Circle of Treason

by Sandra V. Grimes

  Operationally, Finland was much more active than the African posts where I had served. Because the country bordered the USSR, the CIA in Helsinki concentrated all its efforts on the Soviet target—a target on which I now began to gain some expertise. My routine duties included keeping the REDCAP notebook—a comprehensive listing of all the Soviet officials in the country—up to date. I developed some familiarity with Russian names, organizations, career patterns, indications of intelligence affiliation, and like details. Moreover, I became personally involved in a controversial and fascinating case, which was a hallmark of the Angletonian era. (James Jesus Angleton, of whom much will be said below, was Chief of the CIA’s counterintelligence staff from 1954 until 1974.) In December 1961, KGB counterintelligence officer Anatoliy Mikhaylovich Golitsyn, with his wife and small daughter, appeared on the doorstep of CIA Station Chief Frank Friberg and announced his unalterable intention to defect. Friberg, an intelligent and decisive officer, immediately contacted Steve W and me.

  Friberg gave us our marching orders. Steve was to take the passports of the Golitsyn family to the Embassy and issue them U.S. visas. Luckily, Steve was able to do this without raising any immediate questions. I was told to go to the office and get cash for the travel of Frank and the Golitsyn family. Responsibility for office funds was part of my normal administrative duties, and therefore I could get into the strongbox where we kept our money.

  I immediately drove to the office, opened the strongbox, pulled out wads of currency without counting, and then proceeded as fast as I could to the airport where Frank had told Steve and me to meet him. Because this was December, snow was piled up along the streets. I recall driving up and over a cement tram stop in my Volkswagen beetle in my haste. Luckily no policeman was around to observe this illegal and bonejarring maneuver.

  Steve drove up to the departure terminal with the Golitsyn passports, and I arrived with money for their tickets and other expenses. Friberg and the Golitsyns then emplaned for Stockholm, on their way to Frankfurt and then the United States. Needless to say, my accountings did not balance that month, but Headquarters wrote off the rather large discrepancy without a murmur.

  We will return to the Golitsyn story in later chapters. For now it suffices to mention that, at first, Golitsyn was debriefed by the Soviet Bloc Division at Headquarters but soon came into the hands of the CI staff. We in Helsinki became more and more frustrated because Golitsyn had served for over a year in Helsinki and could tell us a great deal about KGB activities in Finland, yet this did not seem to be a major thrust of the debriefings and the debriefers seemed to know little about things Finnish. Eventually, much later, we got one long debriefing report that contained answers to some of the questions we had asked, but significant gaps remained.1 Two items of information provided by Golitsyn allowed me to assess my budding skills as a counterintelligence analyst. I won one and lost one. In the first case, one of the Embassy components had wanted to hire a young woman as a secretary. She had a Russian émigré background. Further, she seemed overskilled for the position she was to fill. I advised against hiring her, and while there was some heartburn she was not brought on board. According to Golitsyn, she had indeed been sent by the KGB to penetrate the Embassy.

  In the second case, we had learned that one of the Finnish employees of the U.S. embassy had made an unreported trip to Leningrad. He would have needed a Russian visa and Golitsyn, who was under consular cover, was the logical person to have issued it. We then learned that Golitsyn had traveled to Leningrad at the same time as our employee. Putting two and two together, and getting five, we called in the employee, questioned him about his trip, and eventually saw to it that he was fired. Now we learned from Golitsyn that the employee had been loyal while employed. Golitsyn had tried to recruit him in Leningrad, but had been turned down. Unfortunately, after we fired him, he changed his mind, recontacted Golitsyn, and told the KGB officer everything he could about what he had learned during his Embassy employment.

  I spent more than four years in Helsinki. Late in my tour, it became obvious that professional career possibilities for women were opening up. Women were permitted to apply for the Career Training course, the gateway to officer status. There were limitations, however. In the Directorate of Operations (DO), women were accepted for only two career tracks—analyst or reports officer. We were not allowed to take the long course that teaches one to become an operations officer, and we were barred from paramilitary training. And there was no parity in numbers. We were seven women out of a total class of sixty-six.

