Circle of Treason

by Sandra V. Grimes

  In 1971 David Blee became chief of SE Division and from his first day on the job began a shake-up that affected everyone from headquarters and field personnel to potential targets and recruited sources. A career Near East Division officer with little Soviet operational experience, Blee continued the removal of many of the division’s Black Hat officers begun by Rolfe Kingsley and told the rest of the division that the years of a cautious and methodical approach to the Soviet target were over. Aggressiveness and risk taking would be the norm. No longer would the security of an operation determine its pace, whether that operation was abroad or inside the Soviet Union. Polyakov became the centerpiece of Blee’s dictum.

  As of early 1972, Polyakov had been silent for about a year—no dead drops with photographed documents or messages. Blee demanded to know his status and our future plans. He ordered that personal contact be established with Polyakov in Moscow. To many involved in the case such a move was reckless endangerment of the agent. The KGB might not be ten feet tall as the Angletonians believed, but the Soviet Union was its turf with tens of thousands of officers and agents available, and the laws in its favor. If we were unsuccessful, we had placed Polyakov’s life in grave danger for what some judged to be simply a curiosity-driven operation. Even if we were successful, Polyakov, who refused to participate in two-way impersonal contact with the CIA in Moscow, let alone a one-on-one meeting, might choose to sever all subsequent operational ties with the United States.

  To dissuade Blee from this course of action, a brief analysis was prepared estimating the timing and location of Polyakov’s reappearance in the West. Based on our knowledge of available GRU overseas positions, assignment policies and practices, and Polyakov’s career path, the paper concluded that the Colonel would likely show up in New Delhi, India within the next several years as GRU resident and Soviet military attaché. Blee dismissed the finding as “witchcraft.” The show would go on.

  Blee left the development of the recontact plan to the division desk officers who were responsible for the Polyakov operation but reminded them that he would not wait months for its implementation. The officers involved worked feverishly, rejecting numerous proposals for security reasons until they agreed to one that was ingenious in its simplicity and, most important, limited risk of compromise to Polyakov.

  The primary actors were a CIA case officer and a U.S. diplomatic acquaintance of Polyakov’s from Rangoon. The operational scenario called for the latter, along with his wife, to visit diplomatic friends in Moscow during a round-the-world post-retirement trip. The U.S. embassy there arranged a cocktail reception in the retiree’s honor. The invitees would include Polyakov and the CIA case officer, thus providing the opportunity for a brief exchange between the two.

  At first glance such a scenario appeared to guarantee that Polyakov would receive the unwanted attention of KGB security personnel—an unsolicited invitation to a GRU officer from a retired U.S. diplomat visiting Moscow. However, there was a twist in the operational plan that gave Polyakov cover. During his tour in Burma, Polyakov had falsely characterized his now-retired U.S. diplomatic acquaintance as a developmental contact to GRU headquarters, regularly reporting their get-togethers as required by his regulations. With a complete record of the meetings in GRU files, we felt that the KGB could find nothing nefarious about the invitation. Polyakov was a Soviet intelligence officer who had pursued a legitimate target with the blessing of his superiors.

  Unfortunately we later learned to our chagrin that the best-laid plans can go awry for the most mundane reasons. Polyakov informed us upon his subsequent arrival in New Delhi in 1974 that GRU headquarters could not find the files that documented his contact with the U.S. diplomatic colleague. They had either been destroyed or simply misplaced. As a consequence, the KGB questioned him at length. Who was this American? What was his interest in you? Backed by his co-workers at GRU headquarters, the KGB eventually accepted Polyakov’s story that the U.S. diplomat was one of his developmental contacts in Rangoon and that the relationship was officially sanctioned and properly reported. As a result, the KGB allowed Polyakov to accept the invitation.

  In June 1972 the CIA officer and Polyakov met briefly at the reception. The Colonel displayed no outward surprise or anger. He informed our officer that all was well, that he was scheduled for assignment to North Vietnam as the Soviet military attaché in late 1973 or early 1974, and that in preparation for this tour of duty he would travel to Hanoi in the fall as a member of the delegation of Air Marshal Batitskiy.

  CIA headquarters greeted this news with a sigh of relief, shouts of joy, and the realization that we faced a daunting task. Polyakov was alive and well. We not only would have a source in the enemy camp, but he would also have high-level and direct access to the critical collection requirement of the decade—North Vietnam’s military program, plans, and operations targeted against the U.S. soldier. However, there was the stark reality that we had to find a way to communicate with him in Hanoi. Direct contact appeared to be a nonstarter since the United States did not have diplomatic relations with North Vietnam. The CIA had no miniature long-range, two-way, short-burst communications device that would encode and decode transmitted messages. Some said our situation was bleak, given our lack of viable options. Others opined that it was far worse, as we awaited confirmation of Polyakov’s travel with the Batitskiy delegation.

