Spy Handler

by Victor Cherkashin

  It took me—and everyone else in the KGB—sixteen years to learn the real name of the letter’s sender: FBI special agent Robert Hanssen.

  Alone in my office, I wrote my thoughts in a cable to be sent on my private link to Kryuchkov. The line had been set up in May after my first Moscow briefing about Ames. Since I’d agreed to undertake no action concerning our new spy without the FCD chief’s sanction, there had to be a way of informing him about the case while keeping it secret from everyone else, including the cipher officers who normally handled communications.

  Only Androsov knew about my line to Kryuchkov. It was a unique situation; I’ve never heard of another secret communications link between a rezidentura deputy officer and the FCD chief. In most cases, only the rezident—or one of his authorized deputies if he was away—could contact the head of foreign intelligence. Others could send personal letters only by mail; as for encrypted communications, cipher clerks simply wouldn’t accept messages from anyone else. I used my private line to Kryuchkov only on rare occasions. October 5 was one of them.

  2

  I struggled to contain my anger as I composed my cable. I had days to think about the brand-new volunteer’s letter and its implications before working out a response. Dealing with the information it contained about American agents, however, couldn’t wait. Motorin and Yuzhin were safely back in the USSR, but Martynov still sat in the office next to mine. Ames had already exposed all three spies, but no one in the rezidentura besides Androsov had known about them. Now that someone else had seen the letter addressed strictly (and wisely) to me, the secret was out in the open. More embassy personnel would inevitably know, making it harder to trap the traitor into returning home for interrogation—and execution. Martynov could now be tipped off and slip through my fingers. I was livid, but had to conceal all signs that I’d seen the letter had been read and that I was doing anything about its information concerning Martynov.

  I’d been trying to find a way to get Martynov back to Moscow for five months. The easiest way would have been to send him home on vacation. But he’d just returned from a holiday to Moscow in the spring—when he happened to hear about John Walker. Having him take another break was impossible, a red flag to Martynov that he was under suspicion. There were other possibilities, such as sending him home to receive an award or inventing family trouble in Moscow that would require him to return. The trouble was that Martynov, as an intelligence officer, knew about such ploys. He’d detect the faintest whiff of something irregular and go straight to the FBI. It was also almost impossible to control the actions of his wife and children, who lived with him off compound and would be able to escape quickly. Meanwhile, Martynov had the benefit of the FBI’s analysis in addition to his own. If the bureau stumbled on something suspicious, it would act to protect its agent. My only option was to do nothing while waiting to find a plausible excuse to send him home. Doing nothing was probably the hardest course to take, however, not least because I liked him.

  Martynov was in his early thirties in October 1980, when he arrived in Washington on his first tour. He had a son and a daughter on whom he doted; I’d often see them playing at the embassy’s Chesapeake Bay complex. The children attended the embassy school with my daughter, Alyona.

  Martynov’s Line X assignment to Washington was highly prestigious. It provided a chance to make a name for himself collecting science and technology intelligence. The American East Coast boasted countless engineering companies and libraries from which an enterprising young officer could glean information. It also hosted conferences and presentations on a myriad of scientific topics, giving excellent opportunities to make and develop contacts. With his excellent prospects, the ambitious Martynov looked forward to a great career. His main mistake was overestimating his abilities.

  A year into his tour, his superiors in Line X decided against giving him an agent to run, which would have been a crucial career step. The assignment went to another young Line X officer assigned to Washington at around the same time. The decision riled Martynov, who thought himself more qualified. Unlike Sergei Motorin—the other Washington KGB officer working as an FBI spy, who was often out chasing women—Martynov was a hard worker. But his inexperience showed when he met an American at a science conference in 1982 and, failing to notice a classic FBI trap, saw him as a promising target. The two met several times to speak about general topics and become acquainted. I later learned that Martynov became entangled in the FBI’s Operation COURTSHIP, its drive to recruit Soviets in Washington in the early 1980s.

