Spy Handler
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Kalugin again complained to Andropov—who advised him to back off and suggested he round out his knowledge of the KGB with a short posting to Leningrad to learn the Byzantine ways of the internal service. Kalugin agreed, leaving Moscow in December 1979 to become first deputy chief of the Leningrad KGB, responsible for thousands of officers. He expected to be back in Moscow in a year. But Kryuchkov thought otherwise—and Kalugin’s continued criticism played into his hands. Arriving in the former imperial capital, Kalugin was dismayed by what he saw as inefficiency within the KGB internal service. He thought he had the influence to make his criticism heard. However, his appeals to the Party only made matters worse for him—as did a letter he sent to the newly installed Communist Party general secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev, in 1985, urging him to take action against KGB political influence.
As Kalugin fell increasingly out of favor throughout the 1980s, he strengthened his ties with other critics, including his fellow 1958 Fulbright scholar, Alexander Yakovlev. The former Party ideologue headed the Communist Party’s propaganda department until 1972, when he published an article denouncing anti-Semitism. It got him posted as Soviet ambassador to Canada, which was banishment from the Party’s central apparatus. Yakovlev remained in the political wilderness until Gorbachev—at the time a top Politburo member—met him during a trip to Canada. On becoming the Soviet leader, he brought him back to Moscow to head the prestigious Institute of World Economy and International Relations. By 1987, Gorbachev had made Yakovlev a member of the Politburo and installed him as his top aide.
Kalugin also established ties with the entourage of Boris Yeltsin, fast rising from provincial Party chief to Moscow city boss before being swept into power in regional parliamentary elections in 1990. Despite his maneuvering, however, the odds were against Kalugin. Instead of changing, the system came down on him. Kryuchkov was calling the shots and made sure Kalugin stayed in Leningrad—banished from the Center for eight years, until 1987.
After Kalugin departed for Leningrad, his successor as head of Directorate K, Anatoly Kireyev, compiled a list of officers with ties to Kalugin as part of the effort to attack his predecessor’s influence. I knew my name was on the list. Although I felt no fallout from my ties to Kalugin at the time, my connection to him would continue to affect how I was perceived within the KGB.
Kirpichenko later wrote that counterintelligence floundered under Kalugin, who failed, he said, to spearhead any serious operations during his tenure. Kirpichenko charged him with sleeping on the job while the CIA was out recruiting the tens of agents later betrayed by Ames and Hanssen. In fact, most of those recruitments took place later in the 1980s, after Kalugin had left. Actually, Directorate K stepped up its penetration of foreign intelligence agencies under his leadership. Kalugin was right to boast that when he was foreign counterintelligence chief, Line KR—the counterintelligence department in foreign rezidenturas—almost doubled in size and nearly tripled the number of recruited agents.2 He was nothing if not highly active, even aggressive.
Had he really been an American agent, Kalugin would have lost little time in fleeing the Soviet Union. Instead, he squared his shoulders and waded into the rising tide of his unpopularity. When I saw him in Leningrad in the late 1980s in the imposing KGB headquarters on central Liteiniy Prospect, he finally admitted that he’d been banished from the Center because of suspicions by Kryuchkov and Kirpichenko. When I insisted that he take the matter seriously, Kalugin waved his hand dismissively. “Kirpichenko doesn’t make decisions according to how they’ll play out in the directorate,” he said. “He doesn’t try to solve problems to address the situation at hand. No. He makes each of his decisions according to how it will look in Kryuchkov’s eyes.”
How did someone entirely faithful to the Party and the KGB—an officer promoted faster than anyone else in the service and who still might have had a great future—fall from favor so quickly? Kalugin’s rise and fall weren’t entirely unrelated. His high morale, aggressiveness, tenacity bordering on a sense of invincibility—all that ran afoul of the conservatism of Kryuchkov, Kirpichenko and the rest of the leadership. From 1979, he headed toward an almost inevitable break with the KGB. My own career would follow a different path but remain linked to Kalugin’s in a way.
