The Man with the Poison Gun

by Serhii Plokhy

  While Bandera’s Foreign Units of the OUN worked with the British, Lebed’s Foreign Representation supplied cadres for CIA covert operations in the USSR. In May 1951, the two intelligence services, the CIA and MI6, coordinated an airdrop of their agents on Soviet territory. The British group, led by Myron Matviyeyko, was seen off by Bandera, while the American one received blessings from Lebed. Group after group was dropped by parachute into the Ukrainian forests. The first news was more than encouraging: the groups were able to avoid capture and establish radio contact. But eventually both the Americans and the British began to suspect that the indications were too good to be true. The grim reality was that most of the people parachuted into Ukraine soon fell into the hands of the KGB and—like Matviyeyko—worked under their control. After years of losing agents, the Americans and the British decided to stop the airdrops. The CIA began to use Lebed’s people for psychological warfare against the USSR instead. By 1954, MI6 had severed relations with Bandera and his group. One point on which the Western services agreed was that, as a British cable put it, “despite our unanimous desire to ‘quiet’ Bandera, precautions must be taken to see that the Soviets are not allowed to kidnap or kill him. . . . [U]nder no circumstances must Bandera be allowed to become a martyr.”7

  With William Hood’s cryptic telegram to Washington, there was little doubt that both security services had failed. If it was indeed the Soviets who had finally killed Bandera, then he might become a more significant figure in death than he had been during his lifetime. The Munich base sent a more substantial message the following day. “Bandera dead on arrival hospital,” read the cable of October 16. “Undetermined whether top of head damage caused by fall. Bandera people suspect foul play.” On Sunday, October 18, before the results of the autopsy became public, the Munich officers had to cable Washington again, delivering the latest news from one of his agents inside the German security services: “Prelim[inary] autopsy findings indicate Bandera did not die natural causes. Indications he [was] poisoned.” The Munich base chief wrote nothing about the possibility of suicide. He suspected murder.8

  13

  UPSWING

  In the days following Bandera’s assassination, the CIA officers in Munich scrambled to figure out who had killed the Ukrainian leader and why. There were no obvious answers.

  Back in March 1958, CIA headquarters at Langley had cabled the CIA Munich base, requesting information on the latest activities of Stepan Bandera. The request originated in the US Congress and reached Langley through the State Department. Someone of significant influence in the American capital wanted Bandera to come to the United States. The CIA officers in Munich checked their files and found nothing new on Bandera’s activities that would preclude his entering the United States. They also checked with the US consulate in Munich and found out that Bandera had not applied for a visa, apparently awaiting the results of his supporters’ lobbying in the United States. For a while, however, William Hood and his subordinates showed little interest, either, in supporting Bandera’s application. The CIA’s own people among the Ukrainian émigré circles—the Lebed group—were vehemently against Bandera’s presence on their turf, the United States and Canada. Bandera stayed in Munich.1

  But in the months leading up to his death Bandera showed up at the US consulate in Munich to officially ask for a visitor’s visa to the United States. He hoped to be able to travel there in the spring of 1959, but, as he informed one of his old friends in New York, he was not sure whether he would be allowed to do so. In the documents he submitted to acquire the three-month visa, he identified himself as Stefan Popel, but he used the Bandera surname for his wife and children. Popel/Bandera was interviewed by Kermit S. Midthun, a young consular official whose earlier career had been with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Midthun was more than suspicious of Bandera’s request. He had serious doubts that Bandera’s organization, whose full name was Foreign Units of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, fully embraced the principles of democracy that underlined American policy in postwar Europe.2

  Bandera did little to dispel Midthun’s misgivings. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, some of the members of Bandera’s organization had joined the German-run police and, in its ranks, participated in the Holocaust. But Jews were not at the top of the Ukrainian nationalists’ hierarchy of foes. For them, Poles and “turncoat” Ukrainians figured as the main enemies of Ukrainian statehood. Terror remained a popular weapon in their arsenal not only before and during World War II but also in its aftermath. After the war, it was directed primarily against the Soviets and their “collaborators”—Ukrainians who, finding themselves between two fires, NKVD troops and nationalist guerrillas, refused to support the nationalist cause.3

