THE FIRST SECTION of the London residency to resume something like normal operations after the 1971 expulsions, albeit slowly and on a reduced scale, was Line X (ST). During 1972 plans were made to renew contact with six of its most highly rated agents: the veteran Melita Norwood (HOLA) in the British Non-Ferrous Metals Association, first recruited in 1937; ACE, an aeronautical engineer; HUNT, a civil servant recruited by Norwood; YUNG, an aeronautics and computer engineer; NAGIN, a chemical engineer; and STEP, a laboratory assistant.22 Though Mitrokhin’s notes give only an incomplete account of how the six agents were reactivated, it is clear that it was a lengthy business, probably preceded by prolonged and painstaking surveillance to ensure that none was under MI5 observation. Contact with HUNT was not re-established until 1975, and even then it was thought safer to use a French agent, MAIRE, rather than an operations officer from the London residency, as his controller.23
When contact was renewed with Melita Norwood in London in 1974, it was discovered that she had retired two years earlier. Since she no longer had access to classified material, regular contact was discontinued. HOLA, however, retained a high reputation in the Centre as probably its longest-serving British agent with a highly productive record which included intelligence on the British nuclear program. She seems to have remained throughout her career a true believer in the Soviet Union. During a visit to Moscow with her husband in 1979, forty-two years after her original recruitment, she was offered a further financial reward but declined, saying she had all she needed to live on.24
By 1974 Line X at the London residency had nine operations officers (seven fewer than before operation FOOT), headed by the deputy resident, Oleg Aleksandrovich Yakimov, and had successfully resumed contact with most of the Line X agents put on ice in September 1971.25 The most productive of the reactivated agents was, almost certainly, the aeronautical engineer ACE, recruited in the late 1960s.26 By the time he died in the early 1980s, ACE’s product file consisted of about 300 volumes, each of about 300 pages. Most of these 90,000 pages consisted of technical documentation on new aircraft (among them Concorde, the Super VC-10 and Lockheed L-1011), aero-engines (including Rolls-Royce, Olympus-593, RB-211 and SNEY-505) and flight simulators. ACE’s material on the flight simulators for the Lockheed L-1011 and Boeing 747 were the foundation for a new generation of Soviet equivalents. ACE also recruited under false flag (probably that of a rival company) an aero-engine specialist codenamed SWEDE. Remarkably, ACE was paid a monthly salary of only 225 pounds, raised to 350 pounds in 1980.27
Despite the exclusion from Britain of known KGB and GRU officers, the KGB was still able to send Line X agents and “trusted contacts” from Soviet universities to Britain on scientific exchanges and for postgraduate or postdoctoral research in engineering and the natural sciences. Most went either to universities and polytechnics in the London area or to Oxford and Cambridge.28 “Targets of operational interest,” where it was hoped that KGB agents and trusted contacts could identify potential recruits, included Churchill College, King’s College, St. Catharine’s College and Trinity Hall at Cambridge University; Magdalen, Queen’s and Trinity Colleges at Oxford; King’s College, University College, the London School of Economics, the School of Oriental and African Studies and the School of Slavonic Studies at London University.29
Some of the Soviet scientists who came to conduct research in Britain were KGB officers. In May 1975, for example, Dr. Hugh Huxley of the British Medical Research Council’s molecular biology laboratory at Cambridge invited Academician Frank, director of the USSR Academy of Sciences Biophysics Institute, to send a member of his institute to carry out research at the laboratory. Unknown to Huxley, the invitation was misappropriated by the KGB. The scientist sent to Cambridge was Valeri Vasilyevich Lednev of Directorate T.30 At about the time Lednev embarked on his British assignment, the head of Directorate T, Mikhail Lopatin, who had been in charge of ST collection in Britain in the mid-1960s, arrived in London to advise the residency on the expansion of Line X operations.31
Though not comprehensive, Mitrokhin’s notes suggest that there were fewer new British Line X recruits during the 1970s than in the decade before operation FOOT. The earliest post-FOOT recruit definitely identified by Mitrokhin is CHRISTINA, who was recruited in 1973—probably in the Soviet Union.32 It is unclear from Mitrokhin’s notes whether four other Line X agents operating in Britain in the early 1970s were recruited before or after the mass expulsion of KGB and GRU officers.33 Because of the difficult operating conditions in London, at least six (probably more) Line X agents either met their case officers outside Britain or were controlled by other European residencies.34