4
Several months before Kalugin left Moscow, I met him in his office. “You know I want to be Washington rezident,” he said, squinting his narrow eyes at me.
“Yes, Oleg, I know.” It was open knowledge that he was up next for the job.
“Well tovarish [comrade], I want you to be there too. As my deputy. Line KR.”
It was an exciting prospect, but I doubted whether the Americans would give me a visa. They knew me from my previous postings—officers such as Haviland Smith, whom I knew from Beirut, were now posted in Washington—and would spot me a mile away. Surely my involvement in the MARS and Warwariv cases would bar me from the United States. Even if I were somehow able to get there, my history would make me wide open for provocations.
Days later, Victor Grushko, head of the FCD Third department—which oversaw foreign intelligence in the United Kingdom—offered me the post of rezident in Ireland. It would be a significant promotion, giving me a major leadership role. But I knew Kalugin was set on my going to Washington. Grushko urged me to talk to him, but he continued to insist.
My family life had changed dramatically since I’d returned to Moscow. My son, Alyosha, graduated from secondary school in 1976 and enrolled in the Moscow State Institute of Foreign Relations (MGIMO), the country’s most prestigious college. That meant postings and trips abroad would no longer have a negative impact on family life. With Alyosha now able to be on his own, Elena and I had reached a new stage in our lives. In 1977, she gave birth to a baby daughter, Alyona. With no personal reasons to keep me in Moscow, I was more than ready to jump back into the game with another tour.
In February 1979, I applied for a two-week visa to the United States. Surprisingly, it was granted. I visited New York and Washington, lying low the whole time.
The atmosphere in the KGB rezidenturas in both cities was fairly tense. In April 1978, Arkady Shevchenko, a top Soviet diplomat serving as United Nations undersecretary-general, had defected after working two years as a joint CIA-FBI agent. In addition, the FBI had arrested two KGB agents, Valdik Enger and Rudolf Chernyaev, both employees of the U.N. secretariat, in May 1978, accusing them of accepting classified information about antisubmarine warfare from a U.S. naval officer. The officer had been a double agent, working for the FBI and the Naval Investigative Service. Diplomatic immunity saved a third Soviet U.N. employee, Vladimir Zinyakin, from arrest. Enger and Chernyaev were tried for espionage and sentenced to fifty years in prison. Meeting them in a U.N. office after their trial, I was pleasantly surprised to see both men calm and confident that the Soviet government would come to their rescue. Indeed, they were later freed in exchange for the release of five jailed Soviet dissidents.
Despite a snowstorm that severely restricted my ability to check out my future turf, I realized I was looking forward to my new posting. In the fall, Elena, Alyona and I packed for Washington and left for what would be my final tour abroad. By that time, Kalugin was already in Leningrad. He would never become Washington rezident. Our paths were already diverging.
6
WASHINGTON STATION: THE REDEFECTOR
1
When Cherkashin came to the United States, the FBI was quick to identify exactly who he was. I was on the streets in Washington in 1979, on the KGB squad, and I knew everything we knew about Cherkashin. We knew his reputation. He was considered a heavy hitter, a top gun. You don’t get to be the chief of Line KR in Washington DC unless you’re important. And generally that means a proven, good intelligence officer.
—David Major, retired FBI supervisory special agent and former director
of counterintelligence at the National Security Council
The sun baked the Soviet embassy’s slate roof severa
l blocks north of the White House one day in late spring 1980. After lunch I was typing a cable to Moscow when the chief security officer knocked on my door. A tall blond with a handlebar mustache, Vitaly Yurchenko was unassuming, chiefly distinguished by worries about his seemingly robust health. This time, Yurchenko was even graver than usual, and almost breathless.
“Victor Ivanovich, there’s an American downstairs. He says he wants to give us intelligence documents.”
“Who is he?”
“He says he worked for the National Security Agency. He approached the guard and asked to see the head of security, so I went down to check it out.”
“What does he look like?”
“Not very well dressed . . . and he has a beard.”
A volunteer walking into the embassy was always big news. “Is there anything to confirm what he says?”
