Spymaster, page 15
“Your leadership has committed a crass error in using force against a nation which has always respected the Soviet Union,” he told me. “In my mind, Oleg, I can probably understand the reasons which motivated Brezhnev to resort to armed force. But in my heart, I cannot accept any justification for it. My children will hate you for what you’ve done to my country. They will never forgive you for what happened.”
I was deeply moved by the resident’s words and in response said that not every Soviet agreed with what had happened. I said I was immensely sorry and that I hoped our friendship would survive, despite everything. I embraced him as we said good-bye. We never saw each other again.
In the days following the invasion, I sat in my office in the embassy and pored over hundreds of pages of purloined U.S. intelligence reports on Czechoslovakia. Not one of them gave a hint that the CIA or other U.S. agencies had done anything nefarious in Czechoslovakia in recent months. On my own initiative, I prepared a detailed analysis of the activity of American intelligence in the weeks preceding the invasion. The analysis conclusively showed that, while America was closely monitoring the situation in Czechoslovakia, the CIA had taken no steps to destabilize the country. I addressed the report to KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov, certain he would want to see it. Later I learned that when my report arrived in Moscow, Andropov had it destroyed immediately.
Eventually the furor over the Czech invasion died down. Dubček and his aides, after being hauled away to the Soviet Union by the KGB, were returned to Czechoslovakia. They served briefly as a puppet government before a staunch, pro-Moscow regime was installed. These lackeys would reign another two decades until the whole house of cards came tumbling down in 1989.
It’s clear now that Brezhnev and the Politburo knew precisely what they were dealing with in Czechoslovakia. Had they let the Prague Spring continue to flower, the revolution would have spread to Hungary and Poland and the Baltic States and ultimately to Russia itself. What was going on in Prague had to be crushed in its early stages, or the entire Communist edifice would crumble.
For me, the invasion of Czechoslovakia was one of the two or three milestones on my road to total disillusionment with the Soviet system. I suppose that had I been bolder, had I been more of a dissident, I might have resigned shortly after Soviet tanks rolled into Prague. But I was no dissident, no Sakharov or Solzhenitsyn. I was a product of the system, a patriot, and defection was absolutely out of the question. I suppose I also was a slave to my ambitions, and to the illusion that this system—despite the increasing proliferation of Communist Party hacks at all levels—could be reformed. So I stayed in the KGB; indeed, I continued to rise rapidly through its ranks. I was a professional, and I knew we were involved in a bitter power struggle with the United States. I was not prepared, despite the colossal blunder of Czechoslovakia, to abandon my country or its Communist system. But the crushing of the Prague Spring had profoundly unsettled me. It meant the end of illusions inspired by Khrushchev’s reforms. It ended my own illusions about the future of my country. I would never be the same again.
By this time another unsettling trend was becoming evident in the KGB. At all levels, Communist Party apparatchiks—shallow, fawning, and unprofessional—were moving into positions of power. Though I respected Andropov’s astuteness and toughness, he was responsible for bringing in legions of Party hacks who ultimately weakened the KGB. In the late 1960s and especially in the 1970s, Communist Party bureaucrats such as Vladimir Kryuchkov—who went on to lead the KGB and the ill-fated 1991 coup—moved into positions of power. The members of the ruling Politburo viewed these apparatchiks as a stable and reliable force, especially considering the frightening counterrevolutionary trends that had popped up in Czechoslovakia.
But this influx of Party bureaucrats into the KGB was disastrous. They knew little about the nuts and bolts of intelligence, and even less about the world outside the Soviet Union. We disparagingly called them “encyclopedists”—men who knew a little about everything. They could do anything, run any organization. And they ruined the country. In the KGB, officers increasingly were promoted because of who they knew, not what they had accomplished. Men of strong character and high professional ability became suspect, while obsequious yes men climbed higher and higher.
