The Mitrokhin Archive
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The "Mitrokhin Archive" is a collection of handwritten notes which were secretly made by 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 ...
archivist
Vasili Mitrokhin Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin (russian: link=no, Васи́лий Ники́тич Митро́хин; March 3, 1922 – January 23, 2004) was a major and senior archivist for the Soviet Union's foreign intelligence service, the First Chief Di ...
during the thirty years in which he served as a KGB archivist in the foreign intelligence service and the
First Chief Directorate The First Main Directorate () of the Committee for State Security under the USSR council of ministers (PGU KGB) was the organization responsible for foreign operations and intelligence activities by providing for the training and management of cove ...
. When he
defected In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to another, changing sides in a way which is considered illegitimate by the first state. More broadly, defection involves abandoning a person, ca ...
to the United Kingdom in 1992, he brought the archive with him, in six full trunks. His defection was not officially announced until 1999. The official historian of
MI5 The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), G ...
, Christopher Andrew, wrote two books, ''The Sword and the Shield'' (1999) and ''The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World'' (2005), based on material in the archives. The books purport to provide details about many of the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
's clandestine intelligence operations around the world. They also provide specifics about
Guy Burgess Guy Francis de Moncy Burgess (16 April 1911 – 30 August 1963) was a British diplomat and Soviet agent, and a member of the Cambridge Five spy ring that operated from the mid-1930s to the early years of the Cold War era. His defection in 1951 ...
, a British diplomat with a short career in MI6, said to be frequently under the influence of alcohol; the archive indicates that he gave the KGB at least 389 top secret documents in the first six months of 1945 along with a further 168 in December 1949. In July 2014, the Churchill Archives Centre at
Churchill College Churchill College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. It has a primary focus on science, engineering and technology, but still retains a strong interest in the arts and humanities. In 1958, a trust was establish ...
released Mitrokhin's edited Russian-language notes for public research. The original handwritten notes by Vasili Mitrokhin are still classified.


Origin of the notes

Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin originally started his career with the
First Chief Directorate The First Main Directorate () of the Committee for State Security under the USSR council of ministers (PGU KGB) was the organization responsible for foreign operations and intelligence activities by providing for the training and management of cove ...
of 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 ...
(Foreign Espionage) in Undercover operations. After Nikita Khrushchev's
Secret Speech "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences" (russian: «О культе личности и его последствиях», «''O kul'te lichnosti i yego posledstviyakh''»), popularly known as the "Secret Speech" (russian: секре ...
, Mitrokhin became critical of the existing KGB system and was transferred from Operations to the Archives. Over the years, Mitrokhin became increasingly disillusioned with the Soviet system, especially after the stories about the struggles of dissidents and the 1968
Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia refers to the events of 20–21 August 1968, when the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by four Warsaw Pact countries: the Soviet Union, the Polish People's Republic, the People's Rep ...
, which led him to conclude that the Soviet system was un-reformable.Christopher Andrew
"Vasili Mitrokhin"
''The Guardian'', 4 February 2004.
By the late 1960s, the KGB headquarters at the
Lubyanka Building The Lubyanka ( rus, Лубянка, p=lʊˈbʲankə) is the popular name for the building which contains the headquarters of the FSB, and its affiliated prison, on Lubyanka Square in the Meshchansky District of Moscow, Russia. It is a large Ne ...
became increasingly overcrowded, and the Chairman of the KGB,
Yuri Andropov Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (– 9 February 1984) was the sixth paramount leader of the Soviet Union and the fourth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. After Leonid Brezhnev's 18-year rule, Andropov served in the p ...
, authorized the construction of a new building outside of Moscow in Yasenevo, which was to become the new headquarters of the First Chief Directorate and all Foreign Operations. Mitrokhin, who was by that time the head of the Archives department, was assigned by the director of the First Directorate,
Vladimir Kryuchkov Vladimir Alexandrovich Kryuchkov (russian: Влади́мир Алекса́ндрович Крючко́в, link=no; 29 February 1924 – 23 November 2007) was a Soviet lawyer, diplomat, and head of the KGB, member of the Politburo of the ...
, with the task of cataloging the documents and overseeing their orderly transfer to the new headquarters. The transfer of the massive archive eventually took over 12 years, from 1972 to 1984.""
''Los Angeles Times'', 3 February 2004.
Unbeknownst to Kryuchkov and the KGB, while cataloging the documents, Mitrokin secretly copied documents by hand, making immensely detailed notes, which he smuggled to his dacha and hid under the floorboards. Mitrokhin made no attempt to contact any Western intelligence service during the Soviet Era. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union (in 1992) he traveled to Latvia with copies of material from the archive and walked into the American embassy in Riga.
Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
officers there did not consider him to be credible, concluding that the copied documents could be faked. He then went to the
British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...
embassy and a young diplomat there saw his potential. After a further meeting one month later with representatives of MI6, operations followed to retrieve the 25,000 pages of files hidden in his house, covering operations from as far back as the 1930s.


