There was another story relating to Penkovsky rubbing shoulders with big people. During his last visit to London he had required the team to find for him a bottle of very rare cognac, exactly sixty-yearold vintage-vintage 1901. Obtaining such an article is no easy chore. One British officer searched throughout England to no avail. He eventually found one that was shy just a couple of years, however, and the British Technical Services Branch managed to change the date on the label such that the "counterfeit" was imperceptible. This, practically packaged in cotton, was taken back to Moscow. 3
On 16 September, there had been a birthday party for the recently made chief marshal of artillery of the Soviet Union, Sergey Sergeyevich Varentsov. The master of ceremonies at this affair, held in the home of Varentsov, was none other than Col. Oleg V. Penkovsky. There was champagne and the works. Everybody was whooping it up and congratulating Varentsov, who already had the Order of Lenin and a few other things. Penkovsky lifted up his glass and this bottle of cognac for a toast. As indicated on the label, the cognac was distilled in the year of the marshal's birth. According to Penkovsky, the guest who slopped up most of it was the minister of defense, Rodion Malinovsky. Ivan Tugarinov of the Central Committee was there. He got drunk; he became annoyed with the marshal's dacha and its plethora of roses. He was irked at how these pretenders of the Proletariat could get away with those kinds of goodies at home.
At this party, Penkovsky presented to Varentsov a gold watch from the Penkovsky family with an inscription on the back. The team had a time trying to get this inscribed in London. They couldn't get a legitimate watchmaker who could do the Cyrillic accurately without revealing too much of themselves, and they did not want to get the British intelligence technical resource people involved for fear of blowing cover. So they finally prevailed upon Penkovsky to have it inscribed in Moscow. Another item among the gifts was a huge silver rocket, a beautiful thing weighing more than twenty pounds. When one pressed a button, flame came out to light a cigarettesymbolically quite fitting for Varentsov.
One of Mike Stokes' favorite memories of Paris was the time when the team had the apartment carpeted with enlargements of the Minox pictures that Penkovsky had taken. Penkovsky wanted to see the results of his handiwork because he never knew what was in the articles that he had captured on film. He knew what the titles were but not the contents. When he got to Paris, he handed over the film at the first meeting and was very keen to see his product. One of the first things that the team had to do in Paris, then, was to send the film via a special courier to London. This was highly complicated because it was a holiday weekend. Shergie's secretary in London had to call out the photo technicians and put them to work. This caused a bit of a fuss since it was on Saturday and Sunday, but it was done. The prints were then flown back so that the team could show them to Penkovsky. Shergie laid out photos on the floor until it was totally carpeted with secret intelligence information. Penkovsky was quite impressed with his effort. He hadn't done too badly, but it made the team members wonder about him. He could be a very demanding individual at times, and he expected things to happen in an instant. Shergie commented that there was no patience in the man.
George continued, "Now, my cover in Paris was that of an American living with the British, a tourist. As I was hiding in the British safehouse, I rarely went anywhere else. I would go to meet Penkovsky, of course, and on a few occasions I went out with Stokes or the others for a short break, but I didn't float around town. We had enough problems without that. Bulik was the one who wanted to do some fast operating. Since I spoke French and knew Paris, he wanted me to help him with some romantic rendezvous for Penkovsky. `George, buy a hotel room and help me pick up a whore for Oleg.' I refused. No way. I wanted no part of that. I did not want to get mixed up with that sort of activity. Bulik thought he could get in good with Penkovsky by trying to please him. I didn't go out with them. I didn't want to have anything to do with that. He did manage to hire one, somehow or another, somewhere. The British didn't like the idea. They had their own women set up in London, where everything could be controlled. Paris was something else again. You are in deep water. I mean, that is no place to fool around. Bulik wanted to show the British he was awesome, that he was an operator. He did not get along with the British; maybe he was jealous of them. He seemed to keep arguing with Shergold. I wanted out of that whole situation. I didn't like those kinds of politics."
In Paris there was the long, indefinite wait for Penkovsky to arrive. During this period, which turned out to be three weeks, they were all challenged to productively use their time. Then Penkovsky was in Paris for twenty-five days. So, all in all, George actually spent forty-six days more or less cooped up in that apartment. Eventually, the tension building in him would come to a head. Even though George never complained about the circumstances, the living conditions for the group were quite difficult. Mike, George, and Roger King (the housekeeper and driver) were living in a two-bedroom apartment before Penkovsky arrived. Due to his tendency to snore, George was dealt the living-room couch for his bed. After Penkovsky arrived, Shergie also moved in with the group. The place then was like a beehive, since all of the Paris meetings were held in that apartment with all four case officers. Moreover, with McCoy and Barbara also coming and going at intervals outside of the meeting times, there was very little privacy for the residents.
