Spy Handler

by Victor Cherkashin

  The diplomatic quarters were on the first floor. An elevator took me up past the ambassador’s quarters to the fourth floor under the building’s mansard roof, where a coded digital lock opened a thick steel door leading to our crammed rezidentura, constructed by KGB technicians to foil FBI eavesdropping. The space was so small that if everyone who worked there showed up at the same time, there would have been too few chairs to seat them.

  Before I reached my office, the duty guard told me to see the rezident—as the head of station was called—immediately. Ducking around the corner, I knocked on Stanislav Androsov’s door and entered his office.

  “Hello, tovarish,” I said, using the word for “comrade” half ironically. He didn’t ask me to take a seat. In fact, he didn’t say a thing, indicating a high level of concern on his part. His balding crown and straight, mild-looking features gave him an academic air. Maintaining his grave silence, he handed me an envelope with his name handwritten on the front. I opened it and removed a typed letter.

  It was an extraordinary read. The author claimed to be an American intelligence employee. He was writing to offer us information on CIA operations against the USSR in return for $50,000. He said he was ready to meet with a representative of Soviet intelligence to discuss the conditions for a deal. To convince us of his sincerity, he enclosed copies of several documents. I shuffled through the small sheaf, which mostly concerned U.S. intelligence on Soviet naval forces deployed in the Middle East. Although the documents looked real, it was impossible to say whether they came from the CIA. The State Department or a private think tank, even a journalist might have produced the same analysis. The supposed proof was too general to be useful either as evidence of the writer’s bona fides or as intelligence.

  I glanced up at an intense-looking Androsov. “Where did you get it?” I asked.

  “Chuvakhin brought it in.” Sergei Chuvakhin, one of our arms control experts, was a diplomat, not a KGB officer. “It’s from his contact Wells,” Androsov added. “Chuvakhin himself didn’t read it.”

  Wells. Of course I remembered Rick Wells. He’d recently contacted the Soviet embassy press attaché, Sergei Devilkovsky, claiming to be a political scientist connected to the State Department. He wouldn’t be more specific. He wanted to discuss U.S.–Soviet relations, he said. Devilkovsky had informed the resident, and we’d deliberated over how to handle the fishy approach.

  Naturally, we suspected that Wells was a CIA operative trying to recruit agents in the Soviet embassy. We later learned the CIA was in the thick of Operation COURTSHIP, a program to step up recruitment efforts among our personnel. But knowledge of COURTSHIP wasn’t needed to suspect Wells’s motives. Nevertheless, we decided to approve a meeting. We’d play along to see what we might get out of him. Contact was a necessary variable in the double-sided game we played, and if there was a possibility of recruiting someone trying to sign up one of our men, we had to explore it.

  Devilkovsky himself didn’t know we suspected Wells. That was how the system worked. Intelligence information was so compartmentalized that we didn’t tell even people who were involved unless there was a need for them to know. Moreover, Devilkovsky was a “clean” diplomat—there was no need to include him knowingly in KGB work if it wasn’t necessary.

  Devilkovsky met Wells several times to talk about U.S.-Soviet relations and began to have his own doubts that the American was interested in him exclusively for the exchange of official information. In any case, before he was routinely rotated back to Moscow, Devilkovsky suggested to Wells that he contact Chuvakhin, the arms control expert.

  Chuvakhin was an ideal point man. A disciplined attaché whom the CIA stood little chance of recruiting, he spent much of his free time building telescopes from scratch and grinding the lenses himself. He also wasn’t informed that Wells was a possible CIA officer. Since Chuvakhin was clean, using him as a knowing participant in the Wells affair would have been problematic for the embassy. Moreover, the headstrong diplomat likely wouldn’t have agreed to serve as a go-between if we’d asked him.

