Click here for Full Issue of EIR Volume 13, Number 15, April 11, 1986

Control Data Corp., . the KGB, and 'The Trust': mandate for an inqui1:y

by Crtton Zoakos

A team of Executive Intelligence Review investigators, en­ Anastasi, certain Western diplomats identified Ambassador gaged for over a month now in an in-depth inquiry into the Boris Pankin as the chief of the KG8"s Disinfonnation De­ role of Soviet secret services in the Feb. 28 Palme assassi­ partment. Later, this identification was accepted by investi­ nation and its subsequent coverup, is currently pursuing a gators as a reasonable researc� hypothesis and never chal­ trail involving Soviet Ambassador to Stockholm Boris Pan­ lenged. The hypothesis was further strengthened again later, kin and certain operations of Minnesota's Control Data Cor­ during March 1986, when senior intelligence veterans from poration. Sweden and the Federal Republicof Gennanyidentified Am­ Ambassador Pankin, together with Central Con1mittee bassador Pankin as one of the "most pbwerful policy makers member Georgi Arbatov and TASS chief Sergei Losev, or­ of the Soviet Union," one whom peopleconsider more influ­ chestrateda large-scale disinformation campaign, principal­ ential, in terms of setting long-term policy vistas, than Mik­ ly through Western news media which they influence, in � hail Gorbachov. , attempt to allege some type of involvement in the killing of Official biographies �f Pankin are not available. When Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, of organizations asso­ he was appointed Soviet ambassador to Sweden in 1982, a ciated with U.S. 1988 presidential candidate Lyndon La­ terse TASS release identified him as a:"high ranking official, Rouche. The basic outline of this disinformation campaign who has served the Soviet Union in a number of important and its key players has been published by EIR earlier (Vol. positions of the state, " adding thathe �so served as President '13, Nos. 13 & 14, March 28 and April 14, 1986). of VAAP, the All-Union Copyright Agency, which controls Further inquiries into Pankin's role have raised certain all Soviet publications abroad and all foreign publications in questions of paramount importance for Westernsecurity, and the Soviet Union. have answered certain others. One of these involves the role Boris Pankin's first public surfacing occurred in 1975, in of Control Data Corporation in the transfer of sensitive tech­ Greece, in the context of activities associated with the cover nologies to the Soviet Union. A second, involves special of President of VAAP. At that time, his immediate subordi­ features of Soviet assassination capabilities in theWest. nate and deputy was Vassili Romano\litsSitnikov, vice Pres­ ident of VAAP, and, according to Soviet defectors, Deputy Boris Pankin and Greece Chief of the KGB's Disinformation'Department, since its The case of Ambassador Boris Pankin or, as some insist, founding by General Aganyats. During the 19608, Vassili KGB Lieutenant General Pankin, ought to be of paramQunt Sitnikov was the KGB case officerwho handled the defection interest to U.S. intelligence officialdom, as his career over­ of Kim Philby, and was also the KGB's top experton Austria, laps three areas of vital importance to the United States: I) having served in Vienna earlier on. When he arrived in Ath­ large-scale technology theft on behalf of the Soviet military , ens in April of 1975, Sitnikov's offk:ial cover was to seek 2) large-scale Russian penetration and corruption of Western cooperation with Greek publishers for the purpose of pub­ news organizations ,and, 3) assassinations of senior United lishing a Greeklanguage edition of the GreatSoviet Encyclo­ ' States personnel. pedia. During his stay, he not only laid the basis for a future However, officials of Mr. William J. Casey's Central Soviet-financed publishing empire, but also activated con­ Intelligence Agency, presented, repeatedly, with the oppor­ tacts with old Communist guerrilla leaders, in whose millieu tunity to review the matter, have declined "at this time," even Soviet services maintain dedicated, :Spetsnaz-type assassi­ ,though one of them reported to this writer that an inquiry in nation capabilities. thisarea would be within the mandate of that agency. Be that Seven months after Pankin's deputy, Vassili Siin!kov, as it may, the following matter still remains for consideration: visited Greece, a series of assassinations took place, which During 1982, in the course of events surrounding a cele­ beganwith the murder, on ChristmasEve 1975, of the Athens brated trial, in Athens, Greece, involving Greelc publisher Station Chief of the CIA, Richard Welch and ended with the George Bombolas and New York Times correspondent Paul assassination on Aug. 21, 1979, of Ambassador Henry Tas-

