The Selling of the KGB

The post-Cold War world is awash in tantalizing tales from the KGB archives. But the new literature on Soviet espionage may be much less revealing than it appears.

by Amy Knight

he fascination in the West with KGB operatives or presenting organiza- spy stories seems limitless. Tales tional charts of the KGB. They also tend Tproliferate about the Cambridge to cover much of the same ground. Time Five spy group (Kim Philby et al.), the and again the reader is told about various New Deal subversives whose Lenin’s Cheka, the assassination of treachery in giving away secrets to the Trotsky, and Soviet atomic espionage. Soviet Union went unnoticed for years, Despite the redundancy inherent in and the efforts of the KGB to subvert the genre, these books have found an Western democracies through propagan- eager audience in the West. To be sure, da and terrorism. But apparently readers there have been critical reviews and do not tire of the accounts, judging from complaints about inaccuracies. But for the recent sensational response to The the most part, the new KGB histories Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin have received much favorable attention, Archive, by Christopher Andrew, a history and some of them have reached the best- professor at Cambridge University, and seller list. They also have reopened Vasili Mitrokhin, a former KGB officer. debates among historians and the gener- The Sword and the Shield is the latest al public about key aspects of the Cold example of an emerging genre of spy his- War. Indeed, Andrew and Mitrokhin’s tories based on materials from the KGB recent book, replete with new names (or archives. For almost a decade now, code names) of Western traitors, set off a Western writers and current or former media frenzy in Britain and fueled Russian foreign intelligence officers impassioned political debates in several have been collaborating on books about European countries about what to do the KGB’s foreign operations during the with former spies. Soviet period. All of these volumes have Few would argue that the release of a similar style and format, with chapter new information on the KGB’s opera- headings such as “The Great Illegals,” tions abroad is anything but a positive “Love and Loyalties,” and “A Dangerous development. We should welcome the Game,” along with lengthy appendixes possibility of finding out what was hap- listing code names of secret agents and pening on the other side of the Cold War

16 WQ Winter 2000 Big catch? Information from the KGB archives recently showed that Melita Norwood, a former secretary in Britain who is now in her eighties, spied for Moscow in the 1940s.

trenches and perhaps resolving some of have been lowered, or discarded alto- the questions that have puzzled gether. Historians and general readers researchers for decades. What really hap- alike seem to have forgotten the impor- pened to American prisoners of war tance of understanding where the infor- believed to have ended up in the Soviet mation in a book has come from and Union after World War II, Korea, and who is interpreting and presenting it. Vietnam? Do we know all there is to “Even the most tendentious historical know about the KGB and Lee Harvey views can gain credibility in part because Oswald? Even in cases that are closed the sources of history can be interpreted (such as that of convicted American in different ways—or sensationalized or spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg), there falsified or used dishonestly or ignored,” is a thirst in the West for more details New York Times journalist Richard Bern- from the Soviet side. stein observed in criticizing a historian’s claims that Hitler did not know about ut in the excitement produced the extermination of the Jews. by the new revelations, many of Bernstein’s observation is particularly B the standards by which scholars apt in the case of the new KGB page- traditionally judge historical writings turners, given that the source of the rev-

