by Eric Raynaud
If the story about the recruiting of Vetrov by the RCMP is true, which cannot be totally ruled out, did Vetrov think of getting in touch with his Canadian friends again? He did not.
In spite of the lures presented by the main intelligence agencies of the West, Vetrov chose the secret service of a country that did not aspire to international activity. Moreover, he eschewed an intelligence agency experienced in agent handling in favor of a service for which this would be new. Why?
In the eyes of the beneficiary, the DST, the decision seemed to stand to reason. First, Vetrov was a Francophile with family origins that nurtured this cultural attraction to everything French. Within the Russian bourgeoisie it was a must to have your children raised by a French governess.2 We know, however, that the thesis of Vetrov’s bourgeois and even boyar origins is groundless. Marcel Chalet also bragged about the DST’s excellence in approaching individuals in contact with Soviet circles. According to Chalet, those individuals helped discover the turn Vetrov’s life was taking, allowing the DST to take advantage of the situation.3 The reader will soon see that nothing is further from the truth.
In theory, the DST was enemy number one for all the Parisian KGB members since they did not always play the game by the rules, not hesitating to hit below the belt. There was nothing criminal, just a flat tire here, a broken windshield there, to better control a tailing. Thanks to Jacques Prévost, Vetrov never had to complain about those questionable methods.
Nevertheless, Vetrov was first and foremost an intelligence specialist even though a Francophile. The operational aspects of his defection, even though there might have been some emotional components involved, had to take precedence over any other consideration.
Actually, three main considerations dictated Vetrov’s choice, a choice which, although seemingly absurd, was the main reason for the success of what would later be called the Farewell operation.
First, his safety. Vetrov was well positioned to know how extensively major special services in the West were penetrated by the KGB. The CIA was no exception, and neither were the other major players, including the SDECE. Vetrov was not planning a suicide operation, so from this standpoint, the DST had an advantage.
France was not really considered an enemy of the Soviet Union. On the contrary, France was one of the pillars of détente and had a privileged relationship with the Brezhnevian regime in international affairs. As far as French special services were concerned, the KGB, obsessed with the CIA, did not take them very seriously.
Furthermore, a counterintelligence service is much more difficult to penetrate because spy hunters are usually more patriotic, more conservative, and less prone to be influenced and lured than intelligence officers. Vetrov, who had access to documents coming from the KGB residency in Paris, would have the assurance, at the time of his betrayal, that the DST was not infiltrated. Finally, since this police service did not operate outside of French territory, the DST would be the last organization to be suspected by the KGB of involvement in the manipulation of an agent. For a counterintelligence entity, identifying the adverse agency is the chief concern.
The second consideration which led Vetrov to choose the DST was the relative simplicity of establishing the first contact. KGB members were not allowed to meet with foreigners other than out of professional necessity, and they were duty-bound to document in writing each of such contacts; this rule applied only to operatives, however. Analysts were strictly and explicitly prohibited from meeting with any foreigners. Since he was an analyst, Vetrov would have had no excuse if caught in a conversation with a foreigner. He knew the enormous risk taken by an agent like Penkovsky to establish a connection with intelligence services of the free world.4 Unlike himself, Penkovsky not only was allowed to contact foreigners, it was part of his professional obligations. Vladimir also knew that many times, believing they were dealing with a lure, Western services had sent back to the KGB secret documents they had received from Soviet individuals, along with their collaboration offer, thus burning a true defector. Fortunately, thanks to Jacques Prévost, he had a discreet entry point with direct access to the DST.
The third reason for Vetrov’s choice was his Paris experience. He certainly had a good knowledge of French qualities and flaws. To implement a plan as risky as the one Vetrov was about to put in place, being familiar with one’s partners’ mindset and being able to anticipate their reactions in any situation was essential. By choosing France, a country not perceived as hostile by the Soviet Union, Vetrov’s feeling of treason may have been less acute than it would have been had he chosen the sworn enemy, the United States.5
Yet nothing in what we know about Vetrov indicates an attachment to democracy. To Vetrov, freedom was not a philosophical or an ideological concept, but a way of life with fewer constraints suiting his personality; in short, he wanted the right to a good life.