Perhaps in part because of the influx of Party bureaucrats, the KGB (like virtually every organization in the country) began to suffer from gigantism. Right before my eyes, in the late 1960s and 1970s, I saw the KGB steadily grow both larger and more ineffective. When I started working with the KGB, there were three major directorates: intelligence, counterintelligence, and codes. By the 1970s, there were a dozen—each a little fiefdom unto itself.
When I began working for the KGB, political intelligence was divided into eight geographic regions. By 1980, there were twenty geographic departments. When I started my career, there was one advanced KGB school in Moscow. By the 1980s, there were three. In my early days, the KGB intelligence directorate was headquartered in Lubyanka and a nearby, smaller building. By the late 1970s, intelligence had virtually been given its own city, the sprawling compound at Yasenovo on the outskirts of Moscow. Yasenovo contained a twenty-two-story building, an eighteen-story building, and a seven-story building.
One fact alone tells the story of the KGB’s growth: by 1990 there were more KGB employees in Moscow alone—47,000—than all of the CIA and FBI employees combined. The total number of KGB manpower reached 496,000. And the bitter truth was that this sprawling organization turned out to be far less effective than its earlier counterpart.
This gigantism had another result (which should not be overlooked, for it was one of the main reasons why the Soviet Union ultimately self-destructed): the KGB—like the army, the Communist Party, and the gargantuan military-industrial complex—was siphoning off an enormous percentage of the Soviet Union’s financial resources. These authoritarian institutions were draining the country dry. Nothing was denied the KGB, the Party, or the defense industry. The average Soviet, meanwhile, was living virtually a Third World existence with scarce food, backward medical care, and laughably shoddy consumer goods. There was some truth to the old joke that the Soviet Union was little more than the Congo with rockets.
These problems weighed on me in Washington, but I was so busy trying to balance my dual existence as a KGB officer and press attaché that I did not have the luxury to dwell on such cosmic matters. As 1968 progressed, our station—and particularly my political intelligence line—got deeply involved in analyzing the presidential race between Republican nominee Richard Nixon and Democrat Hubert Humphrey. We forged a close back-channel tie with Henry Kissinger that not only changed our view of the race but also opened up a direct line between Brezhnev and Nixon that was to significantly improve U.S.-Soviet relations.
As the election heated up in the fall of 1968, the conventional Soviet view—and the one held by Ambassador Dobrynin—was that a Humphrey victory would be far better for the Soviet Union. Dobrynin believed that Humphrey and the Democrats were more predictable and would guarantee more stable relations between our two countries. The ambassador and many other Soviet officials feared Nixon, viewing him as a staunch anti-Communist. Dobrynin also thought Nixon was unpredictable and something of a scoundrel.
We in the KGB, however, took a different view. We liked Nixon. We knew that he was unpredictable, but we also thought that he could take giant steps that could lead to a marked improvement in Soviet-U. S. relations. Early on, we saw that the very fact that Nixon was a conservative and a fervent anti-Communist could work to our advantage: such a man would have the power to improve relations between our countries, for no one would ever dare accuse Nixon of being soft on Communism.
We also had a little help in our intelligence assessments, thanks to a fascinating relationship that developed between one of our officers and Henry Kissinger.
The KGB officer was named Boris Sedov. Officially, he was in Washington as a reporter for the Novosti Press Agency. In fact, he was one of my underlings in the KGB’s political intelligence line. In the course of his Novosti work, Sedov had met Kissinger, who was then at Harvard University. They hit it off and began meeting frequently. We encouraged Sedov to cultivate his relationship with Kissinger because we knew the German émigré professor was well connected and held widely respected views on foreign affairs. We never had any illusions about trying to recruit Kissinger; he was simply a source of political intelligence.
When Kissinger became a close political adviser to Nixon during the campaign, however, we knew that we had a very important relationship on our hands, one that could go well beyond what Sedov and Kissinger had enjoyed before. In fact, both sides began to use this contact as a fruitful back channel between the leadership of our two countries.
