The Sword and the Shield

by Christopher Andrew

  If no motor car is available, one can reach the cache by rail from Friburg, alighting at Belfaux and proceeding on foot. The distance from the Belfaux railway station up to the cache is about 1,500 m.

  There are three containers in the cache: a case, a waterproof package and a stone.

  The case container has an explosive device which was made live by means of the MOLNIYA [“Lightning”] system when it was put into the cache.

  A board has been put on top of the case container in order to protect the handle when the cache is opened.

  Close to the center of the cache, a glass jar has been buried 30 cm below the surface, and above the suitcase a 15 cm length of metal piping has been stuck vertically into the earth, the upper end being 5-7 cm below the surface. These items were placed there for the special purpose of indicating whether the cache had been opened by third parties. At the same time, they can act as markers during the excavation. The overall depth of the cache is 1 m. The case contains a BR-3U radio transmitter.

  After inspecting the area, the Berne residency reported to the Centre that, because of the lack of leaf cover at the site, it would be difficult to conceal signs of excavation. It would also be difficult to devise a cover story for the presence of operational officers in the area of the cache for one or two hours, which might well attract attention. Directorate S eventually proposed to the leadership of the FCD that the cache be written off, partly because of the difficulties of excavation, and partly because the fact that the shelf life of the MOLNIYA device had expired might make removal of the transmitter hazardous. The proposal was approved.78

  The cache was eventually emptied in December 1998 by Swiss Federal police using the finding instructions from Mitrokhin’s archive reproduced above. The MOLNIYA device was, as Directorate S had anticipated, dangerously unstable and exploded when fired on by a water cannon.79 (See illustrations.)

  APPENDIX 3

  EXAMPLES OF RADIO CACHES PUT IN PLACE BY THE ROME RESIDENCY

  (a) Description of the route to the MEZHOZERNY (“Inter-lake”) cache and location of the cache

  On April 15, 1962, a BR-3U radio transmitter No. 609072/9126 was placed in a waterproof package in the MEZHOZERNY cache.

  The MEZHOZERNY cache is located 30 km from Rome in a wooded area between Lakes Albano and Nemi, 50 m from the Via dei Laghi, on the right-hand side of the road when traveling from Rome to Velletri.

  Leave Rome by the Appia Antica, and 17 km later (the lower end of Champino airfield) turn left into the Via dei Laghi, leading to Velletri. Proceed for 13 km along the Via dei Laghi up to the 13 km milestone and continue in the same direction for 120 m beyond the 13 km milestone and at that point a broad path goes off to the right into a wood.

  Go along this path for 90 m up to a fork where there are two paths, continue along the path to the right which begins 10 m from four large stones on the main path.

  These two paths go round either side of a hillock. After following the right-hand path for 15 m from the point where it branches off, turn left and go up the hill for 7-8 m. On the hill and on its slopes there are holes, apparently left after trees had been uprooted. Among all these holes there is a group of four which are side by side.

  The cache in which the load was secreted is a square hole which is next to another large hole of irregular shape like the figure eight.

  At the bottom of the hole a chamber has been dug in the direction of the fork in the paths and it is in this that the trunk with the two-way radio has been placed. It is covered with earth and stones to a depth of 55-60 cm. After the case had been covered with 25 cm of earth a first marker was placed: two lengths of green wire were put across the spot diagonally and the case was then covered with another 50 cm of earth, when a yellow wire was also placed diagonally across the spot; this was then covered with a 55-60 cm layer of earth. On the opposite side of the hole there is a large stone.

  The distance from the Via dei Laghi and Ariccia-Rocca di Papa crossroads up to the broad footpath when traveling away from Rome is about 1,450 m.80

  (THE CACHE WAS emptied by the Rome residency on February 6, 1970, apparently because of concern that the condition of its contents might be deteriorating and becoming unsafe.)81

  (b) Description of the route to the MARINO Cache and Its Location

  On September 20, 1962, two containers were placed on the MARINO cache: a notebook with instructions on the removal and packing of the two-way radio, and a capsule containing instructions for operating the two-way radio together with schedules for two-way and one-way communication; all the materials were on soft film in English.

