The Compatriots

by Andrei Soldatov

  13. Stalin had his own “death doctor”—Grigory Mairanovsky, professor, and colonel of state security, the head of Laboratory N1 (poisoning) within the Soviet secret police. He used political prisoners for experiments with poisons.

  14. Authors’ conversation with Koval’s biographer Yuri Lebedev, December 2016. See also Andrei Soldatov, “The Soviet Atomic Spy Who Asked for a U.S. Pension,” Daily Beast, May 28, 2016, https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-soviet-atomic-spy-who-asked-for-a-us-pension.

  15. Based on research done by Yuri Lebedev and provided to the authors.

  16. Kremlin, “President Vladimir Putin Handed Over to the GRU (Military Intelligence) Museum the Gold Star Medal and Hero of Russia Certificate and Document Bestowed on Soviet Intelligence Officer George Koval,” Kremlin.ru, November 2, 2007, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/43173.

  CHAPTER 8: WARRING NARRATIVES

  1. CIA, “Russian Emigrant Organizations,” Confidential report, March 29, 1950, available on the website of the CIA’s Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP82-00457R004400040003-3.pdf.

  2. Letter to George Kennan from William H. Jackson, July 2, 1951, released on January 18, 2002, CIA website, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp80r01731r000500560001-9.

  3. CIA, “Russian Emigre Politics,” CIA-RDP57-00384R00100050068-3, July 20, 2000, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp57-00384r001100050068-3.

  4. Kevin C. Ruffner, “Review: Soldiers, Spies, and the Rat Line: America’s Undeclared War against the Soviets,” Studies in Intelligence (1995):117, https://numbers-stations.com/cia/Studies%20In%20Intelligence%20Nazi%20-%20Related%20Articles/STUDIES%20IN%20INTELLIGENCE%20NAZI%20-%20RELATED%20ARTICLES_0010.pdf.

  5. Deutscher, The Prophet, 1366.

  6. Markus Wolfe, “Troe is 30-kh” [Three from the 1930s] (Moscow: Progress, 1990), 66.

  7. And he was right to be cautious—already in 1936 the Soviet authorities got suspicious of Fischer’s The Nation, calling the magazine “the main Trotskyist horn in the US” and wondering whether Fischer was ready to attack his journal and defend the Soviet position. See the letter of K. A. Umansky, Soviet diplomat in the United States to the Soviet Foreign Ministry with proposals of increasing the Soviet Union information influence in the United States, October 20, 1936, Alexander Yakovlev Foundation, https://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/fond/issues-doc/71001.

  8. Hede Massing, This Deception (New York: Duell, Sloan, & Pierce, 1951), 258; Baker, Rezident.

  9. In December 1950, Sir Bill Slim, the chief of the Imperial General Staff of the United Kingdom, returned from a visit to Washington and warned his fellow service chiefs that “the United States were convinced that war was inevitable, and that it was almost certain to take place within the next eighteen months; whereas we did not hold [this view], and were still hopeful that war could be avoided. This attitude of the United States was dangerous because there was the possibility that they might think that because war was inevitable, the sooner we got it over with the better, and we might as a result be dragged unnecessarily into World War III.” Richard J. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America, and Cold War Secret Intelligence (Woodstock, NY: Overlook, 2001), 11.

  10. US State Department, “NSC 20/1, US Objectives With Respect to Russia,” August 18, 1948, https://archive.org/details/NSC201-USObjectivesWithRespectToRussia/. Drafted by the Policy Staff in the State Department, PSC 38, the NSC report states that “in the event of a disintegration of Soviet power… our best course would be to permit all the exiled elements to return to Russia as rapidly as possible and to see to it, in so far as this depends on us, that they are all given roughly equal opportunity to establish their bids for power.” No clear protégé so far: “among the existing and potential opposition groups there is none which we will wish to sponsor entirely and for whose actions, if it were to obtain power in Russia, we wish to take responsibility.”

  11. Wilson Center, “George Kennan on Organizing Political Warfare [Redacted Version],” April 30, 1948, https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/114320.

  12. CIA, “Russian Emigrant Organizations,” Confidential report, March 29, 1950, available on the website of the CIA’s Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP82-00457R004400040003-3.pdf.

  13. Princeton University Library, “Fischer Louis, 1896–1970,” https://findingaids.princeton.edu/names/73845816.

  14. Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 42.

  15. Authors’ conversation with British historian Richard Aldrich.

  16. Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee, and the CIA (Abingdon: Routledge, 1995).

