Shelepin took the place of Khrushchev’s longtime ally, the “pacifier” of Budapest, General Ivan Serov. The general was transferred to a politically much less sensitive position at the head of military intelligence. Khrushchev wanted to curb the power of the KGB and drastically reduce the number of its officers and agents. Serov, who had joined the secret police in the days of Joseph Stalin, clearly had been the wrong man for the job. Shelepin, by contrast, had no reservations about paring down the KGB. He was also eager to switch the main thrust of its operations from the home front to the international arena. There, he believed, the KGB had to focus much more on achieving the foreign-policy goals of the Soviet government. One of his innovations in the sphere of intelligence was the creation of the disinformation department. West Germany became one of the testing grounds of its techniques, and Theodor Oberländer, the West German minister accused not only of Nazi-era crimes but also of killing Bandera, became one of its first targets.7
Now Shelepin could add to his record of achievement the killing of an archenemy of Soviet rule who had also long been considered a personal enemy of Nikita Khrushchev. Things were looking very good for Aleksandr Shelepin. He was prepared to take full credit for what had happened in Munich, and personally present a high award to the man who had made it possible.
18
PRIVATE MATTER
Bogdan Stashinsky arrived in Moscow on November 22, 1959. At the Belarus train station he was picked up by a KGB officer he first met in Karlshorst. Stashinsky knew him by his first name and patronymic, Arkadii Andreevich, but in Germany he used the alias “Avramenko.” Avramenko was in fact Arkadii Andreevich Fabrichnikov. He checked Stashinsky into the Hotel Leningrad, which, like the Hotel Ukraine, Stashinsky’s earlier hangout in Moscow, was one of “seven sisters,” a group of neo-Gothic skyscrapers built during the late Stalin period.1
The next day, in another hotel, the Moscow—built in the 1930s in the constructivist style—a senior KGB officer greeted Stashinsky and introduced himself as Aleksei Alekseevich. According to declassified biographies of KGB senior officers, it was none other than General Aleksei Krokhin. He had served in the Soviet counterintelligence directorate during the war and had begun working for foreign intelligence in 1946, at the outset of the Cold War. In 1950, Krokhin was sent to Paris under the name “Ognev” and the cover of a diplomatic position to assume responsibility for KGB operations in France. He returned to Moscow in 1954 to serve as a deputy head of the First Main Directorate. For a while he also headed the division responsible for running the KGB illegals, the agents who worked abroad under false names and without diplomatic cover. In the central apparatus he replaced General Aleksandr Korotkov, who was now running KGB operations at Karlshorst. General Krokhin’s meeting with Stashinsky indicated that he had been transferred from the émigré department to the one overseeing the activities of illegal agents.2
Krokhin spelled out the coming changes in Stashinsky’s life and career to which General Korotkov in Karlshorst had only alluded. Stashinsky would stay in Moscow to receive training for his future work abroad. He would improve his German and learn English. In the future, he would no longer be based on Soviet-controlled territory; instead, following the training, he would settle in a Western European country. That assignment was expected to last for three to five years, and Stashinsky, who was looking forward to a longer stay in the West, must have been pleased with what he heard. But then, to his disappointment, Krokhin told Stashinsky that despite the change of his base of operations, he would be continuing the work he had done before—assassinating enemies of the Soviet regime. The general added that his other assignments might include running a group of illegal agents. Krokhin stressed that Stashinsky was no longer a common agent but would be joining the KGB elite.3
Stashinsky kept silent on the matter of future assassinations. But he raised the question that his handler, Sergei Damon, had told him could only be decided in Moscow. Karlshorst’s star agent was in love. He had an East German girlfriend and wanted to marry her before coming to Moscow for a year. Her name was Inge Pohl, and Stashinsky had met her in April 1957, the month in which he had first traveled to Munich to track down Lev Rebet. They had spotted each other at the Casino dance hall, part of the famous Berlin landmark Friedrichstadt-Palast.