  We also wanted to keep those who knew of our intentions to a minimum because Wells didn’t look like a promising candidate for our own recruiting efforts: his behavior was inconsistent; he refused to disclose where he worked; he took pains to conduct his meetings in public places in the city instead of in the embassy or in his own office; and his explanation of his interest in Soviet diplomats was unconvincing. Besides, the strict FBI observation of Soviet embassy employees made it unlikely that a genuine State Department official would be allowed to approach one of our diplomats. All those factors discouraged us from trying to “develop” Wells; instead, our top priority was protecting Chuvakhin from possible U.S. recruitment.

  During several meetings in Washington restaurants, a down-to-earth Wells showed no particular interest in Chuvakhin, asking only about his opinion of U.S.-Soviet relations. But he did share his own views on U.S. policy, and eagerly. In Chuvakhin’s reports, they seemed moderate and balanced.

  Only later did we learn that Wells’s motives differed from those we ascribed to him. He was indeed a CIA officer assigned to recruit a Soviet agent, but he was actually trying to do the opposite: searching for a contact with Soviet intelligence. For that, he needed someone who’d be hard to corrupt, giving him a pretext to continue meeting while reporting little progress with the bogus recruitment effort. Devilkovsky had been too pliable for that purpose, and Wells needed someone who would balk at collaborating with U.S. intelligence. That would give him time—enough to achieve his real goal.

  As far as we knew, Chuvakhin’s meetings with Wells were fairly routine—until that April day when Androsov handed me his letter. Chuvakhin had agreed to meet Wells for lunch at the staid, colonnaded Mayflower Hotel on Connecticut Avenue near the Soviet embassy. Wells showed up, not knowing that the diplomat had no intention of keeping the date. Chuvakhin had grown weary of the meetings, feeling that he’d gleaned all the information he was likely to get. He decided to use the chance to brush Wells off without a confrontation.

  Alone in the dark, wood-paneled lobby bar with its business lunch crowd chatting on leather sofas and chairs, Wells ordered a vodka, deciding how long to wait. After some minutes, he chose to take the initiative himself. He walked out through a side door and headed toward the Soviet embassy one block away. He knew the FBI would track his movements. But since he was authorized to contact Soviet personnel, he had an excuse to do so. He approached the embassy and entered through the main door, walked up to the security guard on duty and asked him to see Chuvakhin. He waited until Chuvakhin came down, surprised to see the man he’d just stood up. Chuvakhin apologized, saying he was busy and couldn’t meet, whereupon Wells handed him the envelope addressed to Androsov and walked out.

  “What do you think?” Androsov now asked, staring up at me.

  “I don’t think we can say anything for sure right now,” I replied, stating the obvious.

  My first thought about an offer to spy for us always went to the real motives. Most propositions were either provocations or solicitations from people who didn’t have access to information valuable enough to justify the effort and risk required to obtain it. Was Wells’s offer part of a CIA attempt to produce evidence of the KGB’s anti-American plans? The CIA and FBI used the same tactics against Soviet organizations inside the USSR. Wells’s letter had no convincing proof of his intentions. On the contrary, our belief that he’d probably been ordered to recruit Devilkovsky and Chuvakhin meant we had to be very careful. Moscow usually supported us when we decided not to accept such offers. If we turned down Wells, the Center would almost certainly back our reasoning and decision.

  But that was only my initial reaction. I had spent much of my career in counterintelligence trying to recruit agents. When one offered himself to us, my instincts almost always told me to risk it—otherwise what was the point of our work? Besides, Wells’s letter was intriguing. His documents may have been less than convincing, but mayb
e he wasn’t trying to impress us with them. After all, if the CIA was really trying to trap us in something, it could easily have provided truly tempting documents. If the U.S. government wanted to stage an event to discredit us—exposing our efforts to recruit CIA officers, for example—it would easily find another pretext. And if this person who’d sought us out was sincere, the information he might be able to provide on CIA activities against the USSR would be worth the risk.

  “If he actually had some good information,” I said after a pause, “it might be interesting for us.”

  “So you think we should answer?”

  “Da. Actually, we don’t have that much to lose, do we?”

  My guarded yes seemed to encourage Androsov. “All right. How should we set up a meeting? And where should it be? Right in the city?”

