Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (5 page)

Vassiliev's notebooks contain direct quotes from KGB archival files and
his own summaries of material in the files. Quotations from the archival
files were recorded in his notebooks inside double quotation marks. Occasionally, the closing quote marks were omitted, but the formatting of
the notes usually made the ending point obvious. Note than even in direct quotations, Vassiliev used abbreviations for repetitive names or
terms. These abbreviations in a translated form are retained in quotations from the notebooks in this volume. Summaries were recorded without quotation marks in the Vassiliev notebooks.

Readers need to be attentive to what is a quotation of a Vassiliev summary of a KGB archival document and what is a quotation of Vassiliev's
direct quotation from an archival document. This volume quotes from
Vassiliev's notebooks. Thus, when material from a notebook is quoted that
is Vassiliev's summary, it is, if brief, inside double quotation marks or, if
of sufficient length, in an indented quote without any quotation marks.
However, when material from a notebook was itself quoted from the
archival document and is in double quotation marks in the notebook, it is, if brief, inside double quotation marks and single quotations marks. Sample: "`Meanwhile, `Liberal' [Julius Rosenberg] did not meet with any of
his probationers [sources] for io days."' Or, if of sufficient length, the
material is in an indented quote with double quotation marks in the indented text. Sample:

"Meanwhile, `Liberal' [Julius Rosenberg] did not meet with any of his probationers [sources] for io days. `Liberal' and `Caliber' [David Greenglass] subsequently met at his mother-in-law's apartment, that is, `Caliber's' mother, b/c
`Liberal's' wife and `Caliber' are brother and sister. After speaking with `Caliber'
and receiving confirmation of his agreement to send us information known to
him about the work being done in camp No. z [Los Alamos], `Liberal' gave him
a list of questions to which it would be preferable to get a reply. These were
general questions to determine the type of work being done there."

Some of the passages that are not within quotation marks in the notebooks read as if they were direct quotations, and they may be. Readers
should keep in mind that Vassiliev wrote the notebooks to assist his research for a book and not with the anticipation that they would one day
constitute a primary source. Consequently, they contain notes to himself,
marginal annotations, grammatical shortcuts, and abbreviations. Also his
conventions for recording certain types of documents changed as he better understood the material. Underscored material in the notebooks
when quoted is converted to italic text.

Transliteration of Cyrillic-alphabet Russian names and titles will use the
BGN/PCGN system. This system is familiar to many American readers
because it is used by major newspapers. In many publications a simplified
form of the system is used to render English versions of Russian names,
typically converting e to yo, simplifying -iy and -yy endings to -y. That
convention will be used here. However, when a name is well established
in the literature under a different transliteration system, the more familiar variation will be used.

Supporters of Leon Trotsky referred to themselves as "Trotskyists,"
while American Communists derisively called them "Trotskyites." The
distinction does not exist in the Russian language, but in conformity with
American practice, the Russian term is translated as "Trotskyites" when
used by American Communists or Russians. In unquoted text the more
neutral "Trotskyist" is used.

In the summer of 1993, I got a buzz from Yury Kobaladze, press officer of
the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) of the Russian Federation, at my
desk at the Komsomolskaya Pravda, the daily where I worked as a columnist. I was writing mostly on international topics and espionage, and several
days earlier I had published a story that mentioned some operations of the
Soviet KGB, SVR's predecessor. Kobaladze invited me to his office at 13
Kolpachny Street, not far from Lubyanka Square, and I gladly accepted. I
anticipated some dressing down about my latest article, but it didn't bother
me much. I was looking forward to meeting Yury, who had a reputation as
a nice person and bon vivant among the Moscow press corps.