  The Center also failed to notice the obvious, perhaps because Martynov convincingly embellished his picture of his new American contact. That was strange because Yasenevo usually made a point of warning its field officers to watch for double agents. Perhaps this time the Center felt pressed for results. Meanwhile, Martynov got along well with his new American friend. Believing he was hooked, the FBI turned around and pitched him. As enticement, the bureau offered up a fictitious agent to recruit, through whom Martynov would receive disinformation to feed the Center. The fake intelligence would sound real enough to convince us he’d scored a huge success. He agreed with little persuasion, which was unusual in pitching agents.

  Martynov was back on track in the KGB. Code-named GENTILE by the CIA and PIMENTA by the FBI, he met CIA officer Rod Carlson and FBI special agent Jim Holt twice a month. They used various safe houses for their fifty-odd meetings, often in the Virginia suburb of Crystal City. Martynov gave the FBI a running commentary of the goings on in the rezidentura, including operations and targets, instructions from the Center and rumors from Yasenevo. He also singled out likely recruitment targets for the FBI. Some of his information about our activities came from the wall map of Washington pinned inside the rezidentura offices to help process the FBI communications we were intercepting.

  The FBI’s plan to provide disinformation to the Center worked: Martynov was soon rewarded, becoming Line X deputy head after his superior had been rotated back to Moscow. Apparently, he didn’t seriously consider the possible consequences of his actions. The FBI and CIA say he spied for the United States because he’d become ideologically disillusioned with the Soviet Union. He was also said to be dissatisfied with his intelligence work and sought the spice he felt his job should have given him. Martynov was paid some $200 to $400 a month for his services, clearly indicating he wasn’t in it for the money. In fact, his priority was still his KGB career, not least because he wanted to provide for his wife and raise his children well, which spying for the FBI enabled him to do. In other words, he found it acceptable to betray his country for his family’s sake. Espionage was part of a business arrangement he thought would never come to light because he was certain the KGB wouldn’t be able to recruit agents who could expose him.

  The most valuable intelligence sources have access to information unavailable elsewhere. Top agents also deliver intelligence regularly. By those standards, Martynov was hardly the most important of agents. Aside from general information and what he knew about his own S&T operations—not the most critical area for the FBI and CIA—he had only limited access to information. His espionage was essentially irrelevant to national security policy and international relations. The intelligence he gave—on the layout of the rezidentura, its personnel, routines and other general information—was valuable chiefly to counterintelligence officers operating against us. By dumb luck—and, to repeat, contrary to most accounts—he overheard a KGB general boasting about John Walker, enabling the FBI to catch one of our most valuable long-term spies. But Martynov’s spying was ironically limited by the complex FBI counterintelligence operations that made work in Washington difficult for the KGB. Perhaps more so than in any other rezidentura, only those who truly needed to know about operations had access to sensitive information. Still, the Americans had high hopes Martynov would continue collaborating with them as he rose up the KGB hierarchy.

  3

  I was shocked to learn Martynov was the mole I�
��d been seeking for over a year, ever since we’d realized the FBI was trailing KGB officers around the city, leaving “clean” diplomats to go about their business. Yasenevo had to be informed, but I had to do it carefully. The Center treated defections and spying for the other side as an unfortunate fact of life. Traitors were dismissed as misguided—people who either believed the enemy’s lies or had developed grave delusions of their own. Many in the KGB didn’t want to seriously consider the constant danger that agents could penetrate Soviet intelligence. That would be an admission of weakness. Such simplistic but pervasive thinking made getting the top brass to look hard at counterintelligence issues a tough sell.

  After much consideration and hesitation, I drafted a cable to Kryuchkov in April 1984. I didn’t provide the names of officers I suspected as possible FBI or CIA agents or offer suggestions for how to find a mole in the rezidentura. I stuck to my analysis of the FBI radio intercepts and the homing devices we’d found, elaborating on my assumption that we’d been penetrated. The kind of information the FBI had gathered couldn’t have come from simple outdoor surveillance of our activities, I argued.