  Nonetheless, it was a rewarding and broadening experience. Given my interest in the Soviet target, perhaps the highlight of my training was the three-hour spellbinding lecture given by George Kisevalter concerning his participation in the Popov case. (Petr Semenovich Popov was a GRU officer who volunteered to us in Vienna in 1953. Kisevalter, a fluent Russian speaker and a legend throughout his career, was one of his handlers.)2

  After successfully finishing the Career Training course, I headed back overseas, this time to the Benelux area. Arriving in the summer of 1966, I spent more than four years in a relaxed environment, working as an analyst against the Soviet target and spending as much time as possible in travels around Europe. Toward the end of this tour, I realized that I needed to spend some time at headquarters. In close to twenty years I had never had a headquarters assignment. Furthermore, my parents were aging. I had not been able to see much of them in recent years and this was an omission I wished to correct.

  My first headquarters assignment was as Chief of the Biographics Branch in what was then the Soviet Bloc (SB), but soon to become the Soviet and East European (SE), Division. This was the largest branch in the Division, but among the least prestigious because it was not directly involved in operations. Our mission was to process thousands of trace replies on Soviet and East European officials for our Stations abroad and for friendly liaison services. Unfortunately for branch morale, if our initial research turned up data indicating that a particular individual was of special interest, the trace reply was taken out of our hands and we never heard what happened next.

  During this period, for personal enrichment and to add to my professional skills, I began to study Russian. I took a Directorate of Intelligence course, which was geared to enabling analysts to read Russian in their areas of specialization. The years that I spent in this endeavor eventually paid off, because I was able to translate or edit some of the documents provided by GRU general Dmitriy Polyakov, by KGB defector Anatoliy Bogatyy, and by the French source Vladimir Vetrov, known as FAREWELL.

  After more than three years as Chief of the Biographics Branch, I was eager for a change. I applied for a job as night and weekend duty officer for the Directorate of Operations, and was only the second woman ever approved for this position. It was tiring work, because we changed shifts from week to week, but since we reviewed priority operational traffic from around the world I developed a broader view of the Agency’s responsibilities. As it happened, my service covered the period of the fall of Vietnam.

  The DO duty officer stint only lasted six months. By then I was looking for a normal day job. When I was offered a position in the Counterintelligence Group of SE Division, I couldn’t have been happier. The slot was that of Deputy Chief of the Research Branch, under Joseph F, a seasoned officer with a compendious knowledge of the KGB. My specific task was to write a study on the GRU. It took about eighteen months to complete this study, which was eventually published for DO consumption in November 1976 under the title The GRU Today.

  While writing this study I first became privy to the Polyakov case and the fount of information he had provided. Luckily in the early 1970s we had three junior officer defectors from the GRU. While what they told us was of some interest, their production could not compare with that of Polyakov. They provided “cover,” however, in that the average reader of The GRU Today would be inclined to believe that these three defectors were the source of much of the material presente
d. In reality, of course, Polyakov’s information formed the backbone of the study. It was during the writing of this study that I first began my professional association with Sandy, who was the Agency’s expert when it came to Polyakov.

  By now it was the late 1970s. The Division had become aware that the U.S. intelligence community had a need for counterintelligence information, but most of what was available to us was not being disseminated outside the DO, except perhaps to the FBI. To correct this shortcoming, two new branches were established in the Counterintelligence Group. One, headed by Faith McCoy, disseminated CI reporting from Soviet sources. The other, to which I was named Chief, did the same for East European sources. This arrangement lasted for about one year. Faith then left for an overseas position, the two CI production branches were melded into one, and I became chief of CI production for all of the Division’s stable of sources.

