CIA Spymaster_George Kisevalter

by Clarence Ashley III

  But perhaps the most conclusive evidence of Penkovsky's authenticity was demonstrated shortly thereafter. Because the Soviet MDA had a beginning date, every officer in the new class had to leave his respective post or station in order to get to school on time. In every case where it could be documented, this travel did occur. No one in an intelligence service would give away that information as a ploy; such an act would jeopardize too many people in order to make one person look acceptable. George's people needed to know more, however, before they could act.

  The letter had one more facet that intrigued them. Its author had described in detail the location of a dead drop in Moscow and what he wished to be placed in the box: instructions for a secure means by which he could pass to the United States a large envelope-sized package, maybe half an inch thick. The envelope would contain detailed information on every operational missile in the arsenal of the USSR: free rockets, guided rockets, conventional armament, and nuclear missiles. He said that he didn't know how to securely deliver this, but he indicated the location of a telephone booth in another part of Moscow where the CIA could provide a signal. At this booth, he suggested, one could place a sign, say a chalk mark, which would indicate that the dead drop had been loaded. He would go by this booth every day and look through the glass to determine whether or not the mark was there. If it were, within twenty-four hours he would go to the dead drop and retrieve his instructions for delivering the missile data.

  How to contact him personally in Moscow was still a problem. The Agency had no means. Penkovsky couldn't invite Americans to his house, and he couldn't visit the American Embassy. Needed was a secure means for a rendezvous, completely secure if the man were an intelligence officer. The ball was in the Agency's court. The Agency's position in Moscow at that time was very limited, however. The branch that was to handle Penkovsky had handled the Popov case, but it had lost all of its officers in Moscow as a result of that operation when the Soviets had declared them personae non gratae and precipitously sent them home.

  The man intrigued his readers to no end. He had approached the students in civilian clothing, one of whom had delivered the package. He had identified himself and had given splendid bona fides, but he had assumed that the CIA had powers that it did not have. It couldn't even, for instance, send someone in a car and invite Penkovsky to throw his package into an open window of the vehicle.

  Very quickly, people were recruited for assignment in Moscow under any diplomatic cover that could be arranged for them with the State Department. The Agency felt that their people had to have some kind of diplomatic cover for the personal safety brought about by diplomatic immunity. Joe Bulik was the supervisor of the branch, and he was responsible for obtaining this cover for his people. His job was not easy. Compounding the problem was the way in which the State Department designated all U.S. government personnel who were available for international assignments. If they were not career Foreign Service officers, they were considered Foreign Service Reserve. Such a designation often resulted in an R being attached to their names on lists that were overtly published. This tended to suggest that they were CIA personnel. Moreover, if one used State Department cover, he or she also had to follow State Department rules and practices. One State Department rule required the use of the indigenous population for such things as domestics, a practice that tended to bring a fatal flaw of security. Even with State Department cover, Agency activities were limited. Worse yet, the State Department did not readily cooperate with the CIA and, in fact, the security officer at the Moscow Embassy believed Penkovsky's actions to be nothing more than a provocation. He briefed Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson accordingly, telling him this exercise was of no value. The ambassador then was not inclined to enthusiastically support the CIA. After all, the State Department had the almost impossible task of dealing with the Soviet Union, and CIA operations in Moscow could jeopardize the entire diplomatic mission.

  The Soviet Division at the CIA considered filling the dead drop with a message asking Penkovsky to throw his parcel over the wall of the American Embassy as he passed by. The ambassador said no. In the meantime, the material from Penkovsky's letter was being studied, and the information concerning those illegals who might come to the United States was given to the FBI. Information related to the British Commonwealth was given to the SIS.