Content of the notes

Notes in the Mitrokhin Archive claim that more than half of the Soviet Union's weapons are based on US designs, that the KGB tapped
Henry Kissinger Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...
's telephone when he was
US Secretary of State The United States secretary of state is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The office holder is one of the highest ranking members of the president's Ca ...
, and had spies in place in almost all US defense contractor facilities. The notes allege that some 35 senior politicians in
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
worked for the KGB during the Cold War. In
West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
, the KGB was said to have infiltrated the major political parties, the judiciary, and the police. Large-scale sabotage preparations were supposedly made against the US,
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, and elsewhere in case of war, including hidden weapons caches; Mitrokhin's books claimed several have been removed or destroyed by police relying on Mitrokhin's information.


Prominent KGB spies named in the files

*
Melita Norwood Melita Stedman Norwood (née Sirnis; 25 March 1912 – 2 June 2005) was a British civil servant, Communist Party of Great Britain member and KGB spy. Born to a British mother and Latvian father, Norwood is most famous for supplying the Sovie ...
(1912–2005), codenamed HOLA, a British civil servant who had access to state secrets while working at the
British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association The British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association was a research group in the United Kingdom during the 20th century, bringing together public and privately funded research into metallurgy. The name was abbreviated officially to B.N.F.M.R.A. (th ...
which was involved in developing atomic weapons. *
John Symonds John Symonds (12 March 1914, Battersea, London – 21 October 2006) was an English novelist, biographer, playwright and writer of children's books. Biography Early life He was the son of Robert Wemyss Symonds and Lily Sapzells. At the ag ...
(b. 1935), codenamed SKOT, a former
Detective Sergeant Sergeant ( abbreviated to Sgt. and capitalized when used as a named person's title) is a rank in many uniformed organizations, principally military and policing forces. The alternative spelling, ''serjeant'', is used in The Rifles and other ...
at
New Scotland Yard Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's 32 boroughs, but not the City of London, the square mile that forms London' ...
, who had left the UK under suspicion of corruption in the early 1970s only to be recruited by KGB abroad. *
Raymond Fletcher Leopold Raymond Fletcher (3 December 1921 – 16 March 1991) was a Labour Party politician. Early life and military career Fletcher served in the British Army (1941–48) in East Asia, Southwest Asia and the British Army of the Rhine. He subsequ ...
(1921–1991), codenamed PETER, a British journalist and subsequently MP; also alleged to have been recruited by the Czech secret police
StB State Security ( cs, Státní bezpečnost, sk, Štátna bezpečnosť) or StB / ŠtB, was the secret police force in communist Czechoslovakia from 1945 to its dissolution in 1990. Serving as an intelligence and counter-intelligence agency, it d ...
and the
Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
. * Iosif Grigulevich (1913–1988), an
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. ...
assassin who under a false identity served as ambassador of Costa Rica to both
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
and
Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
from 1952 to 1954, and was put in charge of an aborted plan to assassinate the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito * Robert Lipka (1945–2013), a former clerk at the
National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collect ...
who passed on classified documents to the KGB in the late 1960s. Lipka had denied his involvement until the last moments before his trial was to begin 30 years later, when prosecutors revealed that the prime witness against him was a former KGB archivist. *
Salaad Gabeyre Kediye Salaad Gabeyre Kediye ( so, Salaad Gabeyre Kediye, 1933 – 3 July 1972), also known as Salah Gaveire Kedie, was a Somali senior military official and a revolutionary who was executed by the Siad Barre regime. Biography Kediye was born in Harard ...
(1933–1972), codenamed OPERATOR, member of Somalia's Supreme Revolutionary Council which took over the country following the 1969 coup d'état, officially styled as "Father of the Revolution" before ending up executed in the ensuing power struggle three years later.


