Espionage
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Lecture4-SovietEspionage1930-1985.pptxClass Four: Soviet Espionage
1934 to 1985ish
Spy of the Week
Walter Krivitsky –
Soviet NKVD officer operating in Europe as an Illegal in the 1930s.
Defected in 1937 came to the US in 1938 fearing the ongoing purges impacting Soviet intelligence at the time.
Predicted the Soviet non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany.
Identified Soviet intelligence modus operandi for US and British intelligence, gave clues to the identities of five Soviet assets well placed in British society.
Found dead in February 1941 in a Washington DC hotel room.
Officially ruled a suicide, believed by many to have been murdered by Soviet intelligence.
Translation Time!
Class Summary
Soviet espionage before WWII.
Vast infiltration of US, UK governments.
Soviet espionage during/shortly after WWII.
Atomic bomb spies.
The Red Scare and its impact on Soviet espionage.
Return of Soviet espionage – late 1960s to 1980.
Where We’re At
Section 1 – Espionage 101 (Lectures 1-3)
Section 2 – A History of Espionage (Lectures 4-7)
Section 3 – Specific Topics of Interest (Lectures 8-10)
Simulation!
Why We Focus on The Soviets
Soviet Espionage Main Themes
Early agents for the Soviet Union were almost exclusively driven by ideology and support for the USSR.
Easier to maintain before the Cold War began and the general public became aware of many Soviet atrocities.
Though both the GRU and NKVD/MGB/KGB were involved early, the KGB’s primacy began to assert itself during the Cold War.
Illegals and CI officers were largely responsible for running sensitive assets.
Soviet Espionage During the 1930s
Both US and UK governments heavily penetrated by Soviet assets during the 1930s.
Neither government had effective counterintelligence programs in place to prevent penetrations.
Neither government had effective foreign intelligence operations to discover penetrations.
Both governments focused elsewhere from the Soviets.
UK government largely focused on rising Nazi thread.
US government largely focused internally during the Great Depression.
The 1930s
Important to remember where we were in the 1930s.
The Great Depression was gripping the US.
Fascists versus anti-fascists was a global ideological issue.
The Russian Revolution and Communism were still seen as ideologically sound.
Red Terror – mass killings in 1918 – was not widely known about outside of Russia.
Stalin’s Great Purges did not begin until the late 1930s.
Communist Party held great attraction to many intellectuals throughout the world (including the US and UK).
Our Story Begins With Arnold Deutsch
Russian illegal for the NKVD.
Born in Czechoslovakia in 1903, moved to Austria.
Obtained a PhD in 1927.
Married a communist and joined the NKVD as an illegal in 1932.
Sent to London in February 1934 under his true name.
Recruited 17 agents before departing London in 1937.
Killed in 1942 while trying to cross the Atlantic in a U-Boat to serve as an illegal in the US.
“I think it worthwhile to spend a little time on the very remarkable man who recruited me...But, even looking back over all these years, and with a certain amount of experience now under my belt, I still feel that I regard him as a model Checkhist, the sort of Chekhist that Dzerzhinsky himself might personally have found fit for the job.” – Kim Philby*
*Source: CI Centre
In The UK – The Cambridge Five
Five graduates of Cambridge in the UK that spied for the Soviets from the 1930s to the early 1950s.
Began as students at Cambridge in the early 1930s.
Ideologically Communist, all but Cairncross came from wealth and privilege.
Heavily infiltrated British government and intelligence.
“The atmosphere in Cambridge was so intense, the enthusiasm for any anti-fascist activity was so great.” – Anthony Blunt*
Kim Philby Donald Maclean Guy Burgess Anthony Blunt John Cairncross
*Anthony Blunt: confessions of spy who passed secrets to Russia during the war, Andrew Pierce & Stephen Adams, The Telegraph, 22 Jul 2009
Harold “Kim” Philby
Graduated from Cambridge in 1933, moved to Vienna shortly thereafter to do refugee assistance work. Identified by an NKVD talent spotter in 1934 while in Vienna.
Returns to London with his wife and is recruited by the NKVD.
Recruits Donald Maclean at the behest of the NKVD. Maclean in turn recruits Guy Burgess who recruits Anthony Blunt.
Serves as a journalist until 1940 when Burgess recruits Philby to work for MI-6.
