by Eric Raynaud
Furthermore, during the operation, Ameil claims he had only two meetings with the DST men, one at the beginning and the other at the end of his adventure (without ever being briefed on the basics of clandestine contacts). Consequently, after careful study and comparison of all the information available to us, we believe that all of the Ameil-Vetrov rendezvous took place between early March and mid-May of 1981.
4 During questioning by the KGB on April 10, 1984, Vetrov explained his choice: “It was convenient for me because the place is not far from my home and near the bus stop where I took the bus to work and back.”
5 The businessman Greville Wynne, a British subject, had been a liaison officer between MI6 and its mole at the GRU, Oleg Penkovsky. Arrested in Hungary, he was transferred to Moscow and sentenced to eight years imprisonment. He served only one year of his sentence, thanks to the exchange the KGB made to get back his clandestine agent Konon Molody (Gordon Lonsdale), who had already served three years in prison in Great Britain.
6 In his deposition dated April 10, 1984, Vetrov declared, “I am the one who suggested this park because I knew it well. It is halfway between my apartment and my parking garage, and I walked through it often. This park was convenient for talks; it was always peaceful, never too crowded, clean and had a lot of benches.” A good professional, Vetrov picked a place where his presence, if spotted there by chance, should not have been suspicious. In a revealing way, he omitted saying that his being in the park was even easier to justify because his wife worked at the museum. Consistent with the line of conduct he set for himself, he always tried to keep his family and his friends out of it.
Chapter 13. An Espionage Robinsonade
1 As stated, there are discrepancies on dates and certain meeting details between Vetrov’s depositions and Ameil’s memories. In the final version, Vetrov told the investigating magistrate that Ameil called him on April 12, and that they met on April 13 in front of the Beriozka. On Friday, April 17, at 19:00 he gave the Frenchman two brochures and the names of two agents. The next day at 11:00, Ameil returned a brochure already photocopied and gave him two small presents for his mistress. The following Friday, April 24, still at 19:00, Ameil brought back the second brochure and said that a week later Volodia would have a different handler. Vetrov was supposed to meet “Paul” at the same place and time (19:00) on Thursday, May 30. The details reported here are intended for future researchers. Three weekends at least were needed to photocopy the two brochures, the big file, and the last delivery.
Furthermore, Vetrov declares that he gave Ameil documents on Fridays at 19:00 and got them back on Saturdays at 11:00, always in the same park. The lead time to photocopy seems a little short. It is more likely that the Frenchman returned the documents on Sundays, as he himself recalls.
2 See the Myosotis affair in chapter 31.
3 Regarding Vetrov’s supposed loathing for espionage, Ameil told a story which ran contrary to what we know. Two engineers from his research lab, Paul Guyot and Jean-Pierre Neville, had met Vetrov when he was posted in Paris. At the time, they were both working on a “cosmic secret” project, NATO’s language used to refer to the highest degree of confidentiality. The mere fact that Vetrov was in contact with two scientists from a highly sensitive lab proves that he was a good professional on the lookout for all new French developments in his field. But the odd thing is that, at some point, he supposedly said to one of the engineers, “It’s better if we stop seeing one another, because I would eventually have to ask you to do things you should not do.” Ameil believes the story is authentic.
Chapter 14. An Easter Basket for the DST
1 This entire chapter is based on the interview of Raymond Nart and Marcel Chalet conducted by Eric Raynaud on February 3, 2003.
2 Marcel Chalet, interview by Eric Raynaud, February 5, 2003.
3 David Wise, Molehunt: The Secret Search for Traitors that Shattered the CIA (New York: Random House, 1992).
4 Chalet, Les Visiteurs de l’ombre, 155–156.
5 The relations between the Ministry of Defense and the DST were formalized a short while later. Nart asked for the help of two general inspectors from the Ministry of Defense, appointed by General Gerthen to analyze and synthesize the impressive Farewell dossier.