For his part, Kissinger—clearly acting on instructions from Nixon and plainly aware that Sedov was more than just an average Soviet reporter—began to convey to us that Nixon was no anti-Communist ogre and that he wanted improved relations with the USSR. Again and again in meetings with Sedov, Kissinger told us not to underestimate Nixon’s political abilities, not to overestimate his anti-Communism, and not to take Nixon’s hard-line campaign pronouncements at face value. Kissinger told Sedov that Nixon, if elected, would strive for a new era of improved relations between the two superpowers. That message was conveyed to Lubyanka, which passed it on directly to Brezhnev and the Politburo. Later, Nixon—through the Kissinger-Sedov channel—sent an unofficial letter to Brezhnev in which he set out his views on the international situation and said he would do all he could to improve relations between us.
The message was well received in the Kremlin, in large measure because Brezhnev and his Politburo cronies were anxious to begin repairing the damage that had been done after the invasion of Czechoslovakia. In reply to Kissinger’s overtures, Brezhnev sent back a message, relayed through Sedov, that the Kremlin would welcome the chance to work with Nixon and had no ill feelings toward him.
Dobrynin was apprised in general terms of the content of the confidential communications between Brezhnev and Nixon. He was not thrilled about the back channel but accepted it because the election campaign was under way and it was still improper for the Soviet Union to open up direct contact with Nixon.
The Republican was overwhelmingly elected the thirty-seventh president of the United States. Even before sending official congratulations, Brezhnev forwarded a confidential note to Nixon through Sedov expressing the hope that Nixon’s election would bring changes in the superpower relationship. For more than a month afterward the Soviet regime and the president-elect communicated through the Sedov-Kissinger back channel.
Finally Dobrynin had enough. He said it was time to begin all communication through proper diplomatic channels. Dobrynin sent a cable to Brezhnev, saying in effect that he appreciated the service done by the KGB in establishing communications with Nixon but, considering that the ambassador was alive and well, all contact with the new administration should go through the Foreign Ministry and the embassy in Washington. Brezhnev agreed. Dobrynin himself began to meet with Kissinger, and Sedov was relegated to the background.
However, Sedov and the KGB continued to contribute to the dialogue between the United States and the Soviet Union. Once Kissinger became national security adviser to Nixon, Sedov began to meet frequently with one of Kissinger’s top aides, Richard Allen. I too later met Allen at a small party given by Sedov. As with Kissinger, Sedov met regularly with Allen to exchange information. Allen must have been aware that Sedov was from the KGB, but both sides found it beneficial to use these informal meetings to probe one another, ask questions, exchange ideas, and float trial balloons. Sedov once considered trying to recruit Allen as an agent, and even went so far as to look into Allen’s financial affairs and inquire whether there might be some compromising material that could be used to recruit the National Security Council deputy. But I quickly quashed the idea, saying it was useless and, worse, could jeopardize our improving relations.
Sedov and Allen continued their relationship until I left Washington in 1970. Allen eventually went on to become national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan.
In December 1968—exhausted from a combination of the Czechoslovakian events, the campaign, the Walker case, and my job as acting station chief—I decided to take a rest. KGB officers stationed in America customarily vacationed in the Soviet Union. But I knew a home trip was out of the question since it would be virtually impossible to find a replacement for me as acting station chief on such short notice. I was then gripped by a wild notion: why not vacation in Florida? No KGB officer had ever done that before, figuring the Americans would flatly reject the idea. Remarkably, I got the okay I needed from Dobrynin, KGB headquarters, and the Americans themselves.
Delighted that I had somehow managed to outfox the sprawling bureaucracies of the world’s two great powers, I piled my family into our green Volkswagen Beetle on a cold December day and headed south. As expected, the beaches were delightful. But by far the most memorable part of the trip were the friendly—even touching—encounters with the FBI agents who followed me to and from the Sunshine State.