  17. Pavel Tribunskiy, “The Ford Foundation, the Cultural Cold War, and the Russian Diaspora in the USA: A Case Study of the Free Russia Fund/East European Fund (1951–1961),” Issuelab, January 1, 2016, https://www.issuelab.org/resource/ford-foundation-the-cultural-cold-war-and-the-russian-diaspora-in-the-usa-a-case-study-of-the-free-russia-fund-east-european-fund-1951-1961.html.

  18. George Fischer, ed., Russian Émigré Politics (New York: Free Russia Fund, Inc., 1951), 5.

  19. In 1952, George Fischer published a second book, titled Soviet Opposition to Stalin. This book repeated the same argument but tailored it to a broader audience. It was greeted by glowing reviews in academic journals.

  20. CIA, “Russian Emigrant Organizations,” Confidential report, March 29, 1950, available on the website of the CIA’s Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP82-00457R004400040003-3.pdf.

  21. CIA employment of Russian émigrés was not limited by the NTS. George Kiselvater was born in St. Petersburg in 1910, brought to the United States in 1915, and remained in America when the Bolsheviks seized power. Kiselvater joined the US Army during World War II and, as a fluent Russian speaker, was involved in the lend-lease program. When the CIA was formed, he joined and became a legend at Langley as a branch chief in the Soviet Division. As a handler, he ran several Soviet spies, including Oleg Penkovsky. CIA, “A Look Back… George Kisevalter: Legendary Case Officer,” January 14, 2011 (updated April 30, 2013), https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2011-featured-story-archive/george-kisevalter.html.

  CHAPTER 9: STALIN’S DAUGHTER

  1. A colonel Lev Vasilevsky—by the secret Stalin’s order, he was given the Red Banner award for his role in the assassination of Trotsky.

  2. M. A. Tumshis and V. A. Zolotarev, Evrei v NKVD SSSR 1936–1938 [Jews in NKVD USSR, 1936–1938] (Moscow: Russkij fond sodejstvija obrazovaniju i nauke, 2017), 710.

  3. CIA, “Soviet Use of Assassination and Kidnapping: A 1964 Review of KGB Methods,” September 22, 1993 (updated August 4, 2007), https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol19no3/html/v19i3a01p_0001.htm.

  4. Simo Mikkonen, “Mass Communications as a Vehicle to Lure Russian Émigrés Homeward,” Journal of International and Global Studies 2, no. 2 (2011): 44–61, http://www.lindenwood.edu/files/resources/44-61.pdf.

  5. New York Times, “Émigrés’ Fears Cited: Countess Tolstoy Calls Exiles in US Target of Soviets,” May 24, 1956.

  6. The Free Russia Fund was renamed the East European Fund at the end of 1951. See Pavel Tribunskiy, “The Ford Foundation, the Cultural Cold War, and the Russian Diaspora in the USA: A Case Study of the Free Russia Fund/East European Fund (1951–1961).”

  7. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, “Ambassador Mark Palmer,” Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, October 30, 1997, https://www.adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Palmer,%20Mark.toc.pdf.

  8. US Department of State, “A ‘Controlled’ Freeze, January 1966–May 1967: Telegram from Secretary of State Rusk to the Ambassador to the Soviet Union (Thompson), March 6, 1967,” US Department of State A
rchive, https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/johnsonlb/xiv/1396.htm.

  9. WNYC, “Svetlana Alliluyeva,” April 26, 1967 (audio recording), NYPR Archive Collections, https://www.wnyc.org/story/svetlana-alliluyeva/.

  10. WNYC, “Svetlana Alliluyeva.”

  11. Grace Kennan Warnecke, “My Secret Summer with Stalin’s Daughter,” Politico, May 2, 2018.

  12. Warnecke, “My Secret Summer.”

  13. Lesley Rimmel, “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Svetlana?” Wellesley Centers for Women, https://www.wcwonline.org/Women-s-Review-of-Books-Nov/Dec-2016/how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-svetlana.

  14. “Faculty Unit Urges Transfer of Power,” Columbia Spectator, May 6, 1968, https://archive.org/stream/ldpd_8603880_000#page/n9/mode/2up/search/sociolo.

  15. WNYC, “Svetlana Alliluyeva,” April 26, 1967 (audio recording), NYPR Archive Collections, https://www.wnyc.org/story/svetlana-alliluyeva/.

  16. Boris Pasternak, “Ona pytalas osvoboditsa ot mertvoy khvatki otsa” [She tried to break from the deadly grip of her father], Moskovskie Novosti, December 2, 2011, http://www.mn.ru/friday/76166.