Latin American leaders accused of being informants or agents of the KGB

Christopher Andrew states that in the Mitrokhin Archive there are several Latin American leaders or members of left wing parties accused of being KGB informants or agents. For example, FSLN leader Carlos Fonseca Amador was described as "a trusted agent" in KGB files.
Nikolai Leonov Nikolai Sergeyevich Leonov (russian: Николай Сергеевич Леонов; 22 August 1928 – 27 April 2022) was a Russian politician, senior KGB officer, and Latin America expert in the Soviet Union. Biography He studied Spanish l ...
was Sub-Director of the Latin American Department of the KGB between 1968 and 1972. In 1998 he gave a lecture where he made statements that contradicted these claims. For instance he said that the KGB was not allowed to recruit members from Communist or other left wing parties. Daniel Ortega agreed to "unofficial meetings" with KGB officers. He gave Nikolai Leonov a secret program of the
Sandinista The Sandinista National Liberation Front ( es, Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, FSLN) is a socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas () in both English and Spanish. The party is named after Augusto C ...
movement (FSLN), which stated the FSLN's intent to lead class struggle in
Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...
, in alliance with
Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
and the Soviet bloc. However, Leonov stated that he became friends with many Latin Americans including some leaders, and that he and other Soviets supported the struggles of left wing groups. But he clarifies that he did not let people know that he was a KGB agent and that his relationships with them did not involve intelligence.


Middle Eastern figures accused of being informants or agents of the KGB

In September 2016, a work by two researchers (DR. I. Ginor and G. Remez) stated that Mahmoud Abbas (also known as 'Abu Mazen'), the
President of the Palestinian National Authority The president of the Palestinian National Authority ( ar, رئيس السلطة الوطنية الفلسطينية) is the highest-ranking political position (equivalent to head of state) in the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). The presiden ...
, worked for the Soviet intelligence agency. According to a recently released document from the Mitrokhin Archive, entitled "KGB developments – Year 1983", Abbas apparently worked under the code name "Krotov", starting early 1980s.


