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Home , Aldrich Ames, Atomic spies, Cheka, David Greenglass, First Chief Directorate, GRU (Soviet Union)

Russian Spies Alma Mater: brief history

By Vladimir Sergevnin, Ph.D. Assosiate Professor, Director of the Center for Applied Criminal Jusce, WIU hp://www.wiu.edu/users/cacj/ Editor of the Law Enforcement Execuve Forum Journal, hp://www.iletsbei.com/lee_forum/

CHEKA/OGPU/NKVD/KGB/FSB

• KGB (КГБ) is the commonly • The KGB was formed in used acronym for the Russian: 1954, taking up the dues Комитет государственной of a series of state security безопасности (Komitet agencies that grew out of gosudarstvennoy bezopasnos the Russian Revoluon, or Commiee for State including the Security). It was the naonal • (1917 to 1922) of the Soviet • Union from 1917 unl 1991, GPU/OGPU (1922 to 1934) and was the premier internal • NKVD (1934 to 1946) security, intelligence, and • MGB (1946 to 1954) secret organizaon • KGB (1954 to 1991) during that me. • FSB (1991 – present) CheKa

• The All-Russian • The Cheka was established to ensure Extraordinary the Bolshevik regime's survival, the Commission for Cheka suppressed counter- Combang revoluonary acvity with domesc Counter-Revoluon terror and internaonal decepon. and , • The scope of foreign intelligence • December 20, 1917 operaons prompted Lenin to authorize the Cheka's creaon of the INO (Innostranyi Otdel—Foreign- intelligence Department)—the precursor to the (FCD) of the KGB. “Iron Felix” – CheKa chief, 1917-1926 Lenin’s assassinaon aempt

• On August 30, 1918 Lenin An official decree for Red spoke at a factory Terror was issued only hours called "Hammer and aer the Kaplan shoong, Sickle". As Lenin le the calling for "a merciless mass building and before he terror against all the entered his car, Kaplan enemies of the revoluon". called out to him. When “Do not look in the file of Lenin turned towards her, incriminang evidence to see she fired three shots with a whether or not the accused rose up against the Soviets with arms or Browning pistol words. Ask him instead to which class he belongs, what is his background, his educaon, his profession. These are the quesons that will determine the fate of the accused. That is the meaning and essence of the .” Marn Latsis, chief of the Ukrainian Cheka, Fanny Kaplan 1918 Red Terror

• The mass repressions were • Others beheaded their vicms by conducted by the Cheka twisng their necks unl their • Vicms were skinned alive, scalped, heads could be torn off. "crowned" with barbed wire, • The Cheka staoned in Kiev impaled, crucified, hanged, stoned reportedly would aach an iron to death, ed to planks and pushed tube to the torso of a bound slowly into furnaces or tanks of vicm and insert a rat into the boiling water, and rolled around other end which was then closed naked in internally nail-studded off with wire neng. The tube barrels. was then held over a flame unl • Chekists poured water on naked the rat began gnawing through prisoners in the winter-bound the vicm's guts in an effort to streets unl they became living ice escape. statues. • Invesgaon discovered corpses whose lungs, throats, and mouths had been packed with earth The Rise: Purges

From 1934 to 1938 Stalin conducted a series of purges– millions died in labour camps, execuons or mass killings. The instrument for this was the – NKVD under first Yagoda (1934-36) and later Yezhov, the ‘poisoned dwarf’, (1937-38). December 1, 1934 – Decree against Terrorist Acts – gave NKVD unlimited power to hunt down enemies of the state (on the same day as Kirov’s murder which Josef Stalin triggered the Purges). Sergey Kirov The Rise: Purges