The most important British ST agent recruited during the decade after operation FOOT was, almost certainly, Michael John Smith (codenamed BORG), a Communist electronics engineer.35 The secretary of the Surrey Communist Party in the early 1970s, Richard Geldart, recalls Smith as an “out-and-out Tankie”—a hardline supporter of the crushing of the Prague Spring by Soviet tanks: “Not to put too fine a point on it, he was the total nerd. There was socializing going on, but he was not part of it.”36 A Line X officer at the London residency, Viktor Alekseevich Oshchenko (codenamed OZEROV), made initial contact with Smith in a pub near Smith’s flat at Kingston-on-Thames after a trade union meeting held in May 1975 before the referendum on British membership of the EEC. On instructions from Oshchenko, Smith left the Communist Party, ceased trade union activity, became a regular reader of the Daily Telegraph, joined a local tennis club and—as his operational file quaintly puts it—“endeavored to display his loyalty to the authorities.”
In July 1976, helped by bureaucratic confusion in MI5, caused by the remarkable coincidence that the Surrey Communist Party contained another Michael John Smith, he gained a job as a test engineer in the quality assurance department of Thorn—EMI Defense Electronics at Feltham, Middlesex. Within a year he was working on the top secret project XN-715, developing and testing radar fuses for Britain’s freefall nuclear bomb.37 The KGB passed the documents on project XN-715 provided by Smith to N. V. Serebrov and other nuclear weapons specialists at a secret Soviet military research institute codenamed Enterprise G-4598, who succeeded in building a replica of the British radar fuse. Smith’s intelligence, however, seemed too good to be true. Serebrov and his colleagues were puzzled as to how Smith had been able to obtain the radio frequency on which the detonator was to operate. This information, they believed, was so sensitive that it should not have appeared even in the top secret documents on the design and operation of the detonator to which Smith had access. Armed with a knowledge of the radio frequency, Soviet forces would be able to create radio interference which could prevent the detonator from operating. One possibility which occurred to the specialists was that the frequency supplied by Smith might be merely a test frequency which would not be used in actual military operations. But they remained suspicious of the extent of the detailed highly classified information which Smith had been able to supply.38
The Centre also seems to have been suspicious of the ease and speed with which a well-known pro-Soviet Communist had been able to gain access to one of Britain’s most highly classified nuclear secrets so soon after going through the motions of leaving the Party and switching from the Morning Star to the Daily Telegraph. Its suspicions that Smith’s intelligence on the radar fuse might have been a sophisticated deception seem to have strengthened when he told his controller in 1978 that he had lost his security clearance and, for the time being, could no longer provide classified information. (Though Smith did not realize it at the time, MI5 had discovered its earlier error and secretly informed Thorn-EMI of Smith’s Communist past.)39
To try to resolve its doubts the Centre devised a series of tests to check Smith’s reliability. The first test, which Smith seems to have passed, was to remove two packets of secret material from a dead letter-box in Spain. The second, more elaborate check on Smith, personally approved by Andropov and termed in KGB jargon “a psycho-p
hysiological test using a non-contact polygraph,” was conducted in Vienna in August 1979 by Boris Konstantinovich Stalnov and two OT (operational—technical support) officers. Stalnov began with a brief prepared speech, duly entered in Smith’s file:
I am personally satisfied with the way things are going and with our mutual relations and I am therefore extremely glad to congratulate you. From today you are a full member of our organization. This means that the organization will take care of you. Believe me, you will have gained friends who are ready to come to your help in any circumstances. Your participation and help to the organization will be duly recognized. The organization is based on two principles: voluntary participation and sincerity.
The first means that, having joined the organization of your own free will, you may leave it at any time if you think it necessary, without any [adverse] consequences for yourself, provided you give prior notice.