6 Patrick Ferrant, interview by Eric Raynaud, January 24, 2003.
7 Ibid.
8 Chalet, Les Visiteurs de l’ombre, 174.
9 The date is confirmed by the loose-leaf entry visa archived in his KGB file.
Chapter 15. A Family Affair
Source: Madeleine and Patrick Ferrant’s memories.
1 As in the case of Ameil, Vetrov gave the name “Marguerite” to his investigating magistrates at the KGB only one month after the investigation began, on October 26, 1983, apparently for the same reason. Having learned the ropes as a prisoner, he knew that each new detail, each new episode revealed during the investigation was one more step down a spiral he could not extricate himself from. He told the details of the “Marguerite” episode only during the questioning sessions on February 9 and 10, and March 1, 1984. Meanwhile, they told him when he had accessed “such or such” Directorate T document, which helped establish the exact schedule of his meetings with Madeleine Ferrant.
2 This date is corroborated by information in Khinshtein’s article, “The Lubyanka Werewolf.”
3 For the shell description, information came from Igor Prelin, interview by Sergei Kostin, March 30, 2007, and from Khinshtein, “The Lubyanka Werewolf.”
4 Yet, Vetrov told the investigating magistrates (deposition report dated October 26, 1983) that he did not drive around as a precaution. Apparently, he lied; otherwise, why would he have wasted his time when he was supposed to be at work at that time of the day? The rest of his statement is, nevertheless, striking. It conveys Vetrov’s personality and frame of mind at a critical time in his life. “Of course,” he wrote in his deposition, “it occurred to me that Marguerite might be tailed and that I could fall in the KGB’s field of vision. But I dismissed this idea as Paul and Marguerite said she was not under surveillance.”
5 Regarding this meeting, we went with the interview with Patrick Ferrant conducted by Eric Raynaud on January 24, 2003, and Vetrov’s depositions during questioning on October 26, 1983.
6 Vetrov confessed this during questioning on February 9, 1984.
7 Igor Prelin, interview by Sergei Kostin, March 30, 2007.
Chapter 16. Three Presidents: Mitterrand, Reagan, and Victor Kalinin
1 Chalet, Les Visiteurs de l’ombre, 180.
2 Marcel Chalet, interview by Eric Raynaud, February 5, 2003.
3 Ibid.
4 Quoted by Jean Guisnel and Bernard Violet in Services secrets: Le pouvoir et les services de renseignements sous la présidence de François Mitterrand (Paris: La Découverte, 1988), 41–43.
5 Marcel Chalet, interview by Eric Raynaud, February 5, 2003.
6 Eric Merlen and Frédéric Ploquin, Les Carnets intimes de la DST (Paris: Fayard, 2003), 182.
7 On June 23, four Communist Party executives were appointed in his government of “Union of the Left”: Charles Fiterman (Transport), Marcel Rigout (Vocational Training), Jack Ralite (Health), and Anicet le Pors (Civil Service).
8 Wolton, Le KGB en France, 403.
9 Guisnel and Violet, Services secrets, 290.
10 Ibid.
11 Patrick Ferrant, interview by Eric Raynaud, March 12, 2009.
12 Raymond Nart, interview by Eric Raynaud, February 5, 2003.
13 Marcel Chalet, interview by Eric Raynaud, February 5, 2003.
14 Reported by Jacques Attali, Verbatim (Paris: Fayard, 1993).
15 Besides, Marcel Chalet readily admits that “understanding and mining the data provided by Farewell was significantly beyond the DST competence” (Les Visiteurs de l’ombre, 219).
16 Ibid., 182.
17 Ibid., 219.
Chapter 17. “Touring” Moscow
Source: Patrick Ferrant’s memories.
1 With qualifications. As in Ameil’s case, we tend to think that the testimony of his French handlers is more credible than Vetrov’s depositions during the investigation. Refer to note 1, chapter 13.