  17. Authors’ conversations with Alexander Cherkasov, a chairman of Memorial Human Rights organization.

  CHAPTER 10: NOW IT’S OFFICIAL

  1. Ford Library and Museum, “Memorandum of Conversation,” March 1, 1973, https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0314/1552563.pdf.

  2. Adam Nagourney, “In Tapes, Nixon Rails about Jews and Blacks,” New York Times, December 10, 2010, https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/us/politics/11nixon.html.

  3. “What it is, is it’s the insecurity,” Nixon once said. “It’s the latent insecurity. Most Jewish people are insecure. And that’s why they have to prove things”; Nagourney, “In Tapes.”

  4. Nagourney, “In Tapes.”

  5. The source of the transcript of Politburo’s meeting held on March 20, 1973: “Spisok Brezhneva” [Brezhnev’s list], Novaya Gazeta, March 13, 2006, https://www.novayagazeta.ru/articles/2006/03/13/29888-spisok-brezhneva.

  6. Andrei Sakharov, “Open Letter to the United States Congress,” December 13, 1974, http://insidethecoldwar.org/sites/default/files/documents/Jackson-Vanik%20Amendment%20to%20the%20trade%20reform%20act%20of%201972,%20january%204,%201975.pdf.

  7. Fred A. Lazin, The Struggle for Soviet Jewry in American Politics (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), 47.

  8. Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West (London: Penguin, 1999), 413.

  9. New York Times, “Ford Signs the Trade Act; Soviet Issued Is Unresolved,” January 4, 1975.

  10. New York Times, “What Price a Soviet Jew?” February 22, 1981, https://www.nytimes.com/1981/02/22/opinion/what-price-a-soviet-jew.html. The New York Times argued: “Just look at the pattern since 13,000 Soviet Jews were unexpectedly allowed to leave in 1971: With the signing of SALT I, the first big wheat deal and the promise of more trade, the number rose in 1972 and 1973 to 32,000 and 35,000. Then came the Jackson-Vanik amendment, impeding trade unless Jews were allowed to leave freely, and the departures declined sharply, to 21,000 in 1974, 13,000 in 1975, 14,000 in 1976 and 17,000 in 1977. The amendment remains in force, but with progress toward SALT II and a further wheat deal, emigration rose again to 29,000 in 1978 and to a record total of 51,000 in 1979. Then came Afghanistan, the wheat embargo and other trade restrictions, and the 1980 figure fell to 21,000.”

  11. Authors’ conversation with Nikita Petrov, memorial historian of the KGB and Stalin’s secret services.

  12. New York Times, “Remember the Refuseniks?” December 14, 1990, https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/14/opinion/remember-the-refuseniks.html.

  CHAPTER 11: BEAR IN THE WEST

  1. Nina Alovert, Mikhail Baryshnikov: Ya vybral svoyu sudbu [Mikhail Baryshnikov: I chose my destiny] (Moscow: AST, 2006).

  2. Kevin Plummer, “Historicist: Centre Stage in the Cold War” Torontoist, July 2, 2001, https://torontoist.com/2011/07/historicist_centre_stage_in_the_cold_war/.

  3. John Fraser, Private View: Inside Baryshnikov’s American Ballet Theatre (New York: Bantam, 1988).

  4. The account of Baryshnikov’s escape is derived largely from Fraser, Private View; Alovert, Mikhail Baryshnikov; and Plummer, “Historicist.”

  5. Plummer, “Historicist.”

  6. Plummer, “Historicist.”

  7. Authors’ conversation with a former agent of the KGB station in Ottawa, Canada.

  8. Eva Merkacheva, “Solist Bolshogo Teatra rasskazal o rabote na vneshnuyu razvedku” [A dancer of the Bolshoy Theater tells of his work on foreign intelligence], Moskovsky Komsomolets, March 22, 2019, https://www.mk.ru/social/2019/03/21/solist-bolshogo-teatra-rasskazal-o-rabote-na-vneshnyuyu-razvedku.html.

  CHAPTER 12: THE KGB THINKS BIG

  1. “A case of Solzhenitsyn” [in Russian], Solzhenitsyn.ru, http://www.solzhenitsyn.ru/upload/text/Delo_o_pisatele_A.I._Solzhenitsyne_(Istochnik._1993._3._S._87101).pdf.

  2. Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, 415.

  3. In fact, US president Ford refused to invite Solzhenitsyn to the White House, apparently honoring the agreement with the Soviet Union. See New York Times, “Solzhenitsyn‐White House Issue Revived,” August 13, 1975, https://www.nytimes.com/1975/08/13/archives/solzhenitsynwhite-house-issue-revived.html.