Alleged KGB operations revealed in the files

* Blackmailing
Tom Driberg Thomas Edward Neil Driberg, Baron Bradwell (22 May 1905 – 12 August 1976) was a British journalist, politician, High Anglican churchman and possible Soviet spy, who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1942 to 1955, and again from 195 ...
(code-named Lepage), British MP and a member of the executive committee of the Labour Party in the 1950s. Driberg had spied on the Communist Party of Great Britain for MI5 in the 1930s. In 1956, while visiting
Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...
to interview his old friend
Guy Burgess Guy Francis de Moncy Burgess (16 April 1911 – 30 August 1963) was a British diplomat and Soviet agent, and a member of the Cambridge Five spy ring that operated from the mid-1930s to the early years of the Cold War era. His defection in 1951 ...
for a biography, he was blackmailed by the KGB into removing references to Burgess' alcoholism, due to their having photos of him in a homosexual encounter. * Attempts to increase racial hatred in the US by mailing forged hate letters to militant groups * Bugging
MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
stations in the
Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...
* Bugging
Henry Kissinger Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...
when he was serving as
United States Secretary of State The United States secretary of state is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The office holder is one of the highest ranking members of the president's Ca ...
* Obtaining documents from defense contractors including
Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and p ...
,
Fairchild Fairchild may refer to: Organizations * Fairchild Aerial Surveys, operated in cooperation with a subsidiary of Fairey Aviation Company * Fairchild Camera and Instrument * List of Sherman Fairchild companies, "Fairchild" companies * Fairchild Fa ...
, General Dynamics, IBM, and
Lockheed Corporation The Lockheed Corporation was an American aerospace manufacturer. Lockheed was founded in 1926 and later merged with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed Martin in 1995. Its founder, Allan Lockheed, had earlier founded the similarly named but ot ...
, providing the Soviets with detailed information about the
Trident A trident is a three- pronged spear. It is used for spear fishing and historically as a polearm. The trident is the weapon of Poseidon, or Neptune, the God of the Sea in classical mythology. The trident may occasionally be held by other mari ...
and Peacekeeper ballistic missiles and
Tomahawk A tomahawk is a type of single-handed axe used by the many Indigenous peoples and nations of North America. It traditionally resembles a hatchet with a straight shaft. In pre-colonial times the head was made of stone, bone, or antler, and Eur ...
cruise missiles * Supporting the
Sandinista The Sandinista National Liberation Front ( es, Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, FSLN) is a socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas () in both English and Spanish. The party is named after Augusto C ...
movement. The leading role in this operation belonged to the General Intelligence Directorate of Communist
Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
. *KGBs direct link to Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi (code-named Vano). "Suitcases full of banknotes were said to be routinely taken to the Prime Minister's house. Former Syndicate member S. K. Patil is reported to have said that Mrs. Gandhi did not even return the suitcases". Systematic control of the Indian Media was also revealed- "According to KGB files, by 1973 it had ten Indian newspapers on its payroll (which cannot be identified for legal reasons) as well as a press agency under its control. During 1972 the KGB claimed to have planted 3,789 articles in Indian newspapers - probably more than in any other country in the non-Communist world. According to its files, the number fell to 2,760 in 1973 but rose to 4,486 in 1974 and 5,510 in 1975. In some major NATO countries, despite active-measures campaigns, the KGB was able to plant little more than 1 per cent of the articles which it placed in the Indian press"


Accused but unconfirmed

* Richard Clements, journalist and editor of the ''
Tribune Tribune () was the title of various elected officials in ancient Rome. The two most important were the tribunes of the plebs and the military tribunes. For most of Roman history, a college of ten tribunes of the plebs acted as a check on th ...
'', and later an advisor to
Michael Foot Michael Mackintosh Foot (23 July 19133 March 2010) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Labour Leader from 1980 to 1983. Foot began his career as a journalist on ''Tribune'' and the ''Evening Standard''. He co-wrote the 1940 p ...
and
Neil Kinnock Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock (born 28 March 1942) is a British former politician. As a member of the Labour Party, he served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 until 1995, first for Bedwellty and then for Islwyn. He was the Leader of ...
as leaders of the British Labour Party. Clements was not named in Andrew and Mitrokhin's book in 1999, but an article in ''
The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...
'' made the allegation that he was the unidentified agent of influence codenamed DAN. According to the Mitrokhin Archive, DAN disseminated Soviet propaganda in his articles in the ''Tribune'', from his recruitment in 1959 until he severed contact with the KGB in the 1970s. Clements denied the allegation, saying that it was an over-inflated claim and "complete nonsense", and that the allegation was not subsequently repeated. Those defending Clements against the charges included
David Winnick David Julian Winnick (born 26 June 1933) is a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Walsall North between 1979 and 2017, he was also the MP for Croydon South from 1966 to 1970. Early life Born into a Britis ...
and
Andrew Roth Andrew Roth (23 April 1919 – 12 August 2010) was a biographer and journalist known for his compilation of ''Parliamentary Profiles'', a directory of biographies of British Members of Parliament, a small sample of which is available online in ...
. *
Romano Prodi Romano Antonio Prodi (; born 9 August 1939) is an Italian politician, economist, academic, senior civil servant, and business executive who served as the tenth president of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004. He served twice as Pr ...
(see #Italy inquiry, Italian Mitrokhin Commission).