  When the FBI officer asked Bandera how his organization would establish and preserve democracy once it came to power in Ukraine, he gave an answer that left Midthun highly dissatisfied. Democracy, claimed Bandera, would naturally accompany national self-realization. He promised to send Midthun literature produced by his organization so that he could make up his own mind about its democratic credentials. Eight brochures soon arrived at the consulate. They offered a critique of the decisions of the latest Soviet Communist Party congress and of the Gulag system of prison camps, while promoting the Ukrainian struggle for independence and setting forth the programmatic documents of Bandera’s organization. Midthun did not have the time or inclination to read the brochures, which were eventually sent to the Intelligence Collection and Distribution Section. In the end, it was not up to Midthun alone to decide whether Bandera would get an entry visa. The CIA had its say, too.4

  On October 5, 1959, a mere ten days before Bandera’s death, Hood wrote to his superiors at Langley, asking them to consider helping Bandera get an entry visa to the United States—the same visa that the consular officials in Munich had denied him for months. The Munich chief of the base’s memo accompanied a more detailed request from a CIA contact in the German security services code-named “Herdahl.” The CIA officers had assured Herdahl that “headquarters are very interested in the matter, especially as regards indications that Bandera has ‘reformed’ and ideas concerning his future operational usefulness.” It was believed that Bandera had abandoned the heavy-handed tactics he had once used to keep his organization and the entire Ukrainian émigré community under control, and which had made the US consulate so nervous.

  Officially, Bandera had applied for a three-month visa to the United States to see his relatives. The real reason was different. He planned to see and reenergize his followers in the United States; according to German estimates, there were between 300,000 and 400,000 of them there. North America was also a major source of financial support for Bandera and his activities. The Germans estimated that from Canada alone the organization had received $900,000 over the course of the five years ending in 1958. Bandera also wanted to meet with officials in the US government to discuss possible cooperation. “In principle,” as Hood summarized the agent’s argument, “Bandera has more to offer operationally than most if not all other Russian émigré groups in the West today.” The operations Hood had in mind were espionage activities behind the Iron Curtain—the land of desire and terra incognita for Western intelligence services. Hood believed it was in the CIA’s best interest to accommodate the request of someone who could potentially share a great deal of useful information with the agency. “If the visa can be granted,” wrote Hood to his superiors, “we would be very well informed on the future collaboration between Upswing and Bandera. If the visa is not granted, it seems likely that Herdahl will slam the door on this aspect of Upswing operational activities in a bit of a huff.” William Hood was still awaiting a response from Langley when the disturbing news of Bandera’s death reached the Munich base.5

  Herdahl’s real name was Heinz Danko Herre. He was a senior official in the Federal Intelligence Service, or BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst). The BND was formally created on April Fool’s Day of 1956 and placed u
nder the direct supervision of the Office of the Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer. The BND was his joint brainchild with the CIA, which for ten years had funded and run its predecessor, known as the Gehlen Organization, or simply Org, after its chief, General Reinhard Gehlen, who had been in charge of spying on the Red Army during the war. In CIA traffic of the late 1950s, the BND came to be known under the code name “Upswing,” later to be changed to “Uphill.” Its creation was indeed a dramatic upswing for the CIA, which maintained close ties with the new organization but was no longer responsible for its funding or day-to-day business. It was also a major upswing for General Gehlen, who became president of the BND and ran it for the next twenty-two years.6

  It was the “legalization” of the Gehlen Organization in the form of the BND that brought Stepan Bandera and his people, who were previously shunned by the British and Americans, back into the spotlight in the intelligence war between East and West. Negotiations between Bandera and the Gehlen associates began in March 1956, even before the BND was officially launched. The Americans warned their junior West German partners against using Bandera’s agents in Ukraine, believing that his networks had been penetrated by the KGB. The BND took that advice and stopped the negotiations. But they would return to the idea of cooperation with Bandera a few years later. There were a number of reasons for them to reconsider it. The BND was a young intelligence organization looking for ways to prove itself, and for Reinhard Gehlen there was no easier way to do so than to use their old World War II connections. Bandera, one of Gehlen’s associates wrote to William Hood, “has been known to us for about 20 years.” The CIA objections could only hold them off for so long.