  This was a responsible and rewarding job. Some of our disseminations went to the White House. The only drawback was the looming presence of Director Casey and his preconceived ideas, and his attempts to influence operations and analysis to fit these ideas.

  Two Directorate of Intelligence projects closely involved the Production Branch. The first was the investigation into the possibility that the Soviet Union had masterminded the 1981 assassination attempt on the Pope. Despite the fact that all our clandestine reporting pointed to the conclusion that the Soviets were not involved, and despite the fact that the scenario did not jibe in the least with what we knew of KGB methods of operation, there was an attempt to make the facts fit the theory so we could use the possibility of Soviet involvement as a club with which to beat the KGB.

  I felt extremely frustrated when one of the officers in our branch wrote a long cable in response to a field inquiry. The cable pointed out what we did and did not know, and what conclusions it might be possible to draw. The cable got as far as the office of the then-Deputy Director for Operations (DDO) John Stein, where it was substantially altered so as to advise the field to use the unsupported theory against the KGB, whether we believed it or not. (I often argued, usually unsuccessfully, that the KGB had done a great many unsavory things, and that we should do our best to publicize these, instead of using information we knew or suspected was false, thereby lowering ourselves to their level.)

  The second investigation involved the extent of Soviet support for terrorism. To hear some tell it, behind every terrorist around the world with a bomb in his hand was a KGB officer whispering “Go!” The Soviets had dug themselves somewhat into a hole on this subject, because it was indisputable that they had supported Yasir Arafat in the period when he was masterminding terrorist acts. Arafat was regarded as a “freedom fighter” and could be seen on the Kremlin stand with Brezhnev and others on special occasions. The Soviets also supported some third-world groups, again regarding them as freedom fighters against rightist governments. All this was extrapolated into an overarching conspiracy theory by CIA fundamentalists, in great part influenced by Casey and his good friend Claire Sterling’s highly inaccurate The Terrorist Network.

  Once again, I was disheartened by what I saw as attempts to skew the facts. Finally, I felt I had to get away. I applied for an overseas job, any job. John Stein saw to it that I was assigned as Chief in Libreville, Gabon, although Africa Division was not happy to have me and never provided any support during my two years on post. I enjoyed being back in Africa, but Libreville was a drowsy town in a country of little strategic interest. There were few real targets, and those that existed had been extensively worked over by my predecessor. Getting up in the morning, I would often admit to myself that nothing that I was going to do that day was of any substantial interest to the U.S. government. (The CIA eventually closed the post.)

  There were some highlights, however. I thoroughly enjoyed visiting Peace Corps personnel in the various villages. In many people’s opinion, including my own, the Peace Corps was the most valuable export that the United States could make to Africa.

  One of the most memorable events of this tour was a safari to northern Cameroon. It was the dry season and there were few watering holes. Those that existed were magnets for large numbers of animals. At one watering hole we saw elephants far and near stretched across the horizon, some standing guard while others drank and bathed, and then changing places. It was a healthy herd, or group of herds, ranging from large old animals to toddling babies. This is one of my most vivid and treasured recollections, and for years photographs from this safari decorated my office walls.

  In the summer of 1986, as my assignment in Libreville was coming to an end, I received a cable from Gus Hathaway, who had become Chief of the CI Staff. I admired Hathaway, whom I had first known when he was Chief of Station in Moscow in the late 1970s. He then became Chief of SE Division, and in effect my ultimate boss for some years. Gus’ cable was vague, but he asked me to come to the staff to look into a CI problem. I accepted with alacrity. The rest of my story is entwined with what became the Ames mole hunt, and is discussed in detail in later chapters.

  Overall, despite a few down periods, I had a successful and rewarding career in the CIA, and would do it all again. I entered on duty as a GS-4, never skipped a grade, and retired as a Senior Intelligence Officer, level three. Promotions do not tell the whole story, however. Along the way, I was associated with some first-class colleagues, whose expertise and work ethic enabled us to meet our goals, and with some bosses who gave me the opportunity to spread my wings. I think of them all with affection and respect.