Of course, like any aware Soviet citizen, he must have had no sympathy for the regime in place, stagnating in an economic slump and rife with corruption, arbitrary rule of law, and nepotism. He told jokes about the living mummy Brezhnev had already become, and he repeated rumors about murky mafia-type deals involving Brezhnev’s relatives and entourage. Vetrov’s probable reasoning about the situation matched most of his compatriots and contemporaries: the Brezhnevian regime was a disgrace, but Marxism-Leninism was a just cause. Or, as went a popular sarcasm about Marxist theories at the time, “Communism is inevitable.” The feeling that communism was deeply entrenched in the USSR was shared not only by the Soviets but also by most “Kremlinologists.” From the Russian standpoint, nothing in Vetrov’s behavior substantiated the assumption that he was a shadow fighter against the communist system or a trailblazer for perestroika. That assumption, which seemed to be a certitude for the DST and the French media, was laughable to the Soviets who had known Vetrov.
On the French side, the interpretation is different. First, as we already know, Jacques Prévost had been quite surprised by Vetrov’s vindictive remarks about his superiors and even the Communist Party, indicating a possible early rejection of the regime. In Raymond Nart’s opinion, Vetrov was a defector in the making. “It is a unique case; here is a guy who defects intellectually, but stays in his country because he is too attached to his land.”6 His fatal decision would have, therefore, been made possible by a gradual detachment from his personal environment. “A guy who has lived in the West, then goes back to a society built on lies and isolation, is bound to flip out at some point,” concludes Nart. Vetrov was no longer involved ideologically, and he was even more detached professionally and sentimentally. Above all, he felt a passionate hatred toward the KGB, an institution Westerners had difficulty distinguishing from the Soviet regime as a whole. In Nart’s opinion, Farewell, therefore, did not take the plunge in a leap of death, but went simply a step further.
There is every indication that the motives attributed to Vetrov by the DST and the KGB correspond to the stereotypes prevailing in the collective consciousness of one or the other of these secret services. In the eyes of the DST, it was the rejection of the regime and a thirst for freedom. For the KGB, there was only one explanation: Vetrov was a mercenary.7 Although supposed to have better knowledge of the situation, the KGB, as we can observe, was further from reality than its French counterpart.
Such oversimplifications are risky when trying to analyze a man’s decision to endanger his life and the well-being of his family. In Vetrov’s case, it was more about a tangle of inner impulses and external causes.
At the top of the list is the confusion and deep isolation Vetrov was in for the first time in his adult life. His parents were dead. His wife, whose support he was used to relying on, was not speaking to him. He was totally disoriented, and the difference between right and wrong did not mean anything to him anymore.
On top of his distress came a painful feeling of frustration and hatred for the service to which he had given his best. So that was it then? The KGB considered unworthy one of its most gifted ope
ratives? No way! It was Vetrov who considered this collection of slackers and corrupt bastards unworthy. There was also the desire of accomplishing his destiny, of tearing himself away from a life without glamour and without a future, of playing a leading part before the curtain comes down. Vetrov probably articulated this in a more matter-of-fact way. Simply put, he was about to show what he was made of to those who underestimated him—relatives, friends, colleagues, in short to everybody.
Contrary to the KGB assertions, there is no evidence that the material and financial aspect played the role it could have had for a materialistic individual such as Vetrov. He was clearly motivated by much stronger feelings than basic greed. As he was satisfying his urge for revenge, however, Vetrov seemed to enjoy more and more the benefits of his new status as a paid source. As his relationship with his mistress evolved, it had an influence on the material aspects of the operation. As we will see later, the only formal requests Vetrov made to his handlers involved merely a few presents, the nature of which indicated clearly that Ludmila was the recipient.
