Stalin's Romeo Spy

by Emil Draitser

  12. KGB1, 121–25; quoted in KGB v Anglii, 152–53, Tsarev and West, Crown Jewels, 74–75. Bystrolyotov reports about an event that came down to him not even second- but thirdhand: Lucy relayed to him the incident as described to her by Kemp, who wasn’t present at the time. Therefore, in his version, Oldham came in early morning, and the clerk who watched his every move became nervous and the pack of telegrams in his hands scattered all over the floor. While he was picking them up, Oldham got hold of the keys from archival safes and left the room.

  13. KGB2, 205.

  14. UKNA, 14A.

  15. Bystrolyotov writes that the meeting was arranged around suppertime and that he ran into Kemp there by accident, who, according to Lucy, got himself invited to visit her. However, the record of his intercepted phone call to Lucy makes it clear that, on his, “Joe Perelly’s,” request, Lucy arranged for lunch at 1:15 P.M. (UKNA, 16A). It’s possible that, recalling events of over three and a half decades ago, Bystrolyotov could forget these details. The whole of the following scene is described in KGB2, 205–6; quoted in Tsarev and West, KGB v Anglii, 146–48.

  16. A number of KGB historians mistakenly assume that Bystrolyotov operated in England under his alias “Hans Galleni,” based apparently on information obtained during the debriefing of Walter Krivitsky after his defection. However, all transcripts of intercepted phone calls to and from the Oldham house refer to Bystrolyotov only as “Joe Perelly” (sometimes spelled “Pirelli”); see Kern, Death in Washington, 257; Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions, 204 (spelled “Gallieni”); for transcripts of telephone calls, see, for example, UKNA, Minutes Sheet, Item 45. Bystrolyotov used the “Hans Galleni” passport when operating in the Netherlands during setup of the cover company GADA (see chap. 6), and on other occasions.

  17. UKNA, 22A.

  18. Ibid., 23.

  19. Ibid., 24A.

  20. Tsarev and West, KGB v Anglii, 148.

  21. UKNA, 27A.

  22. Extract from a telephone check, Western 4571, UKNA, 21A.

  23. Quoted in Tsarev and West, KGB v Anglii, 148.

  24. Interlaken as the place of the last meeting with Oldham is mentioned in Tsarev and West, KGB v Anglii, 154.

  25. Compare Bystrolyotov’s letter to the Center (KGB1, 121–25), quoted in Tsarev and West, KGB v Anglii, 154, and Tsarev and West, Crown Jewels, 75, and UKNA, 26A; see also Minutes Sheet, Item 30, and p. 37A.

  26. UKNA, 41A; KGB1, 131–32, quoted in Tsarev and West, KGB v Anglii, 148, and cited in Tsarev and West, Crown Jewels, 73.

  27. UKNA, Minutes Sheet, Item 42.

  28. KGB1, 121–25; cited in Tsarev and West, KGB v Anglii, 153.

  29. UKNA, 46A.

  30. The surveillance efforts described below are re-created from UKNA, 47– 48A (1–5) and 69A.

  31. KGB1, 131–32; quoted in Tsarev and West, KGB v Anglii, 149, and cited in Tsarev and West, Crown Jewels, 73.

  32. Star, September 29, 1933. (The article clipping is included in UKNA, 74A.)

  33. The content of Lucy’s letter is disclosed in Tsarev and West, KGB v Anglii, 149. For the surveillance report, see UKNA, 74A. The name of the drug is queried there as “feraldehide (?)” (with the question mark added).

  34. UKNA, 74A.

  35. Bazarov’s letter is quoted in Tsarev and West, KGB v Anglii, 148.

  36. For the Orlov reference, see his Handbook of Intelligence, 91. Regarding the threat of exposure applied by the OGPU to Oldham, see the debriefing of Soviet defector Krivitsky; a copy of an extract of it can be found in UKNA, 79A (extract from PF.R.4342, supp. vol. 1.2, serial 55x, 44).

