once the champion high school debater of New York City, Gibney's involvement can with the Papers grew out of a term he / Oh, CIA, served as a staff writer on Life. "In 1958," Gibney said, "Life learned there you see? was a defector, surfaced and cleared, who was available for stories. He was By Dick Schaal) Peter Deriabin. We did a series together for Life, and the series later became a book, Did Oleg Penkovskiy have a spook for The Secret World." (Gibney, who was assigned to the Office of Naval In- a ghost? telligence during World War II, Did a CIA man—a "spook"—write has also, written books about Japan, Poland and The .Penkovskiy Papers? Or are the white-collar crime in the United States.) Papers, now listed among the best-selling Out of the Life series and The Secret books, actually the personal observations World came a friendship between Gibney of Colonel Oleg Penkovskiy, a Red Army and Deriabin. Gibney, through the late officer who spied for the West and as Congressman Francis Walters, helped a result of his moonlighting, was tried Deriabin obtain American citizenship. and executed by the Soviet Union? Deriahin often visits Gibney's home, tele- Doubts have been expressed about the phones him and sends him Christmas authenticity of the Papers on both sides Page 6 of the Iron Curtain. Such knowledge- able Westerners as John Le Carre and Stewart Alsop have argued that the Papers, while substantially accurate, are, if not a CIA creation, at least a CIA production. Pravda, less subtly, said the Papers arc "a crude fabrication." Penkovskiy himself, obviously, is in no position to defend the Papers. Nor is Peter Deriabin, the former Russian se- cret agent who is given credit—by Dou- cards. He likes to tell Gibney's children bleday, if not by Pravda—for translating stories about the siege at Stalingrad. Yet the Papers. Deriahin defected to the Gibney maintains that he does not know United States roughly a decade ago and Deriabin's phone number nor where he chooses, for reasons of health, to change lives—and does not want to know. "It's his name every few years and remain out strictly one-way traffic," Gibney said. of the public spotlight The CIA, of "Peter gets in touch with me." course, is no help at all. Among authors In November, 1962, Deriabin got in craving personal publicity, the CIA ranks touch with Gibney and told him that he just behind J. D. $alinger. had obtained microfilms of the personal This leaves Frank Gibney. papers of Oleg Penkovskiy, a Russian Gibney is the best available authority who had been spying for the West with for the authenticity of the Papers. He great effectiveness. Deriabin said the wrote an introduction to them, plus a microfilms had been smuggled to the commentary on each section, and, in West. Gibney says he doesn't know ex- effect, edited the book Gibney insists actly how they were brought out— that, as far as he knows, the Central although he imagines they followed Pas- Intelligence Agency had nothing to do ternak's Dr. Zhivago route—and he with Vie Penkovskiy Papers until he had doesn't want to know that, either. "I. finished assembling and annotating the didn't know who the hell the guy was," manuscript. "Then it was sent to the CIA Gibney said. "I had never heard of Pen- for checking," Gibney said the other day kovskiy. I took Peter's word for every- at his Manhattan home. "Sure they took thing. If Peter said he was a Russian and some things out. I don't deny that." he was an agent, I believed it." Gibney is a candid mart—he is willing On December II, 1962, in support of to admit, for instance, that he has Deriabin's story, the Soviet Union an- worked, as reporter, editor and speech- nounced it had arrested a man named writer, for Henry Luce, Vincent Astor, O. V. Penkovskiy identified as a scien- Hugh Hefner, Huntington Hartford and Lyndon Johnson—but the problem is that the Papers could be a CIA produc- tion without his knowledge. A 41-year-old, short, pleasant man,

^.47ezenergeraetczneaesexnereastezMMTPAripoit ee0MleM7'"' tific worker who had passed secret Rus- sian information to British and American sources. Gibney and Deriabin went to a lawyer named Herb Jacoby, a specialist get it out, and the art director has gotten up layouts without the photo- in copyright law, and got Jacoby to set up a trust fund in Penkovskiy's name. The stats. I. didn't push. I never thought the authors intended to put aside for Pen- authenticity would be questioned." kovskiy the bulk of any profits resulting To the criticism that Penkovskiy from publication of the Papers. "We would never simply hide the Papers in thought Penkovskiy might somehow get his desk, as the hook says he did—Le out at some time," Gibney said. "Peter, Carte phrased the suspicion best: "Pen- particularly, didn't want to be accused kovskiy concealed the Papers, with Rus- of profiteering." sian cunning, in his desk"—Gibney of- Through 1963, while Penkovskiy and fers another rebuttal. "Guys talk," he said, "as if Penkovskiy was just sitting his British contact, businessman Greville there waiting for a literary agent to Wynne, were tried and found guilty, show tip. He did travel to the West a Gibney and Deriabin kept the Papers few times. He didn't keep a big manu- quiet. Not until April, 1964, after Pen- script just lying around." kovskiy had been executed and Wynne The charge has also been made, more had been traded to the West for Soviet by spy Gordon Lonsdale, did Gibney go Soviet critics than by Westerners, that Penkovskiy simply was not so im- to work on the book in earnest. Gibney, portant a spy as the who has a working knowledge of Rus- Papers claim. sian but has never been to the Soviet Greville Wynne, in a New York press conference plugging the Papers, Union, went away to Maine for two said, "Penkovskiy saved a war, in my months and spent most of his time working on the introduction, using, be- opinion." Gibney will go almost as far. "I think he was the key to the Cuban Papers themselves, the official sides the situation," Gibney said. "We may have weathered the crisis without him, but I hate to think about it." Neither Theodore Sorensen nor Arthur Schlesinger jr., in their JFK books, mentions Penkovskiy's role in Cuba, but Sorensen, questioned about it Soviet account of the Penkovskiy trial. on television, would say only that he was Later, Gibney flew to England and had glad the United States had intelligence Wynne check over the manuscript. successes once in a while. And Schlesing- "Wynne made some corrections in the er, who worked for Gibney (as a Show introduction," Gibney said, "but there magazine movie critic) at the same time are probably still some mistakes." he worked for President Kennedy, has Gibney took the manuscript first to never suggested to Gibney that the im- Harper & Row, then to New American portance of Penkovskiy is exaggerated. Library, but neither publisher was eager In his introduction to the Papers, to meet the asking price, a $50,000 ad- Gibney flatly states,"Their [the Papers'l vance. Finally, Doubleday, which had authenticity is beyond question." published The Secret World, bought the He has hacked up only slightly since Papers. then. "Certainly it's possible that the The book surfaced in November, 1965, CIA fed the material to Deriabin before exactly three years after Deriabin r became involved," Gibney said "It's brought Gibney the Papers, and quickly one of many theoretical possibilities. But climbed onto the best-seller lists. I find it difficult to believe it could have One of the criticisms leveled against been fixed without my knowledge." the hook is that, while there are several Pravda has announced that Gibney, in photographs of Penkovskiy's family, his defending the Papers, is "like a tired military documents and his calling cards, fighter, swinging his gloves wildly . . there are none of the Original manu- defending the CIA fabrications." Prav- script. This absence has fed the suspicion da's attack may be Gibney's best de- that the Papers are not authentic_ fense. Gibncy has photostats of dozens of the BOOK WEEK January 30, 1964 original Penkovskiy pages in his home. "And Peter has all the rest," he said. "We should have used some in the book, but Doubleday was in a rush to

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