  About six months later, Batitskiy and his group arrived in North Vietnam. Polyakov was not among them. The obvious questions were asked over and over again with no satisfactory answers. What happened? Was his upcoming assignment canceled or changed? If so, why? Did something occur at the cocktail reception that caught the attention of the known KGB watchdogs who were present? Had he been compromised for this, or some other reason? Would he appear elsewhere abroad? If so, when and where? Now what? Thankfully for all intimately involved in the case at CIA headquarters, no serious consideration was given to another attempt to establish personal contact with Polyakov in Moscow. It possibly had worked once, but a second try would be irresponsible. The only viable option was to wait and trust Polyakov to make the decision as to when, where, and how to re-establish contact.

  After an extended period, word came from Moscow Station that Polyakov had marked one of his signal sites. This indicated he was ready to put down a dead drop. A station officer unloaded the drop, which contained a short message that he was being processed for assignment to New Delhi as Soviet military attaché. In a roundabout way, and with thanks to the Soviet bureaucracy as Polyakov later told us, the analytical “witchcraft” paper presented earlier to Blee was correct. The June 1972 meeting in Moscow had been a waste of time and money and had unnecessarily risked the life of an important and productive agent. As Polyakov so bluntly told us at our first meeting in New Delhi, “Don’t ever do that again.”

  Polyakov’s two-year assignment in New Delhi was the pinnacle of our long and productive association. He achieved one of his personal GRU goals when he was promoted to one-star general shortly after his arrival.1 The CIA at last erased the remnants of the Angleton era, and officially accepted Polyakov for what he had been throughout our thirteen years of contact—a legitimate penetration of the GRU. Our relationship had come full circle, evolving from adversarial to a collaborative partnership with a bond of mutual respect and admiration between professional intelligence officers from opposite sides of the Cold War. The CIA had finally gotten it right.

  Polyakov’s new case officer was Paul D, one of our finest. He was not selected for the assignment just because of the quality of his Russian language; of more import were his operational skills and human qualities. Paul greeted every task with enthusiasm, integrity, and balance whether it was a minor question with a simple answer or an impending disaster with no apparent solution. He was a devout Catholic and when he was out of earshot his subordinates respectfully and affectionately called him Father Paul. He never demanded the respect and loyalty of those he led; he unknowingly commanded it with his wit, ch
arm, and unassuming way.

  Earlier in his career Paul managed to avoid scrutiny by the Black Hats in the division by packing up his expanding family and accepting overseas assignments far from their crosshairs. Luckily for him, by the time he returned to headquarters in about 1971, division management had regained a modicum of control over its operational and personnel assignments from Angleton. Paul was given a supervisory position in the Counterintelligence Group, where he remained until his selection as Polyakov’s new field confidant in 1974.

  Vowing to assemble the best field team possible, division management did not stop with Paul. Diana Worthen, who later played an instrumental role in the Ames investigation, was tapped to be the Soviet analyst for our office in New Delhi, with primary responsibility for Paul and Polyakov, or as analysts often described their function, “the care and feeding of those I support.”

  A graduate of the University of New Mexico, Worthen joined the Agency in November 1970 as a secretary-stenographer. After several assignments, including an overseas tour, she returned to headquarters and a secretarial position in the counterintelligence component, where she was converted to professional status as an analyst and discovered her calling in Soviet operations. Worthen was a no-nonsense officer who set high standards for herself and expected the same from others, on occasion advising them of their shortcomings. Conversely, she was a private person whose devotion to her job and to her carefully selected friends was paramount in her life. Little did she know before leaving for New Delhi that her commitment to Polyakov would later collide with a valued friendship, when Ames betrayed both in 1985.

  The final member of the triumvirate was the prototypical DO operations officer whose command of the Russian language and knowledge of the Soviet system was legendary. We will call him “Mr. K.” He traveled as an ordinary American businessman and his occasional presence at debriefing sessions demonstrated to Polyakov the importance we attached to him and his work on our behalf. To add a layer of security to the contact, Polyakov reported his contact with an “American businessman” target to GRU headquarters, with a fictional description of their nature and content. This earned him points with his unsuspecting management for his supposed work against the Main Enemy.

  Paul D and Polyakov were the perfect match. The GRU General came to understand that he had a trustworthy co-conspirator in Paul and it was time to discard his belief that he was merely an agent whose only value was the information he provided. Polyakov was also a human being for whom we had assumed a personal responsibility when he volunteered his services. Under these circumstances, Polyakov found sanctuary in his meetings with Paul and not unexpectedly began to provide glimpses into his rationale for volunteering to American intelligence. It would be inaccurate to characterize his comments on motivation as an emotional catharsis. Polyakov was and remained a circumspect individual whose character and military training never would have permitted such a display. Nevertheless, his specific comments on and oblique references to the subject provided a framework from which we could further extrapolate with some certainty.