  When I showed the cable to Androsov, he said it could have serious repercussions. No one in Yasenevo wanted to hear that kind of news, he warned. His suggestion was to sit on the information until one of Kryuchkov’s deputies, scheduled to visit Washington in May, could vet it. When the general arrived, we laid out my argument. The deputy dismissed the analysis as unconvincing, saying I hadn’t provided enough evidence to support my accusations. He assured me Kryuchkov would react the same way, accusing me of spy phobia and whipping up mistrust. Restating my point only irritated him. His increasingly angry demeanor suggested he felt I’d put him in a delicate and unenviable situation by making him read the draft of my cable. By insisting on our view, we were forcing him to make a decision about a course of action. Given a good chance he’d make the wrong choice, the deputy preferred to do nothing instead. Since my argument would clearly find no support in Moscow, I didn’t send it.

  When Ames confirmed Martynov’s espionage, I found no pleasure, only more tension, in having been right about a mole in the rezidentura. Now I had to come to terms with the fact that a colleague I liked had been selling us out for more than three years. And I had to find a way to catch him. Androsov was on vacation again; until he came back, I couldn’t share the information with anyone. That night, I could hardly sleep. The next morning, I tried to convince myself that the whole unhappy matter was only part of my work. Why should it upset me?

  Back at the office, my rationalization offered little comfort. I had to act as if nothing had happened. I struggled to recall my normal manner with Martynov. How did I usually greet him? Did I smile? Grip his hand hard when I shook it? I found I could remember none of it.

  Since the air conditioning in the rezidentura worked poorly, I usually kept my office door open to circulate air, even when I handled top secret documents. Martynov kept his door open too. We often discussed politics and Washington’s operational situation. It would be a tough day.

  I’d already cabled Kryuchkov when Martynov showed up for work in the morning. Concentrating on the papers on my desk, I pretended not to notice him. Twenty minutes later, I had no choice but to speak to him. I got up and tapped on his door.

  “Dobroie utro [good morning],” I said, trying to make my voice businesslike but not severe.

  “Hello,” the youthful Martynov replied, looking up from his desk.

  “We intercepted FBI talk yesterday evening about activity near the Pentagon City zone,” I said. “Are you sending any of your boys around there today? Warn them there will probably be surveillance.”

  “I don’t think anyone’s going there, but I’ll check.”

  “Good. Line PR said Yuri was shopping there yesterday and didn’t notice anything, so let me know. Maybe it’s just a coincidence. He didn’t tell anyone he’d be there, so maybe they were trailing someone else.”

  Martynov appeared to see no change in my behavior. Relaxing, I walked back to my desk. Soon he informed me that none of his officers had noticed anything at Pentagon City, and we both went back to work.

  Watching Martynov like a hawk during the following weeks and months, I became attuned to his moods. I took his signs of stress as probable indicators of meetings with the FBI. At least that’s what I thought. How much my constant watchfulness colored my perceptions is difficult to say. Martynov had been living a double life for years and was used to it. I also had to watch for changed behavior in his wife and children in the residential compound and at the Chesapeake Bay complex. But I was aided by the fact that no other embassy staff knew about his spying, eliminating the chance his family would sense an estrangement.

  Returning from vacation, Androsov joined me casting around for a way to get Martynov back to Moscow. We relayed our thoughts to Kryuchkov at the Center, which was also working on the problem. Our ideas included inventing an agent for Martynov to run in Mexico, where we could nab him more easily. We dismissed that story as too suspicious. If giving Martynov a new agent had really been under discussion, the possibility would have been raised during his recent trip to the Center. Even if we managed to get him to Mexico, the FBI would probably set up some kind of protection for him. For starters, it would keep him under surveillance so he could signal at a sign of danger.

