by Eric Raynaud
The other agent named by Vetrov was a French national who worked for Texas Instruments. Additionally, Vladimir handed over two brochures to Ameil to photocopy over the weekend. Vetrov had to bring them back to the KGB the following Monday.1
Ameil had already thought about the way he would photocopy the documents. From the start, he had decided not to mention Volodia to anyone. It was out of the question to contact the embassy for logistical help. At the time, he had even been told by Prévost never to go to the embassy except for sending mail in the diplomatic pouch. The primary rule at the multinational company Thomson was to keep its distance. Its representatives had privileged contacts with Soviet ministers, which could make embassy functionaries envious, and the company did not always view things the same way diplomats did. Also, Ameil was convinced that no one at the embassy knew how to keep a secret. Little did he know then how right he was!2
He found a better solution. There were few distractions in Moscow on weekends, so Ameil used to go work at the office in the afternoons. The chamber of commerce staff was accustomed to seeing him on weekends, particularly the orderly posted at the entrance who had to report to the KGB any unusual comings and goings. Alone in the Thomson facility, Xavier could use the opportunity to get the big Xerox going and make photocopies continuously for two or three hours. In fact, Ameil, who had no special instruction in the field of intelligence, had to invent everything as he went, like Robinson Crusoe on his desert island. Of course one half of the job was done by a professional agent—Vetrov. Precisely because he was a professional, Vetrov could not imagine that he was dealing with an amateur. Over the period during which their meetings took place, Vetrov never asked Ameil how he duplicated and transmitted the documents to Paris.
For his part, Xavier never thought of consulting his source on how to solve the practical issues he would encounter from time to time. He trusted his common sense, his experience of life, and his good luck. The operating mode was very “artisanal,” as his wife Claude would put it later. Yet, it seems absolutely incredible that an amateur could achieve this tour de force of handling a mole of this stature in a police state. Three circumstances allowed Ameil to cross the minefield his life was in Moscow in March and April 1981 unharmed: his decision, from the very start, to act alone, his reputation as a man who had no link with clandestine activities, and above all, his incredible luck.
On his way to a rendezvous with Vetrov, Ameil took none of the customary precautions. He did not check to see if he was followed by somebody hiding his face behind a newspaper. He was right. The ability to detect a possible surveillance is a skill one acquires with professional training. Without training, it is useless and dangerous to attract the attention of those watching, invisible to the novice.
So far, the copying issues had been solved. However, at the next meeting, which took place around March 20, Vetrov brought a very thick binder, containing at least two hundred pages. It must have been the famous Smirnov file. Smirnov was the head of the Military Industrial Commission (VPK by its Russian initials). This file made it possible to reconstruct the entire technology intelligence system using documents signed by the highest Soviet functionaries, headed by Andropov, still the chairman of the KGB at the time. To photocopy each paper, one needed to open the binder, take the document out, duplicate it, put it back, get the next document, and so on. Xavier realized that he could not do this by himself.
Claude often went to the office on Saturday or Sunday afternoons to keep her husband company. A secretary by training, she helped him with sorting the mail, typed letters he dictated, and made photocopies. Up to that moment, Xavier had not said a thing to his wife about the adventure he had embarked upon.
For good reasons. As soon as they had arrived in Moscow in 1979, Claude felt the atmosphere was laden with suspicion. Like many other French people, she became convinced that they were constantly watched, followed, and tapped. She was especially annoyed that nobody knew what was allowed and what was prohibited, so you never knew if you were committing some offense. “We never felt we were allowed to breathe deeply,” she remembers. For that reason, Claude had made it clear to her husband: “Xavier, I am warning you. If you get involved in some kind of an espionage business, I’ll pack my suitcase and leave.”
Such was their personal agreement. Obviously, Xavier had no interest in telling her about his activities, but now he had to. Besides, hiding things from his wife weighed heavy upon him. This was not the nature of their relationship.