  37. “Pir,” 3:498 (for censorship reasons, in the text he calls Oldham “German”); Kern, Death in Washington, 257; Tsarev and West, KGB v Anglii, 149, 155–56.

  38. Tsarev and West, KGB v Anglii, 149–50. In KGB2, 207, Bystrolyotov cites Vienna as the place of meeting and reports that the meeting took place in a month.

  39. Tsarev and West, KGB v Anglii, 150; Tsarev and West, Crown Jewels, 75.

  40. Tsarev and West, KGB v Anglii, 151.

  41. Ibid.

  42. KGB2, 207; Tsarev and West, KGB v Anglii, 155; Primakov, Ocherki istorii rossiiskoi razvedki, 2:244; Orlov, Handbook of Intelligence, 91.

  43. KGB1, 128; quoted in Tsarev and West, KGB v Anglii, 156.

  44. KGB file on Henri Pieck (COOPER), 27135, 1:2–4; quoted in Tsarev and West, Crown Jewels, 76–77.

  45. Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, 183; Kern, Death in Washington, 184.

  46. For a detailed description of recruitment and work with SHELLEY and MAG, see Tsarev and West, Crown Jewels, 77–88; Tsarev and West, KGB v Anglii, 161–205.

  47. Primakov, Ocherki istorii rossiiskoi razvedki, 2:245, 461. Parallel to Bystrolyotov and Pieck, working through other channels, another Soviet operative, Axelrod, secured a copy of this document (ibid., 245).

  48. Tsarev and West, KGB v Anglii, 183.

  49. Kolpakidi and Prokhorov, Vneshniaia razvedka Rossii, 441.

  50. Tsarev and West, KGB v Anglii, 193.

  51. UKNA, 78A–78C, 79A (extract from PF.R.4342, supp. vol. 1.2, serial 55x, 44).

  52. UKNA, 84A.

  53. Daily Express, June 30, 1950 (a copy of the article clipping is included in UKNA, 85A).

  54. This fact was brought to the author’s attention by Nick Crittenden (e-mail message, May 8, 2009).

  Ten. In the Arms of the Fiercest Enemy

  1. Primakov, Ocherki istorii rossiiskoi razvedki, 2:327.

  2. The operation is also briefly mentioned—and also erroneously related to Mussolini himself—in Listov, Chekisty rasskazyvaiut, 218. The same misidentification of the parties to the correspondence Bystrolyotov was intercepting during that operation is duly repeated in his current biographies published in Russia; see, for example, http://www.chekist.ru/article/2357.

  3. Bystrolyotov, in conversation with the author, September 11, 1973; Brian R. Sullivan, “From Little Brother to Senior Partner: Fascist Italian Perceptions of the Nazis and of Hitler’s Regime, 1930–1936,” Intelligence and National Security 13, no. 1 (Spring 1998): 87.

  4. Milashov, in discussion with the author, July 2003; for vital data of Brockdorff-Rantzau, see Almanach de Gotha, 103 (1930), 463.

  5. The operation is reconstructed from details in Bystrolyotov, Para Bellum, 117–26.

  6. Other details of this operation are rather murky. Since no KGB files related to it survived, the contents of the secret correspondence between Count Ciano Sr. and Hitler remain unknown. (Although it is not stated clearly in Bystrolyotov’s writing, it seems that “Monaldi” carried only letters from Ciano Sr. to Hitler.)

  7. Primakov, Ocherki istorii rossiiskoi razvedki, 2:328; “Pir,” 3:377; Bystrolyotov, “Shchedrye serdtsem,” 180–81, Para Bellum, 127–30.

  8. Bystrolyotov, Para Bellum, 130.

  9. “Pir,” 3:377; Bystrolyotov, “Shchedrye serdtsem,” 162. In the Mitrokhin archive, her name is spelled “Mueller” (http://www.linearossage.it/201-248.htm).

  10. “Pir,” 3:377; Bystrolyotov, Para Bellum, 181.

