WASHINGTON (AFX) - The CIA exploited the Soviet Union's desire to pilfer western technology by sending it flawed software that resulted in a huge explosion on a natural gas pipeline in Siberia in 1982, The Washington Post said.
Nobody was killed in the blast, but it did significant damage to the Soviet economy, said the daily, quoting the memoirs of Thomas Reed -- a former Air Force secretary who served in the National Security Council.
Approved by then President Ronald Reagan, the plan was part of "cold-eyed economic warfare" against the Soviet Union that the Central Intelligence Agency conducted under Director William Casey, said Reed, whose book, "At the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War," will be published next month.
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