6. The amount was approximately two hundred U.S. dollars per month. George meticulously entered the sums into an escrow account register, which he showed to Popov at each meeting. The record was communicated to headquarters and obligated in the records of the Finance Department. Poling, interview.
7. The GRU was the Chief Intelligence Directorate for Military Intelligence, roughly equivalent to the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. The KGB was the Committee of State Security, the principal intelligence organization and apparatus of the state. It included elements of counterintelligence activities, secret police activities, and foreign intelligence.
8. The school was named for the well-known World War I-era Red Army commander Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze.
Chapter 6
1. A Quasi-Personal car was one owned by the Intelligence Services but registered in an individual's name and used both for personal and operational activities.
2. George loved his bathrobes. During the last years of his life he spent most of his days in them, rarely dressing.
3. Peter Sergeyevich Deriabin was born in the Lokot area of Siberia in 1921. He was well educated and bright. He had arrived in Vienna in September of 1953. His assignment was that of KGB Chief of the Soviet Colony (Sovietskaya Koloniya), replacing the Soviet consul who had been recalled during a shakeup the previous June. He was responsible for assuring the security and political reliability of Soviet officials and other citizens abroad in Austria.
4. In William Hood's Mole (McLean, Va.: Brassey's, 1993), 119, Deriabin recognizes Ted as his counterpart during this initial interview. (Ted is Captain Olson in Mole, but he actually used Captain Peterson in Vienna.) In fact, Deriabin knew nothing of Ted Poling's role in Vienna until told by others later, after he had become an asset of the CIA. Poling, interview.
5. Poling, interview.
6. George's cover name for the Popov operation was Herr Grossman.
7. Dead drops are locations where secretive transfers of clandestine materials can be accomplished. Ideally, they should be located in public facilities, where the participants in the transfer can reasonably be expected to frequent, yet they should be hidden spots that are not likely to be accidentally discovered by others and will not be vulnerable to the vagaries of weather. Typically, they are loose bricks in a wall, a small area behind a radiator in a public but remote hallway, etc. The idea is for one participant to leave an item in the location and for the other to retrieve it. Dead drops should rarely be used more than once. Brush contacts are exchanges of materials between two individuals-"live."
Chapter 7
1. Yuri Nosenko, interview by author, 10 May 1998.
2. Schwerin was one of five major GRU "intelligence points." Schwerin was number 1; Berlin was number 5, etc. Poling, interview.
3. The CIA code name for the gentleman was Cabrilla 19.
4. William King Harvey was one of the most colorful characters in the history of the CIA. Among Harvey's numerous rollicking adventures was his assignment as the CIA's "point man" for the Kennedy attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro. See David C. Martin's Wilderness of Mirrors (New York: Harper & Row, 1980), 219. The details of this episode are from an interview with Ted Poling and others.
5. In an interview with the author in April 1998 in Washington, D.C., Chavchavadze proposed, "The Agency would have been quite foolish to let George go because of some silly marriage rule. George was the only guy with whom Popov would talk."
Chapter 8
1. Some in the Soviet Union were aware of the tunnel operation, having been tipped off by George Blake, a Soviet mole placed high in the hierarchy of the British SIS. The USSR did not reveal this awareness for fear that the U.S. and U.K. would then deduce that Blake had informed the Soviets and thus was a spy. Blake was valuable to the USSR. The tunnel operation would not harm them as much as the loss of Blake. As a consequence, the Soviets did not inform many of their own people of the tunnel, and some valuable intelligence information was passed on tunnel traffic and intercepted by the CIA and SIS.
2. Joe Skura experienced the close security of the tunnel: "When the tunnel ceased operations in 1956 there was no apparent change in our activity. We kept right on going. I did not even know that there was a tunnel. The information was so closely held, many of our people did not know of the tunnel nor did we know when it ceased operation. My wife worked for Bill Harvey as his secretary. She never breathed a word about it to me. She still doesn't. I ask her occasionally what she remembers about the tunnel. She says nothing. We both worked in the same building in different sections." Interview.