Rises to the role of head of counterespionage for MI-6 by the end of World War II.
Served as head of British intelligence in Turkey from 1947 to 1949 before being sent to the US to serve as the UK’s chief liaison with US intelligence.
Forced out of intelligence in 1951, defects to Moscow in 1963.
Donald Maclean
Attended Cambridge with Philby, recruited in 1934 by Philby to work for the NKVD.
Joins the British Foreign Office in 1938. Assigned to the US Embassy in Washington during World War II.
Passes official cable traffic in 1945 that is accidentally transmitted with identifying information in them by the Soviets.
Warned by Philby (through Burgess) that he was about to be unmasked in 1951, defects to Moscow.
Lived well in the Soviet Union until his death in 1983.
Guy Burgess
Recruited by Maclean into the NKVD in late 1934.
Begins working for MI-6 in 1938 as a propaganda expert.
Fired after discussing classified information publicly, begins working for the BBC in 1941.
Joins the British Foreign Office in 1944.
Appointed as Second Secretary of the British Embassy in Washington, DC in 1951.
Gets himself recalled to London after Philby realizes they are in danger by speeding and propositioning police officers.
Maclean and Burgess defect in May 1951.
Died in 1963 having never really taken to life in the Soviet Union
"Why he (Burgess) agreed to go without any guarantee of return is beyond my understanding. I should add, however, that the Centre was no longer greatly concerned about what happened to Burgess. As long as he agreed to go with Maclean, the rest mattered precious little.” – Yuri Modin
Anthony Blunt
Recruited by Deutsch into the NKVD in 1937.
Joins the British army in 1939 and MI-5 shortly thereafter.
Passed information on the British breaking of the Enigma code.
Identified following the defection of Philby in 1963, confesses to involvement in Soviet intelligence.
Working as Surveyor of Queen’s Paintings, granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for 15 years of silence.
"Anthony Blunt sold the names of colleagues, some of whom subsequently perished. How many lives did he put at risk? No one can tell. If conspiracy to murder is a more heinous crime than larceny, Blunt's prison sentence should have stretched through decades. Instead, he roamed free and feted in the Royal Household. And that, truly, is a monstrous betrayal.” – The Guardian, 16 November 1979.
John Cairncross
Recruited by the NKVD in 1936, had been previously spotted by Blunt.
Began in the Foreign Office, transferred to the Treasury and then worked as private secretary for an MI-6 leader.
Provided first information on US intentions to build an atomic bomb in 1940.
Receives a posting at (present day) GCHQ in 1941, provides thousands of German intercepts to the Soviets.
Passed an estimated 5,500 documents to the Soviets.
Helped the Soviets win the Battle of Kursk in 1943 by passing British intercepts of German military cables.
Very little access to information of interest after World War II.
Identified by Blunt in 1964, exiled from the UK until shortly before his death in 1995.
"As the word ‘treason' is usually taken to mean collusion with a country's enemies, especially if that country is occupied by the foe, and Germany was our main enemy, I never considered myself a traitor to Britain, but a patriot in the struggle against Nazism.” – John Cairncross
Cambridge Five Tradecraft
Mostly recruited by Arnold Deutsch or people connected to him.
Largely knew one another.
Lack of compartmentation nearly destroyed them all when Walter Krivitsky defected in 1937. Krivitsky’s descriptions were close but not close enough to identify them:
“A young English journalist sent to Spain during the (Spanish Civil) war” (Philby).
“A young Scotsman who had been imbued with communism in the early thirties, and who subsequently was induced to join the British diplomacy” (Maclean).
Largely run through personal meetings with Russian illegal officers with some input from legal Residency.
How They Got Caught
A true team effort:
Philby, in his position as British liaison to US intelligence is read into a secret program called VENONA (much more on this later).
Philby realizes that Maclean (code name “Homer”) is in danger and tells Burgess to help him defect.
Philby also tells Burgess not to defect as it would have blowback for everyone.
Burgess and Maclean defect together casting suspicion on Philby and ending his espionage career.
Philby’s defection eventually led to Blunt’s unmasking and Blunt provided information on Cairncross.
Cambridge Five Damage*
The full damage of the Cambridge Five may never be known, but some of the immense damage they caused is known:
Philby helped the Soviets identify and arrest numerous Western assets. He also alerted the Soviets to VENONA (though they probably already knew about it).