An insignificant event prompted him. It happened that Xavier was supposed to call Volodia. He parked the car not far from a telephone booth and went in to call. The Vetrovs’ number was busy, so he had to try again before going back home with Claude. He had to explain why he did not want to call Volodia from their apartment. Xavier got back in the Renault, buckled up, but did not start the car until he was finished telling her the whole story.
Fourteen years later, as she was feeding their two huge, affectionate watchdogs, Claude hesitated before answering the question of why she did not carry out her threat to leave.
“I don’t know. I thought my personal interest had to take second place.”
She also felt that something out of the ordinary was happening to them, something exciting that could be useful to their country and to the West as a whole. What made her change her mind, most of all, was the list indicating the names of French individuals collaborating with the KGB, with Bourdiol among them. She was appalled by traitors.
Thus, Claude agreed to spend an entire Sunday afternoon at the Thomson-CSF office to help her husband copy the thick file. They continued into a good part of the evening, but they could not see the end of the cursed documents. Exhausted, the couple reluctantly went home after copying about a hundred and fifty pages out of two hundred. This would be the only delivery Ameil could not complete entirely.
Now he had another major problem to address: the delivery. He had sent the first letter to Prévost in the diplomatic pouch. To send copies of certain files, Ameil took advantage of a Thomson-CSF delegation returning to Paris, having VIPs exempted from going through customs. However, Xavier made sure not to leave any personal messages in the two thick envelopes addressed to Jacques Prévost in case something went wrong and they were intercepted.
This time around, he had no immediate solution to ship the copy of the big binder. So, against Prévost’s advice, he went to the embassy to meet with an employee of the Trade Division. He invented a story about a fictitious call for bid for a terrestrial network. Although, as a rule, the Thomson-CSF representative was not allowed to send documents, only letters, the thick sealed envelope containing the binder copy nevertheless left Moscow that way. When more company VIP delegations came to Moscow, the shipping issue got solved through them.
During his entire “career” as a liaison agent, Ameil acted by instinct. He was limited by not being fluent in Russian. He could say “hello” and “thank you,” and he could decipher the street and subway station names. He was taking huge risks in transmitting the documents received from Vetrov since he had no certainty of their value. For example, because of Ameil’s inability to read technical Russian, Vetrov could have as well given him brochures on how to train good accountants, or the mail from a health spa. Vetrov’s organization, like all Soviet official services, was obsessed with secrecy, and could have stamped “KGB” and “Secret” even on trivial documents.
The excitement of the first rendezvous had passed. At the appointed time, Ameil drove by the Borodino Battle Museum and turned right onto Year 1812 Street, perpendicular to Kutuzov Avenue. He parked his car and, at a leisurely pace, walked along the park to get in Vetrov’s dark blue Lada. The two men exchanged small talk.
Vetrov’s candor encouraged Ameil to ask the question that had been bothering him from the beginning: “Why are you doing this?”
Vetrov answered willingly. He was disgusted by the Soviet spying system, and he wanted to destroy it. During the course of the conversa
tion, Ameil sensed that Volodia was very unhappy with the service he worked for, and Ameil detected a desire for revenge. But Vetrov’s supposed hatred for the Soviet regime was never mentioned.
Volodia even made a suggestion so vindictive that it shocked his French handler.
“Give me research topics that you already know will lead nowhere. I’ll mention them so ‘ours’ start working furiously at them uselessly.”3
On the next Friday, as strange as this may seem, he, the amateur, made the following remark to the professional operative: “You’re not being very careful. You don’t check whether you’re being tailed.”
Vetrov answered in a typically Russian fatalistic way: “Doesn’t matter.”
Then he turned to the back seat and grabbed a plastic bag containing the biggest secrets of Soviet scientific and technical espionage. Ameil placed the bag under his arm, shook hands with Volodia, and strolled back to his car.
