What Felix Bloch

By Joseph Trento and Sian Trento By early 1964, Angleton decided that SASHA was Igor Orlov, a man hired by the CIA in Germany after OR FELIX BLOCH—KGB World War II to recruit beautiful wo- agent or not—there may be men to compromise Soviet officers no way out. He's in a kind of F into becoming CIA agents. What counterintelligence limbo: The FBI has enough evidence to suspect that made this hypothesis doubly fright- he's a Soviet agent, but not enough ening was that several of Orlov's CIA to indict or arrest him. If Bloch and handlers had reached the highest his family think the worst is behind levels of the CIA in their subsequent them, then we suggest they visit a careers. small art gallery in Alexandria. rlov's troubles had actually The Gallery Orlov in Old Town begun soon after the CIA and its small collection of European 0 transferred him to the United prints are tended by a knowledgeable States for a new assignment in Jan- old woman named Eleonore. When uary 1961. His boss in Germany had you enter the gallery there is not a complained that Igor was a security hint that you are standing on a KGB- risk. When the Orlovs arrived in CIA battleground. The battles were Washington, Igor called his CIA con- fought over Eleonore's late husband, tacts to discuss his new job. He was Igor Orlov, who died in the spring of told there was no work for him. His 1982. He was suspected by the CIA friends who had brought him to and FBI of recruiting CIA agents into America would not take his tele- the KGB when he served the CIA in phone calls. The CIA offered Orlov a postwar Germany three decades Berlitz course in English and a ago. The Orlov casp, which we re- $2,500 settlement for all the years searched in detail while preparing a he had served the CIA doing very book on America's counter-intelli- dangerous work. He told them to go gence problems, provides an eerie to hell. parallel to the Felix Bloch case. In Igor and his wife, Eleonore, lived both instances, the CIA and FBI used hand to mouth, trying to support tactics of intimidation and harass- their two sons in a new and strange ment to make up for a botched in- country. He finally got a job as a vestigation. Washington Post truck driver, five Orlov's chief accuser was James hours a night for $60 a week. The Jesus Angleton. the brilliant and family saved until they could afford mysterious chief of counter-intelli- to open a small picture-framing shop. gence at the CIA for a generation. Angleton constantly pressed the Former CIA deputy director Hank bureau to watch Orlov's picture- Knoche recalls Angleton's hyper-sus- framing gallery and home to see if picious method: "You almost have to any CIA people under suspicion or be 100 percent paranoid to do that job .... You always have to assume, Soviets visited the small shop. In without necessarily having the proof March 1965, Angleton's probe cul- in your hands, that your own organ- minated with an FBI raid on the ization had been penetrated and that Orlov house and shop. Orlov was there's a mole around somewhere." interrogated for the next two Angleton's suspicions about Orlov months. FBI agents threatened were first aroused by a Soviet de- "problems" for his widowed mother fector named Anatolyi Golitsyn. in Moscow. code-named STONE, who arrived in Finally, Orlov did what the FBI America in late 1961. Golitsyn told obviously hopes Felix Bloch will do. Angleton's staff that a Soviet pen- One afternoon, while loading his etration agent had blown CIA oper- newspaper truck, he panicked. The ations in Western Europe, causing Washington Post is across an alley the death and imprisonment of sev- from the rear of the Soviet Embassy. eral dozen Western agents. His code Orlov saw a Russian official directing name was SASHA. Angleton became trash removal through a rear door. convinced that whoever had worked He quickly ran from the loading dock with SASHA, whoever had given at the paper over to the man and SASHA his jobs and provided him began speaking to him in Russian. opportunities, was probably also Orlov told him he needed help. The working for the KGB. man invited him in. Orlov was taken into a small reception room with a Joseph and Susan Trento are the large mirror on the wall. Orlov de- authors, with William Corson, of tailed his fears that his mother in the "Widows." Soviet Union might be harmed and his problems with the FBI. He said if dren would be leaving imminently