Disinformation campaign against the United States

Andrew described the following active measures by the KGB against the United States:Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin (2000). ''The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West''. Gardners Books. . * Promotion of false John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories, John F. Kennedy assassination theories, using writer Mark Lane (author), Mark Lane. Lane denied this allegation and called it "an outright lie". * Forged letter from Lee Harvey Oswald to E. Howard Hunt, attempting to incriminate Hunt in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Kennedy assassination. * Discrediting the CIA using the ex-CIA case officer and defector Philip Agee. * Spreading rumors that the FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was a homosexual. * Attempts to discredit Martin Luther King Jr. by placing publications portraying him as an "Uncle Tom" who was secretly receiving government subsidies. * Stirring up racial tensions in the United States by mailing bogus letters from the Ku Klux Klan, by placing an explosive package in "the Negro section of New York" (operation PANDORA),''KGB in Europe'', page 310 and by spreading conspiracy theories that the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. had been planned by the US government. * Fabrication of the story that the HIV, AIDS virus was manufactured by US scientists at the US Army research station at Fort Detrick. The story was spread by Russian-born biologist Jakob Segal.


Installation and support of communist governments

According to Mitrokhin's notes, Soviet security organizations played key roles in establishing puppet Communist governments in Eastern Europe and Afghanistan. Their strategy included mass political repressions and establishing subordinate secret police services at the occupied territories. The KGB director
Yuri Andropov Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (– 9 February 1984) was the sixth paramount leader of the Soviet Union and the fourth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. After Leonid Brezhnev's 18-year rule, Andropov served in the p ...
took suppression of anti-Communist liberation movements personally. In 1954, he became the Soviet Ambassador to Hungary, and was present during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. After these events, Andropov had a "Hungarian complex": Andropov played a key role in crushing the Hungarian Revolution. He convinced reluctant Nikita Khrushchev that military intervention was necessary.''The KGB in Europe'', p. 327. He convinced Imre Nagy and other Hungarian leaders that the Soviet government had not ordered an attack on Hungary while the attack was beginning. The Hungarian leaders were arrested and Nagy was executed. During the Prague Spring events in Czechoslovakia, Andropov was a vigorous proponent of "extreme measures". He ordered the fabrication of false intelligence not only for public consumption, but also for the Soviet Politburo. "The KGB whipped up the fear that Czechoslovakia could fall victim to NATO aggression or to a coup." At that moment, Soviet intelligence officer Oleg Kalugin reported from Washington that he had gained access to "absolutely reliable documents proving that neither CIA nor any other agency was manipulating the Czechoslovak reform movement." But, Kalugin's messages were destroyed because they contradicted the conspiracy theory fabricated by Andropov. Andropov ordered many active measures, collectively known as operation PROGRESS, against Czechoslovak reformers.


Assassinations attempts and plots

* Attempted poisoning of the second President of Afghanistan Hafizullah Amin on 13 December 1979. Department 8 of
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 ...
succeeded in infiltrating illegal agent Mitalin Talybov (codenamed SABIR) into the presidential palace as a chef. However, Amin switched his food and drink (as if he expected to be poisoned), and his son-in-law became seriously ill; he was flown to a hospital in Moscow.''The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World'', pages 400-402 The poison was manufactured in Poison laboratory of the Soviet secret services, the secret KGB laboratory which had prepared ricin for the attack on Bulgarian writer Georgi Markov in London in 1978. * Preparations to assassinate Josip Broz Tito, the president of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In the late 1940s, Poison laboratory of the Soviet secret services, the same KGB laboratory manufactured a powdered Plague (disease), plague for use by an assassin who had been vaccinated against plague.''KGB in Europe'', pages 464–466Vadim J. Birstein. ''The Perversion Of Knowledge: The True Story of Soviet Science''. Westview Press (2004) .Ken Alibek and S. Handelman. ''Biohazard (book), Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World—Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran it'' 1999. Delta (2000) This assassination was prepared by the famous KGB agent Iosef Grigulevich, who had previously organized the assault on Leon Trotsky's villa in Mexico. However, Grigulevich was recalled at the last moment, due to the sudden death of Joseph Stalin. * In 1962, plans to assassinate several "particularly dangerous traitors," including Anatoliy Golitsyn, Igor Gouzenko, Nikolay Khokhlov, and Bohdan Stashynsky were approved by the KGB head Vladimir Semichastny. Khoklov was poisoned by radioactive thallium, allegedly due to his refusal to work as a KGB assassin and kill George Okolovich, chairman of the National Alliance of Russian Solidarists.