  Pretending not to know about his spying included not curtailing his access to classified information. Officers were given no instructions to maintain extra secrecy. There were no changes in the rezidentura’s operations schedule. Work continued as usual, with Martynov receiving the same ciphered cables from Directorate T. As for the intelligence he received from his agents, I had no control over that. He was able to investigate any issues the FBI asked him to raise with his fellow officers, who of course had no inkling of his real intentions. By the end of the summer, his colleagues included several new officers brimming with Yasenevo gossip and eager for tips on Washington operations.

  Experience told me I had to continue doing nothing to change the situation if I wanted to stay in the game against the American special services. When I saw that the letter from the agent I later learned to be Robert Hanssen had been read, I was afraid the game might be up. Luckily, however, nothing happened.

  A month later, Yurchenko showed up at the gates of the embassy residential compound—and I had my way of sending Martynov home. Yurchenko would be accompanied to Moscow by an “honor guard” (ostensibly a formality to emphasize the importance of his return) to help make sure he didn’t escape. Martynov would be one of the group’s four members. If he didn’t immediately suspect the real reason for his inclusion, the plan had a good chance of working. Because the FBI and CIA knew what was going on in the rezidentura, I also feared the Americans might suspect our motives and warn their agent. We decided to go ahead anyway. The Center approved the idea and sent a cable—for general consumption in the rezidentura—outlining a plan to send Yurchenko home accompanied by four officers with unimpeachable operational backgrounds. All would receive state awards in Moscow.

  The next two days were even more nerve racking. I had to make sure Yurchenko safely boarded the special Aeroflot flight chartered to bring him home, and that Martynov was on the same plane. On November 7, the day before Yurchenko’s return, Martynov left the office for several hours. Assuming he was meeting his FBI handlers, I grew nervous. But he showed up at the embassy at day’s end looking calm. Everything seemed to be going according to plan. Nevertheless, I could barely sleep that night. Had Martynov appeared calm on purpose? To lull me into thinking nothing was wrong? Maybe he was planning an escape the following day. Surely he’d been poring over the possible reasons for his selection for Yurchenko’s honor guard. Perhaps his confidence actually came from a resolution not to board that plane to Moscow.

  My worries began to abate the following morning. Martynov showed up at the embassy on time lugging a small suitcase. The plan was still working. He, Yurchenko
and the rest of the honor guard drove to Dulles airport together with some of the embassy staff—including Elena and me.

  Elena had learned about Martynov while translating a cable about him several days earlier. She hurried to my office to hand the communication to me. “You know nothing about this!” I told her. I never doubted Elena’s discretion but feared the slightest involuntary glance in the wrong direction might tip Martynov off. “You’ve never laid eyes on this cable.”

  Elena looked down at the floor. “Of course not.” She also liked Martynov, so it was a supremely difficult moment for both of us. But she understood my priority was the task at hand.

  Arriving at the airport, our group made its way to the Aeroflot plane on the tarmac. The travelers said their good-byes. Martynov walked up to shake my hand. Not noticing him, I turned away before he reached me. But Elena did see him. Her feelings stirred by his action, she walked up smiling and tugged on my arm.

  “Valery Feodorovich wants to say good-bye to you,” she said. I turned to shake his hand and—according to polite custom—look him in the eye. Elena and I knew that Martynov, a gentle man we both liked, was boarding a flight to his death. It was one of the events in my career I most questioned. Was doing my job on behalf of my country the right thing to do? I decided it was. Martynov was an American spy. Someone had to stop him from further betraying the Soviet Union.

  Meanwhile, FBI agents mingled with the airport staff preparing the plane for takeoff. But as Yurchenko and Martynov walked up the steps to the cabin, I knew that whatever happened, there was nothing the Americans could do. My job with both men was finished.

  On its way back to Moscow, the Aeroflot plane refueled at Shannon Airport in Ireland. Passengers usually got off to wait in the lounge for the hour or so it took. This time, a KGB officer from the Ireland rezidentura ordered the travelers to stay on board to prevent any possible provocations against Yurchenko. Ten hours later, the flight arrived in Moscow’s Sheremyetevo 2 Airport without incident. Arrested as soon as he got off the plane, Martynov was driven straight to Lefortovo prison.