As for the second principle, sincerity, you must inform us of all details which directly or indirectly affect the interests of our organization. This is understandable as the security of both sides depends on it. Joining the organization is also in a certain sense a formal act. In connection with this I am required to put a number of questions to you. I regard this as a pure formality. You should do the same.
It will simplify the task and save time if you simply answer “yes” or “no.”
Smith was then asked over 120 questions and his replies secretly recorded. Subsequent analysis of the recording and Smith’s response to each question persuaded the Centre—doubtless to its immense relief—that he was not, as it had thought possible, engaged in a grand deception orchestrated by British intelligence. Though Smith had been led to suppose that the “psycho-physiological test” was a routine formality, it had never been used before by the KGB outside the Soviet Union. The Centre was so pleased with its success that it decided to use the same method to check other agents. It none the less decided to give Smith a third (and apparently final) test of his “sincerity” by instructing him to remove a container holding two rolls of film from a DLB in the Paris suburbs and to deliver it to a KGB officer in Lisbon.40 The KGB would doubtless have been able to detect any attempt by Smith or another intelligence agency to open the container.
From 1979 onward Smith was paid a 300-pound monthly retainer by the KGB. His file also records additional payments for documents supplied by him of 1,600 pounds, 750 pounds, 400 pounds and 2,000 pounds. Though Mitrokhin’s notes do not record the dates of these payments, they probably relate chiefly to Smith’s two years in Thorn—EMI Defense Electronics.41 The excitement of working for the KGB, copying highly classified documents, emptying DLBs and going to secret assignations with his case officers in foreign capitals seems to have rescued Smith from his earlier existence as a “total nerd.” A hint of the exotic began to enliven a previously drab lifestyle. In 1979 he got married, took up flamenco dancing, began experimenting with Spanish and Mexican cuisine, and gave dinner parties at which guests were served his homemade wine.42
Smith was so taken with his life as a secret agent that he made strenuous efforts to recover the security clearance he had lost in 1978, even drafting a personal appeal two years later to Margaret Thatcher to intercede on his behalf. “There is a cloud over me which I cannot dispel,” he complained to the Prime Minister. “I have been wrongly suspected and have lost my position most unjustly.” Though Smith seems never to have posted his letter to Mrs. Thatcher, in June 1980 he succeeded in putting his case to an MI5 officer. Smith began by denying that he had ever been a Communist, was confronted with evidence that he had, then apologized for lying and said he had joined the Party only to find a girlfriend.43 Amazingly, Smith’s campaign to recover his security clearance survived even this setback. More amazingly still, a few years later it succeeded.44
In 1980 7.5 percent of all Soviet scientific and technological intelligence came from British sources.45 As well as providing what it claimed was enormous assistance to Soviet research and development, especially in the military field, Directorate T also prided itself on obtaining commercial secrets which drove down the cost of contracts with Western companies. One British example of which it was particularly proud during the later 1970s was the negotiation of the contract for two large methane production plants with the companies Davy Power Gas and Klîckner INA Industrial Plants.46 The original price quoted by the British consortium was 248 million convertible roubles, as compared with the 206 million allocated for the project by the Soviet Council of Ministers. An operation conducted in the Peking Hotel, Moscow, on March 23, 1977 by Directorate T with the assistance of the Moscow KGB, probably based on a combination of eavesdropping and the secret photocopying of company documents, obtained commercial intelligence which—according to a report by the Ministry of Foreign Trade—made it possible to negotiate a reduction of 50.6 million roubles on the price of the contract. On October 24, 1977 Andropov formally commended fifteen KGB officers for their part in the operation. Ironically, the British prime minister, James Callaghan, subsequently wrote to his Soviet opposite number, Alexei Kosygin, to thank the Soviet government for awarding the contract to a British firm.47
THE PR AND KR Lines at the London residency appear to have had less success during the 1970s than Line X. The only known Soviet agent within the British intelligence community, Geoffrey Prime of GCHQ, was run not by the residency but by Third Directorate controllers who met him outside Britain.48 The most highly placed Line PR agent active during the decade after operation FOOT identified in Mitrokhin’s notes was WILLIAM, a trade union official and former Communist. WILLIAM was recruited during a visit to the Soviet Union by Boris Vasilyevich Denisov, a KGB officer working under cover as a Soviet trade union (AUCCTU) official, and agreed to provide inside information on the TUC and the Labor Party. After a meeting with WILLIAM in London in December 1975, however, his case officer reported that he had become anxious about his role as a Soviet agent. Though reaffirming his desire to help his Soviet comrades, WILLIAM said that he was distrusted by less progressive trade union officials because of his Marxist views and worried that word of his Soviet connection would leak out and damage his chances of becoming leader of his union.49 Lacking any really important British agents, Line PR tended to exaggerate the significance of second-rate agents such as WILLIAM and its other sources of inside information on British politics and government policy.