  11. Primakov, Ocherki istorii rossiiskoi razvedki, 2:241; Bystrolyotov, Para Bellum, 127.

  12. Bystrolyotov, Para Bellum, 127; Bystrolyotov, “Shchedrye serdtsem,” 182.

  13. Bystrolyotov, Para Bellum, 127–28.

  14. Ibid., 128.

  15. Ibid., 174.

  16. Ibid.

  17. “Pir,” 3:378.

  18. Bystrolyotov, “Shchedrye serdtsem,” 175.

  19. In Bystrolyotov’s Para Bellum (132–34) and “Shchedrye serdtsem” (169–71), the scheme Bystrolyotov prepared to involve Doris in is rendered in three ways, slightly different in the details. The most plausible scenario, a combination of the elements of all of them, is reconstructed here.

  20. On the state of the German stock exchange of that time, see “Reich Arms Firms Show Stock Gains; Conscription Declaration Has Favorable Effect on Few Issues in the Boerse,”New York Times, March 19, 1935, 3. See also “Market Stron
ger in Berlin,” New York Times, April 2, 1935, 34.

  21. Bystrolyotov, Para Bellum, 133.

  22. Ibid.; on his background, see Bystrolyotov, “Shchedrye serdtsem,” 7–8; Tsarev and West, Crown Jewels, 113–14. For a picture of Theodor Mally, see http://rusrazvedka.narod.ru/base/htm/malli.html.

  23. Bystrolyotov, “Shchedrye serdtsem,” 244–45.

  24. Bystrolyotov, Para Bellum, 133.

  25. Ibid., 134.

  26. Bystrolyotov, “Shchedrye serdtsem,” 169–71.

  27. Ibid., 172.

  28. Ibid., 194.

  29. In fact, the real Alexis Putilov lived in Paris, not London (http://hronos.km.ru/biograf/putilov.html [accessed July 15, 2008]).

  30. Bystrolyotov, “Shchedrye serdtsem,” 211–12.

  31. Ibid., 218–19.

  32. Ibid., 212.

  33. Ibid., 207, 219.

  34. Bystrolyotov, Para Bellum, 134.

  35. “Pir,” 3:379; in both Para Bellum (132) and “Shchedrye serdtsem” (256), Bystrolyotov has himself dying as the result of a car crash.

  36. KGB2, 195; “Pir,” 3:379; Bystrolyotov, in conversation with the author, September 11, 1973.

  37. Although, in his memoirs, Bystrolyotov recalls that this operation took place in 1933 or 1934, its details (described in “Pir,” 3:379–81 and “Shchedrye serdtsem,” 114–22) lead one to believe that it took place later.

  38. Primakov, Ocherki istorii rossiiskoi razvedki, 2:245.

  39. Bystrolyotov, “Shchedrye serdtsem,” 123.

  Eleven. The “Vivaldi” Affair

  1. Peter Jackson, France and the Nazi Menace: Intelligence and Policy Making 1923–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 192.

  2. The details of this operation are reconstructed from Bystrolyotov’s fictionalized account in Para Bellum, 126–34.

  3. Although in Para Bellum Bystrolyotov doesn’t give the true name of the man he calls “Rubinstein,” in a confidential cover letter that accompanied his unpublished movie script, “Shchderost’,” where the same character appears, he discloses Dawidowicz’s name; see Kern, Walter G. Krivitsky, 156–57.

  4. Milashov, in discussion with the author, July 2003; for Bystrolyotov’s acknowledgment of substituting the nationality of some of his targets, see “Pir,” 1:503–4.

  5. Jackson, France and the Nazi Menace, 11, 13.

  6. Unless otherwise noted, this operation is described in “Pir,” 3:495–525.

  7. Alexandra Kollontai, Selected Writings, trans. Alix Holt (New York: Norton, 1977); the chapter addressed here is available at http://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1921/theses-morality.htm.

  8. “Pir,” 1:506.

  9. Ibid., 507.

  10. Ibid., 523.

  11. Milashov, in discussion with the author, July 2003; for Bystrolyotov’s admission that he has blood on his hands, see “Pir,” 2:277.