Penetration of churches

The book describes establishing the "Moscow Patriarchate" on order from Stalin in 1943 as a front organization for 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. ...
, and later, for 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 ...
. All key positions in the Church, including bishops, were approved by the Ideological Department of CPSU and by the KGB. The priests were used as agent of influence, agents of influence in the World Council of Churches and in front organizations such as World Peace Council, Christian Peace Conference, and the ''Rodina'' ("Motherland") Society founded by the KGB in 1975. The future Russian Patriarch Alexius II said that ''Rodina'' was created to "maintain spiritual ties with our compatriots" and to help organize them. According to the archive, Alexius worked for the KGB as agent DROZDOV, and received an honorary citation from the agency for a variety of services.


Support of militant organizations and terrorists

The Andrew and Mitrokhin publications briefly describe the history of the PLO leader, Yasser Arafat, who established close collaboration with the Romanian Securitate service and the KGB in the early 1970s.''The KGB and the Battle for the Third World'', pages 250–253 The KGB provided secret training for Palestine Liberation Organization, PLO guerrillas. However, the main KGB activities and arms shipments were channeled through Wadie Haddad of the PFLP organization, who usually stayed in a KGB dacha BARVIKHA-1 during his visits to the Soviet Union. Led by Carlos the Jackal, a group of PFLP fighters carried out a spectacular raid on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries office in Vienna in 1975. Advance notice of this operation "was almost certainly" given to the KGB. Many notable operations are alleged to have been conducted by the KGB to support international terrorists with weapons on the orders from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, including: * Transfer of about one hundred machine-guns, automatic rifles, Walther arms, Walther pistols, and cartridges to the Marxist Official Irish Republican Army by the Soviet intelligence vessel ''Reduktor'' (operation SPLASH) in 1972, supposedly to fulfill a personal request for arms from Cathal Goulding, relayed through Irish Communist Party leader Michael O'Riordan. He has denied the allegations. * Transfer of anti-tank grenade RPG-7 launchers, radio-controlled SNOP mines, pistols with silencers, machine guns, and other weaponry to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine through Wadi Haddad, who was recruited as a KGB agent in 1970 (operation VOSTOK, "East"). According to Peter-Michael Diestel, East Germany became "an Eldorado for terrorists". The KGB aided the Stasi in supporting the Red Army Faction, which perpetrated terrorist attacks such as the Rhein-Main Air Base bombing, 1985 Rhein-Main Air Base bombing. Other Stasi contacts included the Provisional Irish Republican Army, Provisional IRA, the Basque ETA (separatist group), ETA, and previously mentioned "Carlos the Jackal".


Active measures in South Asia

In 1981 the Soviets had launched "Operation Kontakt", which was based on a forged document purporting to contain details of the weapons and money provided by the ISI to Sikh militants who wanted to create an independent country. In November 1982,
Yuri Andropov Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (– 9 February 1984) was the sixth paramount leader of the Soviet Union and the fourth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. After Leonid Brezhnev's 18-year rule, Andropov served in the p ...
, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, General Secretary of the Communist Party and leader of the Soviet Union, approved a proposal to fabricate Pakistani intelligence documents detailing ISI plans to foment religious disturbances in Punjab and promote the creation of Khalistan movement, Khalistan as an independent Sikh state. Indira Gandhi's decision to move troops into the Punjab was based on her taking seriously the information provided by the Soviets regarding secret CIA support for the Sikhs. The KGB role in facilitating Operation Blue Star, Operation Bluestar was acknowledged by Subramanian Swamy who stated in 1992 “The 1984 Operation Bluestar became necessary because of the vast disinformation against Sant Bhindranwale by the KGB, and repeated inside Parliament by the Congress Party of India."


