Soviet Agents, Working from Master Shopping Lists, Got Amazing Cooperation from Their Victims in the West

Soviet agents, working from master shopping lists, got amazing cooperation from their victims in the West. Excerpted from War by Other Means: Economic Espionage in America, by John J. Fialka. © 1997 by John J. Fialka. Reprinted with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Co., Inc. Mr. Fialka, a reporter in the Washington bureau of the Wall Street Journal, has covered defense, intelligence, and national security topics for many years. This is his first article for Air Force Magazine. he Moscow avenue called of Ludmilla sounded accusatory, then T Rublovsky Chosse is a street terror-stricken. Vet rov had pulled a that knows how to keep its secrets. It knife and was trying to kill her. meanders through the most exclusive A man walking nearby heard Lud- suburb of the Russian capital, past milla’s screams. He rapped on the the tall green fences shrouding the car window. Vetrov leaped out and sprawling, forested estates where, in plunged the knife into him. As the years past, powerful Soviet officials dying passerby slumped to the ground, lived in regal splendor. Vetrov fled. Later, he returned, to the The street also has private little astonishment of police, who promptly wooded pockets. In the early 1980s, arrested him. They were shocked to Vladimir Vetrov, a paunchy, well- learn that the killer was a KGB colonel dressed man in his late 40s, used to with a sensitive job in the First Chief park there with his mistress, Lud milla. Directorate, which handles foreign Vetrov had a huge secret, and, in intelligence. November 1982, it almost came out. By John J. Fialka In truth, Vetrov’s work was far more Behind the car’s steamed-up windows, sensitive than even the KGB link an argument began raging. The voice suggested (though his mistress had guessed the truth). For 18 months or with all of its glaring faults, managed Many Are Called more, he had been a mole within the to match US technology so quickly: There were many willing hands to do KGB, a double agent secretly work- The KGB had been systematically the work. It has been estimated that at ing for French intelligence. Vetrov stealing information from US research any given time during the 1980s at least had in fact given the West its first and development programs. “The as- 1,000 of the 2,800 registered Eastern detailed look at the most lucrative similation of Western technology is so bloc diplomats were intelligence spy scheme in the long history of broad that the US and other Western agents. The bulk of this enormous the Cold War. nations are thus subsidizing the Soviet group was engaged in science and Using teams of specially trained military buildup,” concluded one gov- technology espionage. scientists and engineers, the USSR had ernment report. Members of Russia’s prestigious mounted a systematic economic espio- All of this happened a decade ago. Academy of Sciences were also as- nage campaign of epic proportions. It Vladimir Vetrov is dead, and the se- signed to steal. Alexei Brudno, a was spending $1.4 billion per year on crets he delivered are locked in the mathematician and computer soft- salaries and bribes to obtain secrets of CIA’s vaults, but that does not mean ware specialist, remembers that the thousands of NATO weapons systems that the story is over. The multiple system was effective. Usually, only and related civilian technology. The pathways to steal US technology that scientists who agreed to participate systems had cost taxpayers hundreds the Soviets pioneered and that Vetrov in KGB thievery schemes received of billions and taken years to develop. exposed are still in use. For hostile permission to travel abroad. Western About 60 percent of this technology intelligence agencies, the case of scientists, eager for the contact, often had been stolen from the US. Farewell is an appealing roadmap. shared papers with Russian peers that Vetrov’s papers also provided the Some former Pentagon officials are they wouldn’t give to their NATO col- West with the names of hundreds of convinced that Iraq’s acquisition leagues, especially those who worked Soviet agents and the spies that they of US weapons-related technology for competitor nations or companies. were running in dozens of countries. in the late 1980s was based on the Upon returning, a Soviet scientist was For the first time, NATO strategists same training and even the same es- carefully debriefed by a panel of KGB were able to obtain an accurate picture pionage “shopping lists” used early experts. Often they didn’t bother to of what the Soviets didn’t have. in the decade. introduce themselves. They were only Other US officials believe that the interested in the haul. Phenomenal Success next enemy who uses these techniques The most