The Casino was the place to go if one wanted a good time in East Berlin. The venue was extremely popular, the main attraction being the music. Back in the 1920s, when the famous actor and director Max Reinhardt had bought and rebuilt the Friedrichstadt-Palast, it had welcomed such performers as Marlene Dietrich. Different performers and tunes were in fashion by the late 1950s. In April 1957, Elvis Presley’s single “All Shook Up” climbed to the top of the US pop charts and stayed there for eight weeks.
The Casino had a night bar and a dance hall that were open from 10:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. The entrance stairs led to an impressive space reminiscent of a temple, with ceilings fifteen meters high. The yellow walls were decorated with gypsum sculptures. The Casino had a ten-meter-long bar and a podium for the orchestra. The place badly needed renovation: its old tables and chairs, greasy from years of use, were covered with red and yellow plastic. But the visitors were prepared to overlook its numerous imperfections. The admission price was quite reasonable: 2 marks.
Single, with some Western currency to spare (he was paid 800 German marks per month, plus per diem when traveling), Stashinsky was well known to the staff and patrons of the establishment. The woman whom Stashinsky met at the Casino and eventually fell in love with was by no means a striking beauty. Inge Pohl had bluish eyes, a round face with a large pointed nose, and small dimples when she smiled. Her brown hair, with a reddish tinge, was cut in the latest Berlin fashion. She was of medium height, about five foot eight, and people tended to comment on her well-formed legs. She lived in Dallgow, an East German town, and worked in the Rechholz hair salon in Siemensstadt, located in West Berlin on the border with Spandau. She fell in love with Stashinsky the first time she saw him. “He had a very good appearance and actually looked very, very, nice,” she remembered later. She liked his black hair and his smile, which showed snow-white teeth, and the way he dressed: he seemed to prefer dark suits.
Inge did her best to learn as much as possible about her new dance partner. He clearly had an accent in German, and at first she thought he was a Czech. But the Casino porter, who knew Stashinsky as a regular visitor, told her that he was a Pole working for the Polish embassy in East Berlin. Inge did not particularly like the idea of dating a Pole, but in Stashinsky’s case she decided to make an exception. She needn’t have worried, as Stashinsky soon told her that he was neither a Czech nor a Pole but a Volksdeutscher, a German from the East who was working for the East German Ministry of International Trade. His name was Joseph Lehmann, Stashinsky told his new acquaintance and future girlfriend. Inge was relieved and happy.
Inge loved her “Joschi.” True, his German grammar was not always correct, but it was improving and was not bad for a German who had been born in Poland and had grown up hearing only corrupt German, if any at all. American GIs, who had much more pocket money than did local Germans, were especially popular among German girls in those days. Joschi was no worse than those Americans—he always had Western money. But as far as Inge was concerned, that was not all that important. Her own earnings in Western currency were the black-market equivalent of the salary of a highly placed East German official, and she saw in Joschi someone who was doing equally well in life. Well-dressed, polite, and intelligent, he was a great catch for a village girl who had become a hairdresser in the big city.
Stashinsky also felt attracted to his new acquaintance. Following KGB protocol, he informed Sergei Damon of his new passion. With the help of its East German underlings, the KGB checked the girl’s background and found no criminal record or possible connections to Western intelligence services. Stashinsky was allowed to date her. However, the KGB warned Stashinsky to bear in mind that even though Inge and her family liv
ed in East Germany, her father, Fritz Pohl, was a “capitalist.” He owned an auto shop, where he “exploited” three workers.
Stashinsky and Inge shared the same birthday—November 4—but she was five years younger than he was. She had been born in 1936 in the Berlin suburb of Spandau. Relations between her parents were less than cordial, and by the time Inge met Stashinsky, she was already living on her own, renting a room from a lady a few houses away from her father’s home. Stashinsky was not the first man with whom Inge had fallen in love. She had been involved with a young man who worked as a driver for the East German minister of justice, Hilde Benjamin, who was widely known as “Bloody Hilde” or the “Red Guillotine” for the death sentences she handed down at show trials in the late 1940s and early 1950s as vice president of the East German Supreme Court. Stashinsky seemed a much more attractive choice. But not unlike her first love, Stashinsky presented some ideological issues of his own to be sorted out.