One can’t help smiling when listening to Ameil recounting the events, imagining documents about to contribute to the collapse of the regime, carried around so nonchalantly, in the heart of the communist fortress.
“Yes, that’s the way it was,” said Ameil. “This is precisely why it worked so well. We were not taking any precautions.”
Vetrov gave Ameil the impression of being a frank, sincere, and pleasant man. Contrary to what the KGB would claim later, the Russian never brought up the question of his compensation to his first French liaison agent.
Very soon, though, Vetrov abruptly asked if Ameil could bring him a bottle of whiskey. In those days, it was already almost impossible to find half a liter of vodka, so whiskey was a challenge! Thus Ameil, who knew about Soviet citizens’ difficult life and was familiar with their custom to offer little gifts to their friends, would bring Vladimir a bottle of hard liquor to almost each rendezvous. Even so, Volodia did not give him the impression of being an alcoholic. Apparently, Vetrov was making every effort not to reveal to his French handler his pressing urgency to drink.
Soon Vetrov talked about his mistress and the presents he needed to give her. The year was 1981, a time when a Western T-shirt was still a rare find, sought after and appreciated. At the next meeting, Ameil brought everything he had available, a calculator and an electrical alarm clock.
On another occasion, Vetrov asked the Frenchman to buy a few jewelry items for him. Ameil, let us not forget, was acting on his own initiative and paying out of his own pocket for the time being. So he bought costume jewelry, a ring and a necklace, in a Beriozka. Vetrov liked it; he was easy to please.
According to Claude Ameil, her husband was never particularly worried or nervous. He seemed completely normal the whole time he was handling Vetrov. This was also an extremely busy time at the office. Since he had acted on the principle that he could not be suspected of anything, he actually enjoyed a genuine peace of mind with a positive and adventuresome attitude. His wife thought otherwise, believing that he was reckless at times, considering the few precautions he took while dealing with Vetrov.
As a couple, they had their biggest scare at the end of April 1981. With the upcoming May Day celebrations, a two-day holiday in the USSR, and with the possibility to extend this holiday with a few extra days, the couple decided to travel to Central Asia for a short vacation. Just before the planned date for their trip, Vetrov brought a new file. Ameil had the time to photocopy the documents and return them to Vladimir, but there was no possibility to ship the photocopies to France. On the eve of their departure to Central Asia, Xavier was left with this pile of dynamite on his lap.
What to do with it? The Thomson-CSF general delegate did not have a safe in his office, only drawers with a lock. Was it advisable to leave the explosive documents in one of those drawers? They had always been left unlocked so far. The mere fact of locking them now would attract the attention of the numerous KGB-penetrated office staff, who were many in the Thomson delegation facility. It was out of the question to leave the documents at the embassy or with a friend. Should they cancel the trip? No way! They deserved some rest after those eventful weeks.
On the way to the airport, in their car, Xavier had not made up his mind yet.
“What about leaving the stuff in the trunk?” he suggested to his wife.
“Xavier, have you lost your mind?” she protested. “What if the car is broken into or stolen in the parking lot?”
The pleasure trip turned into an ordeal. From Alma-Ata to Tashkent, visiting the sumptuous monuments in Samarkand or touring the ancient town of Bukhara, Ameil never let go of a briefcase he carried under his arm. When going to the bathroom, he entrusted it only to his wife. At night, he kept the briefcase under his pillow.
What is even more astonishing, when boarding the plane to Paris in early May, Ameil still had the briefcase under his arm. As he stood in front of the Soviet customs officer checking his things through the X-ray machine, he was congratulating himself for not having placed the documents in his suitcase. He preferred to focus his thoughts on that point rather than trying to anticipate what he would do if asked to open the briefcase. “Reckless” maybe, but he was very aware of the risk he took.