3. June describes working with George: "I had never met George until I arrived there in Berlin. For some reason, he took to calling me his dushka, which is Russian for `little soul.' There was a special room, where only the two of us were allowed. This room was shielded such that no sounds or emissions of electrical impulses within it could emanate out. Here was total privacy. We worked in this room, almost around the clock, transcribing and copying from the Popov tapes as well as editing our take. George was completely absorbed in his work, so much so, that, at the end of the year, when we went to a staffChristmas party and he tried to introduce me to his friends, he couldn't remember my name. This, after being locked up together, just the two of us, since May. He could remember the first names, the patronymics, the last names, and the birthdays of all of the Soviet officers, but he couldn't remember my name." Interview by author, McLean, Va., 2 December 1997.
4. The fact that Popov was transferred to Schwerin in the GDR was actually intercepted in tunnel traffic, but the CIA did not recognize this until after Popov'sJanuary meeting with the British officer.
5. Skura, interview.
6. George himself had a reputation as having a propensity to talk. He liked to share his experiences with his buddies at the CIA. Such an action, though not particularly serious, nevertheless was frowned upon in the Agency. On at least one occasion, George's tendency was the subject of discussion by his superiors. In a conference with top management, it was suggested to Bill Harvey that George just had to be muzzled. Bill contemplated the suggestion, then asked the director, "What do you want? You cannot have it both ways. Do you want it case officer who can handle this man, Popov, or do you want somebody who will never talk about it?" They all agreed that George was unique and that they couldn't get everything rolled into one person. So they let things go as they were. Poling, interview.
7. During the Second World War, Heinz Paul Felfe, a Nazi in the SS, was in charge of a unit in Switzerland targeted against Allen Dulles and the O.S.S. After the war he was imprisoned in Canada until 1946. Upon his release, Hans Clemens, a friend and former SS captain, recruited Felfe to work for the KGB. Clemens got a job with the BND, the West German Intelligence organization, and then recommended that Felfe also be hired. In November of 1951 Felfe received a job with the BND and was assigned to the Pullach Headquarters. With leads supplied by the KGB, Felfe was able to "successfully deliver" a number of East German agents to the BND and thereby gain the confidence of Reinhard Gehlen, the BND chief, and others. He rose to the rank of Higher Government Counselor, was awarded a silver plaque for loyal service, and gained the position of head of the Counter-espionage Department vis-a-vis the USSR. He was discovered to be KGB in November of 1961 and given a fourteen-year jail sentence. He was released in 1969 in exchange for twenty-one incarcerated East Germans. See Cookridge, Gehlen, 321, and Harry Rositzke, The KGB: The Eyes of Russia (New York: Doubleday, 1981), 153.
8. Harold ("Kim") Philby was a notorious double agent who infiltrated the British SIS and rose to a powerful position within its ranks. Many believed that he would become the chief of the SIS. He was a Communist from his college days at Cambridge during the early 1930s and later became a Soviet agent. He did great harm to the Western nations and finally escaped to Moscow in 1963. See Cookridge, The Third Man: The Truth About "Kim "Philby (London: Arthur Barker Ltd., 1968).
Chapter 9
1. The foregoing w
as constructed from conversations with numerous people including George, Yuri Nosenko, Leonard McCoy, and others who wish not to be mentioned. It was further authenticated with documents provided to the author by the CIA. These included excerpts from declassified articles entitled, "The Popov Case," dated 22 September 1980, and "Popov: The Conformist Who Failed," undated. For additional descriptions of the steps in the ultimate apprehension of Popov, see Battleground Berlin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 279. The authors, David E. Murphy (former chief of Berlin Base), Sergei A. Kondrashev (retired lieutenant general of the KGB and former head of its German Department), and George Bailey (reporter and former director of Radio Liberty), cite newly provided KGB source material.
Chapter 10
1. The Agency maintained a file of known or suspected espionageconnected individuals who could be threats to the U.S. In this file were all pertinent data. If anyone applied for a visa to enter the U.S., his name and photo on the application could be compared with the file data. Moreover, if one applied for a visa to an allied country, through a program of mutual cooperation, the CIA could also "do traces."