  4. See, e.g., Mikhail Gorbachev, “On the Abolition of the Decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on the Stripping of the Citizenship of the USSR of Certain Persons Living Outside the USSR” [in Russian], August 15, 1988, http://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/fond/issues-doc/68189.

  5. Authors’ conversation with Nikita Petrov, September 2018.

  6. On July 21, 1973, the FBI arrested Victor Chernyshev, the first secretary of the Soviet embassy in Washington, on espionage charges after he was caught meeting with Air Force Office of Special Investigations Special Agent Sergeant James David Wood. Wood had sent a letter volunteering his services to the KGB. Edward Mickolus, The Counterintelligence Chronology: Spying by and against the United States (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015), 77.

  7. Federal Bureau of Investigation, “FOIPA Request No.: 1348465-000, Subject: Kryuchkov, Vladimir” (Letter), April 22, 2016, https://ia800409.us.archive.org/2/items/VladimirKryuchkov/Kryuchkov%2C%20Vladimir.pdf.

  8. Pervoye Glavnoye Upravlenie is sometimes translated as First Chief Directorate and sometimes as First Main Directorate. We use the translation used by Andrew and Mitrokhin in their seminal 1999 book, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West.

  9. Authors’ conversation with Oleg Kalugin, a head of the Department K (external counterintelligence) of the PGU KGB, February 2018; “KGB in the Baltic States: Documents and Researches,” documents of Lithuanian KGB online archives, www.kgbdocuments.eu.

  10. Richard H. Cummings, Cold War Radio: The Dangerous History of American Broadcasting in Europe, 1950–1989 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009), 177.

  11. The sailor’s name was Yuri Marin (Pyatakov). He redefected to the Soviet Union in 1973, and in 1973 a book was published bearing his name about his life as a KGB agent at Radio Liberty. Almost identical was a fate of another agent—Oleg Tumanov. Tumanov jumped a Soviet ship outside Libya in 1965. He moved to Germany and joined Radio Liberty in 1966. In a year, officers of the Department K located him in Munich and successfully recruited him. He fled to the Soviet Union in 1986 and held a press conference exposing the CIA presence at Radio Liberty. For details, see Cummings, Cold War Radio.

  12. Authors’ conversation with Nikita Petrov.

  13. Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, 417.

  14. Milton Bearden and James Risen, The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA’s Final Showdown with the KGB (New York: Ballantine, 2003).

  15. Oleg Kalugin, Spymaster: My Thirty-Two Years in Intelligence and Espionage against the West (Philadelphia: Perseus, 2009), 108.

  16. Kalugin, Spymaster, 104, 203.

  CHAPTER 13: MOVING PEOPLE


  1. Authors’ conversation with Maria Phillimore-Slonim, June 2018.

  2. Jo Thomas, “Afghan War: Russians Tell of the Horror,” New York Times, June 28, 1984, https://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/28/world/afghan-war-russians-tell-of-the-horror.html.

  3. A note to Allen Dalles, Paris, January 11, 1951, in Albert Jolis, A Clutch of Reds and Diamonds: A Twentieth Century Odyssey (New York: East European Monographs, Columbia University Press, 1996), 385.

  4. Bukovsky came into trouble with the Soviet authorities already in school—he was thrown out for publishing a handwritten journal, and later he was excluded from the university for his antigovernment activities.

  5. Jolis, Clutch of Reds.

  6. Authors’ conversation with Vladimir Bukovsky, June 2018.

  7. Authors’ conversation with Vladimir Bukovsky, June 2018.

  8. Authors’ conversation with Maria Phillimore-Slonim, June 2018.

  9. Associated Press, “Deserters Return to Soviet from London,” New York Times, November 12, 1984.

  10. Authors’ conversation with Valeri Shirayev, July 2018.

  11. Authors’ conversation with Galina Ackerman, a member of Resistance International in the 1980s.

  12. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Invisible Allies (Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 1995).

  13. Statement of LTG William E. Odom, USA Director, NSA/CSS on Soviet émigrés, before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, United States Senate, October 8, 1987. Available on the site of the CIA library, online reading room.

  14. Gorbachev, “On the Abolition.”

  15. The documents scanned by Vladimir Bukovsky are available at “Soviet Archives” at Info-RUSS, http://psi.ece.jhu.edu/~kaplan/IRUSS/BUK/GBARC/buk-rus.html.

  CHAPTER 14: THE OTHER RUSSIA

  1. “The Other Russia” was the term for this diaspora coined by Michael Glenny and Norman Stone in their excellent 1990 book of that title, an anthology of oral interviews with three generations of Russian émigrés; Glenny and Stone, The Other Russia: The Experience of Exile (New York: Viking, 1991).