Inge found her boyfriend too devoted to Moscow. “He said that the government circles in the Soviet zone did not answer to his conception of what they should be—he found them too militarist—but he praised everything connected with Russia and the communist ideology,” remembered Inge later. The KGB agent had to put up not only with the anticommunist and anti-Russian attitudes of Inge’s father but also with Inge’s less firmly held but fundamentally similar attitudes. Inge did not agree with everything her father told her. But she did not accept everything her boyfriend said to her, either. Quite often they argued, failing to find common ground and remaining loyal to their original beliefs. “I did not share his convictions and enthusiasm for Russia,” recalled Inge. “I would bring up points of argument, but he always had a counterargument ready.”
They spent their free time walking together through the streets of East and West Berlin and going to the movies or to the Casino dance hall. Over time, Inge began to notice some strange things about her boyfriend’s behavior. He was surprisingly careful about protecting his papers. Once, at the Casino, when Stashinsky’s wallet fell out of his jacket pocket and Inge picked it up, Stashinsky immediately seized the documents. He did not seem to have regular work hours, and he would sometimes disappear for weeks at a time, saying that he was going abroad, mostly to Poland, on assignment for the Ministry of Trade. Once he was away for a whole month, telling Inge that he had attended the Leipzig Trade Fair. In fact, he was on one of his KGB assignments in Munich. Inge rightfully grew suspicious.
In the spring of 1959, two years after they had begun dating, Inge secretly followed Stashinsky to his rented room in East Berlin, thinking that he might be seeing someone else. She found nothing but a surprised boyfriend. Inge voiced her suspicions, threatening to end the relationship, but Stashinsky assured her that he was not involved with anyone else. He loved her; more than that, he wanted to marry her. Stashinsky proposed, and Inge happily accepted. They bought their rings in the Gesundbrunnen district of Berlin, part of the Western occupation zone. The rings were larger than the ones they could get in the East. They were happy. Despite their political differences, they clearly loved each other. “Personally, we understood each other very well,” remembered Inge later. She was not particularly cultured or educated, but she possessed a strong character and an independent mind. Most important, she remained loyal to Stashinsky, who found in her a kind of resolve that he believed he lacked himself, a steadying moral influence that he needed badly in his life. Their political disagreements were secondary. Their love for each other came first.4
Stashinsky did not immediately tell his KGB handlers about the engagement. But after his meeting with General Korotkov, who informed Stashinsky about his transfer to Moscow, he could no longer keep the attachment secret. What would happen to Inge, Stashinsky asked Damon. He told Damon that he wanted to marry his fiancée. The KGB officer was unimpressed. She was a poor match for him, said the handler—of lower social status and a German. Marriage to a German woman would impede Stashinsky’s career, which was showing so much promise. Damon believed that a transfer to Moscow would present a good opportunity to break up with Inge. To make the whole thing easier, he could offer her a cash settlement. The KGB was willing to help by chipping in a few thousand deutschmarks. That was not what Stashinsky wanted to hear. He insisted that he was in love and wanted to marry Inge, no matter what Damon said. Damon decided to play for time. He told his agent that he would have to raise the question of marriage with the higher-ups in Moscow. Stashinsky agreed.5
Now he raised the question of marriage to Inge before the highest KGB official he had ever encountered, General Krokhin. Like Stashinsky’s superiors in Karlshorst, Krokhin was against Stashinsky’s marriage. He told Stashinsky that KGB men did not marry foreigners. Besides, he could not do so for the simple reason that his days as Josef Lehmann were over. He would soon assume a different name and learn a different life story, or “legend.” The general suggested that Stashinsky marry a Soviet woman who would be a KGB employee. Then both of them could receive appropriate training and be dispatched to the West. That would boost Stashinsky’s chances of success and his career prospects with the KGB. Stashinsky would not budge. He tried to come up with a counterargument. Marriage to an ethnic German woman would benefit his KGB career, as it would make it easier for him to establish himself in the West, he told the general. But Krokhin would not listen. He wanted Stashinsky to forget about Inge. Sergei Damon had merely delayed giving Stashinsky the official line: in Moscow, they were as strongly opposed to his plans for marriage as his handlers were at Karlshorst.6