“He’s brought some papers. I didn’t want to look at them before checking with you.”
“Khorosho [good]. Take him to a briefing room downstairs. Check what he’s brought. If anything really looks like intelligence material, bring it here immediately.”
Yurchenko disappeared. I resumed work on my cable until he reappeared with a pile of papers several minutes later. “He says his name’s Ronald Pelton, and he was fired from the NSA last year. He’s willing to give us information he thinks we’ll find very interesting. He says he wants money.”
Yurchenko stood by as I leafed through the sheaf of papers. No technical expert, I couldn’t properly judge their value, but the documents appeared to outline several NSA operations. Although nothing extraordinary, they seemed to support the man’s story. At the very least, the sensitive nature of the papers all but ruled out his being an FBI dangle. So did his direct approach—asking for money right away (as opposed to most walk-ins, who claim they want to spy for ideological reasons to prove their sincerity).
“This is interesting,” I told Yurchenko without looking up. I had to quickly decide how to handle the case. I didn’t want to deal directly with Pelton—if that was indeed his name—until I was surer of his motives and intentions. “We have to find out how he got here,” I continued. “Ask him if he thought anyone saw him arriving. Ask him who else knows about his decision. Did he tell his family? Tell him that if he wants money, we’re ready to negotiate.”
Yurchenko went back downstairs and returned twenty minutes later. “He says the FBI could have spotted him arriving downstairs, but he wasn’t sure. He didn’t see anyone. He says no one else knows of his decision to come here.”
“Good.” Needing more time to examine the documents, I sent Yurchenko back down with more questions.
After the walk-in was fully debriefed, it was time to get him out. I again summoned Yurchenko. “Get his contact information. Tell him we’ll get in touch about where and when to meet.”
The FBI had probably spotted “Pelton” entering the embassy. There would be trouble, however, only if they managed to identify him, the chance of which we needed to do everything possible to minimize. Smuggling him out in disguise seemed the best plan.
“Get a van and a couple of men dressed as maintenance workers,” I told Yurchenko. “Get Pelton a change of clothes. He has to look like the workmen. You said he had a beard? Shave it.”
The rezident approved my plan to smuggle our volunteer to the residential compound on Wisconsin Avenue, keep him there for several hours, and then let him out into the city. When Yurchenko reported that everything was ready, I gave the go-ahead. Pelton and the three men went to a back entrance where food supplies were usually delivered and conspicuously loaded some empty boxes into a van. Then they drove out of the grounds and headed toward the compound. Several hours later, Yurchenko put Pelton in the backseat of an embassy car. Then, as he lay low, an officer named Gennady Vasilenko drove him around the city. When they stopped at a shopping mall, Pelton jumped out and disappeared into a crowd.
Over the next several days, most of the walk-in’s story checked out. He’d actually resigned from the NSA after fourteen years of service as a cryptologist. Facing dire financial trouble, he’d decided to earn some money by coming to us.
Androsov and I decided to assign Pelton to Vasilenko, the young counterintelligence officer who took part in his recruitment. Meeting Pelton in a downtown pizza joint two weeks later, Vasilenko handed him a package containing documents outlining our conditions. They described how to load dead drops and communicate with the rezidentura using pay phones. They also told him how much we were willing to pay. Our newest spy readily agreed.
2
Soon after I arrived in Washington, Haviland Smith—the CIA officer who had gone up against Rem Krassilnikov in Beirut—made a pass at me. Now CIA Washington station chief, Smith found out about my arrival from the FBI. Saying they didn’t have “access” to me, Smith’s contacts in the bureau appeared happy to let him have a go. He knew I liked hockey, so settled on taking one of his sons to see a U.S.-Soviet game in early 1980. The FBI even got him tickets. Smith relished the event, laughing at the aversion of his son—an active-duty marine—to the “commies” he saw.