Philby also told the Soviets about a US-UK plan to infiltrate Albanian exiles as insurgents in Albania in 1949. They were all killed or arrested.
Cairncross told the Soviets about the US-UK efforts to build an atomic bomb.
Maclean and Burgess provided documentation on Allied strategy in the Korean War.
* The Cambridge Five: Spies with No Regrets, by Thomas Boghardt http://www.spymuseum.org/education-programs/news-books-briefings/background-briefings/the-cambridge-five/
Legacy
The Cambridge Five showed the US and British governments the degree to which they had been penetrated by Soviet intelligence.
Philby’s senior role and eventual betrayal had major ramifications for US intelligence.
Both nations needed effective counterespionage programs to root out deep seated Soviet espionage.
Soviet Espionage In America
1930 - 1985
Overview
Soviet intelligence deeply penetrated the US government in the 1930s and into the 1940s.
Defections and improved counterintelligence devastated Soviet intel in the US in the late 1940s and 1950s.
Good assets were the exception rather than the rule from the 1950s through 1985.
A few important recruits during this timeframe though.
Soviet Atomic Espionage
Soviet Union detonated its first nuclear weapon on August 29, 1949.
This was well ahead of estimates of when the Soviets would be able to produce a bomb.
US had begun the Manhattan Project in 1942 to create an atomic bomb.
Soviets did not have the natural resources or scientific know-how to build a bomb on its own. Relied on espionage to fill in the gaps in its knowledge.
Initially tipped off to the feasibility of an atomic bomb by John Cairncross in 1941.
Code named ‘Enormoz’.
Enormoz
The Most Important #1 – Klaus Fuchs
A Communist, Fuchs flees Nazi Germany in 1933.
Fuchs is given a position with the British atomic bomb project and uses his Communist ties to contact Soviet intelligence.
Joins the British delegation to the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos in late 1943.
Begins meeting with a courier for the Soviets named Harry Gold in mid-1944, Gold passes his information to Soviet intelligence.
June 1945 - Fuchs tells Soviet intelligence about plans to detonate the first atomic bomb in July 1945.
Fuchs passed on reams of information on atomic weapon design. He was never paid for his work which ended in 1949.
Identified in 1949 as a spy, Fuchs confessed in early 1950.
Served 9 years of a 14 year sentence, British citizenship was revoked and he died in East Germany in 1988.
“On July 24 I casually mentioned to Stalin that we had a new weapon of unusual destructive force. The Russian Premier showed no special interest. All he said was he was glad to hear it and hoped we would make ‘good use of it against the Japanese.’”
Harry S. Truman, Year of Decisions
The Soviets on Fuchs
The Most Important # 2 – Theodore Hall
Recruited into the Manhattan Project at age 19 in 1944. The youngest physisict working on the atomic bomb.
Shortly thereafter he walked into the CPUSA offices in New York.
Given the code name “MLAD” (young), passes information to the Soviets through his friend Saville Sax.
Provided the Soviets highly detailed information on the design of atomic weapons including the design of a plutonium bomb.
Identified as a Soviet asset in 1951 but is never charged.
Died in 1999 having never formally confessed or been charged with a crime.
The Soviets on Hall
Harry Gold
A Communist sympathizer, Gold is given a job as a chemist at a soap factory in 1933 by an NKVD agent.
Gold agrees to provide industrial secrets to the NKVD in 1934.
Begins acting as a courier for Soviet intelligence and replaces Elizabeth Bentley (more on her later) for some courier jobs.
Tasked with meeting Klaus Fuchs in June 1944.
Travels to Santa Fe in June 1945 and meets with a Los Alamos worker named David Greenglass.
Meets with Soviet intelligence in December 1946, his last meeting with them until late 1949.
Gold testifies in front of a grand jury investigating ties to Soviet intelligence in 1947 but is not charged with a crime.
Arrested in February 1950, confessed to espionage.
Sentenced to 30 years, released in 1966 and died in 1972 while undergoing heart surgery.
David Greenglass
Drafted into the Army in 1943, assigned as a machinist at Los Alamos in 1944.
Brother-in-law Julius Rosenberg and his wife Ethel convince Greenglass’s wife to convince David to pass information to the Soviets.
Greenglass passes information to the Rosenbergs and Harry Gold.
