I remember reading in a book once that during the cold war, the Soviets used microwave communication partially to get around the Allies snooping on their RF com

I remember reading in a book once that during the cold war, the Soviets used microwave communication partially to get around the Allies snooping on their RF communications. So, the Allies would position satellites such that they were in the line of sight of the microwave links so they could listen in on the extra transmissions that overshot the receiving end.