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The new teaser for Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War was released yesterday. It’s the #1 trending video on YouTube despite not showing any gameplay footage.
Why? It may be its backstory, which developers say is inspired by true events — that a Soviet spy codenamed PERSEUS “has infiltrated Western intelligence.”
His goal: to “subvert the U.S. to ensure Soviet dominance in the arms race.”
But, how true is this? Do actual decrypted KGB messages show Perseus was real? Or is what really happened even stranger?
Be sure to watch through the end of the episode, as this story takes a lot of twists and turns.
Sources in order of mention
COD teaser: https://youtu.be/c-ZSaxLF92I
Venona, PERS decrypt https://archive.org/details/2sept_covername_changes/mode/2up?q=pers
Venona PERS mentions https://archive.org/search.php?query=pers&and[]=collection:%22nsia-venona%22&sin=TXT
Chikov and Yatskov statements, 91-92, Perseus is real: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1992/10/04/how-soviets-stole-us-atom-secrets/1ebc1feb-7d1d-476b-8f85-d9ea08a60fa9/
“Perseus papers”: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.2968/055004006
Sudoplatov book https://archive.org/details/specialtasksmemo00sudo
Bombshell https://www.amazon.com/Bombshell-Secret-Americas-Atomic-Conspiracy/dp/081292861X
Ted Hall Venona https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Hall#/media/File:Decision_to_maintain_contact_with_Theodore_Hall_1944.gif
NYT: PERS is McNutt https://www.nytimes.com./2009/01/18/nyregion/18rosenberg.html
CIA paper: Perseus isn’t real https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-63-no-3/pdfs/Fourth-Soviet-Spy-LosAlamos.pdf
LANL presentation: Perseus probably doesn’t exist https://permalink.lanl.gov/object/tr?what=info:lanl-repo/lareport/LA-UR-20-22494
Video credits
Jeff Quitney (CC 3.0) https://vimeo.com/295269351
Jeff Quitney (CC 3.0) https://vimeo.com/362319000