  Penkovsky had said in his letter that he would start looking at the signal site three days from the date that he had delivered the letter. Of course, he did not know how the Agency bureaucracy worked. The people there just could not respond in three days. One could not even be expected to do tracesl in three days. One doesn't do anything in three days within a bureaucracy. George's branch didn't even receive the letter in three days. Penkovsky also wrongly assumed that the CIA had someone in Moscow who could quickly do the traces, establish his bona fides, and develop an operational plan. So, in August of 1960 Penkovsky began walking past that signal site every day. He continued to do so almost until the time he met George eight months later. When they did meet, he asked George, "Why didn't you signal?" All George could do was blush and offer some vague reply.

  No one in George's branch could understand the exact status of Colonel Penkovsky. Why had he worn civilian clothes when he approached the American students? He was a Soviet military intelligence officer on duty with the GRU, so he should have been wearing a uniform. As time went by, the branch learned that he was approaching others. In December of 1960, the British SIS reported that some British gentlemen had been on a business trip to Moscow, trying to sell some of their non-embargo items. When they came home, one of them reported to the British Intelligence Service in London that some man named Penkovsky had approached them at the airport as they were leaving. He had asked them to take some information to the American Embassy in London. The businessmen refused to take any of this man's paper. They wanted nothing compromising in their possession while in Moscow or while boarding a plane to leave Moscow. They did, however, take the man's business card, printed in English, displaying his name and position: Member of the State Committee for the Coordination of Scientific Research Work, the committee responsible for scientific and technological liaison with foreign countries. Dzhermen Gvishiani, future premier Aleksey Kosygin's son-in law, headed the committee. Penkovsky wrote his telephone number on the back. He then said, "Please tell the American intelligence people in Moscow to call me at ten o'clock on any Sunday morning, speaking only in Russian. Please ask the Americans to inform their representative in Moscow to have someone do this."

  The SIS mistakenly believed that the CIA had previously operated with Penkovsky but was now separated from him. Their precedent was the 1956 occasion in Stralsund, East Germany, when the British had put Popov back in touch with the CIA after he had been separated from the Agency for some months. Assuming a like situation, they informed the CIA of the contact between the businessmen and Penkovsky. When this was reported to George, his reaction was one of shock, fearing that Penkovsky was much too forward in his approaches to the West. George wondered how often the man had tried to make such overt contacts. Now, however, George realized that Penkovsky had a different kind of position in the GRU, one that would allow him to wear civilian clothes, but George did not understand what it was about.

  Another extraordinary incident involving Penkovsky occurred soon thereafter. This time it was with the Canadians. George got a call in January of 1961 from an old acquaintance in Ottawa, a Canadian diplomat. He was coming to Washington and he wanted to meet with George personally, because he suspected that his own telephone lines were being monitored. When George saw him, the diplomat described Canadian contacts with Penkovsky in Moscow. The basic circumstances of the contacts had previously been reported to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and forwarded to George's branch, but George's Canadian friend could expand upon its details, as follows.

  In walked a Russian man who had in his arms a large bundle of papers in a large envelope. He met with one of the diplomats, Van Vliet, a commerci
al counselor. The man started by saying, "I represent a scientific group here in Moscow that has to do with the English-speaking world-the Canadians, the Americans, and the British. You are Canadians. We understand that you are friendly with Americans. I want you to do something for me. This package that I am leaving with you is very sensitive. I want you to deliver it to the American Embassy."

  He handed Van Vliet his card along with the package and walked out. A day or so later Van Vliet met with Penkovsky and told him, "Look, Penkovsky, here is your package. We did not open it, we did not photograph it, and we did not give it to the Americans. We are not to be involved in this. Please take your package and leave. We have enough trouble politically now without inviting a total disaster from a provocation. You came to us. We did not go to you."

  The dejected Penkovsky left. That was Van Vliet's story to George's friend in Ottawa. The Canadians would not take his package but they did report the incident to the Americans. To George, Penkovsky appeared to be operating in an extremely dangerous way.