2. A prison town about 150 miles from Moscow.
3. See Sean Bourke, The Springing of George Blake (New York: Viking, 1970). In April 1961, the British also had in their custody Gordon Lonsdale, a.k.a. Konon T. Molody, the Soviet illegal who had been arrested earlier that year and was serving a twenty-five-year sentence for espionage. He had been working with the Americans Morris and Lorna Cohen as well as two British agents who had furnished Lonsdale with classified information they had stolen. The British asked George if he might assist in the interrogation of Molody. George did so but to no avail. He could not seem to make any headway with the agent, who insisted to George that everything had to be passed through his attorney.
Chapter 11
1. Many of the technical terms were not in a standard Russian dictionary. Since George's Russian education had been preRevolution, prior to the advent of common usage of these terms, there was a gap in the team's understanding of their true meanings. The most useful device found for interpreting some of the technical terms turned out to be a Dutch dictionary. This was because Peter the Great had traveled to Holland to learn about shipbuilding and brought back the roots of many of these words.
2. Later, the case officers had the dubious pleasure-with tremendous trepidation, through a dentist in London-of having his false teeth replaced. Getting a cleared dentist and Penkovsky's fussiness about his teeth were stories in themselves. But since his teeth had been knocked out of his mouth by this combat action with the Nazis, the team felt justified in the action.
3. In 1943 there were 6.4 million men in arms in the Soviet Union. By 1958 this number had been reduced to 3.6 million. See Spahr, 220.
4. The Soviet Union, at that time, divided all of its offensive weapons into two designations: tactical and strategic. All artillery and missiles with ranges up to 1,000 meters were tactical; those whose ranges were in excess of that number were strategic.
5. Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinskiy was the founder of the Cheka, the first secret police of the Soviet Union and the predecessor of the KGB.
6. Since 1917, there has been a facility in Dayton, Ohio (once McCook Field, now Wright-Patterson, AFB) for the purpose of analyzing foreign aviation, scientific, and intelligence information. In 1951 the activities focusing on Soviet technology were incorporated as the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC). In 1961, the air force added the National Air Intelligence Center (NAIC). Today's emphasis is on the evaluation of worldwide aerospace systems and the production of "tailored" customer-specific products.
7. A formal attestation, or testimonial to the pedigree of an individual, usually in the form of a certificate.
Chapter 12
1. Marshal Georgi Konstantinovich Zhukov was the quintessential Russian hero. He was associated with the successful defenses of Moscow and Leningrad as well as the victories at Stalingrad, Kharkov, and the Ukraine. He was also a dedicated Communist. His preeminence fostered great envy in Stalin, Khrushchev, and others, and he was therefore often subject to their vindictiveness. These tyrants denigrated him publicly only at the peril of enmity from the populace. To relegate Marshal Zhukov to the ranks of the retired, Khrushchev had to have great confidence in his own standing in the Party and with the people.
2. This information later appeared in various publications such as The Penkovsky Papers (New York: Doubleday, 1965). It was principally the product of the meetings between Penkovsky and the case officers. Peter Deriabin is listed as the translator; but the translations were actually prepared by George and many other agency personnel. Leonard McCoy, interview by author, Great Falls, Va., 14 May 1999.
3. Gen. Charles P. Cabell, USAF, was the deputy to the director of Central Intelligence (DCI) during the 1950s and 1960s.
4. Crabbe was especially interested in the zinc anodes of the vessel. These attachments are special alloy metals placed along the bottom of the hulls and especially near propellers of high-speed cruisers, destroyers, etc., which chemically oxidize in order to reduce the tendency of the seawater near the hull and propellers to erode the metal of those components. Since seawater becomes ionized, it accelerates the deterioration of metals in those regions, and in particular, it tends to cause the propellers to become pitted. By having the zinc alloy in those regions, it, instead of the hull and propellers, becomes pitted. This is due to the higher preference of zinc over steel or bronze in the electrochemical reaction. Thus, with these attachments, one can have more durable naval vessels than otherwise.