The political contact of which Line PR was proudest was Harold Wilson (codenamed OLDING), who became president of the Great Britain—USSR Association after his resignation as prime minister in 1976. The first secretary at the Soviet embassy responsible for liaison with the association, Andrei Sergeyevich Parastayev, periodically called on Wilson, nominally to discuss its affairs with him. The fact that Parastayev was a KGB agent allowed the residency to claim that it had secured access to the former prime minister. Though not claiming that Wilson was a “confidential contact” (let alone an agent), the residency reported that he freely provided political information.50 Mitrokhin’s notes give no examples of what the information comprised, but if Wilson’s observations to Parastayev resembled his private comments to some of his British friends and acquaintances, they would certainly have attracted the attention of the Centre and probably have been passed to the Politburo. Roy Jenkins noted in 1978, for example, that Wilson “did not think there was much future for the [Callaghan] Government, or indeed the Labor Party.”51
The Centre claimed that disinformation from Service A had been passed to Wilson, probably via Parastayev, with the intention that it should reach the Labor government. 52 It is highly unlikely, however, that the disinformation had any significant influence on Wilson, let alone on the Callaghan government. In retirement, though remaining firmly anchored in the Labor Party, Wilson moved steadily to the right. According to his official biographer, Philip Ziegler, by 1977 his dislike of the far left equaled that of “the most conservative of capitalists.”53 Nor did Wilson show great sympathy for Soviet foreign policy.
His KGB file reports that, after the invasion of Afghanistan, he canceled a visit to the USSR in his capacity as president of the Great Britain—USSR Association.54
By the 1970s Line PR in London, as in other residencies, was supposed to spend 25 percent of its time on active measures55 and send annual statistics to the Centre on the number of its influence operations. These totaled 160 in 1976 and 190 in 1977.56 During 1977 Line PR officers reported that they had initiated 99 discussions which allegedly “influenced” politicians, journalists and other opinion-formers, and claimed to have successfully prompted 26 public announcements, 20 publications, the sending of more than 20 letters and telegrams, 9 questions in Parliament, 5 press conferences, 4 meetings and demonstrations and 3 television and radio broadcasts. In addition, it had distributed three brochures and one forged document produced by Service A, which was responsible for active measures at the Centre.57
In order to gain credit from the Centre, residencies invariably tried to exaggerate the success of their active measures. While working at the Centre, Oleg Gordievsky was told that in 1977 or 1978 the London resident, Yakov Lukasevics, had been asked by Andropov whether his residency possessed the means to influence British policy. “Why yes, we can exert influence,” Lukasevics replied. “We have such channels.” “I do not think you can,” Andropov told him. “I think you are too hasty in answering that question.”58 The files noted by Mitrokhin confirm Andropov’s skepticism.
The KGB’s attempts to recruit agents of influence in the British media to use for active measures seems to have met with limited success by comparison with France and some other European countries. The journalist DAN, probably the London residency’s most reliable agent of influence during the 1960s,59 broke contact during the 1970s—probably after he was put on ice in the aftermath of operation FOOT. Several attempts by the residency to reactivate DAN failed and he was eventually written off some time in the early 1980s.60
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