Operation Odin

Number24 · May 2018

I just watched a documentary that might be of interest. A journalist (Morten Jentoft, we actually E-mailed a couple of years ago. I had some info for him regarding a different matter) was contacted by a Paul Smith. Smith is a very spry 90-year old with a story to tell. He had been a business man who was contacted by an army buddy from WWII. His friend turned out to work for the Secret Service of Norway, and he asked Smith to help him a bit. It was 1959 and Paul Smith and a man named Arild were asked to pose as tourists and drive to Finland to the USSR (stopping in Leningrad, Moscow and many other places) and then to Poland and DDR. The mission was named "Operation Odin. Smith was told to buy a Mercedes 180. The car was fitted with a hidden geiger counter, a device to monitor radio activity and other gadgets. They were told to follow a certain route and switch the gadgets on by turning the heating and cold air on at certain times and places. A guide from Intertourist who had learned Danish at the University of Leningrad was assigned to them. Her name was Tamara and she was 23 years old. The Norwegians had been told to use the best hotels and restaurants, because the CIA would pay them back. In Moscow they visited the Bolshoj Theatre where the leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrutshchev was feet away from giving them a hand shake, but his bodyguards whisked him away at the last moment.

Paul and Arvid got back to Norway, handed over the car and most of the photos and kept quiet.
Paul Smith broke silence to Morten Jentoft this year and the journalist took him back to Russia.
They met with Tamara. They had written letters to each other after his journey in 1959, but she had stopped writing him without any warning. In the documentary she revealed how the KGB had tried to force her to spy for them. She refused and the KGB banned her from any contact with Westerners in spite of her exellent Danish. Tamara never suspected the Norwegian "tourists" were spies. The journalist quipped: "You were like a Bond girl!" She laughed and nodded.