for he was arrested by the FBI, his wife Russia, her husband was released and sons would have no one to take that sunny spring afternoon by the care of them. FBI. They told him he had been he Soviets offered the family cleared. The Orlov family thought asylum. Orlov made arrange- their ordeal was finally over. T ments for the family to be But Angleton remained fixated on picked up by the Russians the next Orlov because of Golitsyn's warning. afternoon. The embassy official gave Even though the FBI was short of Orlov an address to write to and sent staff and could put its counter-intel- him on his way out the front of the ligence agents to better use handling embassy. Relieved, Igor went home more promising cases, Angleton and told his wife of the arrangements pressed them to pursue the Orlov he had made Inc her protection. case. The FBI agents grew weary of what they considered a wild goose When Eleonore protested, her hus- band told her, "How will you eat? You chase. They concluded that Angleton must do this for the boys." had been snookered. After all, even if The next day she dropped Orlov Igor Orlov was SASHA, what harm off at the Old Post Office, where the could he do now? He was driving a FBI harshly interrogated him about truck and making picture frames. his visit the previous day to the Rus- But just when the FBI had cooled to sian Embassy. An FBI surveillance the Orlov probe, the KGB sent in an team had watched him enter the agent to heat it back up again. building. After hours of merciless In June 1966, KGB Maj. Igor Koz- questioning, it became clear to the Iov called Richard Helms, then CIA FBI agents and others in Soviet ckPuty director, and offered his ser- counter-intelligence that they could vices to the agency. He had no desire not prove that Orlov was a KGB to defect to America. He wanted to agent. What finally convinced them be an agent in place. After a series of was a phone call from the Soviet am- meetings Kozlov (axle named KIT- bassador, asking the State Depart- TY HAWK) convinced the CIA and ment if the United States had sent FBI that he was real. Orlov to the embassy as a provoca- / The FBI liked him because he su tion. portedported the evidence of an earlier de To the great relief of Mrs. Orlov, .fector (doubted by the CIA) that Lee who expected that she and her chil- parvey Oswald had not been re- cruited by the KGB to kill President The CIA liked KITTY WK because he repeated Golit- syn's charges that SASHA was Igor Orlov, the picture framer! KITTY HAWK even told his new employers the time and date Orlov visited the Soviet Embassy. The renewed FBI investigation left Igor Orlov an embittered and broken man. He refused to leave the shop or their apartment above it. The FBI never had the evidence to arrest him, let alone take him to court. The FBI concluded many years later, in a 1980 investigation of the case, that KITTY HAWK was a fraud. But that didn't help Igor Orlov. When cancer invaded his body and took his life in May 1982. his IIIMPUSSO INSIGHTwas Can Learn from the . Surairmy, SEPTENBUI 10,1989 CS I

Case of Igor Orlov....1:,j

widow believed the nightmare had ended. On a quiet Saturday in January, 1988, Eleonore Orlov was straight- ening up her frame shop. There was a knock at the door. The young wo- man standing on the front stoop in- troduced herself as Stephanie P. Gleason, "special agent FBI." With her was Charles K. Sciarini, also an FBI agent from the Washington field ternoon that if they wanted to see office. Special Agent Gleason told him they could make an appoint- her the FBI had obtained important ment. In Chicago, George Orlov, and convincing information that Igor knowing full well what the FBI could Orlov was a KGB agent and that he do to his career, was skeptical had recruited both of her sons to enough that he pushed the agents to work for the KGB. At precisely the reveal details of their case. At the same time, FBI agents in Chicago FBI's Chicago office, Agent Vincente and Boston were approaching Mrs. Rosado handed Orlov a three-page Orlov's sons, George and Robert. transcript of a portion of the Yur- hat triggered this bizarre chenko debriefing. They then played raid were the statements of a tape of the actual debriefing to re- W a third Soviet defector,Ak. inforce what Orlov was reading. taly Yurchenko, The KGB was cast- "Yurchenko identified my father as ing its SASHA bait for the third time, a KGB agent," recalls George