  Earlier, in the fall of 1960, the CIA had been able to get a lowerlevel operations officer in place in Moscow. He had moved into America House, where some of the U.S. Embassy personnel lived. The officer looked for a way in which Penkovsky could dispatch his package. George instructed the man to call the number specified by Penkovsky at ten o'clock sharp on Sunday morning and to speak in Russian. The substance of the message was to be: "Please do not try to contact anyone else; it is not safe. We are on top of this but we are still trying to find a secure way to accomplish a safe means of contact. Do not approach anyone else. Contact no Canadians, or British businessmen, or anyone else." Unfortunately, however, the CIA operative in Moscow did not make his call to Penkovsky until February of 1961, and then he called at eleven o'clock instead of ten o'clock as prescribed by Penkovsky. He also mangled the Russian language, forgot or could not say the message that was intended, and improvised his own message, one that made no sense at all to Penkovsky. When George later asked Penkovsky about the phone call, he was sorry that he had asked the question. The CIA wound up looking like fools, judging by how Penkovsky described the message he had received. In George's mind the endeavor was totally useless, and although it didn't cause any damage, it had been dangerous and stupid.

  In April of 1961, the British came to George's group with yet another Penkovsky story. A prosperous businessman by the name of Greville Wynne, a salesman of precision machinery, representing seven manufacturers of high-grade non-embargo tools, had organized a visit by a British trade delegation to Moscow. They wished to sell machinery that previously was embargoed. In the process he had run into a man by the name of Penkovsky in Moscow. Penkovsky told Wynne that he was with a scientific group, a committee for the coordination of new technical developments, and that he was assigned to them as their liaison officer. He escorted Wynne about Moscow, wining and dining him, and took the opportunity to make an overture: "I would like to make a trip to London, leading my delegation, or representing it so that I can work more with the British, Americans, and Canadians in matters of scientific commerce. Can you help me?"

  Wynne, of course, could make no commitment. At their last moment together at the airport, when Wynne was preparing to leave Moscow for London, Penkovsky stopped him and said, "Look, I have some envelopes in my pocket. Would you deliver them to the American Embassy in London?" Wynne responded, "Look, Penkovsky, you are a likable guy but I want to go to London, not Vladimir2 or some damn jail place. I want nothing like that on me when I go through your customs. Please, no way, no way!" Penkovsky assured Wynne that there would be no problem with customs and, displaying a number of parcels as if they were playing cards, implored Wynne to "just take one or two." "No; I won't take any of your paper," insisted Wynne. But he did accept a single sheet, a letter addressed jointly to various leaders of the United Kingdom and the United States. He delivered this to the British SIS. When the British told the CIA, George mulled over the situation and thought, "My God, we don't have an operation here; we have a disaster in the making. This guy is going to hang himself sooner or later. This is how many times, four? How many strikes does one have before he's out in a baseball game?"

  It had been almost a year since Penkovsky's first attempt to contact the CIA. George was amazed that the man had not yet been caught as a result of making such dangerous, blind approaches. Then, things took a turn for the better. A cable from London informed George that a delegation of six Soviet scientists would be coming to London for a fifteen-day sojourn. They wished to visit British steel firms in London, Leeds, and Birmingham. They probably would have representatives from the KGB and/or the GRU, but their leader would be Col. Oleg V. Penkovsky.

  Joe Bulik, George's newly appointed branch chief, declared, "I'm going to go. You go with me, Kisevalter." George spoke fluent Russian and Bulik did not. George had not known of discussions between the CIA and SIS that had culminated in the agreement of a joint operation to exploit the Penkovsky potential. Unaware of the extent of the British involvement with Penkovsky, George was not comfortable with this arrangement. Moreover, perhaps he also believed that he, not Joe, should be the branch chief. George was fresh from his successful operation with Popov, and he felt that he did not need anyone to assist him in debriefing Penkovsky. He thought Bulik could not add anything to the mix and, in fact, might even be detrimental to the process. Nevertheless, George was a cooperative team member. Any personal differences between George and Joe would be put aside throughout the period of direct contact with Penkovsky.