  Polyakov’s motivation probably went back to his service and experiences during World War II. As an artillery officer in the Soviet Army who was awarded decorations for bravery, Polyakov witnessed the courage and sacrifice of the Russian soldier despite unbearable conditions and unspeakable horrors. After the war he attended the Frunze Military Academy, from which he was recruited by the GRU. It is believed that sometime during this period Polyakov began to view the Soviet leaders as corrupt thugs who subjugated the common man for personal power and to line their pockets and those of their sycophants. To him these select few were mocking the sacrifices of the Russian people and he only saw a future of continued corruption and thirst for power expanding throughout the world. The Russian people were slaves of their leaders, helpless and alone in the world. Of equal significance, the Western world in general and the United States in particular were not a counterbalance to Soviet power. As viewed by Polyakov, our military was weak, our leaders lacked fortitude and, of greater consequence, were bound by civilized rules of behavior. His were bound by none and Polyakov concluded that the Soviet Union would win the Cold War.

  In early 1968 during a meeting in Rangoon, Polyakov lectured Al K on the cowardice of the commander of the USS Pueblo who allowed North Korean gunboats to capture his vessel without firing a shot. In a paraphrase of Polyakov’s words, a Soviet naval commander would have fought to the death before surrendering his ship to the enemy. However long the process or the twists and turns in his reasoning, Polyakov eventually came to view himself as an individual who just might be able to make a difference in the struggle between East and West. At a minimum he could level the playing field or, in a best-case scenario, tilt it in favor of the United States. Events such as the Pueblo only strengthened his position that without his assistance we were doomed to live under the hammer and sickle of Soviet domination.

  On a more practical level, Polyakov wanted to guarantee a future for his sons in the Soviet system, but to accomplish this he had to curry favor from the powerful within his organization. The Americans were the means by which he could succeed in this ambition, providing him with gifts that allowed him to buy influence. As he rose within the GRU organization, doors opened for his sons and they were afforded the benefits of higher education and employment opportunities commensurate with their father’s rank and position.

  Polyakov never championed our causes of freedom, justice, and democracy. Quite the contrary; these were lofty ideals that did not matter to him and his daily life. On the few occasions when we raised the possibility of defection to the West, he quietly but forcefully ended the conversation. Polyakov was born a Russian and would die a Russian.

  Christmas came early and often for everyone involved in the Polyakov operation during the New Delhi phase, and we waited anxiously for the highlights cable from Paul D after each meeting. What was Polyakov sending us this time? Over the years we had come to expect everything on GRU operations and personnel to which he had access, but it was his positive intelligence that had consumers in the U.S. government talking. Was it the “secret” version of Military Thought, a monthly publication of the Soviet general staff on military doctrine and strategy? While dry prose to many of us in operations, analysts throughout the intelligence community found it invaluable to understanding the Soviet military threat and came to expect the monthly disseminations as if they were a subscription to a favorite magazine. Was it the top secret Soviet embassy annual report that was a comprehensive statement of Soviet embassy relations with its host country and included contributions from the GRU and KGB chiefs? Was it the famous “Top Secret of Special Importance” Kapitsa document detailed earlier in Chapter 4? Was it the hundreds of pages of the top secret Military Industrial Commission’s collection requirements on Western military technology, staggering in their reflection of Soviet knowledge of highly classified U.S. military plans and programs, and a bombshell according to many in the intelligence community? (The Military Industrial Commission [VPK] of the USSR Council of Ministers coordinated and controlled all research, design, development, testing, and production of Soviet military equipment and systems. An integral part of the VPK’s responsibility was the issuance of collection requirements on military matters for all Soviet government agencies from the KGB and GRU to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Trade.)

  The gifts and other remuneration we furnished Polyakov were trinkets compared to those he provided us. Of greater significance, most items he requested were not for his personal use. They were earmarked for his superiors whose influence he courted or others in the GRU whose daily support he needed—for example his desk and personnel officers. Accordingly, our shopping sprees always took place one or two months before Polyakov’s return to Moscow on vacation or on permanent assignment. These handouts ranged from wristwatches and crystal glassware to inexpensive ballpoint pens, depending on the rank or position of the intended recipient
.

  Oddly, during one period Polyakov began to ask for large numbers of these pens, which brought quizzical looks and out-loud questioning in the CIA as to his need for such quantities. Much to our embarrassment, we found the answer in a safe containing his production and the answer was doubly embarrassing. Polyakov had earlier given us a copy of a GRU headquarters collection requirement that tasked its residencies quarterly to acquire a specific brand of ballpoint pen for use as GRU concealment devices. Seeing an easy way to fulfill his headquarters request, Polyakov enlisted our support, thinking we were aware of its genesis because he had given us a copy of the requirement. The CIA was now providing concealment devices for potential use by GRU agents worldwide. However, once we sheepishly and belatedly understood what the pens were to be used for, we disseminated the GRU collection requirement to the appropriate agencies in the intelligence community.

  Throughout the years of our contact with Polyakov, he asked for and we paid him the paltry sum of less than one thousand dollars a year. The items he requested for personal use were, for the most part, inexpensive things he could not purchase in Moscow and were related to his passion for hunting, fishing, and woodworking. They included fishhooks, sinkers, fly rods, shotguns, ammunition, bow and arrows, wading boots, hand warmers, drills, and sandpaper. The only luxury item he ever wanted was a strand of pearls for his wife, Nina, which we later had to replace as he had given the original to a high-ranking Soviet official visiting his embassy.