  “I don’t know. How and when, I don’t know. What I do feel is that we should meet him. What if he can really deliver something?!”

  “Whom should we send?”

  I thought for a moment. The most logical answer was—me. Androsov was worried about a provocation, but I believed that if Wells’s request for a meeting really were a CIA ploy, I was best equipped to cushion the blow. Besides, what if he turned out to be an interesting guy, this Wells? It was hard to turn down such a challenge.

  “All right, it may well be a provocation—but so what!?” I said. “The worst-case scenario is that I’d have to leave for Moscow. My tour’s almost up anyway. What real difference would it make? What can they do? They can’t arrest me. I’m not going to take anything from him. They know who I am. I’m ready to meet.”

  “Okay, then where?”

  “He came here to drop off his letter, right? Well, then, let’s suggest meeting here. If he doesn’t go for it, we’ll offer somewhere else.”

  Androsov agreed. During the following days we started making preparations for a possible meeting in the embassy.

  There were a slew of issues to deal with. FBI officers monitored the embassy from an office out in front. If they’d seen Wells when he delivered his letter, there was a good chance they’d want to outfit him with a hidden microphone for a possible second visit. Or if he’d been on assignment to begin with (which didn’t eliminate the possibility of his being sincere about wanting to work for us), the CIA might plant a bug. Either way, we’d have to remember he would be even more than ordinarily careful about what he said.

  At the same time, it was essential to structure the conversation so that Wells would be convinced of our seriousness and willingness to take effective measures to protect him. To the Center, I suggested demonstrating our trust by not insisting he deliver more information. Instead we’d ask for his suggestions for the best way to establish communication with us.

  Chuvakhin’s involvement was another sensitive issue. We wanted to both continue using him as a contact for Wells and keep him clean. He therefore had to be told why he’d now meet Wells in the very embassy the American had previously refused to enter. We made up a good story, telling him the U.S. authorities had approached the rezident with a proposal to establish a back-channel contact to exchange information on delicate issues with the Soviet leadership. If it worked, Chuvakhin would believe he was serving as a liaison between the U.S. and Soviet governments—not a courier transferring money and documents to and from a spy—during his continued meetings with Wells.

  We kept our plan top secret. Even Anatoly Dobrynin, the influential longtime ambassador to Washington, was kept in the dark. Vladimir Kryuchkov, head of the First Chief Directorate, cabled the ambassador informing him of the bogus back channel between Chuvakhin and Wells—and asking that any information or documents received should be handed directly to me.

  Adrenaline pumped as the scheme came together, inevitably increasing the number of variables to iron out. Every possibility, every moment had to be meticulously imagined and planned. We devised conversation topics that would help us understand Wells’s motivations and competence. Our models for responses and future actions covered all the scenarios we could conceive, including the possibility Wells would make an offer but avoid further negotiations if we didn’t agree to his conditions. Underlying everything was the larger possibility that he might be meeting us under CIA orders while simultaneously seeking to establish secret contact with us.

  Deciding to communicate on paper to avoid the risk of wiretaps, we drafted a letter to hand to Wells. “Do you have any recording equipment on you?” it asked. “Are you ready to talk openly?” I fired off a cable to Moscow detailing all the arguments and proposing my candidacy for the job. I assured the Center we’d hold the meeting in a secure place in the embassy, where we could prevent Wells from recording our conversation.

  A brief reply came almost immediately. It approved our plan and authorized us to proceed with it. Chuvakhin called Wells and scheduled a meeting for May 17.

  When Wells appeared at the embassy, Chuvakhin met him at the entrance and escorted him past the security guard and the duty officer. We learned later how lucky we were at that moment. Wells knew there was a mole in the embassy reporting on our activities to Langley. Not ready to tell us that, he nevertheless realized he was taking a big risk. If that spy or some other American agent in the embassy had been on guard that day—a duty rotated daily among most diplomats, including KGB officers—he’d likely have reported Wells’s presence to the CIA, exposing our activity before it got properly started.

