CIA Spymaster_George Kisevalter

by Clarence Ashley III

  "We knew Sklavits was a Soviet intelligence officer. We thought that he was working with us, but we didn't know all of his activities. I saw a can of worms. Where was the penetration? Who was the Soviet agent who was one of us but was reporting on Sklavits? Into what service: the British, West Germans, or Americans? Not a pleasant thought. So, I asked for leave and went to Frankfurt. I went to Bonn, the headquarters of the German Intelligence. I asked the people at German Intelligence as well as our own liaison staff and found out there was a naval officer in the West German navy who ran an operation called 'Sea Bear.' They inherited the operation from the British, who had another name for it, 'Illustrious.' This navy guy was one of those meeting with Sklavits in Vienna, but we didn't know who else. I looked at this case, `Illustrious,' and I looked at this case, 'Sea Bear.' I came home and I grabbed my head and I said, `We are in trouble!' There is a penetration by the Reds. It could be into the British, it could be into the West German Intelligence, or it could be in our outfit in Vienna.

  "The penetration, we later found out, was a man named Felfe.7 He had penetrated the West Germans and was one of their highranking intelligence officers. We had to live with this because we could not figure it all out at the time. So that is how we found out, by accidental, incidental information, that we had a serious problem, and that is where life becomes very much on a razor's edge.

  "Popov himself didn't know who the penetration was. Sklavits was acting as a double agent but there was a penetration by another intelligence officer of a Western intelligence service. We didn't know which one, whether it was our CIA or somebody else. As for the British, heaven help us, they had their own problems too with those guys Blake and Philby.8 This is the kind of thing that some thought ultimately did in Popov."

  CHAPTER 9

  Tradecraft

  As the dispatcher of illegals, Popov came to George one day in the fall of 1957 and said, "I have some tough information. It is very sensitive. We've gotten along now for almost five years, old buddy. Nothing evil has happened." "That is right," George replied. "Nothing evil has happened. I don't know what evil should happen."

  "I don't know either," Popov stated. "So I'll tell you. I'm not going to keep anything from you. I have this woman, Tropova. She is from Chicago and is now living in Poland. For personal reasons, whatever, she will never go hack to Chicago. We have her passport, which we will use for our own purposes. We are sending to New York, as an illegal, a Russian woman by the name of Margarita Tairova, using Tropova's passport, which is a legitimate American passport. We changed the photograph. Otherwise, everything matches: age, size, this, that. She is the wife of an illegal who is operating as our rezident [chief of station] of a rezidentura in New York, an important one. One of the members of the group is the chief barber on the SS United States, a fast liner whose route is from New York to Le Havre, hack and forth. His advantage is proximity to seagoing American senators and representatives in the easy chairs of the barbershop of this vessel, getting all of their conversation. At the same time he is acting as courier between New York and Le Havre for this ring. The boss man, the rezident, has a store in the garment district of New York he just acquired. It manufactures the loud, colorful Hawaiian-style shirts. The ring started together in England, so they speak English very smoothly. The wife is being sent out for two reasons. One is to supplement his ring, and the other is because she is raising hell in the belief that her husband is unfaithful. She is a hysterical type of woman. She wants to snatch this guy baldheaded if she catches him running around with other women, taking them out, drinking and so forth, which seems to be one of his habits. At any rate, the couple has agreed to this deal. I have to dispatch her. I need your help."

  "What do you need?" George asked. Popov went on, "Check out everything. Here it is." He put down the wife's suitcase. George looked at the contents: dresses, underwear, etc. He looked at some panties. They were R. H. Macy. "Good," he said. He looked at a blouse. It was Marshall Fields. "That is fine," he continued. "You said the passport was for a lady who is from, where, Chicago?" "Yes," replied Popov. George explained, "Marshall Fields is a very prominent store in Chicago." He then observed, "Here is a mirror, built into the suitcase. Behind it we seem to have some cash, $20,000. No good. The sum is too large and the denominations are too big. Cut the sum in half. The denominations will stand out like sore thumbs. You'll get caught. Instead of these hundreds use fifties and twenties. Okay?"

