A Soviet spy thriller in the best tradition of international spy fiction, TASS is Authorized to Declare is a 1984 Soviet ten-part television mini-series, based on the novel of the same title by Yulian Semyonov. It reverses the ideological balance of the novels of John Le Carré, Frederick Forsyth and other masters of the genre.
The conflict centres on the small African state of Nagonia, newly liberated from colonialism and under Soviet protection, which awaits an invasion (Operation Torch) from the 'contra' forces of Gen. Mario Ogano (Kalifa Konde), backed by both the CIA and the Chinese government. The invasion army, led by German Nazi mercenaries, is training in the jungle and preventing essential supplies reaching Nagonia. There has recently been an explosion on a Soviet cargo ship bound for neighbouring Lewisburg with a cargo of agricultural equipment, lorries and medical supplies, causing a fire and killing three crew. The CIA are believed responsible for this.
In Lewisburg, American commercial interests, working through under-cover CIA agents, and businessman John Glebb (Vakhtang Kikabidze), are warily in contact with field officer Slavin (Yuri Solomin), whom the KGB have sent to investigate the situation and find a way to prevent the invasion.
Coded radio messages fly to and fro between Moscow and Lewisburg, Washington and the clandestine receiving post of a CIA mole (Trianon) in the Russian capital. Trianon can advise the CIA of likely Soviet responses to American actions. Tension mounts as those with secret knowledge are killed or disappear. At the Moscow centre intelligence agents under General Konstantinov (Vyacheslav Tikhonov) of the KGB work against the clock trying to unravel contradictory evidence and secret codes.
When the mole is finally uncovered and a CIA officer under diplomatic cover is caught engaging in espionage red-handed, the US ambassador is summoned to the Soviet foreign ministry in Moscow and confronted with the evidence. He agrees to have Operation Torch called off in return for silence on the part of the Soviets.
Izvestiya is later able to report: "TASS is authorised to declare that Soviet counter-intelligence has uncovered and neutralised a CIA operation aimed against the USSR and Nagonia."