2 During the initial questioning by the KGB, in particular on September 30, 1983, Vetrov claimed that he would go to the rendezvous taking no special precautions. However, he carefully observed “Paul” approaching the museum, to make sure he was not tailed. Later, in the spring of 1984, Vetrov declared, though, that “every once in a while” he did follow a security route in the area, and he offered to show the investigating magistrates that route. Having been escorted to the meeting area, Vetrov walked with the magistrates for over an hour down the security route, which is why we can provide a drawing of it. Ferrant, however, thinks this route is too elaborate. In reality, precautionary measures were much more basic.
3 Vetrov quoted this letter from memory during the second criminal investigation. An excerpt has also been reproduced in a documentation that we could access, compiled in-house by the DST about the Farewell case. The following excerpt is not part of it, which is significant since it is about the mole’s compensation, but it is Vetrov’s handwriting: “You are asking why I took this step. I could explain it this way: I like France very much, a country that marked my soul deeply. In my own country I see how, in general, people live according to the “It’s a dog-eat-dog world,” principle, which I find appalling.
“I am in a position to regularly give you secret scientific and technical intelligence material, in particular about aerospace. [A list follows.] In payment for my services, I would like to receive thirty or forty thousand rubles a year.”
In Alexander Khinshtein’s article, “The Lubyanka Werewolf,” one can find this same letter in a slightly different version: “To me, France is neither a country nor a nation. It is the ideals expressed in these three words: liberty, equality, fraternity.” Khinshtein also gives a date for this message, December 9, 1982.
4 Refer to their facsimile reproduction in Chalet, Les Visiteurs de l’ombre, Appendix II, p. 377. Regarding the list, the following story is connected to it.
After dealing its heavy blow with the expulsion of forty-seven Soviet citizens, the DST, it is said, thought about spreading more confusion in the enemy’s organization, out of its direct reach. According to Guisnel and Violet, the DST would have written letters to all the Directorate T officers whose names and home addresses had been transmitted by Farewell (Services secrets, 220–221). Those letters, in Russian or in French, typed or handwritten, would have been mailed to those officers from different countries. Some contained offers to collaborate with the DST, and others pretended to turn down offers made to the DST by the addressees. Lastly, in the height of refinement, some envelopes were empty. French counterintelligence thought that part of the mail would be opened by the KGB, and the rest would be brought by the addressees to their PGU superiors. Whatever the scenario, they would have to go through unpleasant explanations, difficult to believe, especially for those who would have received an empty envelope. To be successful the vicious trick had to severely disorganize the activities of Directorate T, which would be forced to doubt each and every one of its officers.
However, this story is undeniably false. Among the witnesses Kostin interviewed, all from this PGU directorate, none had received such letters or even heard about them. This “information leak” amplified by journalists would thus have been only an attempt by the DST at increasing its credibility within the French public regarding its ability to pull off operations of some intellectual sophistication.
5 Raymond Nart, interview by Eric Raynaud, March 18, 2009.
6 Vetrov claimed during the investigation that the rendezvous with “Paul” lasted only ten to twelve minutes, except the one in December. This is obviously not true.
7 Chalet, Les Visiteurs de l’ombre, 175.
8 Patrick Ferrant, interview by Eric Raynaud, February 27, 2003.
9 See Chalet’s account: “We asked him how he envisioned his defection to the West. He answered that we’d talk about it later. He insisted on staying inside the system” (Les Visiteurs de l’ombre, 177).
10 Raymond Nart, interview by Eric Raynaud, March 18, 2009.
Chapter 18. Two Men in a Lada, and a New World Order
Source: Patrick Ferrant, interviews by Eric Raynaud, February 24, 27, and 29, 2003.
1 Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story of Its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev (New York: HarperCollins, 1990), 583–585.
Chapter 19. The Lull Before the Storm
1 Chalet, Les Visiteurs de l’ombre, 175.
2 Subcompact vehicles manufactured in Zaporozhye, Ukraine. Their name was often altered as jokes “Zhoporozhets” (“zhopa” meaning “butt,” “ass,” “bottom,” and “rozhatj” meaning “giving birth” in Russian), an “asshole delivered car,” somehow. Ukrainians referred to it as “Zapor” (meaning “constipation”).