Selling of the KGB 17 elations is an organization with a long the late 1930s. Because the book would history of falsification and forgery direct- be aimed at Western markets, it was ed against the West. Have these books essential to have a Western co-author deepened our historical understanding with connections in the publishing or have they simply distorted the real world. Costello was an ideal candidate. picture and caused confusion? Have In mid-1991, a collaboration sanctioned people been reading facts or disinfor- at the highest levels of the KGB was for- matzia? A look at how these spy books mally initiated between Tsarev and came about suggests that we should, at Costello, with Crown, a division of the very least, be reading them with Random House, as publisher. more caution. Andrew’s earlier book, KGB: The Inside he end product was Deadly Story of Its Foreign Operations from Lenin Illusions, published in 1993 with to Gorbachev (1990), began the new wave Ta great deal of fanfare because of of collaborative spy history. Andrew the book’s provocative thesis—that Orlov teamed up with a high-level defector from had never been a genuine defector but had the KGB named Oleg Gordievsky to write stayed loyal to the Soviet Union. He had, an extensive new history of the Soviet the authors asserted, pulled the wool over intelligence agency. Yet, while the book the eyes of the Americans, who thought all used information Gordievsky reportedly along that Orlov was giving them valuable gleaned from the KGB archives, the bulk information when, in fact, he was passing of the sources cited were secondary on “half-truths and trivialities.” The main (Western histories and memoirs), not KGB source for this extraordinary thesis was the documents. It was not until a year later, in so-called Orlov file, a top-secret KGB 1991, that the KGB actually sanctioned a dossier. But Costello, who did not read a book project based on its files. In the word of Russian, never actually saw the changed political climate created by Orlov file. Instead, he relied on Tsarev, Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of openness, assisted by a coterie of his colleagues at the KGB officials decided that it was time to Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (or have their story told to the West. Facing FIS, as it was renamed after the dissolution unprecedented criticism from the newly of the KGB in late 1991) to make “sum- emboldened Soviet press, the KGB set out maries” of the relevant documents in to improve its image at home by publiciz- English. ing its past successes. It also saw the possi- In an afterword to the book, Costello bility of earning some extra cash. admitted that this arrangement was not ideal, given that the KGB had a long track nter John Costello, a successful record of conspiracies against the West. British nonfiction writer, who But, he argued, “We had agreed from the E first attracted the attention of outset that this would not be an ‘as told to’ the KGB when he requested documents account because at least one of the co- for a book he was working on and was authors of this book has seen all the mate- encouraged to come to Moscow. There rial.” Overlooking the fact that his co- he met Oleg Tsarev, a seasoned intelli- author had spent years abroad as a KGB gence officer who spoke perfect English officer, engaging in the deception and dis- and was at the time deputy chief of the information for which the KGB was noto- KGB press department. Tsarev had been rious, Costello was full of praise for the commissioned by his superiors to write a Russians’ “new level of openness,” which book about Alexander Orlov, the Soviet marked a sharp contrast to the secretive- spy who defected to the United States in ness of the CIA and the FBI. But this

18 WQ Winter 2000 openness, it turns out, had distinct limits. that it was time to reap some profits from his Although Costello assured the reader that father’s memory bank before it was too late. “all substantive documentation relating to He approached the Schecters (Jerrold was the text will be declassified to coincide an American journalist and his wife a liter- with the publication of Deadly Illusions,” ary agent) with a plan for a book, but it did the Orlov documents, after seven years, are not fly. As the Schecters put it in their still inaccessible. introduction, “Sudoplatov’s first outline for Deadly Illusions was followed in 1994 the book was directed to a Russian audi- by a real blockbuster spy book, Special ence; we explained that most of the names Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted in the outline were unfamiliar to Western Witness—a Soviet Spymaster, by Pavel readers.” After the younger Sudoplatov Sudoplatov and went back to the Anatoli Sudoplatov drawing board and with Jerrold and came up with some Leona Schecter. As familiar names such American historian as Oppenheimer Thomas Powers ob- and Fermi, the served, “The book Schecters became has more authors excited, and a deal than a Hollywood was made. The movie with script Schecters began tap- trouble.” When ex- ing interviews with cerpts of Special the elder and infirm Tasks were pub- Sudoplatov, prod- lished in Time, and ded on during the the MacNeil/Lehr- sessions by son er News-Hour de- Anatoli, who must voted a large seg- have had dollar signs ment to its revela- in his eyes. tions, it was clear There were some that the book would hitches, however. take American Although Pavel Su- readers by storm. doplatov had in- Among its sensa- deed been an tional charges was important NKVD the claim that sev- official with access eral leading West- The sword and shield emblem of the former KGB to many secrets, his ern scientists of the connection with 1940s, including Niels Bohr, Enrico atomic espionage (which was to be the Fermi, and Robert Oppenheimer, gave high point of the book) was very limited. atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. In fact, despite the book’s claims that Sudoplatov had led the Soviet atomic gain, the co-authoring arrange- espionage effort since 1942, he was ment and the methods of gather- involved in this area only for a brief peri- A ing source material were highly od during 1945–46. This was well after unusual. The 87-year-old Pavel Sudoplatov several of the spying episodes—present- had been a leading official in the NKVD (a ed in Sudoplatov’s memoir as authorita- Stalinist predecessor to the KGB) during tive accounts—occurred. As if anticipat- the 1940s and early 1950s, specializing in ing that the discrepancy would raise so-called wet affairs (assassinations and the eyebrows, the Schecters said in their like). In 1992 his son Anatoli, himself a for- introduction that Sudoplatov had mer KGB employee, apparently decided received helpful documents from the