  Chuvakhin led Wells into a specially outfitted room to check for recording devices. The next stop was an isolated secure room on the fourth-floor rezidentura. Chuvakhin left and I entered. Saying nothing as I sat down at a table opposite Wells, I handed the mousy, bespectacled volunteer the letter we’d prepared. He read it, indicating he was neither wired for sound nor being run by the FBI. Then we began talking more or less normally in English, except for the tenseness of our dialogue. If I felt very cautious, Wells was visibly anxious.

  I told him my name. “I know who you are,” he shot back. “You’re the deputy head of the rezidentura.” I said we would pay the $50,000 he’d requested, that we were ready to work with him and that we should communicate via Chuvakhin—who wouldn’t be aware of his liaison role. We limited our conversation to thirty minutes because a lengthy visit by Wells would arouse the suspicions of the FBI officers watching the embassy. Wells agreed to our acceptance of his terms, and everything went like clockwork.

  Then Chuvakhin took our visitor out to lunch.

  2

  Moscow. I sat in the office of a colleague in the American department of foreign counterintelligence at KGB headquarters in Yasenevo. The complex was no Langley in size, but it was fairly new and functional, with a sports center and other facilities that made us feel we were adequately taken care of. It was August 1985, just a few months after my first meeting with Wells, but I was living in another world. So much had happened in that time—and I had to keep it all to myself. As far as everyone, or almost everyone, in Yasenevo was concerned, I was on a long-overdue vacation, running some errands and taking care of odds and ends.

  I thought back to my third meeting with Wells, the moment we hit the mother lode, the moment the tables turned on the CIA, the moment I felt—more than anything else—lucky. Fate, I thought, had rewarded me for the days and nights of hard work I’d put in over the previous three decades. But gamblers know how fickle fate is. I should have known how few endings are entirely happy.

  That third meeting on June 13 may have done more harm to U.S. intelligence than any other single incident. The CIA didn’t recognize what hit it, and still doesn’t. To this day what really took place in Chadwicks restaurant on Washington’s riverfront K Street is known only to the three principals.

  The balmy weather matched my mood. At lunchtime, I drove to the restaurant by myself. My goal that afternoon was to display to the FBI that we were doing our job by monitoring Chuvakhin’s meetings with Wells—and that we were taking protective measures against any attempts to recruit him. That w
ould help Wells preserve his cover of working to recruit Chuvakhin. We’d had a brief, similar meeting earlier in May.

  I would also help Wells maintain his reputation as a conscientious CIA officer, since his report of my presence would demonstrate his vigilance. Furthermore, my visit would help us prepare him to pass lie detector tests. If asked whether he knew any KGB officers, he’d be able to say he did without causing suspicion. After all, the FBI would have seen him together with me, a known KGB officer.

  So far, the documents Wells had given us following the first April meeting in the embassy had been of marginal use—apart from providing circumstantial evidence that helped us identify two CIA and FBI spies in our rezidentura. One was Valery Martynov, an officer in Line X, the KGB division responsible for scientific and technological intelligence. The other was Sergei Motorin, of Line PR—military, economic and political intelligence—who had recently returned to Moscow. Important as that information was, it didn’t necessarily promise more to come. Wells was saving his own skin by betraying Motorin and Martynov. If either learned of his activities, the CIA would know about them in short order. Wells also exposed several Soviets who had approached the CIA with offers to spy for the agency—but were suspected of being double agents run by us. Since those men, known as dangles, were KGB agents, he felt his reports about them weren’t hurting American national security. Clearly he was trying to dupe us by playing a game to benefit himself at our expense.

  But much of my work went toward encouraging agents to become more forthcoming. That rarely happened at the start. If it happened at all, it was usually on a foundation of rapport and trust. Both had to be built. I had to demonstrate my concern for an agent’s well-being. I had to show we understood his motives and shared at least some ideological and political ground. Above all, I had to remove all pressure from the agent, giving him as great a sense of security as I could.