, and spy/counter-spy conversations that lead to disaster or triumph, depending on who listens to the tapes and who listens to Kevin.

Voices Under Berlin is written in such a way as to engage anyone who likes military fiction, spy stories, or comedy. The good guys don't always win, but then they do, too. The one distraction--military alphabet-soup speak--is addressed by a glossary at the beginning of the book (rather than the end) with specific jargon, abbreviations, and initials listed and explained in alphabetical order for the convenience of the reader.


The novel bears a resemblance to a post-War memoir with photos peppered throughout to bring credibility to the story. I highly recommend this one for a few days of escape to a different time and exotic place. Five reading glasses.

Voices Under Berlin: The Tale of a Monterey Mary takes place during the Cold War back in the 50's. At that time not only was there a war going on but there was also another operation in effect. It involved a tunnel operation manned by the CIA. This operation was known as the Berlin Tunnel operation. While the Berlin Tunnel operation was not the first, it was the most famous of the many tunnel operations.

The whole story centers on the men in the tunnels but in particularly three men. There names are Kevin, a Russian transcriber, Blackie, the blackmarketeer and Lieutenant Sheerluck, the martinet. The tunnels were used so that cable-taps could be used to listen to the Soviets. As you could imagine, sitting in the tunnels all day with not much to you, you quickly find ways to entertain yourself. That is exactly what these men did. Have you ever listened to phone conversations between Soviets? It can be very amusing.

I enjoyed all the illustrations depicted throughout this book. It helped to make a great imagine in my head. Mr. Hill really knows his facts. Voices Under Berlin: The Tale of a Monterey Mary is as close as you get to the real deal without being there at that exact moment. While I did find myself starting to skim over some of the reading, I would find myself drawn back in. I especially liked reading the phone conversations. They gave me a good laugh or two. Voices Under Berlin: The Tale of a Monterey Mary turned out to be a good spy novel.