The physical inconveniences and the uncertainties of the wait added to the overwhelming pressure of the mission. Never before, during the entire Cold War, had the West obtained such access to this type and quality of clandestinely acquired, top-secret, eyes-only intelligence information. All parties were anxious for the success of the operation to continue. The pressure was building, especially on George. Life was not easy for him being virtually housebound. Actually, as the principal interrogator of Penkovsky, he was bearing on his shoulders the weight of the many meetings. Then there was the matter of the differences of opinion between the CIA, as represented by Bulik, and the British on how to handle Penkovsky. With Bulik being his boss, George was right in the middle. Finally, there was Ferdi. George had been away from her for so long, and he was just like a little bird with a broken wing when she was not around to smooth his feathers. He became morose, agitated, and impatient.
Ultimately, these anxieties building in George threatened to fracture the group. After about the second or third meeting with Penkovsky in Paris, George and Mike Stokes went to a bistro to blow off some steam. When they returned, Stokes reported to Shergold that while they were drinking in this rather intimate club, George had been talking loudly with the customers and had created a scene. Mike didn't believe that the security of the operation had been breached, but he was concerned about George's boisterous behavior. Shergold asked McCoy if he would have a talk with George to calm him down a bit. McCoy apprised Bulik of the situation. Bulik concluded that George should be removed from the operation once they returned from Paris to Washington. He also determined that headquarters should be immediately notified of his assessment and asked McCoy to forward the message in a cable.
The interpretation at headquarters was that George needed more personal support than he was getting in Paris. Quentin Johnson, chief of operations in the division, was then dispatched to Paris to ameliorate the discord within the team before it could develop into a serious problem. To that end he a brought a check for $1,000 made out to George. This was a lot of money in 1961. As a further boost to George's morale, Johnson brought him a Certificate of Merit with Distinction. Bulik too was offered an award. He refused it and volunteered that McCoy deserved an award. To both their credits, neither man wanted to detract from George's recognition, and George was the sole recipient of an award. A little ceremony was held on 30 September in Paris, and the operation continued smoothly until Penkovsky left. There was no suggestion of removing George from the operation while in Paris. The team would have been lost without George's Russian as well as his ability to empathize with Penkovsky.
During one of
the meetings, Penkovsky mentioned that while he was back in Moscow he had acquired timely and accurate information on the erection of the Berlin Wall before it had gone up but that he had no means of communicating that information to the team. To prevent such a situation in the future, Johnson produced a one-way burst transmitter that he had brought from headquarters. He also provided instructions and a demonstration of the shortrange (e.g., 1,000 yards) device, which could send a 300-word message in an instant. No sound, no long transmission time. Penkovsky could have this in his pocket and press a button as he walked near the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. His message would be transmitted immediately, and the Soviets would have only an instant to detect the signal.
During Penkovsky's twenty-five days in Paris, he met with the team twelve times. Again the team had to buy various gifts for him to take home. One of them, a huge picture called The Sea, baffled George. They tried to get it off the frame in order to pack it for him. "No, you'll bust it," Penkovsky implored. When they all departed Paris, the case officers as well as Penkovsky were at the airport at the same time, although not acknowledging one another. Then, George saw Penkovsky with "that God-awful picture," preparing to board his plane. That was the last time that any of the case officers ever saw the man.
CHAPTER 14
Missile Crises
As Penkovsky was leaving Paris, the CIA was still trying to put together a Moscow presence. By November of 1961, an operational chief was in place. Paul Garbler, whom George had hired in 1952, was appointed by Richard Helms, then the clandestine operations directorate chief, and approved by Allen Dulles, the director, to be the first chief of Moscow. Nevertheless, the CIA lacked certain essential assets that were needed for a completely effective presence in Moscow, so some innovations were required. One novel scheme was a penetration of the State Department through its Security Office. A State Department clerical secretary routinely met with her CIA counterpart at a designated set of stalls in the ladies' room at the State Department in Washington, and they passed notes back and forth to each other. The notes were extracted from cable traffic between the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and the State Department, addressed to the CIA in a code that was superimposed over the normal State Department code. This amounted to a covert communication channel available to the chief in Moscow for contacting the Soviet activities group at CIA headquarters. The State Department was completely unwitting of this arrangement. The Agency needed this means of communication because their activities were at great odds with the State Department's operations in the Soviet Union.
When Penkovsky got back to Moscow, he had a dozen clandestine contacts with Janet Chisholm. He would give her exposed film cassettes along with written notes. She, in turn, would hand them over to her husband and he would pass everything back to England in a diplomatic pouch. The bag would go to Shergold, who would draft replies to Penkovsky's messages and send copies of his drafts by cable to the CIA for agreement and amendments. A cable then would be sent from the United States back to the United Kingdom and from there another cable would be sent to the British Embassy in Moscow, where it would be translated and made ready for Janet to give to Penkovsky at their next meeting. All of this would have to take place within a week, since Janet could not have the scheduled weekly meeting with Penkovsky without the team responding to his last messages. This frantic pace was necessary in order to keep the case going, but the British conducted the exercise without a glitch. Altogether the team received 103 film cassettes through the British, most of them in this clandestine way through Janet. Of course, the team had to base their communications plan on the young lady's regularly scheduled movements. Any deviation might give the KGB surveillance teams in Moscow cause for concern.