Chapter 20. Vladik
Source: Vladislav Vetrov’s memories.
1 Raymond Nart, interview by Eric Raynaud, March 18, 2009.
Chapter 21. February 22
1 According to the unique KGB source, namely Vetrov’s deposition during the second investigation, his last rendezvous with “Paul” took place in December 1981, before Ferrant left for the Christmas holidays. The French officer, however, is categorical: he spent the holidays with his family in Moscow, and the last rendezvous with Vetrov was on January 26, 1982. It must also be recalled that they had scheduled a meeting for February 23.
2 The Moscow River [Moskova] is indeed not far from that area. The river water was clean coming into the capital. This was almost at the edge of the village of Ekaterinovka, which was already then part of Moscow.
Chapter 22. A Not So Radiant Future
Source: Memories of people close to the Vetrovs and to Ludmila Ochikina.
1 Ludmila Ochikina, interview by Sergei Kostin. Curiously, Alexander Khinshtein, in “The Lubyanka Werewolf,” reports a different version, apparently in Vetrov’s criminal file: “On the evening of February 22, Tatiana Grishina, living in the village of Ekaterinovka, near Moscow, heard a woman screaming. She opened her gate and saw a woman covered with blood. ‘I am from the KGB. Call the police, quick, call an ambulance. Somebody tried to kill me.’”
2 It was Kramarenko, the detective from the GAI First Division (Khinshtein, “The Lubyanka Werewolf”).
3 Vladimir Kryuchkov, interview by Sergei Kostin, March 26, 2007.
4 Khinshtein, “The Lubyanka Werewolf.”
5 Peter Marwitz (in an e-mail message to Sergei Kostin, December 1, 1997) claims that Krivich was not at all a passerby, but also a KGB officer, and also Ludmila’s lover. He would have followed the couple to the parking area, and would have intervened when he realized there was a fight going on inside Vetrov’s car. This version seems to us extravagant, and we are reporting it only out of scrupulousness. In our opinion, it weakens other comments made by Marwitz. The special interest Canadian secret services seem to have in this crime in its slightest details is quite intriguing.
Chapter 23. A Woman to Stone
Sources: Memories of our witnesses from the PGU; Svetlana Vetrova’s memories.
1 Igor Prelin, interview by Sergei Kostin, March 30, 2007.
2 Ibid.
3 Quoted by Vitaly Karavashkin during a meeting with Sergei Kostin in the summer of 1995.
4 Igor Prelin, interview by Sergei Kostin, March 30, 2007.
Chapter 24. Confession of an Outcast
Sources: Ludmila Ochikina’s testimony, Vetrov’s investigation file, memories of people close to Vetrov, and Vetrov’s colleagues’ memories.
1 According to Khinshtein in “The Lubyanka Werewolf,” Ochikina presented “cuts near the left temple, and in the internal side of her right thumb with a severed tendon” (resulting from the blow on her head with the champagne bottle and from her struggling against the pique), but more impor
tantly “a perforating wound above the left shoulder blade entering the pleural cavity” (caused by the pique).
Chapter 25. A Jail for the Privileged
Source: Valery Rechensky’s account.
1 Marchenko died in 2005.
2 Vladimir Kryuchkov, interview by Sergei Kostin, March 26, 2007.
3 Igor Prelin, interview by Sergei Kostin, March 27, 2007.
Chapter 26. The Trial
1 Here is another episode. Svetlana was in the hallway when Ochikina came out of the courtroom, along with the woman who had found her that night, more dead than alive. According to Svetlana, the woman was beside herself, and she said to Ludmila, “I regret the day I bumped into you. He should have finished you off.” We do not know if credence should be given to these memories; we report them out of scrupulousness. If other circumstances were revealed, they might shed some light on this incident.