  Twelve. The Last Operations: Africa and Other Gray Areas

  1. Unless otherwise noted, the end of the “Vivaldi” operation is reconstructed from “Pir,” 1:524–29.

  2. Milashov, in discussion with the author, July 2003; citing this episode in Bystrolyotov’s career, Grigoriev writes that “they were forced to take care of the man” (Skandinaviia, 77), implying that he was killed by the Soviet intelligence agents.

  3. Paul Henry Lang, review of Antonio Vivaldi et la musique instrumentale [Antonio Vivaldi and Instrumental Music], by Marc Pincherle, Musical Quarterly 35, no. 1 (January 1949): 156 (see http://www.jstor.org/pss/739586).

  4. Another author, David E. Albright, concurs with Andrew and Mitrokhin: “In sum, Soviet involvement in South Africa during the interwar years can be viewed essentially in terms of wasted opportunities rather than achievements” (Communism in Africa [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980], 90).

  5. “I firmly knew that he never, not one day, spent time in Africa, and Africa was never a subject of his professional [read: intelligence operative’s] interest” (Snegirev, Pravda, February 25, 1990).

  6. Bystrolyotov, in conversation with the author, September 11, 1973. On his travel to Africa, see, for example, http://rusrazvedka.narod.ru/base/htm/bystr.html.

  7. Bystrolyotov, “Shchedrye serdtsem,” 353.

  8. Unless otherwise noted, travel details are reconstructed based on Bystrolyotov, V staroi Afrike, 15, 132–201.

  9. Bystrolyotov, “Shchedrye serdtsem,” 353–54.

  10. Ibid., 354; on an episode of calling Comintern attention to areas other than South Africa, see Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive II, 423.

  11. Bystrolyotov, “Shchedrye serdtsem,” 354.

  12. In his African book, Bystrolyotov calls them by their Tuareg name, the Hoggar.

  13. Bystrolyotov, “Katanga, god 1937,” 29.

  14. Ibid.

  15. Ibid., 30–31. The fact of the unrest in 1931 and 1935 is cited in Phillip D. Curtin, The World and the West: The European Challenge and the Overseas Response in the Age of Empire (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 225.

  16. The issue referred to, of July 20 through August 17, 1934, is cited in Bystrolyotov’s unpublished memoirs, “Tsepi i niti,” 3–5. Other sources confirm the drastic reduction of the Congo population of the period; see, for example, findings of Irish diplomat Roger Casement, cited in Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (Boston: Mariner Books, 1999), 226–32.

  17. Bystrolyotov, “Tsepi i niti,” 41.

  18. http://nvo.ng.ru/spforces/2006-10-06/7_bazarov.html (accessed September 11, 2008). On Bazarov’s operations in the United States, see Hoover, 42–43.

  19. Milashov, in discussion with the author, July 2003.

  20. See the Mitrokhin archive, excerpt 204 (http://www.linearossage.it/201-248.htm [accessed August 6, 2009]).

  21. For information on Samsonovici, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_Chiefs_of_the_General_Staff_of_Romania (accessed August 25, 2008).

  22. Bystrolyotov, “Shchedrye serdtsem,” 302.

  23. Ibid., 302–3.

  24. Ibid., 322, 336; for Samsonovici’s birth year, see http://www.indiana.edu/~league/assemblydelegs.htm (accessed August 25, 2008).

  25. Orlov, Handbook of Intelligence, 97; Bystrolyotov, “Shchedrye serdtsem,” 316.

  26. Bystrolyotov, “Shchedrye serdtsem,” 317.

  27. Anna M. Cienciala, review of Romania and the Great Powers, 1933–1940, by Dov B. Lungu, Journal of Modern History 63, no. 4 (December 1991): 824.

  28. Hugh Ragsdale, The Soviets, the Munich Crisis, and the Coming of World War II (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 57.

  29. Ibid., 58.

  30. Ibid.

  31. Ibid., 59; see also Larry L. Watts, “Romania as a Military Ally (Part I): Czechoslovakia in 1938,” Romanian Civilization (Bucharest) 7 (1998): 44.