For either the park or the restaurant/deli meetings, the routine followed a procedure always dictated by Penkovsky and designed to be sufficiently varied to avoid creating an easily discernible pattern. Janet would attend her regularly scheduled ballet lesson and then, according to the preconceived plan, would stop by either the store or the deli to briefly look at what was available for sale. When Penkovsky arrived he would endeavor to ensure that he was not being surveilled, then he would see that she had observed him, and finally he would lead her off to the rendezvous. They would walk down the street with her following discreetly behind until he found an apartment block that he believed to be safe. He then would disappear through some door of his choosing and she would follow him in. The door selected may or not be one that they had used at some previous meeting. Once in the hall entrance to the apartments, they would quickly exchange the products of espionage and a few words. He would give to her rolls of exposed films and written messages. She in turn would provide him with fresh cassettes of films, the responses to his previously delivered written messages, as appropriate, and perhaps additional written instructions. She knew a few words in Russian, just enough to follow a little bit; but she did not engage herself in the operation as anything other than a courier, albeit an extremely adept and brave one.
In November, the two of them met publicly while attending an official function at the British Embassy. When Penkovsky advised his GRU superiors that he had met the wife of a British intelligence officer, they gave their endorsement to have contact with her as a potential avenue to her husband. Nevertheless, the two continued their meetings in a clandestine way, just to be extra careful, since the KGB might be snooping.
In January of 1962, immediately following one of their meetings, Penkovsky noted that Janet was being surveilled. He then precipitously chose to abort their next planned meeting. She did not know why he did not appear. She continued her routine but he still did not appear. The team did not know what the problem was. The British and the Americans even considered attempting to find out about Penkovsky's whereabouts through overt commercial contacts. The team sent to Penkovsky a coded message indicating that Mrs. Chisholm would be making rendezvous attempts at selected times and locations, but no response was heard.
Penkovsky wished to transmit to the team why he had broken off, but he had suddenly been assigned the task of accompanying an American paper delegation about Moscow and Leningrad. The task required about two weeks. He approached one of its people as the delegation was leaving Moscow en route to London. He began to explain to his candidate, giving the man a procedure for delivering his message. The message contained the information that a car with "license number such and such had surveilled them." (Penkovsky actually knew the license number.) The message also contained an admonition to Janet: "Be careful. They are watching you all of the time now." This fellow was a former CIA employee but chose not to cooperate with Penkovsky, perhaps thinking that Penkovsky was a provocation. He did not accept any notes from Penkovsky and did not even convey anything of the approach when he reached London.
Finally, on 9 March, the SIS initiated a routine interview with the American who had been in Moscow with the paper delegation. They asked him if he had contact with a man named Penkovsky, whereupon the man cooperated. He told them that Penkovsky had accompanied his delegation in Leningrad and Moscow for more than a week in late January. He gave to them all of the information that he could recall, including the information that Penkovsky wanted to pass on a message to Mrs. Chisholm that she was under surveillance.
So the CIA-SIS team did get the gist of the message, in spite of the man's reluctance to help. Two months had transpired, however; the calendar already was into March of 1962. Shergold concluded that Penkovsky was in no immediate danger but that Mrs. Chisholm was under surveillance and the contacts should be terminated. A message was sent to Penkovsky advising that the team had received his message through the American businessman.
Penkovsky was invited to a cocktail party at the home of a British scientific attache on 28 March. The Chisholms were in attendance and Penkovsky was able to pass to Janet a letter and some film cassettes. The letter described in detail Penkovsky's observation of apparent surveillance of Janet at their January meeting and stated his belief that their me
etings at the park and deli should be terminated but meetings at diplomatic events should be encouraged. He also indicated that he hoped to attend a number of functions outside of the Soviet Union, including one at the Seattle World's Fair in April. Later on, in connection with his job in the cover-trade organization, Penkovsky was also invited to the queen's birthday party at the British Embassy. At that time he passed through Janet a letter to the team in which he expressed alarm. He was concerned because he had experienced a disappointment at the GRU. He had been told that he would be groomed for a post at the United Nations in New York. In connection with this, he was scheduled for trips to the World's Fair in Seattle and to Brazil in order to observe how the Americans would react to him. The GRU, after all, probably figured that the Americans knew he was GRU from his previous assignment in Turkey. Then, at the last minute, these plans were canceled. The reason, he feared, was the matter of his father's history. Evidently, the neighbors at the KGB had been delving into the details. Since no records of his father's death were available, and no grave could be found, they were suspicious-perhaps the man did not die and was living abroad. Penkovsky added he was sick and tired of this existence, wanted to come out with his family and asked advice.
CIA Spymaster_George Kisevalter Page 21