Turning now to the technical aspect of the first meeting. It was already mentioned that, as a KGB analyst, Vetrov was not allowed to meet with foreigners. This was a hard-and-fast rule, a safeguard that made life easier for the PGU internal counterintelligence service. This being said, even though Vetrov knew whom to contact to be heard without delay by the DST, just contacting Jacques Prévost was not that easy for him.
His French friend was still working for Thomson-CSF, overseeing contracts between the company and the Soviet Union, and on this account was traveling regularly to Moscow. According to his KGB file, starting in May 1963, when he spent ten days in the USSR for the first time (in Kiev, at the occasion of a trade show), Prévost logged several dozen trips to the Soviet Union. The country had less and less secrets for him, and he had a good command of the language. By the end of the seventies, Sheremetyevo Airport became a familiar scene for Prévost. In preparation for the Olympics in Moscow, following an international call for bids, Thomson was awarded a contract for the modernization of Soviet TV. This was a huge deal, involving hundreds of millions of French francs in investments, hundreds of experts, engineers, and technicians shuttling back and forth between the two countries, and a vast construction site in Moscow for the new technical center for Soviet TV.
In 1979, at the peak of the games preparation, Jacques Prévost traveled to Moscow five times to oversee the advancement of the contract—once a month from February through May, and once more in October. In 1980, the year of the Olympic Games, he did not have much left to do in Moscow. He came back only once, from October 14 through October 18. He had no way of knowing that this was precisely the time when Vetrov was desperately looking for a way to contact him again.
Apparently, the DST had no expectations left regarding its Soviet study target. The last time Prévost had called Vetrov on the phone, it was around 1973, when he was traveling with “Pierre.” Since then, there had been the episode of the visa denied to Vetrov for a post in France, which put an end to the DST approach attempts. Friendship? In the world of intelligence, it is justified only if it serves a professional necessity. As such, friendship is an unnecessary and dangerous luxury.
As for Vetrov, it would have been too risky for him to make inquiries, even discreetly, about a foreigner. It was not until December 1980 that Vladimir found a way to reconnect with Jacques.
Svetlana had a brother who was six years older than she. Lev Barashkov was a well-known figure. A comedian by training, Lev was a star of Soviet light music as a singer, slightly on the downhill trend (he would disappear from the scene a few years later), but he was still popular at the end of the seventies. In the fall of 1980, he was about to leave for a tour abroad. The tour was in Hungary, where Soviet troops were stationed. Under Kadar, however, this was the most liberal country in Eastern Europe, the socialist community showcase. Unlike in the Soviet Union, the mail addressed to people abroad was not opened, or at least not systematically.
Figure 2. First letter to Prévost, mailed in Hungary.
Vladimir asked his brother-in-law to mail an innocuous postcard, supposedly addressed to a French friend, while in Hungary. It was simply to arrange a rendezvous, implying that Prévost was supposed to come to Moscow to meet Vetrov. The wording of the message was very cautious. Vetrov had to be able to explain himself should the letter be intercepted by the KGB. Barashkov, like most Soviet citizens, viewed the security measures imposed by the KGB as some kind of a paranoia, and censorship as a disgrace. He was thus glad to render this service (see Figure 2).
The DST did not make a move.8 Actually, Prévost would not have taken a big risk had he traveled to Moscow and called Vetrov the way he used to do it in the past. The DST’s lack of response to this first contact attempt from Vetrov, in a situation where it had nothing to lose and everything to gain, was due only to a procedure. Accustomed to double-dealings, the French service saw traps everywhere. On the other hand, being a counterintelligence service, the DST would have had, in theory, an interest in having a mole within the KGB only if that mole could give them information on the activities of the KGB Paris residency. It had not occurred to the DST yet that they might play a role in gathering intelligence outside of France, which in both cases would have been beyond the legal scope of its responsibilities. The DST was in the situation of a hunter who spends his time shooting sparrows in his field and is suddenly offered a safari. This is probably what Vetrov thought.