  The MARINO cache consisted of a cleft at the foot of an ancient tree which had been expanded into the root system of the tree.

  The cache was located at a point 6 km along the Via dei Laghi after leaving Rome. Proceed along the Rome-Albano road, turn left into the Via dei Laghi, and continue for 6.3 km. From the 6 km milestone, the road begins to turn sharply just in face of the Marino hamlet. In the middle of the bend, two unmetaled village tracks go off to the left and the right of the road. Between the track to the right of the road and the road itself there is a sector overgrown with tall bushes. Among these bushes there is one ancient tree 25 m from the road. The MARINO cache is at the foot of this tree in the root system on the side opposite to the road, at a depth of 25 cm from the surface.

  Two containers are wrapped in cellophane and placed in a metal sweet tin measuring 18 × 10 × 4 cm, the edges of which have been stuck down with insulating tape.

  The objects have been covered with earth and a stone placed on top.82

  (The cache was emptied by the Rome residency on February 7, 1970.)83

  FOR REASONS OF public safety it is impossible to publish the locations of any of the KGB radio and arms caches which have not been cleared, since an unknown number are booby-trapped or in otherwise dangerous condition.

  TWENTY-THREE

  SPECIAL TASKS

  Part 2: The Andropov Era and Beyond

  On becoming chairman of the KGB in 1967, Andropov immediately announced his intention to revive KGB “special actions” as an essential tool of Soviet policy during the Cold War. The FCD, he declared, “must take the offensive in order to paralyze the actions of our enemies and to get them involved in a struggle in conditions which are unfavorable to them.”1 Two years earlier dissatisfaction with the recent record of the Thirteenth Department, which was responsible for FCD special actions, had led to its reorganization as Department V.2 Following Andropov’s call for a new “offensive to paralyze the actions of our enemies,” the main priority of Department V became “special actions of a political nature”—the peacetime use of sabotage and other forms of violence in the furtherance of Soviet policy.3 Line F officers in residencies were instructed to show greater ingenuity in devising special actions in which the hand of the KGB would be undetectable. All of the newly devised sabotage proposals employed the same standardized coded jargon. Each act of sabotage was termed a “Lily” (Liliya), the explosive device a “Bouquet” (Buket), the detonator a “Little Flower” (Tsvetok), the explosion of the device a “Splash” (Zaplyv) and the saboteur the “Gardener” (Sadovnik).4

  The most important special action being planned at the beginning of the Andropov era was in Greece, where a group of army colonels seized power in April 1967, suspended parliamentary government and declared martial law. The Greek Communist Party (KKE) was driven underground and its leaders temporarily lost touch with Moscow. In July 1967 the KGB was formally instructed by the CPSU Central Committee to renew contact with the underground Party (a task it had doubtless already begun) and to give it “political and material assistance.”5 The “material assistance” included both financial subsidies, usually handed over to Party representatives in Budapest,6 and help in preparing for guerrilla warfare. The Centre decreed that Department V’s main priority for 1968 should be to set up sabotage and intelligence groups (DRGs) on Greek territory to prepare for an uprising against the military
regime.7 Department V also made preparations for possible guerrilla operations in Italy. The leaders of the PCI were seriously afraid of an Italian military putsch on the Greek model and had requested Soviet assistance in preparing the Party for the possibility that, like the KKE, it would have to transform itself into an illegal underground movement.8

  In 1968, all KGB residencies were sent operational letters headed “Recommendations for Creating the Necessary Conditions on the Territory of a Potential Adversary for Special Group [DRG] Operations in an Emergency.” The letter to the resident in Athens, Ivan Petrovich Kislyak (codenamed MAYSKY), added: “It is not possible that the course of events will in practice require us to assist local progressive forces in the near future, and we must therefore make preparations for this in advance.”9 The Centre issued instructions that all locally recruited DRGs operating in Greece were to be headed by KGB agents, but that this was to be concealed from other members of the groups.10 In 1968 the illegal PAUL was sent to Greece with orders to select “runways” (doroshki) for the landing of airborne Soviet DRGs and bases—“beehives” (ulya)—from which to operate, as well as to check the suitability of those sites identified earlier. “Runway ALFA,” reconnoitered by PAUL, was located in the southern part of the Thessalia plain, about forty kilometers north-west of the town of Lamia. “Runway BETA” was on the north-west of the Thessalia plain, four or five kilometers south of the Kalambaka settlement. The wooded hilly districts of Belasitsa, Piri and Sengal were chosen as areas suitable for smuggling agents and equipment across the Bugarian—Greek border.11