  With the near calamities that had transpired with Penkovsky still fresh in their minds, Joe and George went, making additional preparations for security. George had a false identity, McAdam, a Scotsman. Why he was a Scotsman, George did not know. He didn't know a thing about Scotland or Scots idiom. Harold Shergold and Michael Stokes of British intelligence met them. George recognized immediately that Shergold was very experienced and astute, someone who knew his business inside and out. Stokes was young but seemed capable, smart, and enthusiastic. George and Bulik described to them their past contacts with Penkovsky, and the British reviewed theirs with the Americans.

  The British Intelligence Service had recently experienced a most alarming revelation. Only a couple of weeks earlier, thanks in part to Shergold, the British had unearthed George Blake, a Soviet mole burrowed into their intelligence service. He had been a very high ranking member of the SIS. Following his trial, he was sentenced to forty-two years of incarceration at Wormwood Scrubs, the longest sentence ever imposed for espionage in the United Kingdom. He was a high-ranking British intelligence officer and he deserved no less. Fortunately, he could not have known anything about Penkovsky, so he wasn't a hazard. "We want you to know that he confessed in this chair in which you are now sitting, just two weeks ago," Shergold told George. In October of 1966, however, Blake was sprung from prison and went to Moscow.3

  Since Greville Wynne was planning to escort the Soviet scientific delegation about while they were in London and to have sales meetings with them, he met the group at the airport. Although he wanted simply to sell the Soviets goods from his manufacturers, he was now under the control of the SIS and would be the conduit for overt contact with Penkovsky by the two intelligence organizations. When Wynne returned from the airport, he had with him a letter from Penkovsky, which he promptly turned over to Dickie Franks, his principal contact at the SIS. Franks in turn gave the package to Shergold. No one had a chance to review the material in the letter before the first meeting with Penkovsky, when it was shared with the Americans on the team.

  The letter was typewritten in Russian. Originally it had been addressed to President Eisenhower, but this now was scratched out and President Kennedy's name substituted. It also was addressed to former secretary of state John Foster Dulles, then deceased, and his brother, the director of the CIA, Allen Dulles. Penkovsky had added by hand, "And to Her Majesty, the Queen of England's Government." Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's name also wa
s included. The letter read, "I have approached the Americans and offered my services, but this is an opportunity to come to England that I didn't expect. Since I am here, I want to take the opportunity, without denying my American contact, to offer my services jointly to both countries." Along with the letter was the dog-eared package that Penkovsky had been carrying around for more than a year, which contained all of the details about the missiles, the same package that the Canadian Van Vliet had rejected.

  The Soviet delegates would not question Penkovsky's movements. He was in charge of their itinerary-the selection of factoryvisits as well as the various company presentations-but Wynne and the other British set the actual schedule. Wynne assigned the hotel rooms according to a special plan provided by the SIS. All were housed in the Mount Royal Hotel, a huge barn of a building that takes up an entire city block near Hyde Park. Bulik and George were to occupy the safehouse room, a corner room with minimum exposure to contiguous rooms. The two could look out the window across the inner core of the hotel at other rooms. All of the Soviets were on a floor well above them. Penkovsky's room was around a hall corner from the other delegates, so he could come and go freely without passing by any of their rooms. For the first meeting, as a final safety measure, yet another room was engaged on a floor above the safehouse room. In it Bulik and Shergold would have first contact with their prize. Here, in the event something was amiss, Shergold could fix the problem or abort the meeting with minimum exposure to the rest of the team. As yet, they did not know for certain that Penkovsky was genuine.

  After the members of the delegation had their dinner, Penkovsky excused himself from the others and went back to his room. From there, by the back stairs, he came down to the designated initial meeting room. Shergold opened the door, introduced himself, and introduced Penkovsky to Bulik. The three of them then came down to the safehouse room to meet Stokes and George. The first meeting would begin.