  After taking off from Tempelhof in Berlin and before arriving at Idlewild in New York, Tairova was going to stop off in Paris at a Soviet safehouse. George said, "Give her some francs, just a few. She will not be surveilled here in Tempelhof or anywhere in Berlin. I will guarantee it. I will make sure she is not surveilled. Don't worry about it. You can drive her up to the airport yourself if you want to." In New York, she was to secretly meet her husband. "And where in New York will they meet?" George asked. "I don't know," replied Popov. `You tell me. What does this mean?" He then handed George some notes written in Russian, the meaning of which was not clear to him, asking, "Yuncats? Bronkoyer?" George explained, "Yonkers is a town just north of the Bronx in New York City. This is the name of a movie theater there. They are to meet in the back row of the movie house at a certain time. Alternate dates at various specific times are also offered if the first meeting doesn't work out. They will continue attempting to meet until contact is made. Then, he will take her to where he is living." Popov then said, "We're going to gimmick her suitcase with thread. If anybody opens it, she will know that she is being surveilled. She is an intelligence woman; she will know." George said, "Fine. I know what is in it. Don't worry about it. When does she go?" Popov told George. George guaranteed him safe departure for the woman. No problems occurred-no surveillance of any kind, hostile, friendly, or otherwise. She got to Paris. One of the CIA people spotted her coming. He knew the safehouse where she went. She departed for New York; he cabled.

  Then they were stuck. Bill Harvey (the one who had the last word on everything) and George had to send a message to CIA director Allen Dulles. They drafted a cable. They ripped it up. They wrote a second one. They ripped it up then wrote a third one. It was so hard to explain the whole story. They had to tell the director that this woman was coming into the United States. Moreover, they knew that, by law, at some point Director Dulles had to tell J. Edgar Hoover, the chief of the FBI, and they were afraid that Hoover would not fully cooperate with their plan to let the woman into New York and monitor her activities.

  One of the problems was that Harvey used to work for Hoover, and they hated each other. Hoover finally fired Harvey and Harvey showed up on the doorstep of the CIA, which was glad to have him. The two men continued an interagency fight after that. George did not want that history to interfere with getting this Soviet illegal smoothly into the United States without raising her suspicions. They needed to have Hoover's consent and cooperation for this, so Dulles would have to consult with him. They had to explain things to Dulles so that he could make Hoover understand. This was, in George's mind, like explaining to Dulles how to teach the devil to cross himself. When he received the cable, Dulles told Hoover.

  Some of the people at the CIA who knew about the operation wanted to go to Yonkers to case the meeting place. Hoover forbade them to do so, saying, "You will keep your CIA noses away from Yonkers. I'm taking care of the manpower requirements in New York. The security of the U.S. soil is the responsibility of the FBI." Hoover would take care of it. The plane landed at Idlewild. A small platoon of people was there to meet Tairova. Rumor has it that Hoover brought 300 special agents into New York. Of course, they didn't know the city, and that didn't help matters very much; but, just as ordered, they were all under Hoover's control.

  Tairova got off the plane. The agents surrounded, watched, and tailed her. She went to a hotel in New York. She went for a walk to check out the big city. The FBI then broke her suitcase to see if in fact the contents were just as George had cabled. Of course, she then detecte
d that she was under surveillance. After all, she was an intelligence woman and she had the suitcase rigged. They knew that she had it all rigged, but it made no difference to them. So, she aborted her scheduled meeting with her husband for security reasons. She did, however, finally make contact with him in Yonkers on an alternate date. He took her to Manhattan and they set up a household. The FBI rented a place to their left and another to their right. They rented a place across the street and other places all up and down the street.

  Evidently, the lady didn't mind infidelity as long as she was the one doing it. While her husband was working in his shop she waltzed about town to restaurants and bars, as she tried to appear to her surveillers as a normal resident. If she went out to have a drink in some gin mill with some other guy, however, as soon as she would leave, someone would dash across the counter and grab the glasses-for fingerprints. One can only imagine how this must have looked, especially if it involved a mob of FBI agents.