Selling of the KGB 19 FIS and that “in relaxed meetings with within the party leadership over issues former KGB officers who had obtained such as the crisis in East Germany in atomic secrets, he filled in missing June 1953 and Khrushchev’s efforts at pieces of memory.” All well and good, rapprochement with Yugoslavia. The except for the fact that many of the research process is entirely different book’s allegations about the traitorous from that involving KGB materials. With activity of Western scientists did not few exceptions, no one is hand-fed pre- stand up to the scrutiny of those who selected documents. In the party knew about the subject. Indeed, the archives (where knowledge of Russian is book was riddled with contradictions essential), one has to fend for oneself, and errors. (To cite one of many exam- spending hours going through lists of ples, the authors say that Oppenheimer what is available, filling out forms, and recruited Klaus Fuchs, a spy for the waiting for requested materials to be Soviets, to Los Alamos to work on the delivered, which sometimes never hap- bomb, when Oppenheimer had nothing pens. Making copies of documents is whatsoever to do with the decision.) expensive and tedious, while the physi- The Schecters remained undaunted cal challenges—lack of heat and a bare in the face of a barrage of criticism from minimum of lighting—can be daunting. historians and members of the scientific Such inconveniences might make ordi- community, doggedly defending the nary scholars envy the privileged few veracity of Special Tasks by telling peo- who get KGB materials with no hassle, ple to look at the documentation at the but at least research in the party archives back of the book. This documentation, offers some freedom of choice, an essen- impressive at first glance, turned out to tial prerequisite for historical objectivity. have been published in the Russian And the playing field, for the most part, press long before, and it did nothing to is level. Everybody comes up against the confirm Sudoplatov’s allegations about same obstacles in hunting down sources. Western scientists. As a last resort, the That the FIS has preferred to do Schecters, like John Costello, offered things a different way is understandable. the feeble promise that we would see Like all intelligence services, including archival documents to back up the the CIA, the FIS has many secrets and book’s claims: “Documents proving could hardly be expected to permit Sudoplatov’s oral history are in Moscow researchers to rummage in its archives. archives and eventually will emerge.” At the same time, however, the FIS We are still waiting. wants to influence historical writing, earn some money, and give the impres- hile the archives of the for- sion of openness. The solution has been mer KGB have remained to handpick the documents and the W tightly closed, Western authors. It is presumably more conve- scholars have unearthed a mine of mate- nient if the Western co-author does not rials in the Communist Party archives, read Russian and or know a great deal opened to researchers after the collapse about Soviet history. Otherwise, there of the Soviet Union. Many documents might be awkward questions about miss- (particularly those less than 30 years old ing files and documents or requests for and files relating to top party leaders) are materials that could not be released. still classified, but historians have found A case in point is The Haunted Wood: enough new information to justify Soviet Espionage in America—the Stalin reassessment of several key episodes in Era, by Allen Weinstein and Alexander Soviet history. Thanks to the release of Vassiliev, published in early 1999 by transcripts of Communist Party Central Random House to rave reviews. In the Committee plenums, for example, we New York Times Book Review, historian have a new understanding of struggles Joseph Persico compared the book’s sig-