Passes sketches of the design of the atomic bomb mechanism.
Gold identified Greenglass after his arrest and Greenglass is arrested in June 1950.
Sentenced to 15 years in prison, released in 1960. Died in 2014.
The Rosenbergs
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (but mostly Julius) worked with a number of Soviet assets between 1942 and 1950.
Julius recruited to assist a Soviet agent, Jacob Golos, who dies in 1943. Julius takes over courier duties.
Works with David Greenglass and several other Soviet assets.
Arrested in August 1950, both Julius and Ethel refuse to confess to espionage.
Found guilty in March 1951, both are sentenced to death and both are executed in 1953.
Historical record clearly implicates Julius although Ethel’s role in espionage is unclear. At a minimum she was aware of Julius’ activities, and at most she actively assisted his work.
Soviet Atomic Spies – How They Got Caught
Two causes that were exacerbated by poor compartmentation:
1) Defections.
In September 1945 a GRU code clerk named Igor Gouzenko defected in Canada. Gouzenko’s information is alleged to have eventually helped identify Karl Fuchs and several Soviet couriers.
Elizabeth Bentley defected in November 1945 identifying over a hundred possible Soviet assets and helping to identify Harry Gold and the Rosenbergs.
2) VENONA.
Decryptions of Soviet message traffic identify scores of Soviet assets.
Information from VENONA was not admissible in court, so criminal cases had to be made in other ways.
Ultimately – Gouzenko/VENONA led to Fuchs, Fuchs led to Gold, Gold led to Greenglass, Greenglass led to the Rosenbergs.
Soviet Spies – Some Who Got Away
There are numerous code names in VENONA that have never been solved.
One extremely damaging spy was Bill Weisband (right).
Weisband worked in Arlington Hall where VENONA was being worked.
Informed the Soviets about this program in 1945.
Arrested in 1950 when a Soviet asset named Jones Orin York defected.
Weisband was never prosecuted for espionage, only spent one year in jail due to failing to appear before a federal grand jury.
It was revealed in September 2019 (!) that a man named Oscar Seborer defected to the Soviet Union in 1952.
Seborer had worked at Los Alamos from 1944 to 1946 measuring seismological effects of atomic bomb explosions.
Defected after his courier (Harry Gold) was arrested, died in Moscow in 2015.
White & Hiss
Soviet Penetration of Senior US Policymaking
Alger Hiss
Senior State Department official who spied for the Soviets at least between 1935 and 1946, possibly longer.
Began working for the State Department in 1936, became a special advisor to a senior State Department official in 1939.
Placed in charge of planning post-war international organizations in 1944.
Attended the Yalta conference in February 1945.
Forced out of the State Department in 1946.
Indicted on two counts of perjury in January 1950, found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison.
Paroled in 1954 and fought until his death in 1996 to clear his name.
Many historical revisionists continue to insist on Hiss having been innocent.
Alger Hiss – Soviet Asset
Historical record is clear that Hiss worked for Soviet intelligence.
Was implicated by Whittaker Chambers, a Soviet courier who defected to the US in 1938 after a set of Stalin’s purges.
Chambers acted as a courier for Hiss from 1934 to 1938.
When he defected he saved several documents from Hiss for later use.
FBI initially didn’t believe Chambers, defection of Gouzenko and Bentley in 1945 reignited their interest.
Hid over 70 documents related to Hiss including 65 typed copies of classified State Department documents, four notes in Hiss’ handwriting and five strips of microfilm with pictures of State Department documents.
Hiss testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA) and sued Chambers for slander in 1948.
Testimony in turn led to Hiss testifying in front of a grand jury and eventually being convicted of perjury.
VENONA documentation fairly clearly identified Hiss as a Soviet asset although that information could not be used in a court of law at the time.
Harry Dexter White
Senior member of the US Treasury Department from 1934 to 1946.
Assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury in 1941, Assistant Secretary by 1945.
Served as the top Treasury Department representative to the 1944 Bretton Woods conference which established post-war financial institutions.
Worked for the International Monetary Fund after World War II but isolated due to suspicions of his espionage dating to November 1945.
Named by Elizabeth Bentley as a Soviet asset followed by Whittaker Chambers doing the same.
White testified before HCUA in August 1948 and denied involvement with Soviet intelligence. Three days later he had a fatal heart attack.