I too enjoyed the game. During a break between periods, I got up to buy a hot dog. Smith slipped into line directly behind me. When I noticed him by chance, he appeared to ignore me. I tried to hide my surprise. After I’d paid, I couldn’t avoid turning around again. Now Smith looked straight at me. “Jesus, don’t I know you?” he asked. “Who the hell are you? Did you serve in the Middle East, in Tehran?”
That caught me off guard. “No, no, no,” I said.
“I know your face,” he replied. “I just don’t know who you are.”
My family. Clockwise, starting from the top left: me, Petya, Masha, Vasya, mother. (Credit: Victor Cherkashin)
My father, Ivan Yakovlevich, an officer of the NKVD, the KGB’s predecessor.
(Credit: Victor Cherkashin)
As a student (on far right) at the intelligence institute in front of the Winter Palace in Leningrad, 1953. (Credit: Victor Cherkashin)
Lubyanka, the KGB’s central Moscow headquarters. (Credit: Gregory Feifer)
Oleg Penkovsky. British and American intelligence compromised their top agent by practicing sloppy tradecraft. (Credit: David Major)
A CIA diagram of a dead drop site for Penkovsky in central Moscow. (Credit: CIA)
First tour: Elena and me in Australia (at left) with Antonina Solodova (wife of the Soviet trade representative) and her children Sasha and Tanya, 1963. (Credit: Victor Cherkashin)
With Rem Krassilnikov in Beirut, 1969. Krassilnikov helped teach me the ropes of foreign intelligence operations.
(Credit: Victor Cherkashin)
In India, at the presentation of a portrait of Indira Gandhi by Soviet artist Ilya Glazunov. From right: me, Glazunov, his wife and a Soviet embassy official.
(Credit: Victor Cherkashin)
Leonid Shebarshin, head of the KGB’s First Chief Directorate, whom I got to know when he was deputy rezident in India.
(Credit: Leonid Shebarshin)
Oleg Kalugin, the youngest KGB general and former head of counterintelligence. Foreign intelligence chief Vladimir Kryuchkov suspected my friendship with my former classmate. (Credit: Itar-Tass)
KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov (flanked by Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev). Ames helped Kryuchkov detract from the KGB’s failures and rise to head the service. He suspected anyone, including me, who knew how he got there. (Credit: Itar-Tass)
CIA Director Bill Casey discounted warnings Langley had been penetrated by a dangerous mole. (Credit: AP/Wide World)
Diplomat Sergei Chuvakhin, who served as the KGB’s communications channel to Ames without knowing it. (Credit: FBI)
Washington rezident Stanislav Androsov. (Credit: FBI)
Sergei Devilkovsky, Ames’s first KGB contact. (Credit: FBI)
Dmitri Polyakov was the highest-ranking American agent Ames betrayed. The military intelligence general, codenamed TOPHAT, was arrested 25 years after
he began spying for the United States.
(Credit: Pete Earley, Inc.)
Aldrich Ames after his exposure. (Credit: FBI)
Valery Martynov. It took months to figure out how to send him back to Moscow from Washington after Ames exposed him as an FBI spy codenamed GENTILE.
(Credit: FBI)
The FBI recruited Sergei Motorin, codenamed GAUZE, after he sold vodka to buy stereo equipment in Washington. Ames betrayed him in 1985. (Credit: FBI)
Elena, Alyona and me at Niagara Falls. We much enjoyed traveling around the United States. (Credit: Victor Cherkashin)
David Major introducing former London KGB officer Oleg Gordievsky to Ronald Reagan in 1987. Gordievsky staged a daring escape from under the KGB’s nose in 1985. Sneaking out of Moscow, he met British SIS operatives at the Finnish border, where they smuggled him across in the trunk of a car. (Credit: White House)
The FBI’s Robert Hanssen.
(Credit: FBI)
$50,000 left for Hanssen by the KGB under a footbridge in Virginia’s Long Brach Nature Center in 2001. It was recovered by the FBI. (Credit: FBI)
Vitaly Yurchenko in 1985. He was the highest-ranking KGB officer to defect to the Americans. Later “redefecting” to the Soviet Union, he helped the KGB play a game that kept the CIA guessing for years.