Red Smoke, Commie Mirrors Revealing the Ultimate Soviet Plot 11) S By George Lardner Jr.

HE COLD WAR isn't over for Anatoly Golitsyn. Since last summer's failed coup in Moscow, he has been T churning out memos for the CIA, warning them of what he regards as the true import of the tumultuous events taking place in the former Soviet Union. It is all "pretense," he says—an elaborate exercise in strategic deception, designed to gull the West into embracing what is still an evil empire, still run behind the scenes by communist ideologues. Mikhail Gorbachev is in on the scheme. And so, too, says Golitsyn, is Boris Yelt- sin. "At the end, when they win," Golitsyn declares, they [will] get rid of capital- ists forever." Golitsyn, you may remember, is the KGB defector whose assertions about Soviet moles at Langley once threw the CIA into a turmoil. The great mole hunt, actively pursued by the late CIA counterintelligence chief James J. An- gleton, Golitsyn's indefatigable sponsor, PETER ALSBERR -THE WASHINGTON POST lasted more than a decade, but never unearthed a single mole at the agency. According to the recently published "Cold Warrior" by Toni Mangold, a detailed study of Angleton's work, Golitsyn was actually a "minor and undistinguished KGB officer" whose paranoid finger pointing ruined the careers of many of the CIA's finest officers anc blackened the credentials of genuine Soviet defectors who threat- ened his standing. Since he was not quoted in the book, I asked to see him to get hi s side of the story. For only the second time since his defection almost 30 years ago, (he sat down with New York Times columnist Willian- Safire recently) he consented to an interview—but only to discus: See GOLffSYN, C4, Col 1 George Lardner jr. is a Washington Past reporter. Staff researcher Ralph Gaillard contributed to this report. The Ultimate Red Plot

GOLITSYN, From Cl liberal views and sent into internal exile? The Nobel laureate who called more than the changes taking place in the Soviet 20 years ago for peaceful cooperation with Union. He wants to save his side of the the West and the internal transformation of counterintelligence wars until later, per- the Soviet Union into a democracy? haps for his memoirs. Yes, Sakharov, Golitsyn said firmly. "It is inconceivable," Golitsyn wrote in a 1984 , man who has long portrayed the book called "New Lies for Old," that "if [Sa- ' West as putty in Moscow's hands, kharovi were seriously at odds with the re- A Golitsyn, you might think, would be gime and therefore a security risk, he would blushing shamefacedly in light of the failed have been given the opportunities he has August coup in Moscow and the quickening had to maintain contact with Western dissolution of the Soviet empire. friends and colleagues." Sakharov's "so- ' Not so. There wasn't a trace of embar- called exile," Golitsyn claims now, was sim- AiTE7i ALSBERG-ME VLASHINGTON MST rassment on his ruddy face. A chat with ply "a KGB device to build up his credibility School, in High Diplomatic School and at Anatol)! Golitsyn is like a plunge lino anoth- and increase his influence with the West.' the KGB Institute where he spent four er dimension where everything is turned If that sounds plausible, it should be easy years (1955-59) earning a law degree. upside down or inside out, a universe where to see, Golitsyn suggests, that the demo- After his defection, he told CIA officials all sorts of strange things can happen. If cratic trends in the Soviet empire are the that disillusionment began to set in when npthing seems real in this odd place, Golit- KGB's idea, not Sakharov's. Perestroika is the Soviets invaded Hungary in 1956 and syn will assure you, that is not because he is simply a plot, cooked up decades ago to that once he decided to defect, he began to collect and memorize what he thought fantasizing but because the West is so blind. overcome the West by pretending to be- might be useful to the West, including the "Soviet-style democracy is cuckoo-clock come more like it. purported text of Shelepin's remarks. He democracy," he said. "The present Soviet- Fortunately for capitalism, Golitsyn was claims in his 1984 book it was Shelepin's re- Western cooperation is only temporary. present at the creation of this intricate scheme. back in 1959-60 when no one in port, signifying the adoption of a "new, ag- They will successfully rebuild. Then they gressive long-range communist policy" that will turn on the hated capitalists and a new Western intelligence was looking and when, by Golitsyn's account, all was set in bedrock precipitated Golitsyn's decision to break holocaust will result, based on class, not for the rest of the century. He faults West- with the regime. race. The principal victim will be the West- ern intelligence agencies for not knowing of Sent to Finland as vice consul for the So- ern political, military, religious and manag- all this until he arrived to enlighten them. viet embassy there, KGB Maj. Golitsyn erial elite: Golitsyn added ominously that any KGB turned up with his wife and daughter on the Even more startling is Golitsyn's claim defector or source who described the 1959 doorstep of the U. S. ambassador, Frank that the seeming chaos in the Soviet Union KGB conference and Shelepin's report as Friberg, on Dec. 15, 1961. Heartily sup- is the result of a KGB plot cooked up back "routine" should be viewed with "serious ported by Angleton, Golitsyn brought havoc in the late 1950s and early 1960s, just be- doubt." Anyone who disagreed with him, in to the CIA, and the British and French in- fore Golitsyn defected. Then-KGB Chair- short, should be suspected as a fake himself. telligence services, for more than a decade. Man Alexander Shelepin, Golitsyn says, laid Mangold reported that Golitsyn was giv- down the plan—a long-range, systematic here is little in Golitsyn's past that en unprecedented access to secret files, program of "strategic disinformation"—at a signals such ominiscience. He was which Golitsyn used to charge, on the flim- May 1959 Moscow conference attended by T born in a small Ukrainian village near siest of indicators, that numerous intelli- some 2,000 KGB officers. Poltava on Aug. 25, 1926. He does not like gence officials, Soviet defectors and West- to be called a Ukrainian. He stresses that From that, all sorts of deceptions flowed. ern politicians were tools of the KGB. Ac- his parents brought him to Moscow when One, says Golitsyn, was