Orlov. and the FBI had bitten once again. "He said Igor Orlov is an agent, lives Eleonore Orlov was frightened. in Arlington, has two children who The agents told her they suspected went to school in Boston and that he that hundreds of thousands of dollars recruited both of them. One travels a in cash and other illicit material were lot. One lives in Boston. One lives in hidden on her property. Agents Chicago. The one in Chicago went to Gleason and Sciarini said they San Diego, San Francisco . . . and wanted her permission to dig up her [he] named all the cities I had been back yard. She told them that the to. He said one or more of us had only things buried in the backyard been recruited and we were both were her dead cats. working for the KGB. She went along with this outrage "They told me I was a traitor, and because, she says, agents Gleason if I would just sign a confession, it and Sciarini strongly suggested that would go better for me." if she didn't, a security clearance It turned out that the FBI had held by her son George. a nuclear been following and monitoring the engineer, would be lifted. So the Orlovs since 1985, when Yurchenko agents searched her house and ques- tioned her. The nightmare that had dominated her husband's life now was following her and her sons. Spe- cial Agent Gleason confiscated her 30 years of business records. Now, one by one, the FBI is investigating the picture-framing clients to deter- mine if they are Soviet agents. Robert Orlov, astounded by the FBI's intrusion in his life, told the airents who approached him that af- first made the allegations. The Or; loos' mail is opened by the FBI, their telephones are tapped, all becapse.a defector, who suffers serious ed- ibility problems, alleged that- Igor Orlov recruited his sons. Like Gail- syn and KITTY HAWK, Yurdietiltri in 1985 captivated the CIA and -FBI with his revelations. •:..:• our years into the third SASHA probe, the KGB.inuat F be amazed at how little we FBI agreed. Mrs. Orlov took the test learn from our past experiences and passed. But after we contacted and how easy we are to manipulate.. the FBI to ask them about their third George Orlov's own words, best SASHA investigation, Mrs. Orkiv describe what it is like to be Haden received a call from Special Agent suspicion for something that ynti.do Gleason requesting that she subMit not understand and cannot coqvinA to another test. This time Mrs. Orlov the FBI you did not do: They: dre refused. been following me for a number. of Eleonore Orlov says that all she years \ now, to my farmer in4awa wants is that her sons be left alone. house in Princeton. They follow me Her husband had wanted his-ashes when I go running, when I go bile:- sent to Russia, to be spread among riding. I went running at the -Inerti; the birch trees of his native land. But tute for Advance Studies at Prince- his widow is afraid to ask the Soviet ton. They have a beautiful soft run; Embassy to carry out his wishes. She ning trail there. They had a couple of thinks the FBI might misinterpret it. agents follow me there. After- I ran The ashes of SASHA still sit on the through, there were some little red mantle of the beautiful little gallery and blue nylon strings tied to tepee in Alexandria. posts which are supposedly For Felix Bloch, the lessons .are dead-drop points, they said to:014 the same. Like Orlov, his problems said, 'What?' I said, 'You guys are* transcend the factual issue of wheth- drugs.' er he did or didn't spy for the Soviet "One reason they thought I wae.a Union. Either way, the Soviets can KGB agent is that after I had gone use him like a worm dangling on a running one time in Washington. I lifelong hook. Are his Golitsyn, his had finished my run. I was standing Kozlov, his Yurchenko waiting in-the on the third floor of my mothers espionage wings? house and looked down at the, same time a Soviet KGB agent was bolting up at me. But I didn't know he was there, but apparently that is a AO of life or a sign of recognition, they told ' After Orlov passed his polygraph exam, an embarrassed Vincente Ro- sado took him out to dinner. : - • Eleanore Orlov, a women used to being worked over by authorities, submitted to a polygraph examina- tion in May 1988 in a suite the FBI rented at the Morrison House Hotel in Alexandria. She said she agreed to take the exam on the condition that the FBI would ask all its questions and this would be the last one,. Die