  32. An interception of Antonescu’s report is mentioned in Bystrolyotov, “Shchedrye serdtsem,” 338.

  33. The actor’s full name was Fernand Joseph Désiré Contandin (1903–71); Faligot and Krop misread Bystrolyotov’s text, to which they were given onetime access, and made an erroneous supposition about Fernandel’s involvement with Soviet foreign intelligence (Faligot and Krop, “Du cas Michel Simon à l’affaire Fernandel,” 16–17).

  34. Bystrolyotov, “Shchedrye serdtsem,” 310.

  35. Ibid., 333.

  Thirteen. The Return

  1. Compare the texts of the letter included in Snegirev, “Drugaia zhizn’ Dmitriia Bystroletova,” 73–74, and at the SVR Web site, http://svr.gov.ru/smi/2006/novrkr20060130.htm.

  2. Compare http://svr.gov.ru/history/byst.html and http://svr.gov.ru/smi/2006/novrkr20060130.htm (both accessed October 28, 2008). See also Duff, Time for Spies, 113; Primakov, Ocherki istorii rossiiskoi razvedki, 2:245.

  3. “Pir,” 1:41; Bystrolyotov, “Shchedrye serdtsem,” 85.

  4. Bystrolyotov, “Shchedrye serdtsem,” 139, 179.

  5. “Pir,” 1:41.

  6. For t
he Bystrolyotov quote, see Razumov, “Rukopis’ D. Bystrolyotova ‘Pir Bessmertnykh,’ ” 110.

  7. Bystrolyotov, “Shchedrye serdtsem,” 326.

  8. “Pir,” 1:502, 532.

  9. Ibid.

  10. Ibid.

  11. Bystrolyotov, “Shchedrye serdtsem,” 103.

  12. Ibid., 104–5.

  13. See Duff, Time for Spies, 67.

  14. Bystrolyotov, “Shchedrye serdtsem,” 105.

  15. KGB2; quoted in Tsarev and West, KGB v Anglii, 123.

  16. Frederick P. Hitz, The Great Game: The Myth and Reality of Espionage (New York: Knopf, 2004), 102.

  17. “Pir,” 3:371.

  18. Ibid., 370.

  19. Ibid., 1:397. See also Bystrolyotov, Para Bellum, 126–27.

  20. The episode, based on Bystrolyotov’s recollections, is described by his camp mate, Konstantin Ivanov (“Razvedchik, vozvrashchennyi iz nebytiia,” 8).

  21. On the fatigue of intelligence operatives, see Bystrolyotov, Para Bellum, 126–27. The episode with the loss of passport is re-created by William Duff based on his and Dan Mulvenna’s interviews with Oleg Tsarev in January and March 1994 (Duff, Time for Spies, 72, 201n10). See also John Costello and Oleg Tsarev, Rokovye illiuzii [Fateful Illusions] (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1995), 160.

  22. Milashov, in discussion with the author, July 2003.

  23. On Soviet spies living abroad and lacking reliable information about their homeland, see Poretskaia, Nashi, 113.

  24. “Pir,” 1:348–49.

  25. Poretskaia, Nashi, 79–80.

  26. Ibid., 97.

  27. See, for example, ibid., 81.

  28. Philby, My Silent War, xx.

  29. See Sbornik zakonodatel’nykh i normativnykh aktov o repressiiakh i reabilitatsii zhertv politicheskikh repressii [A Collection of Legislative and Normative Decrees About Repressions and Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repressions] (Moscow: Verkhovnyi sovet rossiiskoi federatsii, 1993), 32–33, 86.

  30. Ivanov, “Razvedchik, vozvrashchennyi iz nebytiia,” 8. On kidnapping abroad, see Solzhenitsyn, Gulag Archipelago: Volume 1, 9. On Mally’s fate, see Edward Gazur, Alexander Orlov, The FBI’s KGB General. (New York: Basic Books, 2002), 160–62; see also Duff, Time for Spies, 175.