Vladimir Sergeevich Pravdin, or Roland Lyudvigovich Abbiate, codename LETCHIK
Pilot" (15 August 1905 – 1970) was a senior
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
officer and assassin working in Europe during
the Great Terror
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secreta ...
. He later became a
KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
agent
Agent may refer to:
Espionage, investigation, and law
*, spies or intelligence officers
* Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another
** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuranc ...
, stationed in the United States.
Career
During the 1930s, Pravdin was involved in killings and kidnappings in Europe for the KGB, including the assassination of
Ignace Reiss
Ignace Reiss (1899 – 4 September 1937) – also known as "Ignace Poretsky,"
"Ignatz Reiss,"
"Ludwig,"
"Ludwik", "Hans Eberhardt,"
"Steff Brandt,"
Nathan Poreckij,
and "Walter Scott (an officer of the U.S. military intelligence)" ...
, a
GRU
The Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, rus, Гла́вное управле́ние Генера́льного шта́ба Вооружённых сил Росси́йской Федера́ци ...
officer who defected in 1937. Reiss was caught by the
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
in Switzerland, where he was killed as an object lesson to potential defectors. Pravdin disappeared after the murder. Later, during World War II, he turned up again in the United States where he served as a Soviet diplomat, Vladimir Sergeyvich Pravdin.
Later, in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, Pravdin operated under cover as the head of
TASS
The Russian News Agency TASS (russian: Информацио́нное аге́нтство Росси́и ТАСС, translit=Informatsionnoye agentstvo Rossii, or Information agency of Russia), abbreviated TASS (russian: ТАСС, label=none) ...
News Agency from 1944 to 1945. Among Pravdin's contacts while serving in the United States were
Judith Coplon
Judith Coplon Socolov (May 17, 1921 – February 26, 2011) was a spy for the Soviet Union whose trials, convictions, and successful constitutional appeals had a profound influence on espionage prosecutions during the Cold War.
In 1949, three majo ...
,
Josef Katz, and
Josef Berger.
In Washington, Pravdin, posing as a TASS reporter, made the acquaintance of such people as the famous correspondent
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann (September 23, 1889 – December 14, 1974) was an American writer, reporter and political commentator. With a career spanning 60 years, he is famous for being among the first to introduce the concept of Cold War, coining the te ...
and others. On one occasion, he met with a person with three children to offer money for certain unspecified information and who was code-named by the KGB as BLIN ("bliny" is Russian for "pancake"). In the plain language of the cable decrypt, BLIN was willing to provide information but declined to cooperate with the
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
because the approach had been clumsy, but left open the possibility of future cooperation.
From scraps of information about BLIN that arose from the brief breaking of the Russian code in the materials the U.S. known as the
Venona project
The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program initiated during World War II by the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service (later absorbed by the National Security Agency), which ran from February 1, 1943, until Octob ...
, the FBI concluded that BLIN "appears" to be
I.F. Stone
Isidor Feinstein "I. F." Stone (December 24, 1907 – June 18, 1989) was an American investigative journalist, writer, and author.
Known for his politically progressive views, Stone is best remembered for ''I. F. Stone's Weekly'' (1953–1971), ...
. However, Stone biographer
Myra MacPherson
Myra MacPherson (born 1934) is an American author, biographer, and journalist known for writing about politics, the Vietnam War, feminism, and death and dying. Although her work has appeared in many publications, she had a long affiliation with ...
has contended that the FBI was uncertain about whether BLIN was, in fact, Stone.
[
}] She noted that unlike Stone, BLIN was identified as someone "whose true pro-Soviet sympathies were not known to the public...." The FBI also considered the possibility of Ernest K. Lindley, who better fit the profile of a "very prominent journalist" and/like Stone (and BLIN) had three children.
[ Another cable indicated that BLIN was afraid of contact with Pravdin, lest he draw the attention of ]J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an American law enforcement administrator who served as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation ...
.[The Venona Files] Stone was already attacking Hoover frequently in 1943, and the FBI was of the view that "Stone is known to the bureau because of his hostile editorial comments made against the FBI as early as 1936."[
In 1945, while he was serving as a senior adviser to the American delegation at the founding conference of the ]United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...
, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Harry Dexter White
Harry Dexter White (October 29, 1892 – August 16, 1948) was a senior U.S. Treasury department official. Working closely with the Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr., he helped set American financial policy toward the Allies of World ...
met with Pravdin and answered a series of questions about U.S. negotiating strategy and possible ways for Moscow to defeat or water down American postwar proposals. Pravdin left the United States and returned to the Soviet Union on 11 March 1946.
Anatoliy Golitsyn
Anatoliy Mikhaylovich Golitsyn CBE ( Russian: Анатолий Михайлович Голицын; August 25, 1926 – December 29, 2008) was a Soviet KGB defector and author of two books about the long-term deception strategy of the KGB lead ...
, another Soviet defector in the 1960s, also claimed that Pravdin was active in Austria after World War II and often passed as a Frenchman.
Personal life and death
Pravdin's wife, Olga Pravdin, also served in the KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
.
Pravdin died in 1970 in Moscow.
References
External links
* United States
''A Counterintelligence Reader''
Vol. 1 Chap. 4. National Counterintelligence Center. no date.
FBI Venona file - page 37
* ''Venona: Decoding Espionage in America'', John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Yale University Press, 1999, pgs. 53, 158, 212, 225, 237, 240, 241, 242, 243, 248.
The Venona Story by Robert L. Benson
* }
Information on Vladimir Pravdin
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pravdin, Vladimir
1905 births
1970 deaths
Soviet spies
KGB officers
Soviet assassins
People from London
French emigrants to the Soviet Union