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The CIA triggered a massive explosion in a Siberian natural gas pipeline in 1982 as part of covert American efforts to collapse the Soviet economy, according to a new account of the Cold War.

Exploiting Moscow's hankering for Western technology, the CIA allowed KGB agents to "steal" deliberately defective software that, after months of normal operation, went haywire. The resulting explosion was hushed up by both sides, even though it was the largest non nuclear blast to be picked up by spy satellites. Until they were let in on the secret, senior US officials thought that the Soviet authorities had tested a new nuclear device. The details are laid out for the first time in a new book, At the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War, by Thomas Reed, a former Secretary of the Navy who was serving in America's National Security Council at the time.

In the 1970s, American Intelligence was aware that the Soviet Union was trying to steal technology secrets. Moscow had set up a KGB section called Directorate T dedicated to the task. But it was only in 1981 when Vladimir Vetrov, an engineer at Directorate T, came over to the French that the full extent of its success was known. President Mitterrand gave Colonel Vetrov's dossier to the CIA.

It confirmed that Moscow had succeeded in stealing valuable material on American radar, computers, machine tools and semiconductors. "Our science was supporting their national defence," Mr Reed said.

The documents, dubbed the Farewell dossier, also laid bare Moscow's priorities by including a KGB "shopping list", which the CIA then exploited. It included software to run pumps, turbines and valves. The CIA hatched a plan to allow the KGB to get its hands on doctored software that would operate normally for a reasonable period of time before malfunctioning. The plan was enthusiastically backed by President Reagan.

"While there were no physical casualties from the pipeline explosion, there was significant damage to the Soviet economy," Mr Reed said. "Its ultimate bankruptcy, not a bloody battle or nuclear exchange, is what brought the Cold War to an end."