  In August 1968 the Bulgarian DS confidently informed the Centre that it was capable of overthrowing the Greek junta with the assistance of one of its agents, whom it identified as the former head of a Greek intelligence agency. The Bulgarian Central Committee had approved the proposed coup d’état in Athens and instructed the leadership of its intelligence service to coordinate plans for it with the KGB and the CPSU Central Committee.12 The KGB files seen by Mitrokhin do not explain why the Bulgarian proposal was turned down. There were, however, at least three probable reasons. The Centre may well have assessed the risks of failure more highly than the Bulgarians. The Politburo, which at almost the moment the Bulgarian proposal reached it was deciding on the invasion of Czechoslovakia, was doubtless disinclined to give its simultaneous approval to a risky coup attempt in Greece. Further complications were caused by the split in the Greek Communist Party which, after the suppression of the Prague Spring, divided into the pro-Soviet KKE and the Eurocommunist KKE-es. Brillakis (codenamed SEMYON), who had hitherto been one of the KGB’s chief contacts in the underground Greek Party, refused further meetings with the Athens residency in protest at the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.13

  Though the KGB continued to channel large amounts of money into the KKE,14 it seems to have made little progress in setting up DRGs on Greek soil. The main material successfully smuggled across the Greek—Bulgarian border was not sabotage equipment into Greece but the archives of the KKE which were taken in the opposite direction. Weighing 14 tons, filling 1,598 packages and four crates, guarded by thirty Greek Communists, they were transported from Bulgaria to Romania and thence to the Soviet Union, where they were deposited for safekeeping in the town of Ivanovo.15

  AMONG DEPARTMENT V’S most ambitious proposals for special actions during 1968 was an operation to distract Western opinion from the suppression of the Prague Spring by sabotaging a major oil pipeline, codenamed ZVENO (“Link”), near the Austrian end of Bodensee Lake, which was believed by the Centre to carry 10 million tons of oil a year between Italy and West Germany. By breaching the pipeline at the point where it crossed the Rhine canal, Department V calculated that it could pollute the Bodensee, and thus contaminate the main source of drinking water on the West German—Austrian frontier. To carry the explosive, the Vienna residency purchased four Western-manufactured 1-liter thermos flasks, as well as ten ballpoint pens—presumably to conceal the detonators. The scapegoats for the environmental disaster caused by the explosion were to be Italian extremists allegedly retaliating for acts of sabotage carried out by South Tyrol terrorists.

  ZVENO set the pattern for most Department V peacetime special actions: immensely laborious and detailed preparations, followed by a reluctant decision not to go ahead because of the political risks involved—in particular, the possibility that, despite all the precautions taken, the hand of the KGB might somehow be discovered. The operation was postponed several times, kept under review for a number of years and finally abandoned.16

  Many, perhaps most, of the proposed special actions in Europe were intended to cause dissension within NATO. A characteristic example (reproduced at the end of this chapter) was the proposal by the Athens residency in April 1969 for a bomb attack on the Turkish consulate-general in Thessaloniki, which would be blamed on a Greek extremist. Though complimenting the Athens residency on its initiative, the Centre once again dared not take the risk of giving the go-ahead. Instead, on May 12, 1969, it sent a temporizing reply:

  We approve the work carried out by the residency to collect material with the aim of preparing a Lily [sabotage operation] against the YAYTSO [Turkish consulate-general] target. We have put this target on file and if the need arises we shall return to the question of carrying out a Lily against it.

