What Felix Bloch
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What Felix Bloch By early 1964, Angleton decided By Joseph Trento and Sian Trento 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 F no way out. He's in a kind of into becoming CIA agents. What counterintelligence limbo: The FBI made this hypothesis doubly fright- has enough evidence to suspect that ening was that several of Orlov's CIA he's a Soviet agent, but not enough handlers had reached the highest to indict or arrest him. If Bloch and levels of the CIA in their subsequent his family think the worst is behind careers. them, then we suggest they visit a 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 Soviets visited the small shop. In job .... You always have to assume, March 1965, Angleton's probe cul- without necessarily having the proof minated with an FBI raid on the in your hands, that your own organ- Orlov house and shop. Orlov was ization had been penetrated and that interrogated for the next two there's a mole around somewhere." months. FBI agents threatened Angleton's suspicions about Orlov "problems" for his widowed mother were first aroused by a Soviet de- in Moscow. fector named Anatolyi Golitsyn. Finally, Orlov did what the FBI code-named STONE, who arrived in obviously hopes Felix Bloch will do. America in late 1961. Golitsyn told One afternoon, while loading his Angleton's staff that a Soviet pen- newspaper truck, he panicked. The etration agent had blown CIA oper- Washington Post is across an alley ations in Western Europe, causing from the rear of the Soviet Embassy. the death and imprisonment of sev- Orlov saw a Russian official directing eral dozen Western agents. His code trash removal through a rear door. name was SASHA. Angleton became He quickly ran from the loading dock convinced that whoever had worked at the paper over to the man and with SASHA, whoever had given began speaking to him in Russian. SASHA his jobs and provided him Orlov told him he needed help. The opportunities, was probably also man invited him in. Orlov was taken working for the KGB. 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 cleared. The Orlov family thought he Soviets offered the family their ordeal was finally over. asylum. Orlov made arrange- But Angleton remained fixated on T ments for the family to be Orlov because of Golitsyn's warning. picked up by the Russians the next Even though the FBI was short of afternoon. The embassy official gave staff and could put its counter-intel- Orlov an address to write to and sent ligence agents to better use handling him on his way out the front of the more promising cases, Angleton embassy. Relieved, Igor went home pressed them to pursue the Orlov and told his wife of the arrangements case. The FBI agents grew weary of he had made Inc her protection. what they considered a wild goose When Eleonore protested, her hus- chase. They concluded that Angleton band told her, "How will you eat? You had been snookered. After all, even if must do this for the boys." Igor Orlov was SASHA, what harm The next day she dropped Orlov could he do now? He was driving a off at the Old Post Office, where the truck and making picture frames. FBI harshly interrogated him about But just when the FBI had cooled to his visit the previous day to the Rus- the Orlov probe, the KGB sent in an sian Embassy. An FBI surveillance agent to heat it back up again. team had watched him enter the In June 1966, KGB Maj. Igor Koz- building. After hours of merciless Iov called Richard Helms, then CIA questioning, it became clear to the ckPuty director, and offered his ser- FBI agents and others in Soviet vices to the agency. He had no desire counter-intelligence that they could to defect to America. He wanted to not prove that Orlov was a KGB be an agent in place. After a series of agent. What finally convinced them meetings Kozlov (axle named KIT- was a phone call from the Soviet am- TY HAWK) convinced the CIA and bassador, asking the State Depart- FBI that he was real. ment if the United States had sent / The FBI liked him because he su Orlov to the embassy as a provoca- portedported the evidence of an earlier de tion. .fector (doubted by the CIA) that Lee To the great relief of Mrs. Orlov, parvey Oswald had not been re- who expected that she and her chil- 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.