Preparations for large-scale sabotage

Notes in the archive describe extensive preparations for large-scale sabotage operations against the United States, Canada, and Europe in the event of war, although none was recorded as having been carried out, beyond creating weapons and explosives caches in assorted foreign countries. This information has been corroborated in general by GRU defectors, Victor Suvorov and Stanislav Lunev. The operations included the following: * A plan for sabotage of Hungry Horse Dam in Montana.''The KGB in Europe'', page 473 * A detailed plan to destroy the port of New York (target GRANIT). The most vulnerable points of the port were determined and recorded on maps. * Large arms caches were hidden in many countries to support the planned acts. Some were booby-trapped with Molniya (explosive trap), "Lightning" explosive devices. One such cache, identified by Mitrokhin, was found by Swiss authorities in the woods near Fribourg. Several other caches in Europe were removed successfully. A KGB radio equipment cache was found in woods outside of Brussels in 1999. * Disruption of the power supply across New York State by KGB sabotage teams, which were to be based along the Delaware River in Big Spring State Park (Pennsylvania), Big Spring Park. * An "immensely detailed" plan to destroy "oil refineries and oil and gas pipelines across Canada from British Columbia to Montreal" (operation "Cedar") was prepared; the work took twelve years to complete.


Reception and reviews

The historian Joseph Persico wrote that "several of the much-publicized revelations [from the book], however, hardly qualify as such. For instance, the authors tell how the K.G.B. forged a letter from Lee Harvey Oswald to E. Howard Hunt, the former C.I.A. officer and later Watergate conspirator, in order to implicate the C.I.A. in the Kennedy assassination. Actually, this story surfaced in Henry Hurt's ''Reasonable Doubt'', written 13 years ago. Similarly, the story that the K.G.B. considered schemes for breaking the legs of the ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev for defecting to the West was first reported in a book written six years ago." And he added that "it does seem odd that a key K.G.B. archivist never had access to a copying machine, but had to copy thousands of pages in longhand. Still, the overall impact of this volume is convincing, though none of the material will send historians scurrying to rewrite their books." The ''Central European Review'' described Mitrokhin and Andrew's work as "fascinating reading for anyone interested in the craft of espionage, intelligence gathering and its overall role in 20th-century international relations," offering "a window on the Soviet worldview and, as the ongoing Robert Hanssen, Hanssen case in the United States clearly indicates, how little Russia has relented from the terror-driven spy society it was during seven inglorious decades of Communism." David L. Ruffley, from the Department of International Programs, United States Air Force Academy, said that the material "provides the clearest picture to date of Soviet intelligence activity, fleshing out many previously obscure details, confirming or contradicting many allegations and raising a few new issues of its own" and "sheds new light on Soviet intelligence activity that, while perhaps not so spectacular as some expected, is nevertheless significantly illuminating." Reg Whitaker, a professor of Political Science at York University in Toronto, gave a review at the ''Intelligence Forum'' about the book where he wrote that "The Mitrokhin Archive arrives from a cache under a Russian dacha floor, courtesy of the British intelligence community itself, and its chosen historian, Chris Andrew" and that the book "is remarkably restrained and reasonable in its handling of Westerners targeted by the KGB as agents or sources. The individuals outed by Mitrokhin appear to be what he says they were, but great care is generally taken to identify those who were unwitting dupes or, in many instances, uncooperative targets." Jack Straw (then Home Secretary) stated to the British Parliament in 1999: "In 1992, after Mr. Mitrokhin had approached the UK for help, our Secret Intelligence Service made arrangements to bring Mr. Mitrokhin and his family to this country, together with his archive. As there were no original KGB documents or copies of original documents, the material itself was of no direct evidential value, but it was of huge value for intelligence and investigative purposes. Thousands of leads from Mr. Mitrokhin's material have been followed up worldwide. As a result, our intelligence and security agencies, in co-operation with allied Governments, have been able to put a stop to many security threats. Many unsolved investigations have been closed; many earlier suspicions confirmed; and some names and reputations have been cleared. Our intelligence and security agencies have assessed the value of Mr. Mitrokhin's material world wide as immense." The author Joseph Trento commented that "we know the Mitrokhin material is real because it fills in the gaps in Western files on major cases through 1985. Also, the operational material matches western electronic intercepts and agent reports. What MI6 got for a little kindness and a pension was the crown jewels of Russian intelligence." Scholar Amy Knight said that "While ''The Sword and the Shield'' contains new information ... none of it has much significance for broader interpretations of the Cold War. The main message the reader comes away with after plowing through almost a thousand pages is the same one gleaned from the earlier books: the Soviets were incredibly successful, albeit evil, spymasters, and none of the Western services could come close to matching their expertise. Bravo the KGB."