20 WQ Winter 2000 nificance to that of Ultra (the British what about the curious reader of these project that broke German codes during spy tomes, who would like to check the World War II), and said that the authors sources? provided “proof of the guilt of certain Although the authors of The Haunted Americans whose spying for the Soviet Wood substantiate some of the references Union has been the subject of debate for to KGB files with information from the so- over half a century.” In addition to docu- called Venona cables (Soviet transmissions menting the allegedly traitorous activity intercepted and decoded by the Americans of Americans such as Martha Dodd, during World War II), the majority of daughter of a former U.S. ambassador to source notes refer only to KGB file num- Germany, Michael Straight, an official bers that no one can check. As with the in the Roosevelt administration, and for- earlier books, if we accept that the grave mer New York congressman Samuel claims made against Americans are true, Dickstein, the authors claim to verify the in the end we are relying on the word of guilt of Alger Hiss and former State the former KGB. Department official Laurence Duggan. Contrary to the general impression of he Crown Jewels: The British reviewers, however, the authors did not Secrets at the Heart of the KGB cull their documentation from the FIS T Archives, another work co- archives. Neither Weinstein, the author authored by Oleg Tsarev, this time with of a book about the Alger Hiss case, nor British historian Nigel West (Costello Vassiliev, a former KGB officer, ever died in 1996), is more of the same. gained access to the FIS’s treasure-trove Published in 1999 by Yale University at its Iasenevo headquarters. Vassiliev Press, the book purports to offer much simply made summaries of documents new information about well-known that were handed over to him at an office British spies (the Cambridge Five, in in Moscow by FIS officials and then particular), as well as names of hitherto translated them for Weinstein. unknown traitors. As usual, the reader comes away dazzled by the Soviets’ phe- he arrangement was part of a nomenal success at recruiting spies and lucrative book deal (involving wondering how the government of the T advances to the Russians of sev- victim country, in this case Britain, eral hundred thousand dollars) made could be so stupid. Yet while it is more between Random House and the smoothly written than some of the other Association of Retired Intelligence spy books, The Crown Jewels (titled after Officers, a Russian organization that the KGB’s name for its top-secret files on serves as a middleman for the FIS. Iurii Britain) does not offer any precious Kobaladze, head of FIS public relations, gems. The dust jacket promises, for was the moving force behind the deal, example, that the book “explores a previ- just as he had been with Deadly ously unknown spy ring in Oxford.” In Illusions. Kobaladze said, “We are not fact, all that the authors do is make opening up the archives, and we are not vague references to a so-called Oxford selling any documents. What we are Group without giving any names (except doing and we are guaranteeing to the the code name, SCOTT, of the alleged authors of these books is that we shall leader), or specifics about what the supply them with materials which will group did. For the most part, The Crown allow them to write these books on the Jewels merely adds details to already basis of documents.” All very well for the known spy episodes, covering only the FIS, which can determine what informa- period through the 1950s—safe ground tion the authors write about, and in the from the FIS’s standpoint. Since the process reap substantial profits (none of Russians themselves have already pub- which reach the Russian taxpayer), but lished a number of documents about

Selling of the KGB 21 is a questionable premise, but even more problematic is the story of Mitro- khin’s defection, which strains credul- ity. Mitrokhin, An- drew tells us, was a secret dissident who strongly disapproved of the KGB even though he worked for its foreign intelligence branch for 35 years. In 1972, for some inexplicable reason, Mitrokhin, who never achieved a rank above major in his entire KGB career, was given the sensitive job of over- seeing the transfer of the KGB’s entire foreign intelligence archive to its new headquarters outside Moscow. According to Andrew, Mitro- khin had two private Sweden declassified these documents on diplomat Raoul Wallenberg in offices and unlimited 1997. He saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Nazis access to the KGB’s during World War II; the KGB archives still hold clues to his fate. darkest secrets. With the goal of getting Cold War espionage for this earlier peri- back at his employers by telling the West od, the information cannot be viewed as about the KGB’s foreign operations, earthshaking. Mitrokhin spent the next 12 years scrib- At least, however, the authors do not bling thousands upon thousands of notes make a pretense of having conducted from the files he saw. Incredibly, given research in the KGB archives. They the rigorous security rules in all Soviet received the documents through the FIS archives, no one noticed what Mitrokhin press bureau, where Tsarev still worked was doing all day or checked him when under the tutelage of Kobaladze, by this he was going home at night. time a familiar (and probably wealthy) fig- The story gets even more mysterious. ure in the world of spy history publishing. Despite all his hard work, Mitrokhin made Last year’s Sword and the Shield, by no attempt to do anything with the notes he contrast, is billed as something different. took (except to retype them) after his retire- Co-author Christopher Andrew tells us ment in 1984. His private “archive” would that the sources were gathered by a apparently never have seen the light of day defector, Vasili Mitrokhin, not a repre- if it had not been for the collapse of the sentative of the FIS, which means that Soviet Union in 1991. Emboldened to take they are more trustworthy. This in itself action, Mitrokhin traveled to an unnamed