Chapter 13
1. Etoile is the name given to the Arc de Triomphe and the place it stands because all of the streets go out from it like spokes of a wheel, or beams of light from a star (etoile).
2. This was the site of an old tile factory of Paris. When the Court assigned its ownership to the State, and it was made into the gardens, it became the Tuileries (the tile factories).
3. McCoy, interview.
Chapter 14
1. The Chisholms subsequently were replaced with Gervaise ("Gerry") Cowell and his wife, Pamela. Mike Stokes, letter to author, 2 February 2004.
2. Making him persona non grata.
3. Altogether ten American and British diplomats were declared personae non gratae and asked to leave the USSR at once. Interestingly, Paul Garbler, the CIA chief, was not one of those because his status was not detected, or at least not acknowledged, by the Soviets. This enabled him to remain on for a period of three years.
4. Capt. Nikolai Fedorovich Artamonov became invaluable to the West. He was murdered by the KGB in Vienna in 1975. See Henry Hurt, SHADRIN: The Spy Who Never Came Back (New York: Berkley Books, 1983).
Chapter 15
1. See Jerrold L. Schecter and Peter S. Deriabin, The Spy Who Saved the World (McLean, Va.: Brassey's, 1992), 290.
2. Harold Shergold, interview by author, Richmond, England, 7 November 1998.
3. Harold Shergold died on Christmas Day 2000. A somewhat reclusive man, and a widower without any close surviving members of his family who could be helpful, he died in the care of dear friends who had known him since his days with the SIS.
4. This course of action actually was suggested to George by the author. The logs, termed "waves," show the names of White House visitors and their times of entry and departure, along with who cleared them with the Secret Service.
5. Rupert Allason confirmed to the author the collapse of the lawsuit against him and his publishers in the face of evidence, including George's deposition, prior to Wynne's death.
Chapter 16
1. Circassia is in the northwestern Caucasus Mountains bordering the northeast coast of the Black Sea. Its population is concentrated in the quasi-independent Republic of Adygea. The history of its people, referred to as Circassians as well as Cherkess, extends back into the fifth to fourth century B.c. The Circassians were converted to Christianity in the thirteenth century but they became ardent Musl
ims in the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century, the Russians, under Tsar Peter the Great and later Empress Catherine I, engaged in military campaigns designed to control the Circassian clans. Intense fighting continued with these warlike people (also known for their beautiful women), who did not wish to compromise their Muslim persuasion. In 1829 Russia annexed the region, but because of the Circassians' stubborn resistance to the Russian occupation, it was 1864 before peace could be established. At that point large numbers of the population left for Turkey and other Middle Eastern countries.
2. Anatolia is the region of Turkey on the Asia Minor Peninsula.
3. Much of the Turkish historical background was suggested by Malia Natirbov in a personal interview on 16 June 1999 in McLean, Va. Malia Natirbov died in January 2002 at the age of ninety-two. He had been three months older than George.
Chapter 17
1. Pullach is about eight miles from Munich. It was built in 1938 as a housing facility for SS officers and their families. The entire community of houses, theaters, flower gardens, schools, and parks is hidden from view by severe topography augmented with tall walls. When the BND assumed occupation of the facility, it went under cover as a German corporation involved in scientific research. The story followed that the patents had to be protected from foreigners. The neighboring Bavarians responded patriotically for some time to this ruse. See Cookridge, Gehlen, 158.
2. By law, the director of the CIA is also the director of Central Intelligence (DCI) for the entire intelligence community. As such, he coordinates the flow of intelligence to the president. As deputy director for the intelligence community, General Wilson was serving as the chief of the staff that coordinates with all of the intelligence organizations for the DCI.
Chapter 18
1. Some of these comments were taken from an interview with Paul Garbler on 6 April 1998 in Tucson, Ariz., and some were provided by Yuri Nosenko. Various sources identify one substance as the chemical NPPD, nitrophenolpentadienal, luminol. The compound is detected by "black light" devices. NPPD absorbs ultraviolet light waves and converts that energy into light in visible wavelengths. Therefore, shining an ultraviolet light on the substance makes it appear to "glow in the dark."
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