  Heinz Danko Herre was William Hood’s main source of information about Bandera, his death, and the investigation into his possible murder. In the BND hierarchy, Herre was directly responsible for contacts with Bandera and his followers. Herre also happened to be the main liaison between the BND and the CIA. An expert on Russia and Eastern Europe, he had attracted Gehlen’s attention during the war. In April 1942, Gehlen had taken him under his wing and arranged a transfer from the front lines to the Intelligence section of the General Staff. There Herre had launched a successful psychological warfare campaign, code-named “Silver Lining,” whose goal was to convince Red Army soldiers to desert. At the end of the war, Herre was one of the few officers Gehlen chose to accompany him in his defection to the Americans. In 1957, a year after the BND went “public,” Herre was appointed head of the division responsible for intelligence operations against communist countries. For an old Russia hand, this felt like a homecoming.7

  Herre’s new responsibilities corresponded well with the main interests of the CIA in the region. James H. Critchfield, the head of the CIA base in Pullach, a suburb of Munich where the headquarters of the Gehlen Organization were located, referred to Herre as the CIA’s “key man in Gehlen’s inner circle.” Decades later, remembering his years at Pullach, Critchfield wrote that Herre was “the one who, when the going got tough, was able to deal with both sides, keep communications open, and lead the search for compromises.” Herre worked hard to secure the position of “go-to man” for the Americans. “He became an expert on American baseball and off the top of his head could quote batting averages and league standings,” recalled Critchfield.8

  After Bandera’s unexpected death, Herre kept William Hood well informed about the Kripo investigation into its circumstances. He also briefed the CIA chief on the lunch meeting he had had with Bandera and his associates on the afternoon of October 14, less than twenty-four hours before the Ukrainian leader’s death. The lunch, which had taken place at the Ewige Lampe restaurant in Munich, had lasted from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Bandera had been accompanied by two associates who had later described the meeting to the police, placing special emphasis on the food that had been served, as they suspected that one of the dishes could have been poisoned. One Ukrainian participant told the police that one of the Germans had picked up the bill, but none of those interrogated would say what had been discussed at the meeting.

  Herre was less conspiratorial with his CIA contact. “Lunch [was] devoted primarily discussion Upswing support mounting further ops into USSR,” cabled Hood to Langley. “Also discussed status present ops group which has not reported over weeks and at last report had not crossed into USSR.” In July 1959, Herre had sent a group of Bandera cadres to the USSR across the Czechoslovakian border. Herre had held a meeting with Stepan Bandera and one of his associates on April 9, 1959, to discuss the operation. By the time they met again at the restaurant in the Bayerischer Hof Hotel on October 14, even though the group that had been sent through Czechoslovakia had not yet reported back, Herre was prepared to expand the BND’s cooperation with Bandera and his people. The CIA would eventually learn more about the business discussed at the Herre-Bandera lunch from its sources in the Ukrainian émigré community. “The Germans accepted all the suggestions made by Zch/OUN [Foreign Units of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists] and promised all sorts of aid. Stepan Bandera was very satisfied with the results of the talks,” read a report. Indeed, that day Bandera came home in a good mood. He told his wife that the meeting had gone well and that he had liked the food. The partridge was particularly good.9