22 WQ Winter 2000 Baltic country in 1992 and knocked on the cases of Cold War history. After all the door of a British embassy. After a few more rehashing of the Alger Hiss case, none of trips back and forth to Russia, he eventually these books offer new evidence of his guilt, was “exfiltrated” by the British with all his except for a single cable from the Venona documents (six suitcases’ worth) and his transcripts that makes reference to an family. All this happened under the very American agent codenamed ALES and noses of the members of the Russian securi- speculates that it is probably Hiss. And the ty services, who apparently did not notice fate of Raoul Wallenberg, the celebrated that one of their former colleagues who had Swedish diplomat who was kidnapped by had access to top-secret files was going back the Soviets in Budapest in 1945, remains and forth to one of the now-independent unknown. Special Tasks is the only book to Baltic states (where the Russians were spy- touch on that case, and all it adds are Pavel ing up a storm). Sudoplatov’s foggy speculations about what happened to Wallenberg. It is clear, espite the strange circum- however, from an obscure reference made stances surrounding the Mitro- by Sudoplatov in a footnote to the D khin story, which suggest that “Wallenberg family file in the KGB he had some help from his former archives” that FIS officials have been lying employers in assembling his notes, An- when they say they have no information drew considers his book to be more reli- about the Wallenberg case. For a variety of able than the other collaborative spy his- political reasons, not the least of which is tories: “Their main weakness, for which the embarrassment to Russia if a cover-up the authors cannot be blamed, is that the were acknowledged, the FIS has chosen to choice of KGB documents on which they keep Wallenberg’s story a secret. are based has been made not by them but by the SVR [the Russian acronym for the owever disappointing these spy FIS].” Yet even if we accept that histories might be for those Mitrokhin was a genuine defector who Hwho are looking for document- did copy all the notes by himself, ed facts and objective analyses, they Andrew’s effort to distinguish his book should not be rejected out of hand, from the others falls a bit flat. In this case, because they are all we have (unless one too, someone other than the author wants to wade through the self-serving and selected the materials, and that someone arid Russian-language memoirs of former used to work for the KGB. KGB officials such as Vladimir Kriuch- While The Sword and the Shield con- kov). There is no point in waiting for the tains new information, including the rev- Russians to open up their foreign intelli- elation that a British woman named gence archives to public access so that Melita Norwood, now in her eighties, scholars can actually do their own spied for the Soviets several decades ago, research. Unless there is a drastic change none of it has much significance for in the way Russia’s security and intelli- broader interpretations of the Cold War. gence services operate, the FIS will con- The main message the reader comes away tinue to dole out its archival secrets for with after plowing through almost a thou- profit, selling only those documents that sand pages is the same one gleaned from uphold its version of history. But this the earlier books: the Soviets were incred- should not stop us from reading what they ibly successful, albeit evil, spymasters, have to say now. Probably the best and none of the Western services could approach is to treat these books with the come close to matching their expertise. same kind of skepticism we applied to Bravo the KGB. Soviet publications—from which the dis- What is disappointing, but not surpris- cerning reader could glean a great deal. In ing, about all these books is their failure to other words, read between the lines, and shed light on some of the really pivotal always consider the source. ❏

Selling of the KGB 23