  We ask you to keep the YAYTSO target under observation as far as possible, in order to collect additional data and to take account of possible changes.17

  Probably the first Department V plan approved by Sakharovsky, the head of the FCD, for a major special action in Britain was operation EDDING, a scheme to disrupt preparations for the investiture of the 20-year-old Prince Charles as Prince of Wales on July 1, 1969. Security at the ceremony itself in Caernavon Castle, when the Queen presented Prince Charles with the coronet, rod, ring, sword and mantle of his office in front of 4,000 invited guests and a worldwide television audience of 500 million, was expected to be too tight for a special action. Instead, about a month beforehand, Department V proposed to blow up a small bridge on the road from Porthmadog to Caernavon, near the junction of the A487 and the A498, using British-manufactured gelignite. On the eve of the explosion a letter was to be sent to the Welsh Nationalist MP Gwynfor Evans, at the House of Commons, warning him that MI5 and Scotland Yard were planning a “provocation” in order to discredit the Welsh Nationalists and provide a pretext for a major security clampdown in Wales.

  When the explosion took place Evans and his colleagues were then expected to unmask the conspiracy by the “British organs of power” against Welsh liberties. Though backed by the FCD, however, operation EDDING was postponed by higher authority—either Andropov or the Politburo (the file does not specify which)—doubtless because of the fear, once again, that KGB involvement might come to light.18

  A CENTRE REPORT in 1969 subjected the past record of both the Thirteenth Department and Department V to scathing criticism. Only the training of sabotage and intelligence groups (DRGs) was judged reasonably satisfactory. Some special tasks had proved beyond the capacity of both the Thirteenth Department and its successor to implement; others had become redundant. The report argued that there was little point in making elaborate preparations for DRGs to sabotage American and NATO military installations which were also targeted by the considerably more numerous GRU spetsnaz, and in many cases by the Soviet nuclear missile strike force. It was noted that, during the previous three years, there had been only one successful “special action of a political nature”—operation PEPEL (“Ashes”) in Istanbul (although what this was exactly remains unclear).19 The report, however, predictably failed to mention that the lack of special actions involving the peacetime use of sabotage and other forms of violence was due chiefly to Andropov’s refusal to sanction the proposals put to him.

  Andropov’s reluctance to accept the risks of the peacetime special actions for which he had called on becoming chairman forced him to rethink his strategy. Having reassessed the scope for dir
ect involvement by the KGB, he increasingly turned to using terrorist proxies. Among the first opportunities for their use was a new wave of troubles in Northern Ireland. On November 6, 1969 the general secretary of the Irish Communist Party, Michael O’Riordan, a veteran of the International Brigades,20 forwarded a request for Soviet arms from the Marxist IRA leaders Cathal Goulding and Seamus Costello. According to O’Riordan:

  There has always existed more or less good relations between the IRA and the Irish Communists. We not only conduct a number of public and anti-imperialist activities together, but for more than a year a secret mechanism for consultations between the leadership of the IRA and the Joint Council of the Irish Workers’ Party and the Communist Party of Northern Ireland has existed and is operating. They unfailingly accept our advice with regard to tactical methods used in the joint struggle for civil rights and national independence for Ireland.21

  The IRA had been widely criticized by its supporters for failing to defend the Catholic community during the Belfast troubles of August 1969, when seven people had been killed, about 750 injured and 1,505 Catholic families had been forced out of their homes—almost five times the number of dispossessed Protestant households. One Catholic priest reported that his parishioners were contemptuously calling the IRA, “I Ran Away.”22 In his message to Moscow, O’Riordan said that during the “August crackdown” the IRA had failed to act as “armed defender” of the nationalist community because “its combat potential was weakened by the fact that it had previously concentrated its efforts on social protests and educational activity.” He claimed that there was now a real possibility of civil war in Northern Ireland between the two communities, and of serious clashes between British troops and the Catholics. Hence the IRA’s appeal for arms. In a report to the Central Committee, Andropov insisted that, before going ahead with an arms shipment, it was essential to verify O’Riordan’s ability “to guarantee the necessary conspiracy in shipping the weapons and preserve the secret of their source of supply.”23 It was more than two and half years before Andropov was sufficiently satisfied on both these points to go ahead with the arms shipment.