the split between cording to Mangold, it made no difference he was seven. "I am Russian by culture and that shortly after the defection, the chief the Soviets and China, which he contends education," he said. psychologist of the CIA's clandestine ser- was faked to trick the West into thinking In Moscow, Golitsyn joined the Commu- vice found that Golitsyn was suffering from the monolithic communist world had been nist youth movement (Komsomol) at age a form of paranoia and had a tendency to ex- shattered. Another, he claims, was creation 15, while a cadet in military school, and won aggerate. Mangold writes that Angleton of a fake dissident movement in the Soviet a medal digging anti-tank ditches to help de- told a secret congressional hearing in 1978 Union, led by Andrei Sakharov, who, until fend the city against the Nazis. In 1945, he that the psychologist's assertions were the his death in 1989, Golitsyn maintains, was entered military counterintelligence school product of "imprecision and unprofession- "a major KGB agent of influence . . . a and shortly after graduation the next year, a lism." knowing agent." joined the Soviet intelligence service. He The reign of terror lasted more than a Sakharov? The Soviet Union's most per- did an undercover stint in Vienna in 1953- decade, until Angleton was finally fired by sistent campaigner for human rights? The 54, but many of his years at the KGB were then-CIA director William Colby in 1974. political outcast hounded by the state for his spent as a student, in High Intelligence "It really wasn't Anatoly's fault," one CIA veteran said recently of the Golitsyn-in- People like [Alexander] Yakovlev [a top po- spired mole-hunt. "The people at CIA litical adviser to Gorbachev] and [Georgi] should have known better. Jim [Angleton] Arbatov [director of the USA-Canada Insti- should have known better. [Former CIA di- tute]." rector] Dick Helms should have known bet- By this standard, of course, the failed ter, too. If you took everything [Golitsyn] coup was a fake coup, staged to make it said since 1961 and put it down on paper, it seem that the good guys won and to get the would be amazing. It shook the government West to open its pockets. Even the siege of and it was a lot of crap." the Russian parliament building and the de- Golitsyn, an affable, burly man with thick fiant holdout of Russian President Boris eyebrows and a pepper-and-salt beard, kept Yeltsin were parts of the show. slugging. And on paper, some of his predic- "The word goes out," Golitsyn said with a tions seem remarkable. shrug. "Yeltsin will do this. Crowds will do For example, in a memo to the director of that. The KGB will do this and that." Central Intelligence, dated Jan. 15, 1978, ti- As evidence that the CIA still thinks high- tled The Long-Range Political Objectives ly of his work, Golitsyn displayed a photo- and Intentions of the Soviet Leaders," Golit- graph of the medal the agency awarded him syn asserted that among the goals "Soviet a few years ago, on then-CIA director Wil- rulers are trying to achieve through the liam H. Webster's watch. It is the Distin- 'dissident movement' " were: guished Intelligence Medal, the highest "The introduction of economic honor the CIA can bestow for outstanding reforms .t. . an apparent curtailing of the service. Then-CIA counterintelligence chief monopoly of the Communist Party . . . an Gardner Hathaway awarded it to Golitsyn in increased role for the Soviet parliament, re- 1987, four months after Angleton's death. form of the KGB and amnesty for 'dissi- CIA spokesman Peter Earnest said: "On dents,' greater artistic and cultural freedom Sept. 21, 1987, the agency awarded Mr. and freedom to travel . . . the emergence Golitsyn a medal for his many years of dil- of a younger party leader to initiate the igent service. Although we cannot disclose reforms . . . similar reforms in Eastern Eu- its title . . . the award was considered ap- rope including . . . perhaps the demolition propriate recognition by those assessing of the Berlin Wall." Mr. Golitsyn's contribution at the time." So far, not bad. But then Golitsyn added: One CIA insider predicted sharp criticism "The liberalization, however, will be false within the agency at the disclosure of Golit- and will be aimed at breaking up NATO, syn's award in light of the ruined careers he dismantling the 'U.S. military-industrial left in his wake. Several sources described complex' . . . . [1t] will be accepted as gen- it as a consolation prize. One said Angleton uine and spontaneous and will be blown out years ago promised Golitsyn "national rec- of all proportion by the media . . . • It may ognition" if they ever found the mole they generate pressure for real detente and far- were looking for. Other sources said Golit- reaching changes in Western societies." syn felt he deserved a Medal of Freedom Sniffed one former senior CIA official: from President Reagan and that Hathaway "When the Berlin Wall went down, he claimed he was the only one who predicted gave him the CIA honor "to get him off our back." it. That's nonsense. And it went down for reasons totally different from what he had Still drawing what he describes as sort of in mind." "a pension" from the agency, Golitsyn is starting to draw rapt attention from far olitsyn, who has packaged his memos right circles. But his outlines of the Soviet for a proposed second book, insists end-game remain a bit puzzling. The aim, he G that all is deception and disinforma- said, is "convergence" with the West in a tion, that there is no chance the democra- world government. There, Golitsyn said, tization process will get out of hand. A true "the communists will be advantaged be- believer, he cannot conceive of a Russia cause they are more skillful politically." where disorder prevails, where dictatorship Their goal, he warned, will be nothing less has lost control. He insists that the "Soviet than "a classless society," achieved by par- strategists," whom he describes as smarter liamentary means. than Marx and Lenin, are still firmly in At the same time, he kept predicting "a charge. . bloodbath" for recalcitrant capitalists. But So who are these guys? he never explained why the communists "It's a collective body," Golitsyn said. "It's would resort to bloodshed when they will be creative-thinking people. They know the winning all the votes. Come the revolution, West. They know their own country . . . . it may all become clear.