  Since my 1992 retirement, I have received a great deal of ego gratification in public acknowledgment of the success our group had in uncovering Ames as a Soviet mole. While this appreciation is undoubtedly pleasant, the approbation of trusted colleagues is far more important to me.

  SANDY’S STORY

  I WAS A CERTIFIED PRODUCT OF THE COLD WAR—born in August 1945, and the daughter of parents who met and married in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, while employed on the Manhattan Project. My formal schooling began in Los Alamos, the home of the atomic bomb in the Sandia Mountains of New Mexico, followed by a subsequent move to a suburb of Denver, Colorado, where I attended public schools until leaving for college in 1963.

  It was there during high school that I made a decision that, unknown to me at the time, set the direction of my personal and professional future. That decision was to substitute a Russian language course for the dreaded junior year of physics, having recognized that physics was beyond my abilities in spite of the family genes. Taught by a stern taskmaster, Dr. Libor Brom, I enjoyed the class, the challenge of the language, and in 1961 the oddity of being a female in such a course. Due to Dr. Brom’s encouragement and my lack of any other plan, two years later I selected Russian as my college major and the University of Washington in Seattle as my school of choice given its Slavic languages department.

  The circumstances of my joining the CIA four years later were purely serendipitous. It was not out of a patriotic duty to serve my country, a desire to travel, or to join friends or acquaintances. Rather, one afternoon in October 1966 I encountered a boyfriend of several years past who mentioned that the CIA recruiter was on campus and in the former date’s opinion, “You would make a perfect spy.” I reluctantly agreed to pursue the suggestion to look into CIA employment, although I had never considered it and had no idea of the requirements to become a spy, noting only that student protests against the CIA were currently taking place on campus.

  Motivated by the necessity to find a job before graduation, the following week I found myself in front of a CIA recruiter after crossing my first picket line. The interview lasted no more than ten minutes and consisted of the recruiter asking whether I had any additional foreign languages; my signing a secrecy agreement; and his instructing me to report for an all-day examination given to candidates for professional positions in the Agency. Following completion of the test and review by the CIA I would be notified if they had continued interest in me.

  Several
months later a letter arrived, containing a brief statement that the CIA was processing me for a position as a GS-06 Intelligence Assistant, contingent upon successful completion of medical and security clearances. Finally, my future had clarity—I was graduating from college; had a job regardless of what it entailed; and was going to the nation’s capital, single, young, and truly on my own.

  In July 1967, I reported to a CIA facility in Rosslyn, Virginia, ironically enough known as the Ames Building. There I joined six other like-titled, female intelligence assistants and 100-plus new hire Agency secretarial employees to await our polygraph, typing, or shorthand tests. Those in charge had no idea why our group of six had been pooled with typists and stenographers, because we had no such skills. They segregated us in a small room, where for the next month we socialized and, on rare occasions, did busy work such as cutting and pasting unclassified maps. It was during this period we learned that college degrees, foreign languages, and professional testing aside, we were clerical employees of the Directorate of Operations. The coveted designation of “professional” and the career opportunities it afforded did not come for several years and some in our group resigned from the Agency before that occurred.

  Eventually, I was summoned to headquarters for the long-awaited polygraph. My polygrapher was a stern Marine drill instructor type who kept walking out of the examination room, leaving me to ponder my responses. After about three hours, he announced completion of the test. I immediately told him that, upon reflection, I had not been completely truthful concerning my relationship with a foreign national. I had not intended to mislead him about this contact, but it never occurred to me that my friend, a Canadian citizen, was a foreign national. They were not foreigners like Russians, French, or others. They were Canadians. Convinced that I had failed my polygraph, I returned to the Ames Building to await the bad news—no job. Two days later I was ordered to headquarters where, to my disbelief, I was not met by security officers but by a representative of the Soviet Bloc Division of the Directorate of Operations. I had passed the polygraph.