Before leaving, General Krokhin told Stashinsky to consider well what he had told him about Inge. “In a few days, once you’ve given the matter some thought, let me know: I’ll be glad to come and see you, and we’ll discuss it once again,” he told Stashinsky. Stashinsky knew what that meant. The general expected him to accept his proposal to drop Inge and find himself a wife among the female KGB employees. Stashinsky had only a few days to make up his mind.7
19
AWARD
As always, the first week of December was a busy time in Moscow. December 5, 1959 was a holiday, Constitution Day. The newspapers reported on Soviet economic achievements, and the cinemas of Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv, and other republican capitals treated their viewers to a documentary on Nikita Khrushchev’s visit to the United States. “It is a joy to witness the fine fruits of the peace-loving foreign policy of the Soviet state,” wrote the Communist Party’s mouthpiece, Pravda, on the premiere of the film, which showed Khrushchev rubbing elbows with US President Dwight Eisenhower. One day earlier, the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs had presented the United Nations Organization in New York with two impressive gifts: a statue called Swords into Plowshares, produced by the leading Soviet sculptor, Yevgenii Vuchetich; and a model of Sputnik—the world’s first artificial satellite, which the Soviets had launched in October 1957. The sculpture of a muscular naked man striking a broken sword with a hammer was meant to symbolize the Soviet desire for peace. Sputnik, on the other hand, served as a symbol of Soviet technological achievement and a reminder that Soviet missiles could now reach American shores.1
It was around Constitution Day that Bogdan Stashinsky was finally admitted to the inner sanctum of the world of the secret police—the KGB headquarters at Lubianka Square in downtown Moscow. Approaching the building he had heard so much about, Stashinsky could not help noticing the most recent addition to its courtyard—a brand-new monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky, the Polish-born founder of the Soviet secret police. The Dzerzhinsky monument symbolized an attempt by the new leadership of the KGB to clean up its image, which had been badly stained by the Stalin era, and to link it to the mythologized past of Lenin and the Bolshevik founders of the Soviet secret service.
After clearing security at the entrance, Stashinsky was met by his old acquaintance Colonel Georgii Ishchenko, the head of the émigré department of the KGB intelligence directorate. During Stashinsky’s previous visit to Moscow in April 1959, it
was Ishchenko who had given him the order to kill Bandera. Now, Ishchenko would accompany his star agent to the office of the chairman of the secret police, Aleksandr Shelepin. When they were shown in by the duty officer, Stashinsky saw a short man in his early forties with a receding hairline, a high forehead, a sharp nose, and inquisitive eyes. In Shelepin’s office, Stashinsky also saw his new boss, General Aleksei Krokhin.
The KGB chief rose from his chair, took a few steps toward Stashinsky, and greeted him with a smile. After welcoming Stashinsky, Shelepin reached for a file on his desk to which an enlarged photo of Stashinsky was clipped. He took out a citation from the file and read its text aloud. The decree, signed by the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Marshal Kliment Voroshilov, on November 6, 1959, invested Bogdan Nikolaevich Stashinsky with the combat Order of the Red Banner “for carrying out an important official assignment in extraordinarily difficult circumstances.” Having read out the citation, Shelepin took a case containing the medal from his desk and handed it over to Stashinsky, then shook his hand and congratulated him on the award. The KGB officers present at the investiture stood at attention. “It was solemn,” remembered Stashinsky later. Stashinsky received the award but not the citation, which went back into his KGB file—its content remained secret. Shelepin told Stashinsky that there would be no announcement of his award in the press. “You know that such things are not written about,” he said.2
The Man with the Poison Gun Page 13