EUR April 11, 1986 International 43

© 1986 EIR News Service Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited. ca, who had served as U. S. Ambassador to Greece during sians, and, in particular, th� Pankin-Sitnikov and Gvishiani the years of the "Colonels' Junta," which was toppled by combination: The Minnesota company freely acknowledges Henry Kissinger in June 1974. In between the murders of its interest in promoting high-technology exports to the So­ Tasca and Welch, the assassinations of approximately ten viet Union-in itself a no. especially odious undertaking. other persons occurred, all of whom were of senior rank, and However, the company's i additional "under-the-counter" all of whom were involved in a special liaison relationship business dealings with Russia, and its further political affin- . between the Greek military government and American secret ities, have long made it suspect of being a major conduit of O services. Russian espionage. It shoutd be noted that COC 's business None of these murders has been solved to this day. With dealings with Moscow were opened up, according to com­ the demise of these persons, a tremendous amount of evi­ pany sources, by Armand �ammer and Cyrus Eaton, two of dence has disappeared, most of it pertaining to Kissinger's the oldest members of the original "Trust." November 1973-June 1974 operation to topple the Greek Further, Control Data has maintained a special Swedish military governement. conduit for siphoning off technology to Russia, which par­ The disappearance of this evidence was indispensib1e in allels the Swedish conduit of Gyllenhammer and Wallenberg turning Greece, from a staunchly pro-U.S.A. country, to a of American defense techntllogy into the Soviet Union. The Russian "Trojan Horse" inside the NATO alliance. An essen­ Wallenberg family, like Hammer and Eaton, has been among tial ingredient which helped significantly in bringing about the original members of the :1917 "Trust" which financed the this transformation of an entire country, was the publishing Bolshevik coup d'etat. Per Gyllenhammer, of course, is the empire, centered around To Ethnos. a daily with circulation well-known business partner of Henry Kissinger, the man greater than that of all other Greek daily newspapers com­ who in 1974-76 opened up Greece for the Russian takeover bined, which Boris Pankin and Vassili Sitnikov established of that period. in Greec�, in cooperation with Greek millionaire business­ Given the sheer size of technology theft on behalf of man George Bombolas and a Greek-American confidant of Russia that is carried out ill'Sweden, it is perhaps not coin­ the present Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, one cidental that the shadowy Boris Pankin was named ambas­ Demetrios Philippopoulos from New York. sador there, after the successes of the Pankin-Sitnikov team Together with Philippopoulos, another confidant of An­ in Greece. It may also not Ibe a coincidence that it was in dreas Papandreou is involved in, the founding of the Pankinl Vienna, Austria, Vassili Sitrlikov'sspecial KGB assignment, Sitnikov Greek publishing empire, one John Kapsis, the one that Control Data CorporaticJ,n had set up a subsidiary for the time Deputy Foreign Minister for Public Affairs (the same purpose of working with theiVienna International Institute of job designation as that of Norway's convicted Soviet spy Applied Systems Analysis, whose chairman was Dzhermen Arne Treho1t), who has served as Papandreou's personal Gvishiani, the head of the; KGB's technological/scientific' courier to Clair George, now the CIA's Deputy Director for' espionage division, since at least 1964, the time of Kim Clandestine Services. More peripherally involved in the af­ Philby's defection (with help from SitnikoV). It will be re­ fair is Kapsis' friend, Louis Danos, former press attache of called that President Reagan cut off U. S. funding for IIASA the Greek Embassy in Washington and a well known terror­ after it was discovered that this Institute was dipping into ist� high-security American computer banks with help of KGB " spies in Sweden. Control Data Worldtech Another loose end, which, if ever explained, will give us After the establishment of the Pankin-Bombolas Atheni­ a clue as to the reason why Americanauthorities have allowed an publishing venture, the two moved rapidly into the field COC "get away withmurdet": In our investigation about the of technology espionage, by establishing a limited liability Palme assassination, we dme across the information sup­ partnership with Control Data Corporation, in June 1978, plied by a Greek member of.parliament, once a close collab­ named Worldtech Hellas, Ltd., in which George Bombolas orator of AndreasPapandreou, according to which, the CIA's controlled70% of the stock, along with Control Data World­ (subsequent) Deputy DirectOr of Clandestine Services Clair tech of Delaware. Business correspondence presented in George, in a plan involving Morton Abramowitz of the State Greek courts between the Russians and Bombolas demon­ Department, and others, worked together with Papandreou strates beyond doubt that the purpose of Worldtech Hellas and the la�e OlofPalme (and John Kapsis, Pankin's promot­ Ltd. was the theftof militarily relevant American technology er), to launch the notoriousPapandreou-Palme "peace initia­ for shipment to the Soviet Union. Control Data Corporation, tive of the Six" of 1984. Papandreou and Palme, coordinated eventually withdrewits participation in the Bombolas-Pankin by the CIA's Clair George,' suckered into their scheme Ar­ venture, but only after the December 1982 Athens trial had gentina's RaUl Alfonsin, Iadia's Indira Gandhi, Mexico's created major public embarrassments for CDC. Miguel de la Madrid, andl Spain's Felipe Gonzalez. The The matter, however, helped in bringing into focus Con­ policy reasonsfor thisharebrained scheme were explained in trol Data Corporation's broader cooperation with the Rus- a 1984 speech by then-Senator Charles Percy of Illinois.

44 International EnR April 11, 1986