VENONA identifies White as a Soviet asset although the length and depth of his espionage are largely unknown.
VENONA – Deep Dive
Begun in 1943 to exploit Soviet mistakes in cryptography from 1940 to 1948.
Soviet communications relied on a cryptographic device known as a ‘one-time pad’.
A random set of numbers held only by the sender and receiver. When used only once it makes a message virtually unbreakable.
US cryptanalysts able to break about 3,000 Soviet messages including a large number of NKVD and GRU messages.
FBI read into program in 1947.
British SIGINT joined VENONA in 1948.
CIA read into VENONA in 1953.
Program ends in 1980 and existence of VENONA declassified in 1995.
Breakthroughs had a major impact on US/UK counterintelligence efforts throughout the Cold War.
Set in motion several events which changed HUMINT throughout the Cold War.
One-Time Pads
https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~jcgl/Scots_Guide/info/signals/digital/codes/secret/onetimepad.html
VENONA – Beginning
US Army’s Signals Security Agency given primary responsibility for Soviet codes in 1942.
US had been collecting thousands of codes since 1939. Five different code systems were eventually compromised:
Amtorg (Soviet government trading corporation), NKVD, GRU, Naval GRU and Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
VENONA project formally begins in February 1943.
“The flaw in the Soviet messages resulted from the manufacturers' duplication of one-time pad pages, rather than from a malfunctioning random-number generator or extensive re-use of pages by code clerks. For a few months in early 1942, a time of great strain on the Soviet regime, the KGB's cryptographic center in the Soviet Union for some unknown reason printed duplicate copies of the "key" on more than 35,000 pages of additive and then assembled and bound these in one-time pads.”
“The duplicate pages began showing up in messages in mid-1942 and were still occurring in one circuit as late as June 1948. Nevertheless, most of the duplicate pages were used between 1942 and 1944--years of rapid expansion of Soviet diplomatic communications.”*
Cooperation between the cryptanalysts and FBI counterespionage began in 1948. First instance of SIGINT-HUMINT collaboration in the United States.
* VENONA: Soviet Espionage and the American Response 1939-1957 https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of- intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/venona-soviet-espionage-and-the-american-response-1939-1957/preface.htm
VENONA – Counterintelligence Impact
Helped unravel the Soviet Union’s network of assets in the United States. Disrupted areas of Soviet intelligence includes:
Relationship with Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA).
Soviet intelligence presence in the United States.
Soviet penetration of the Manhattan Project.
Soviet assets throughout the US government.
Helped expose the Cambridge Five.
The ~3,000 decrypted messages represent only a tiny slice of overall Soviet message traffic but highlight how significant even a small mistake can be.
VENONA – Ending*
Program ran from 1943 to 1980.
Customers (FBI, CIA, UK intel) requested the program continue as they worked investigative leads.
Age of the material, difficulty in continuing investigations and lack of collateral information needed to prosecute offenders contributed to program’s eventual shutdown.
Program’s most effective period was 1948 to 1951 though new translations were being provided up until the end in 1980.
49% of 1944 & 15% of 1943 KGB New York to Moscow messages were read.
Only 1.5% of 1945 KGB Washington messages were readable.
~50% of 1943 GRU Naval Washington to Moscow and Moscow to Washington messages were read but none from any other year.
* The VENONA Story, Center for Crytographic History.
VENONA – First HUMINT Case
Judith Coplon
FBI employee identified in a January 1945 VENONA cable.
FBI began counterespionage investigation in December 1948, arrested while meeting her Russian case officer in March 1949.
Convicted separately of espionage and conspiracy, her conviction was eventually thrown out for procedural reasons. Was not retried.
Died in 2011.
VENONA – A Journey
VENONA – A Journey
VENONA – A Journey
VENONA – A Journey
VENONA – A Journey
VENONA – A (Bad Opsec) Journey
VENONA – A Journey
Soviet Assets:
Liberal – American handler.
Ethel – Liberal’s wife. Aware but not actively involved in the espionage.
Kalibr – Ethel’s brother. Works as a mechanical engineer at Los Alamos nuclear facility (Camp-2).
OSA – Ruth Greenglass.
Metr/Kh’Yus – Unknown assets of unknown access.
MLAD – Scientist at Los Alamos, unknown handler.