A series of ‘show trials’ of prominent Communists and military leaders jusfied the purges – Kamenev, Zinoviev, Rykov and Bukharin all admied to plong against the Stalin, becoming ‘Trotskyite’ scapegoats for the USSR’s Ramón Mercader troubles. August 20, 1940, Coyoacán, México city: Trotsky, heavily wounded but sll conscious, On 24 May 1940: Trotsky ordered guards to spare his aacker's life shoung survived a raid on his home by "Do not kill him! This man has a story to tell.“ armed assassins led by GPU Aer 20 years in jail in 1961, Mercader moved to agent , Mexican the and was subsequently presented painter David Siqueiros, and the , the country's highest Viorio Vidale. decoraon, by the head of the KGB Alexander Shelepin. The Rise: – Russian James Bond • Richard Sorge (October In October 1941, informed Kremlin 4, 1895 – , that Pearl Harbor would be aacked 1944) was a German in sixty days. Moscow had then communist and spy informed him that this had been who worked for the passed on to the US. This info was Soviet Union. He ignored. worked as a journalist The date of 20 June had been given in both and to Sorge by the deputy military , where he was aaché, Lieutenant-Colonel Erwin imprisoned for spying Scholl, at the German embassy in and eventually hanged. . His GRU codename was Sorge advised the on "Ramsay" (Russian: September 14, 1941, that the Рамза́й). Japanese were not going to aack the Soviet Union "Sorge was the man whom I regard as the most formidable spy in history." - . The Rise: "" In December 1944, Beria's • Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and NKVD was assigned to Ethel's brother and – Americans - supervise the Soviet designers of the Soviet atomic bomb atomic bomb project got piles of technical documentaon ("Task No. 1"), which built straight from the secret laboratory and tested a bomb by 29 in Los Alamos August 1949. • - American, who had been a developer on the bombs "Atomic spies" are various dropped in Japan people in the United • was a German-born States, Great Britain, and Brish physicist who was sent to who are thought to America to work on the atomic have illicitly given project where he became one of the informaon about nuclear lead sciensts. Klaus provided the Soviets with detailed informaon on weapons producon to the the gas phase separaon process. Soviet Union. The Rise: Creaon of the KGB

• Expecng to succeed Joseph • March 13, 1954. The Stalin as leader of the USSR, the MGB was renamed ambious head of the MVD KGB, detached from the (Ministry of Internal Affairs), MVD, and demoted Lavreny Beria, merged the from Cabinet to MGB and the MVD on Stalin's Commiee level. death in 1953. • Ancipang a coup d'etat, the swily eliminated Beria with treasonous charges of "criminal an-Party and an- state acvies" and executed him. Illegals: Rudolph Abel (Hollow Nickel Case) • Renewed • Vilyam "Willie" emphasis on Genrikhovich illegals in 1950s Fisher was exchanged for (spy ring run by captured , • American U-2 she turn herself pilot Gary in to the FBI in Powers 1945) Fall: Defecons from Soviet intelligence

• 1945: Igor • , is a former KGB Gouzenko, cipher general. He was a longme head clerk in Oawa of KGB operaons in the United • 5 major defecons States. in early 1954 • According to Kalugin, he has never (Khokhlov, betrayed any Soviet agents except Deryabin, those who were already known to Rastvorov, and the Western intelligence. He cricized Petrov) intelligence defectors like • 1985 as "traitors." Gordievsky; • In 1995 he accepted a teaching • 1992 Vasili posion in The Catholic University Mitrokhin of America and has remained in the ever since. Moles: KGB Agent

• Aldrich Ames (born May In April 1985, Ames 26, 1941) is a former provided informaon to Central the Soviets that he counter-intelligence officer believed was "essenally and analyst, who, in 1994, valueless" but that would was convicted of spying for establish his credenals as the Soviet Union and a CIA insider. He also asked . Unl the revelaon for $50,000, which the of the extent of Robert Soviets quickly paid. Ames Hanssen's spying seven received $4.6 million from years later, Ames the Soviets compromised more CIA Betrayed more than 10 CIA assets than any known agents in Russia Soviet in American history. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0Gcpu0zatk&feature=related ‘Wet affairs’

• Euphemism for Alexander Litvinenko was a former officer of sabotage, kidnapping, the Russian , FSB and assassinaon KGB, who fled from court prosecuon in Russia • Bureau N 1 & N 2 of and received polical asylum in the . On 1 November 2006, Litvinenko “acve acts” - targeted suddenly fell ill. Earlier that day he had met two defectors and former KGB officers, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri • Assassinaon of Georgi Kovtun. Lugovoi is a former bodyguard of Markov in Russian ex-Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar (also "Umbrella reportedly poisoned in November 2006). Murder" (died Sept. 11, 1978) The end of “Iron Felix” days?

‘I think if we compare Hitler Aer Stalin’s death, the to Stalin, and the KGB underwent serious to the KGB, the KGB was reforms, but not serious far more ruthless -- not enough to declare it a because they killed far more people, but because legimate organizaon they were indiscriminate in abiding by the laws of the selecon of vicms. the state… the Soviet The Nazis concentrated on system was a lawless ; the Soviet KGB under system, and the KGB Stalin’s direcons was an was a tool of internaonalist lawlessness.’ organizaon: it would kill anyone who would stand in Oleg Kalugin, rered the way of Stalin and his 1991, “Iron Felix” head of KGB foreign leadership.’ monument