  Then one day Tairova's husband got up and went mechanically to his place of work on Thirty-fourth Street. Likewise, casually swinging a shopping bag, she went strolling among the food stores around her neighborhood, just like a typical housewife. They met somewhere, having acquired different identities. They shot off to Mexico City; from there they went to Havana, then Amsterdam, and then back to the Soviet Union. Neither of them reappeared in the U.S. The barber aboard the SS United States conveniently jumped ship in Le Havre. They were gone.

  Popov asked George, "Why in the world didn't you just shoot them or something? Now we will have a full-scale investigation. There is a general in the KGB who will be investigating this. The woman is claiming that she walked into a stakeout in New York. She says she was surveilled all of the way from Tempelhof." George said, "Peter, you know that she was not surveilled in Tempelhof. I am telling you the truth." Whereupon Popov replied, "Look, my friend, I believe you, but how can I use your word to tell the KGB general that the woman is a liar and a hysterical fool? I really can't do that, now, can I?"

  Popov was so right. The woman was a bit of a hysterical person. But now, there was trouble with a capital T Of course, George was just trying to help Popov improve his performance on the job so that Popov would be entrusted with more and more illegals. In fact, this did happen; he was entrusted with more illegals and he shared information about them with the CIA. Shortly thereafter, however, he went on leave back to Moscow. When he returned he said that, indeed, there was an extensive investigation under way into this episode with Tairova. This sounded ominous. He had been responsible for her well-being.

  From January until May of 1958 everything went smoothly with Popov. He was providing a wealth of information. He already had proved to be the best "in place" human source that the CIA had during the Cold War. He was the first intelligence officer, other than defectors who actually came out, from whom the U.S. had ever benefited, and he was well positioned and continually producing information. It was understood that he was never to defect. Even when events and circumstances appeared threatening, defection was almost never mentioned. George made it clear that he could, if he wished, come over to the U.S. at any time and that his family also could come. Both he and Popov knew, however, that getting them all out would be extremely difficult. Yet it never was an issue, because Popov so loved his peasant village. It remained more or less a given that he would continue working with the U.S. from the inside as long as he could, in order to have a chance to better the lot of the Russian peasant. That was his objective in life.

  Popov went on leave in May and June. When he returned to Karlshorst, he seemed to be under pressure from the Soviets about his shortcomings. He was also being told that he was not producing enough intelligence. The Agency decided to set him up with a false agent in Berlin in order to give him a higher standing with his superiors in the GRU. This was a dicey thing. First of all, the false agent would be in a dangerous situation. Secondly, the CIA had to give up some amount of legitimate intelligence information. Finally, if the sham were not convincing, then the whole operation could be compromised.

  To service Popov in Moscow when he would be recalled from Berlin, the CIA prepared Russell Langelle to replace Little Guy. He was to be stationed there solely to communicate with Popov. Frank Levy and Ted Poling trained Langelle. One day, Frank, Ted, Russell, and the branch secretary, an attractive, statuesque woman, staged a game of "cat and mouse" through the streets of the Anacostia region of southeast Washington, D.C., on foot. The game teaches the fundamentals of surveillance, escape, and evasion. An area of the city unfamiliar to the participants had been selected in order to give the exercise an added degree of realism. Unfortunately, the secretary's activity attracted the attention of the D.C. police. They detained her, believing that she was a streetwalker. Ted and Russell froze, not knowing the best course of action. Frank, however, promptly approached the policemen and indicated that he was her "sugar daddy." This took some of the heat off the secretary, but Frank was arrested for pandering. An inspection of the contents of his wallet and his CIA identification card (which did not actually reveal his employer), as well as Frank's refusal to fully explain what he had been up to, led the police to yet more false conclusions. They assumed him to be an employee of nearby Bolling Air Force Base and to be pursuing a sexual liaison with the young lady, an associate of his, not a streetwalker. Also in Frank's wallet was a photograph of his attractive wife and his three precious little boys. The arresting officer then launched into a most disapproving lecture to Frank about his shameful infidelity. Frank silently endured this painful mortification, his only consolation being the realization that certain sacrifices had to be made in this job.