Venona – The Names Behind The Codes
Liberal – Julius Rosenberg Ethel (Rosenberg) Kalibr - David Greenglass Osa - Ruth Greenglass
Kh’Yus – Alfred Sarant Metr – Joel Barr Mlad – Theodore Hall
VENONA - ALES
A KGB cable from March 1945 from Washington to Moscow has been the subject of much debate in the 70+ years since it was sent.
Gave clues which led to the identification of Alger Hiss as a Soviet asset.
Was not declassified until the 1990s.
VENONA - ALES
This cable, Moscow 1822 from March 1945 says:
ALES – had been working with the Neighbors since 1935.
Had been part of a small ring largely including his family.
Obtained military information, provided information on the State Department (Bank) but the GRU isn’t interested.
Attended the Yalta Conference and had traveled from there to Moscow.
Whittaker Chambers told the FBI in 1938 and 1945 that Hiss was working for the GRU.
Alger’s wife and brother were both Communists per Chambers.
Chambers' documents taken from Hiss showed he passed papers on military-strategic issues
1 of only 8 State Department officers to met this criteria.
VENONA - HOMER
VENONA intercepts indicated the Soviets had a high-level penetration of the British government. This penetration, code named “G” or “H” AKA HOMER/GOMMER.
What do we know about the asset from these intercepts?
VENONA - Who is Homer?
He’s British (ISLAND).
He has access to British foreign office cables.
He may work in the British Embassy in Washington, DC (POOL).
His wife was pregnant in June 1944 (“awaiting confinement”)
He may have traveled to New York (TYRE) on July 30, 1944.
Donald Maclean is British.
Donald Maclean worked for the Foreign Office.
Donald Maclean was assigned to the British Embassy in Washington, DC from 1944 to 1948.
Melinda Maclean gave birth to Fergus Maclean in 1944.
Donald Maclean traveled to New York to see his wife (who was living in New York at the time).
Soviet Lessons Learned
Compartmentation of assets is crucial.
Assets should be run separately whenever possible.
Use trained intelligence officers to handle assets.
Two couriers (Bentley and Chambers) defected, one died (Golos) and one was identified by the FBI (Greg Silvermaster).
Couriers can be unreliable and serve as points of failure. The collapse of their courier network contributed (along with VENONA and closer FBI attention) to the collapse of the asset network.
US intelligence becoming formidable
Penetrating US intel organizations must be a priority.
US Lessons Learned
Soviet Union seen as great threat to the US government.
Response was the “Red Scare” a period of intense US backlash against potential Communist espionage.
House Un-American Activities Committee became a standing committee in 1945.
Provided a battlefield for several anti-Communist events.
Soviet Espionage in America, 1953 to 1985(ish)
The Aftermath
By 1953:
Most of the Soviet Union’s atomic spies had been arrested or identified.
Most of the Soviet Union’s political spies had been arrested or identified.
Stalin was dead.
Purges had swept away much of the Soviet Union’s experienced intelligence officers.
The US was on full alert and Communists in the US were getting increased attention.
An illegal by the name of Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher (AKA Rudolph Abel) is arrested in 1957.
Exchanged in 1962 for Francis Powers.
Gordon Lonsdale, Morris & Lona Cohen arrested in UK in 1961.
Soviet illegal operations in the West becoming much more difficult.
Soviet and Soviet bloc intelligence operations against the US few and far between causing minimal damage between the early 1950s and early 1980s.
With two MAJOR exceptions.
Exception #1 – Clyde Lee Conrad
Joined the US Army and served in Vietnam in 1966 & 1967.
Assigned to West Germany when in 1974 he was recruited by the Hungarian Military Strategic Intelligence Service (HMSIS) to work with an Army Sergeant named Zoltan Szabo.
Ultimately recruited up to 12 individuals to gather classified information for passage to the Hungarians (and the Soviets).
Ran the spy ring from 1974 until his retirement in 1985.
Had obtained Top Secret security clearance from 1978 until retirement.
Conrad’s Damage
Conrad’s group revealed extensive details about NATO war plans in Europe.
Conrad himself served as the administrator of classified documents within his unit.
Many assessments have been made suggesting the Soviets would have easily won a land war in Europe due to their knowledge of US & NATO plans.