Two months went by—enough time to conclude that the first attempt to renew the contact had failed. Maybe the letter never reached the addressee, or perhaps the contents were too unspecific for Prévost to understand the urgency of a prompt answer. However that may be, Vetrov decided to try again.
In February 1981, a trade show had been organized in the Moscow International Trade Center, also known as the Armand Hammer Center, named after an American businessman who actively promoted East-West trade relations. In spite of the interdiction against communicating with foreigners, Vetrov was not taking a huge risk by visiting the exhibits. There is always some margin between rules and their enforcement, and in the USSR the margin was significant. It was a trade show in electronics. There were French companies among the exhibitors, and Vetrov was a specialist in both electronics and French business. He could always argue that this visit was in the context of his professional activities, to see what improvements had been made in devices he had provided to the KGB in the past, and so forth.9
Once at the trade show, Vetrov soon located just the right man among the French exhibitors. It was Alexandre de Paul, a Schlumberger representative who had come from Paris for the occasion. We were not able to establish whether Vetrov already knew him from the years he spent in France, and whether he knew that Alexandre de Paul was an “honorable correspondent” of the DST as well. These are two likely possibilities since Vetrov gave Alexandre de Paul another message for Jacques Prévost. This second message was much more explicit. It contained the following words: “You must understand that this is for me a matter of life or death.”10
In fact, this second message was received by the DST at the same time as the first one.11 Raymond Nart had been promoted since Vetrov had left France. He was the head of the DST USSR section. However, he did not handle Prévost directly anymore, which caused a delay in the transmission of the first message. Nevertheless, the Vetrov file was pulled out again, and “R23” sensed immediately that the messages were an offer to collaborate.12
The possibility of a setup by the KGB was of course a consideration. Hence the importance of sending the right individual on reconnaissance.
This was logically a mission for Prévost. First, he knew Vetrov personally, so nobody else could assume his name to meet with Vladimir. Secondly, since Prévost was intimately acquainted with him, he should have had a better sense of a potential provocation. Last, being a DST honorable correspondent, he would know better how to react in case anything unexpected cropped up.
Consequently, Nart asked Prévost when he was planning to go to Moscow next. A KGB machination remaining a possibility, Jacques Prévost was understandably not keen on carrying out this mission in Russia himself. It was one thing to travel back and forth between Paris and Moscow on business; it was another to respond to an SOS message from a KGB officer! Besides, Prévost’s responsibilities had changed as well since the seventies, and he was not going to Moscow nearly as often as he used to. It was, therefore, in good conscience that Prévost told the DST that, although he still had some business in the Soviet Union and at some point would have to go back, he had no trip scheduled in the immediate future.
The tone of urgency in the message, and the fact that his service had been “a bit slow on the uptake” at the reception of the message, made Raymond Nart pursue his efforts to rapidly find another correspondent to answer Vetrov’s call.
Why not send Alexandre de Paul? He too knew Vetrov and was not an outsider. Schlumberger even had an office at the chamber of commerce in Moscow, so if he were to go back there, that would not arouse suspicion. Alexandre de Paul, however, presented the same disadvantage as Prévost, since he might have been identified as an honorable correspondent. He was thus ruled out as a candidate for the job, and his name would never come up again in this story.
In the end, the DST decided to transmit the answer to Vetrov’s message through somebody uncompromised, entirely innocent in the eyes of the KGB. Prévost is the one who suggested the name of the Thomson-CSF general delegate in Moscow. Furthermore, this individual was scheduled to go back to Moscow a few days later.
That morning of late February 1981, the man considered for the task did not suspect anything when he stepped into the office of his boss and friend Jacques Prévost. To understand the development of the story, it is important to get acquainted with this key character.