The road from Washington to Florida was a long one, and FBI security regulations made it even longer for us. U.S. officials weren’t taking any chances that I might do a little snooping around on my vacation, so they chose a route for me that steered clear of military bases and other “top secret” installations. Leaving Washington, I saw two FBI cars on our tail, assuming they would be with us the whole way. But the FBI had decided to let agents in the southern states have the fun of tailing a Russian spook, so every time we crossed a state line we waved farewell to an old surveillance team and picked up a new one. The trip south was uneventful, and it felt great to be out of the Washington rat race and traveling through the picturesque, slow-paced world of the American South.
Arriving in Fort Lauderdale, FBI agents in tow, we quite randomly selected the Hacienda Motel—a typical, modest 1950s American motel that had the supreme advantages of being relatively cheap and right on the beach. Hardly had I finished checking in when one of the FBI agents approached me and politely asked when I would be returning to Washington. I told him the exact date and time, two weeks hence, and he thanked me and disappeared. Except for a brief side trip to Miami, our FBI surveillance ceased until we got ready to head back to Washington.
We lounged around Fort Lauderdale for several days, then took the prearranged trip to Miami. We were only allowed to travel by train or plane, so early in the morning on the appointed day of our excursion we arrived at the Fort Lauderdale railroad station. Two FBI men were wandering up and down the platform, and we nodded politely. The train was delayed, virtually no one else was on the platform, so I decided to talk to our FBI escorts. Normally, while being tailed, we are supposed to ignore the men following us and go about our business. It certainly wasn’t advisable for KGB officers to begin talking to agents of a hostile intelligence service without first receiving permission from headquarters. But it was vacation, no one else was around, and I decided to ask one of our FBI men about hotels and public transportation in Miami. He was extremely friendly, filling us in on where to stay and what sites to see. I asked him if he would be accompanying us to Miami, but he said he wouldn’t, that another surveillance team would pick us up when we got there. We bade farewell and hopped on the train. With me were Ludmilla and our youngest daughter, Yulia.
Word must have spread in the FBI that we weren’t bad folks. We spent twenty-four hours in Miami, and the following morning—after rushing out of our hotel without breakfast—we arrived at the station to catch our train back to Fort Lauderdale. I wandered down a side street in search of a quick place to eat. After I had gone a few yards, a member of the surveillance team—a jovial, middle-aged man—asked me what I was looking for. When I told him breakfast, he hurried back to get Ludmilla and Yulia and led us to a decent cafeteria. After a quick meal, we got on the train, our little Russian family smiling and waving good-bye to the G-men.
I was beginning to like these guys.
Two weeks later, rested and refreshed, we pulled out of the Hacienda Motel at the appointed hour. Two FBI cars were parked nearby, ready to roll. The occupants smiled at us as if we were old friends, and we set off on the long road back to Washington.
That night, it was already dark when we decided to pull in to a roadside motel. As we entered the parking lot, the old Beetle sputtered and died. I began pushing it into the parking lot when one of the FBI men leaped out of his surveillance car and gave me a hand. He couldn’t get it started either but assured me there was a garage nearby and that we would get the car fixed.
We washed up at the motel and then set off on foot in search of dinner. In the distance, a flashing neon Howard Johnson’s sign beckoned. We had walked no more than thirty yards when a blue Dodge, tires whispering, pulled up beside us. A car door slammed and a tall, young FBI agent approached us.
“Where are you going in the dark?” he asked. “It’s not all that safe around here. Hop in. I’ll drive you wherever you want to go.”
I hesitated for a second, but then we piled into his car and drove to the Howard Johnson’s restaurant. I asked him to join us for dinner, but he politely declined, saying he and his partner had already eaten.
We emerged from the restaurant an hour later. The Dodge was there waiting for us, its driver holding open the door for Ludmilla and Yulia. This was getting to be a bit much, but I enjoyed it nevertheless.
“Have you been with us all the way from Fort Lauderdale?” I asked the young man, settling down in the front passenger seat. “No,” he responded. “We picked you up halfway. We’ll be with you as far as St. Petersburg, and then we’ll hand you over to someone else.”