Investigations after publication of the books

The publication of the books prompted parliamentary inquiries in the UK, Italy, and India.


UK inquiry

After the first book (Andrew and Mitrokhin, ''The Sword and the Shield'', 1999) was published in the UK, an inquiry was held by the House of Commons' Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC). Its findings, "The Mitrokhin Inquiry Report", were presented to Parliament in June 2000. The Committee expressed concern that the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) knew the names of some spies years before the publication of the book, but took a decision, without informing the proper prosecuting authorities, not to prosecute them. This decision, ISC believed, was for the Law Officers to take, not the SIS. The ISC interviewed Mitrokhin. He was not content with the way the book was published, he told them, and felt he had not accomplished what he intended when writing the notes. He wished that he had retained "full control over the handling of his material". SIS stated that they were clearing the UK chapters with the Home Secretary and the Attorney General, as required before publication of the book, but, the Committee found, they did not do so. In addition, ISC thought, "misleading stories were allowed to receive wide circulation", and the Committee found that SIS had handled neither the publication nor related media matters appropriately.


Italy inquiry

In Italy in 2002, Silvio Berlusconi's center-right coalition, the ''House of Freedoms, Casa delle Libertà'', established the Mitrokhin Commission, presided over by Senator Paolo Guzzanti (''Forza Italia'') to investigate alleged KGB ties to figures in Politics of Italy, Italian politics. The commission was criticized as politically motivated as it was focused mainly on allegations against opposition figures. The commission was shut down in 2006 without having developed any new concrete evidence beyond the original information in the Mitrokhin Archive. However, former FSB (Russia), FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko allegedly said that he had been informed by FSB deputy chief, General Anatoly Trofimov (who was shot dead in
Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...
in 2005), that "
Romano Prodi Romano Antonio Prodi (; born 9 August 1939) is an Italian politician, economist, academic, senior civil servant, and business executive who served as the tenth president of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004. He served twice as Pr ...
is our man [in Italy]". The allegations were rejected by Romano Prodi. Litvinenko also said, "Trofimov did not exactly say that Prodi was a KGB agent, because the KGB avoids using that word." In 2006, a British Member of the European Parliament for London, Gerard Batten of United Kingdom Independence Party, demanded a new inquiry into the Italian allegations.


India inquiry

In India, a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, L. K. Advani, requested of the Government a white paper on the role of foreign intelligence agencies and a judicial enquiry on the allegations in The Mitrokhin Archive II. The spokesperson of the Indian Congress party referred to the book as "pure sensationalism not even remotely based on facts or records" and pointed out that the book is not based on official records from the Soviet Union. L.K Advani raised his voice because in this book is written about ex-prime minister Indira Gandhi (Codenamed VANO) relations with KGB.


Notes


Books

* * Andrew, Christopher, Vasili Mitrokhin (1999) ''The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West''. Allen Lane. . *
https://books.google.com/books?id=-fJXtQEACAAJ&dq=The%20Mitrokhin%20Archive --> google books
* Andrew, Christopher, Vasili Mitrokhin (2000). ''The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB''. Basic Books. . * Vasiliy Mitrokhin (2002), ''KGB Lexicon: The Soviet Intelligence Officer's Handbook'', Frank Cass & Co. Ltd, 451 pages, * * Andrew, Christopher, Vasili Mitrokhin (2005). ''The Mitrokhin Archive II: The KGB and the World''. Allen Lane. {{ISBN, 0-7139-9359-6.


External links



(Report of the British SIS to Parliament)
The Mitrokhin Archive
from the Cold War International History Project, includes primary sources.
The Mitrokhin Archive - A Note on Sources
from the Cold War International History Project

*[https://web.archive.org/web/20120908072842/http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/4071 Interview on Mitrokhin with Christopher Andrews] on ''Charlie Rose (talk show), Charlie Rose'' KGB Cold War Non-fiction books about espionage 1992 non-fiction books 2005 non-fiction books