Conrad earned over $1 million for his 10+ years of service to the Soviet Bloc.
“Conrad, during the 10 years he worked for Warsaw Pact intelligence services, gave up everything--military operations plans, communications, Order of Battle information and weapons data.” – Former CIA officer Paul Redmond.
Conrad’s Arrest
A Hungarian military officer named Istvan Belovai was assigned to translate Conrad’s documents starting in 1978.*
Belovai worked full time on Conrad’s material until he was assigned to the Hungarian Embassy in London.
Belovai volunteered to the US in 1984 while serving in London and identified Conrad as an asset.
Belovai himself was arrested in 1985 due to a Soviet asset in the CIA (more on him later) and was sentenced to life in prison.
He was paroled in 1990 and emigrated to the US in 1992 where he lived until his death in 2009.
Conrad was arrested in West Germany in 1988 and sentenced to life in prison in 1990.
He died of a heart attack in a German prison in 1998.
* Istvan Belovai, 17 Nov 2009 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/military-obituaries/6591507/Istvan-Belovai.html
Exception #2 – John Walker
US Navy sailor who ran a spy ring for Soviet intelligence from 1967 until 1985.
Provided on the US Navy what Conrad gave the Soviets on the US Army.
Recruited his brother, best friend and son into the spy ring.
Enabled the Soviets to track US submarines throughout the Atlantic.
Deep Dive – John Walker
John Anthony Walker enlisted in the US Navy in 1955.
Convinced to join by his brother Arthur, a sailor on a submarine.
Joined the submarine force with a specialty in communications.
John was financially strapped due to poor management of finances and his lavish spending.
In 1967, Walker was a watch officer for the US Navy’s Atlantic Naval Communications Area Master Station (NAVCAMS).
Responsible for communicating for US submarines in the Atlantic.
Communications with submarines were heavily encrypted but direct from ship to shore.
“And this guy jokingly says that it would be easy to steal documents. I said, ‘Well, who are you going to sell them to? What are you going to do, walk up to the front door of the Soviet…’ and I stopped without finishing the sentence…” – John Walker, Family of Spies by Pete Earley.
Walker Goes Deep
In late 1967 Walker steals a TOP SECRET keylist for an encryption machine and walks into the Soviet Embassy in Washington, DC.
Agreed to provide classified information for money.
Received $1,000 for his keylist and was whisked out of the embassy.
Met regularly with KGB handlers in Washington, DC, also made numerous dead drops in and around DC.
Provided information on US naval cryptographic systems.
21 dead drops between 1968 and late 1969.
In January 1968 the USS Pueblo is attacked and captured by North Korean forces.
An unarmed cryptographic ship, the Pueblo would give the Soviets near total access to US naval communications if the ship’s equipment was shared with them.
Walker Builds a Ring
Transferred to San Diego in 1969 and loses his access.
Walker befriends Jerry Whitworth while teaching radio operations to Navy officers.
Regains access in 1972 when he is assigned to a ship off Vietnam as the Classified Material System Custodian.
Recruits Whitworth to commit espionage over lunch in 1974.
Whitworth and Walker give the Soviets access to a million (or more) classified messages at the height of the Vietnam War.
True impact not fully known but damage was immense at worst.
Walker retires from the Navy and gets divorced in 1976.
Walker’s Ring Grows & Collapses
Whitworth tries to retire in 1979 but is talked into staying in the Navy.
Walker recruits his brother Arthur (contractor) and son Michael (sailor on a Navy aircraft carrier) to commit espionage in 1980 & 1982 respectively.
Walker’s ex-wife tells the FBI about his espionage in November 1984.
Walker commits a dead drop in May 1985 (more on this in two weeks) and is arrested the next night.
Whitworth, Arthur Walker and Michael Walker are all arrested.
Pleads guilty and cooperates in Whitworth’s trial for a more lenient sentence for his son.
Walker receives two life sentences, dies in prison in May 2014 just months short of being paroled. Whitworth receives 365 years in prison, Arthur Walker sentenced to life in prison. Michael Walker receives a 25 year prison sentence, released in 2000.
Walker Lessons
A HUMINT asset can provide incredibly damaging non-traditional information.
More on Walker’s damage in a few weeks.
Counterintelligence programs must be more extensive than currently practiced (US lesson).
Volunteers are the most reliable producer of assets (Soviet & US lesson).
