Finding the microphones
I remember the first thing done when we checked into a hotel was find all the microphones.I can't vouch for the following story, which carries with it a whiff of apocrypha, but I recall reading in the 1970s a brief account of an American visitor to the USSR who performed the same drill. He even went so far as to pull up the rug, and yes! There was a little round metal plate set into a recess in the floor. He took the wing nut 'twixt thumb and forefinger, unscrewed it...and there came a crash and commotion from the room beneath his as its overhead light fixture crashed onto the floor.
As to KGB tails, one US journalist newly arrived as the Moscow bureau chief got wind of his minder early on—there appears to have been no effort made to conduct the surveillance discreetly. His "Pavel" followed close behind everywhere the reporter went. At one point the American stopped to purchase a frozen treat from a sidewalk vendor. He purchased two, and held one out behind him. This was taken wordlessly by his tail, and the two men continued on their rounds.
cordially,
PS: I've come to conclude that were we to place a mature frog and the imperturbable Another_Scott in side-by-side cauldrons over a bank of gas jets, the amphibian would be the first to jump.