  Stepan Bandera’s aides suspected that their leader could have been poisoned during the lunch with Herre and alerted the CIA to that possibility. But there was no doubt in the minds of the CIA officers in Munich that neither Gehlen nor Herre was involved in Bandera’s death. Rather, they suspected the Soviets. On October 19, four days after Bandera fell dead on the steps of his apartment building, the chief of the CIA Munich station sent the CIA director a cable in which he asked headquarters to pass on to the BND “info re[ferring to] RIS [Russian Intelligence Services] use [of] specific poison in past.” He felt that this information “would be particularly helpful since [it] appears to date that sufficient quantity poison [was] not found [while] autopsy makes it certain Bandera poisoned.” Hood believed that information from one of the cases investigated by the CIA in the past could “point to specific type poison that may have been used, that difficult [to] detect, and that could have been administered considerably in advance Bandera’s death.”10

  14

  PRIME SUSPECT

  Agents at CIA headquarters at Langley were not just collecting information from Munich; they were also trying to help the investigation by providing leads, one of which was cabled to Munich on November 5, 1959. The telegram read as follows: “Aecasowarry 2 says wife Aecavatina 11 with him just prior death.”1

  Only people with access to the agency’s code books could make sense of the message. Along with the “Redwood” action marker, which referred to the CIA’s Soviet Russia Division, the cable had another cryptonym in its upper right-hand corner, “Aerodynamic.” It stood for the agency’s operations in support of the activities of the Foreign Representation of the Supreme Ukrainian Liberation Council, the group of Ukrainian nationalists led by Mykola Lebed, who had broken with the Bandera faction in the late 1940s and since then had closely cooperated with the CIA. CIA officers used the prefix “ae” (Aerodynamic) and other code names to identify operations and individuals engaged in intelligence activities against the Soviet Union. Aecassowary 2 and Aecavatina 11 clearly belonged to that group. Cassowaries—large and colorful but flightless birds from New Guinea—were used as code names for members of the Lebed group involved in “Aerodynamic,” including the agents parachuted into the USSR. “Cavatina” was a term borrowed not from zoology but from the world of classical music, in which it means a short, simple song. It was used for the members of the Bandera organization.

  Thanks to the fairly recent release of select cryptonyms used by the CIA during the Cold War, we now know who those members of the Lebed and Bandera groups were. The code name “Aecassowary-1” was reserved for the Lebed group as a whole; “Aecassowary-2” was the group’s leader, Mykola Lebed. They used a slightly different system for the Bandera group
, whose leader was code-named “Aecavatina-1.” The code name “Aecavatina 11” stood for his former head of security, Myron Matviyeyko.2

  Thus CIA headquarters wanted its agents in Munich to know that Mykola Lebed had informed the agency that one of the last people in contact with Bandera before his death had been the wife of his former security chief, Myron Matviyeyko: Eugenia. The secretary in Bandera’s headquarters who accompanied him to the Munich market before his death and was known to the German police as Eugenia Mak was in fact Eugenia Matviyeyko, the wife of an operative long behind Soviet lines. Eugenia had been born in Lviv in 1916. She was forty-three years old in 1959 and was known to her friends, colleagues, and associates under a variety of surnames, including Mak, Sczyhol, and Koshulynska. When her husband had been chosen for a dangerous mission in Ukraine, she had stayed behind in Munich, where they had made their home soon after the war. Eugenia had then gone to work for her husband’s boss, Stepan Bandera, at Zeppelinstrasse 67.

  Shortly before noon on October 15, 1959, Eugenia Mak had left the office with Bandera and accompanied him on at least part of what turned out to be his last car ride. She was now a person of interest to the police, as well as to the many other investigators of Bandera’s death. The Munich police and Bavarian counterintelligence office thought she might be an accomplice in what everyone now agreed was a murder. The police informer within the Bandera organization and the medical report all pointed in the same direction: the poison had been administered by someone close to Bandera. Eugenia Mak found herself at the top of that list. Many pointed to the tug of war between Eugenia and Bandera’s wife, and some suggested that Bandera and Eugenia were secretly lovers. Besides, if Bandera had been poisoned while tasting fruit at the market, it was impossible to imagine that Eugenia was not involved. Although, according to the CIA report, no one “was able to determine how the poison was put in the fruit in front of Bandera. There is little chance that the fruit could have been prepared in advance, as the trip was apparently spontaneous, so no one knew in advance that the two were going shopping.”3