  Langelle, who also was an associate of George, came to Berlin and met Popov later in 1958. He was given diplomatic cover, with the ambassador's knowledge, and dispatched to Moscow. Presumably, if Langelle were apprehended in espionage, he would not to be unduly incarcerated. By this time, things at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow were much different.

  Evidently, the charade of a fake agent for Popov in Berlin was not too good. Under the pretense that his superiors needed to discuss the matter of Popov's "agent" personally with him, they summoned him back to Moscow that November. He was not too worried about this issue, but he did not know what was in store for him. In December, his wife closed up their household in Karlshorst and went back to Moscow. Popov never came back to Berlin and George never again saw him.

  There has always been considerable speculation as to when Popov first came under suspicion by the KGB for disloyalty. In any event, the actual steps in the process of his ultimate arrest are fairly well known. Using the communication plan previously provided to him by George during their last meeting in Berlin, on Christmas Day in Moscow, Popov signaled to Langelle using a "wrong number" phone call. He wished to meet on 28 December at a children's theater in Moscow. He did not show for the meeting, automatically setting up an alternate rendezvous at the Aragvi Restaurant one week later.

  The 4 January 1959 meeting went as planned. In the men's room of the restaurant, Popov passed to Langelle a message that was considered sterling. In it he provided some good intelligence, but he also provided the notice that he had been dismissed from the GRU for disciplinary reasons and was living in Kalinin at his wife's former home. There was the suggestion that several items, either individually or collectively, played a part in his dismissal. Prominent among them was the affair of the illegal, Margarita Tairova, in New York City with the FBI. It may have been a catalyst. Another may have been the suspicion that he leaked the speech made by Marshal Georgi Zhukov in East Germany. Yet another could have been the possible discovery of the false agent provided to him by the CIA in Berlin. Finally, even another may have been Popov's association with a female Austrian agent, "Mili," whom he purportedly used in Vienna. She cast her allegiance to the Austrians while Popov continued to communicate with her. Popov's message to Langelle also said that he was in the Reserves anticipating an assignment and that he wished to talk
with Grossman (George). Langelle passed to him a brief message, suggesting that he write to George at a specified address in Berlin and explain what had happened to him.

  Popov signaled for a second brush contact to be on 21 January at a familiar bus stop. As a backup to this rendezvous, a letter was mailed to Popov's Kalinin address. This would ensure that Popov had the information deemed necessary for further communication if the meeting did not go as planned, say if he were transferred away from Moscow prior to the brush contact. The meeting proceeded, however, and Langelle passed to Popov a message containing the locations and details for some future meetings, some technical instructions regarding communications, and the advice that he destroy some older materials of their trade.

  Throughout much of 1959, Popov had additional brush contacts with Langelle in Moscow, and they passed each other information. Agency operators sensed that Popov no longer was able to provide quality information, but they did not know, exactly, his status. First of all, his messages contained very low-grade intelligence. This was so unlike him. More significantly, the letters were written in a conventional, front-to-back fashion in the notebook that he used. In the past, Popov had always written from the back to the front. This was a dead giveaway that something was wrong and CIA operatives caught it immediately. Also, Popov did not number his messages as he routinely had in the past. He provided these flags although he was under extreme duress, because, as the Agency people later learned, he was living in a jail cell.

  Ultimately, it was confirmed that the KGB had, in fact, observed all of these contacts since the one on 21 January. The Seventh Directorate of the KGB, the one devoted to surveillance, had astonishing capabilities. First of all, they had an academy in Leningrad where the best agents were trained. They came from Moscow, Kiev, and all over to be trained there. Only the best were selected. They were the officers, not the enlisted men. These were the ones employed against the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. If someone from the embassy left to go to the barbershop, there would be people recruited for positions in the barbershop. If an American were to go shopping, without fail he would be surveilled by other "shoppers." The surveillers could be active or retired people. Everybody in the Soviet Union had a job.