Official officers are far less risky than using illegal officers to meet assets (Soviet lesson).
On the surface Walker’s arrest suggests that the greatest threat to a recruited agent is a counterintelligence penetration.
Undeniably the lesson from Conrad’s arrest.
The Decade of the Spy
Edward Lee Howard – The Damaging Defector
A CIA case officer in training to work in Moscow in 1980.
Fired for lying about criminal issues and drug use, Howard vows revenge on the CIA.
Meets with Soviet Union and passes information on operations he was being trained to run.
Identified by a KGB defector in 1984, placed under surveillance by the FBI.
Escapes FBI surveillance because he is a trained CIA case officer and defects to Moscow in September 1985.
Lived in Moscow until his death after falling from a ladder in 1983
Felix Bloch – An Instructive Case
State Department officer for 32 years until 1989.*
Top European specialist.
Was surveilled in Paris meeting with a KGB illegal named Reino Gilkman.
Gilkman was under cover as a Finnish person.
The KGB had generated fake birth records with the help of a Finnish priest.
Moved to Finland in 1966 and then to Vienna in 1979.
A few weeks after this meeting, Bloch receives a call in which "Ferdinand Paul" told Bloch that he was calling “on behalf of Pierre" who "cannot see you in the near future" because "he is sick", and that "a contagious disease is suspected." (Bloch knew Gikman as "Pierre".) "Paul" then told Bloch: "I am worried about you. You have to take care of yourself.“**
Gilkman disappears and the FBI can never prove espionage on behalf of Bloch. He leaves the State Department in disgrace in February 1990.
Retired to North Carolina where he drives a metro transit bus.
* The Felix Bloch Affair, David Wise, 13 May 1980.
** USA vs Robert Philip Hanssen.
Other Soviet Penetrations of Note
Jack Dunlap – Recruited by the GRU as early as 1957, Dunlap smuggled documents out of NSA headquarters from 1960 to mid-1963. Served as the NSA Director’s driver. Committed suicide in 1963 after taking a polygraph (he passed).
Robert Lipka – Analyst at NSA from 1963 to 1968. Took documents with him when he left the NSA, sold to Soviets until 1974. Arrested in 1996 after acknowledging espionage in a sting operation.
Karel Koecher – A Czech citizen who worked as a translator for the CIA from 1973 until 1984. Koecher was active in espionage from 1973 – 1977 and 1980 – 1984. Arrested by the FBI in 1984 and traded for the release of several Russian dissidents.
Richard Miller – The first FBI Special Agent charged with espionage. Miller passed limited classified information to a KGB officer he was having an affair with in Los Angeles in 1984. Quickly identified and arrested, only served four years in jail.
David Barnett – CIA contractor working out of Indonesia. Volunteered to the KGB because of several failed businesses and received ~$90,000. Gave information on CIA officers and recruitment targets, arrested in 1980 and sentenced to 18 years in jail.
1985 – The Year of the Spy
Jonathan Pollard – Civilian intelligence analyst at the Navy’s Anti-Terrorist Alert Center in Maryland. Spied for Israel. Arrested in November 1985. Sentenced to life in prison, released in November 2015.
Larry Wu-Tai Chin - Chinese language translator/intelligence officer for CIA from 1952 to 1981. Spied for China. Arrested in November 1985 (one day after Pollard), committed suicide before sentencing.
Ronald Pelton - Communications specialist, National Security Agency. Retired from the NSA and revealed extremely sensitive SIGINT programs to the KGB. Arrested in November 1985 (four days after Pollard). Sentenced to life in prison.
Sharon Scranage - CIA clerk stationed in Ghana. Spied for Ghana. Arrested in July 1985 after failing a routine polygraph. Sentenced to 5 years in prison, released after 18 months.
Conclusion
Soviet Union had major penetrations of US and UK throughout the 1940s and 1950s.
Penetrations were largely ideologically motivated.
Improved counterintelligence and awareness of Soviet brutality largely dried up espionage although there were still some minor penetrations in the 1950s and 1960s.
Conrad and Walker were major, long term penetrations between 1968 and the mid-1980s.
No other major penetrations as of early 1985 and Walker was about to be arrested.
1985 is the Year of the Spy not just for who ended espionage for who began.
We will get to this in two weeks.
Questions?
