I. Irradiating Nixon, Spaso House, July 1959.

  

In a 2018 biography of Ambassador Tommy Thompson, “The Kremlinologist,” daughters Jenny and Sherry Thompson wrote about microwaves beamed at the U.S. Embassy when their father was Ambassador to Moscow 1957-62. According to them, the Soviets also bombarded Spaso House, the Ambassador’s residence, with microwaves. In fact, a security team advancing Vice President Nixon's visit in 1959 noted a spike in radiation levels just before his arrival. After a protest, the radiation level dropped, but no one apparently bothered to follow up to see whether the radiation returned to its former high level after that. “No one seemed to care…if the radiation continued or not after Nixon left.” (see p. 181). The daughters also noted parenthetically that the U.S. was doing something similar to "listen to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, DC," without giving a source for their information. 

Spaso House

A similar story was told in "K Blows Top" (pp. 31-33, pub. 2009) by Peter Carlson, a humorous history of Khrushchev's rather strange trip to the US in 1959, and Nixon's trip to Moscow that took place a few months earlier.  In fact, the story parallels very closely the account in recently declassified documents , which revealed that Spaso residents were being bombarded not by microwaves, but ionizing radiation, and reported how Secret Service agents managed to stop the threat, at least for the duration of Nixon's visit. That Carlson was able to pick up this story and retell it in a humorous fashion indicates that it was generally known in the Washington national security community. The story was also told, briefly, in Khrushchev's Cold War, by Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali (p. 249 and note 49, pub. 2006).

 Recent declassified documents would tend to indicate that the U.S. was not bombarding the Soviet Embassy with microwaves, although there were negotiations to remove the sheds on the top of both chanceries as part of a general deal on microwaves. With the exception of the Great Seal bug at Spaso, it is still unknown whether the Soviets were using microwaves or other frequencies regularly on Spaso or other non-chancery locations. It was revealed, however, that the Soviets were exposing Spaso House residents to something far worse: potentially lethal ionizing radiation (see National Security Archive release, "Irradiating Richard Nixon"). It is unknown whether this was a one-time occurrence, or also happened at times other than Nixon's 1959 visit. Speaking as someone who worked in the target area at the chancery, also lived for two years at Spaso House, and was diagnosed with CLL shortly after my return from Moscow in 1979, this is of course of some small interest to me. 

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