CIA's Operation Rubicon exposed secret decryption of 100 nations' communications

A joint investigation by The Washington Post, Swiss broadcaster SRF and German broadcaster ZDF revealed that the United States Central Intelligence Agency, together with West Germany's Federal Intelligence Service (BND), covertly controlled the Swiss company Crypto AG. For decades the firm supplied encryption machines that were considered the gold standard to hundreds of governments—including Iran, Libya, Argentina, Syria and many others—believing their diplomatic, military and intelligence traffic to be secure.

Operation Rubicon allowed the CIA to read the encrypted messages of these nations, giving the United States unprecedented insight into foreign communications throughout the Cold War. The revelations were made public in 2020, the same day the World Health Organization named the COVID‑19 disease, which caused the story to be quickly eclipsed by the pandemic.

The disclosures also referenced President Ronald Reagan’s 1986 statement linking Libya to a bombing in West Berlin, highlighting how the United States used the intercepted communications to support its claims. Iran, which also used Crypto AG devices, questioned how the United States could read messages it considered virtually unbreakable.