inventive and powerful Western leaders had known for years may not necessarily be a major power. element of this collection effort was that some thievery was going on, but One who agrees is Kenneth DeGraffen- Vetrov’s own section, the KGB’s the scale and phenomenal success of reid, a former Defense Intelligence “Line X.” the effort—as seen from documents Agency analyst who had pored over the Line X took shape in the 1930s af- supplied by Vetrov—went far beyond Vetrov files as director of Intelligence ter successful KGB thefts of German anything they had imagined. “The Programs for the National Security technology. It had a product: other West is financing two military budgets: Council. In earlier eras, DeGraffenreid people’s research papers, blueprints, their own and that of their adversary,” notes, nations needed industrial bases devices, and machinery. Stealing them, wrote one French official after studying and a sizable body of engineers and the KGB discovered, was one crime Vetrov’s papers. Even “more absurd,” scientists to develop high-tech weap- that paid. KGB defectors say Line X he noted, was that Soviet spies were ons. Now, it may be that a country officials repeatedly boast ed that Line getting the information largely from that merely has money can do it, “if X not only covered its own costs; the open sources. The West, especially the they went to school on the US,” said value of what it brought in sometimes US, was wide open to people who knew DeGraffenreid. exceeded the annual budget of the what they were looking for. Weapon He added, “It’s not like the informa- entire KGB. secrets were being stolen and copied tion is locked in a safe. It isn’t. It’s a The KGB in general tried to recruit before they were officially deemed more difficult problem as time goes agents from the best universities, but secrets. on. How do you know when to lock Line X itself fed on the cream of gradu- French intelligence gave the Vet- things up?” ating scientists and engineers—men rov case the code name “Farewell” The Soviet collection effort began like Vetrov, who had initially set out and quickly revealed its secret to the right at the top with a unit called VPK, on a career designing automobiles. intelligence officials of the Reagan or the Military Industrial Commission, Once he was recruited, Vetrov turned Administration, who instantly rec- which was placed just under the Polit- out to be an enthusiastic counterspy, ognized its value. The conservative buro. It drew up vast “shopping lists” handing over vast amounts of infor- new Administration was grappling of needed Western items and used at mation to France. As a result, the with a bureaucracy in Washington least six different entities to get them. French, in the months that followed that had for years dismissed Soviet They included the KGB, the GRU (the his defection-in-place, were able to economic espionage as inconsequen- Main Intelligence Directorate of the send to Washington a large roomful tial, and here was evidence that they Soviet General Staff), and spy agencies of documents showing how the KGB’s were wrong. of various satellite countries, such as technology thieves operated in the US. Reagan officials argued that they Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Their techniques included bribery of now knew how the Soviet economy, and East Germany. sources in US corporations; piecing 56 AIR FORCE Magazine / April 1997 together weapon secrets from open systems benefitted from stolen Western Ames, the CIA mole in the employ of files in government agencies, such as research each year. The CIA later toted Moscow, who single-handedly rolled NASA; and development of contacts up a list that ran from the space shuttle up dozens of American espionage op- in major US universities—the most and cruise missile guidance systems to erations in the late 1980s. In fall 1983, heavily used being Massachusetts advanced components from all of the when the KGB finally put the pieces Institute of Technology—to fill in the later US fighters, nuclear submarines, together (with help from Ludmilla), gaps on the VPK’s wish lists. laser-guided artillery, and high-speed it sent for Vetrov. The Farewell material, acquired by computers. Soviet engineers didn’t The mole was brought back from Washington in the summer of 1981, even bother to research such mundane Irkutsk and placed in an isolation had to be closely held because Vetrov but useful things as cold-rolled steel cell in the KGB’s Lefortovo Prison in was still producing. It was kept in armor for their ships; they had the US Moscow. Following an interrogation, the CIA library under the code name formulas. he signed a confession to having spied “Kudo.” Only a handful of officials Equipment from General Electric, for the French.

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