On May 11, the day after the presidential elections and François Mitterrand’s victory, Ameil went to his second meeting with the DST executives. This time, Rouault (“the killer”) was with his boss, Raymond Nart. The two spy hunters listened very carefully to Xavier’s account of the various episodes of his “Robinsonade.” Unlike Ameil, they already knew the exceptional value of the documents he had sent them. The tone of the conversation was very businesslike. There was no congratulation or praise, only a discussion about the measures to be taken in the future.
They had already thought about what to do with their innocent lamb who had changed into a fox. It was now clear that the task was too dangerous even for a gifted amateur! Nart announced to Ameil that a professional would take over from him. He could not give his name. He vaguely described him as a military man posted at the French embassy, a man he knew well and trusted completely, who had been in Moscow for a while.
“You’re talking about Ferrant?” asked Ameil spontaneously.
Nart was stunned.
“You know him?”
“Yes, very well.”
The French embassy staff was not that big. Claude was the one who had contacts there. She worked at the library, and Madeleine, Patrick Ferrant’s wife, was among the regulars. Both women hit it off. After that, the two couples invited one another over for dinner several times.
So Nart asked Ameil for a last service. The Thomson representative had no objection to introducing Ferrant to Volodia when he returned to Moscow.
Ameil was thus replaced, but in the event of the operation failing, his safety could be in jeopardy. Nart offered to give diplomatic passports to Xavier and Claude. This way, in a worst-case scenario, they could only be faced with expulsion from the Soviet Union. After giving it some thought, Ameil turned down the offer. It might attract attention to them, and from them the KGB could trace back to Volodia. Then, bad debts making bad friends, Nart insisted on reimbursing Ameil for the expenses he had in Moscow for Vetrov’s benefit.
Nart gave his word to Xavier, who was grateful for it, not to exploit the information provided by Vetrov before the Ameils returned to Paris for good. In any case, for the operation to continue, they could not act otherwise. A few measures were taken immediately. For instance, Bourdiol was transferred to another job that he could view as a promotion, although it did not give him the same access to confidential information. The main point, assured Nart, was that there would be no arrests and no expulsions of KGB members, nothing that could arouse suspicion within Soviet counterintelligence.
Ameil was relieved to put an end to this episode of his life. Not only because of the risks he was taking, but also because he was bothered about having drawn his company into this espionage story. Jacques Prévost had even informed the CEO of Thomson-CSF, Jean-Pierre Bouyssonie, of the situation, with
the vague declaration, “With the DST, we got involved reluctantly in an affair of paramount importance for the security of France and the West as a whole. Can we continue?” A good patriot, the head of Thomson-CSF gave his consent.
Considering his activities, Ameil was also uneasy with his Soviet staff and his Soviet business partners. While he knew that some of them were obliged to report him to the KGB, he was annoyed with himself for having betrayed their trust by helping his own country’s secret service. Whichever way we look at it, and in spite of the tremendous advantage France gained from the Farewell dossier, the consensus is that the reputation of Thomson-CSF in the Soviet Union was damaged by this affair.
During his trips to Paris, Ameil had a few more contacts with DST officials in charge of the dossier. The purpose of those meetings was either to provide more precise information regarding a point or another in his reports, or to clarify an aspect of Volodia’s personality. He thus met again with Nart, who managed the operation, with his deputy Rouault, and later with Yves Bonnet, nominated as the head of the DST in December 1982. Ameil was never granted the honor of meeting with Marcel Chalet, who had been overseeing the operation.
As for Volodia, Ameil saw him once more, on May 15, 1981, to brief him about the first contact with Patrick Ferrant, his successor. During their previous rendezvous, at the end of April, Xavier had mentioned that another person would take over, more qualified for this type of operation. Vetrov had understood perfectly, and feeling the operation was about to become more professional, he had used the opportunity to draw up the ideal profile of the person to send for the initial contact. “It should be a woman, if at all possible. The best would be to meet her at the Cheryomushki market, on Fridays. It is a very busy place, but I’ll recognize her without difficulty.”