When I arrived, Yuiy made it clear he didn't care much about my article. Instead, he invited me to take part in a book project. Crown Publishers, a subsidiary of Random House, and the Association of Retired
Intelligence Officers (ARIO) of the KGB had signed an agreement to
publish five books based on top secret archival documents of the KGB.
There would be books on the Cuban crisis; the murder of Leon Trotsky;
and Soviet espionage operations in the United States, Britain, and West
Berlin. Each book was supposed to be written by an American and a
Russian author. Crown was to choose the American authors, and Yury
was in the process of picking writers on the Russian side. He wanted me to work on the book dealing with Soviet espionage in the United States
in the 193os and 1940s.

My initial intention was to say "No, thank you, I've got to run." I liked
writing about espionage and had nothing against Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, but I didn't want to be involved in "a project" of any special service in any country, even if it was called "a book project." I was
quite happy with my professional life at the moment: in addition to being
an international columnist for a newspaper with a daily circulation of
more than twenty million, I hosted political programs on the first channel, the most heavily watched channel on Russian television. I wasn't a
celebrity but intended to become one very soon. To soften my negative
answer, I asked if this was a serious project or some kind of "active measure" cooked up by the intelligence service. Yury insisted that the SVR
wanted to have a true history of Soviet intelligence operations. There
were dozens of books on this subject, all written by Western scholars, all
based only on the material available in the West. But that was just a small
part of the whole story. If I accepted, I would be receiving real files and
researching them. Of course, I would not get everything for the book,
but I would be given "a lot." Kobaladze seemed honest. I said I would
have to think about it.

There is an alleged Chinese curse, quite popular in the United States:
may you live in interesting times. Under Boris Yeltsin all Russians lived
in such times. A few people became billionaires while millions of their
compatriots were starving. As for me, I could get a chance to read top
secret KGB files and be a part of an exciting enterprise. Besides, it
wouldn't hurt to have a serious book on my journalistic vitae. Several days
later I called Yury Kobaladze back and said I was ready to start.

Things moved quickly. In the fall of 1993 I signed my contract with
Crown and met my American co-author, Allen Weinstein. He gave me his
book Perjury and asked me to be on the lookout for Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers in the files. I promised to do so. I quit my TV job. As a
columnist, I had flexible hours and the right not to come to the office
every day, and I used these privileges with gusto. In early 1994 I started
working with the files at the SVR press bureau at 13 Kolpachny Street.

There were two questions to which I had to find answers on my own
because I didn't want to make Kobaladze think again about the desirability of the project or his choice of me. First question: why me? I wasn't a
scholar, and I had no ties to the SVR, although I had once worked for the
KGB. In fact, my life story should have kept Yury from dealing with me.

I concluded, first, that they needed a person with writing experience, which I had, and second, that they needed a person with at least a theoretical knowledge of espionage tradecraft in order both to read the KGB
files and to understand them. I could do that since I had the relevant
background. Third, as far as I knew, Yevgeny Primakov, then the SVR director, wanted to have civilian writers in the Russian group. By that time
I had been a civilian for more than three years. In addition, my personal
acquaintance with Primakov probably helped. I had met him in the early
19gos, when he was an adviser to President Mikhail Gorbachev.

Second question: why was the project being done? There were suggestions in the U.S. media that the SVR had agreed to the project for the
money. I have never read the contract between Crown and ARIO. I've
heard that the American publisher's money was for veteran Soviet operatives, but I don't think it was the huge amount some publications have
reported (some people were terribly wrong about the sum I had received). If the SVR had intended to help the veterans, that would have
been totally understandable. To put it mildly, the Yeltsin government
treated Soviet retirees like garbage-their savings evaporated in "financial reforms," and their pensions gave them just the chance to survive.
So why not give Soviet intelligence veterans part of the money received
for the books on events in which they had played a major role?

The money factor, however, probably wasn't the main reason for the
project. The SVR top brass, or at least some of it, was quite enthusiastic
about getting a true history of Soviet intelligence operations, and Primakov was a historian himself. It was hard to believe, but no one had
done any historical research in those files before!

And there was another factor that also had to do with Yeltsin's era.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian special services, which
inherited the tasks and methods of the infamous KGB, were not the most
popular organizations in the country. Some liberal journalists suggested
getting rid of the Foreign Intelligence Service and asking the American
CIA to spy for both the United States and Russia since the two countries
had become "allies" and their leaders called each other "Boris" and "Bill."
At the same time the liberal part of public opinion in Russia wanted to
open all the secret files, just as had been done in East Germany.

The book project gave the SVR a chance to tell about its history to the
Russian taxpayer and answer the demand to open the files by saying, "But
we are opening the files! Just give us time." From various points of view
the book project was a brilliant idea, and I was glad to be part of it. But
it was so unusual that more than once I thought that if I had been a member of the SVR leadership, I would have opposed it. And I would never have given access to the KGB secret files to a civilian journalist. Why?
I'm not sure, but perhaps my KGB training was influencing me.

In 1983, at the beginning of my fifth year as a student in the international section of the faculty of journalism at Moscow State University, I
received an offer to work for "a government agency that often sends its
employees abroad." It didn't take me much time to guess what that
meant, and I said, "Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!" It was my dream to be a Soviet spy.

The vetting process started, and I was "clean": no Jews in either my
background or my wife's, no relatives abroad, already a member of the Soviet Communist Party, high marks on exams, three foreign languages, no
dissident inclinations, no dirty jokes about members of the Soviet leadership, no heavy drinking. Plus I was going to get a degree in international journalism, and that profession was considered the best cover for
an intelligence officer. However, my recruiting officers wanted me to
work for a year in the Soviet media after my graduation to get journalistic experience. While a student, I had worked as a freelancer for Soviet
radio, but that wasn't enough, and in 1984 I joined the international department of Komsornolskaya Pravda. I worked there for a year, and at
the end of the summer of 1985 I was officially drafted into the Soviet
armed forces as an officer in reserve. That was a cover, and it didn't work;
somehow my colleagues knew where I was going and smiled at me knowingly when I tried to complain how unlucky I was. In the fall of 1985 I became a student at the Andropov Red Banner Institute of the KGB-the
spy school. First of all, they sent us new recruits to the Bolgrad airborne
division for commando training for a month, and after we came back, we
began studying the espionage craft. I believe spies in all major countries
train the same way, so if you are interested in the details, just ask your CIA
friend, and he or she will tell you everything.

Two years later I graduated from the institute and joined the U.S. department of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB. I was on cloud nine:
not only was I going to work in the KGB intelligence directorate, but I
was also going to be an operative in the most elite unit-the American
department!

Then the most boring thirty months of my life started, and I believe
I should thank Aldrich Ames for that. In the mid-198os Ames, a CIA officer recruited by the KGB, betrayed about a dozen people who were cooperating with the CIA, among them several KGB officers who were
working in various departments having to do with the United States. They
were arrested and most of them executed. The atmosphere in the U.S.
department was very tense. Young officers, including myself, were treated with the customary respect, but we felt we were not trusted. The exposure and arrest of our colleagues was explained the following way: one of
the CIA sources in the KGB lost a lighter that contained a mini-camera.
That traitor was promptly found, and the results of his interrogation
helped to catch the others. Let it be a good lesson to you, kids.

During the two and a half years I spent in the U.S. department I
never heard the name of Aldrich Ames. As a matter of fact, I never heard
the name of any KGB source or even that of a significant acquaintance of
our officers in Washington, New York, or San Francisco. Having spent
five years at Moscow University, a month in a commando unit, and two
years in the KGB spy school, I was now shuffling meaningless papers and
reading articles about U.S. foreign and domestic policy in readily available
American journals. Meanwhile, perestroika and glasnost were taking root
in the Soviet Union. During the First Congress of People's Deputies in
1989 the U.S. department almost stopped working; everyone, including
our bosses, was listening to live radio broadcasts from the congress. Every
day we discussed articles in liberal newspapers and magazines or last
night's TV shows, whose authors were saying things unimaginable even a
year before. Obviously any place outside the fence of the First Chief Directorate's headquarters in Yassenevo was more exciting, and the most
exciting profession was journalism.