Former KGB officer Vasili Mitrokhin's papers made public

[Larry]

When I noticed this article about Vasili Mitrokhin I thought I would post it because it's an interesting story.  Mitrokhin was for many years an archivist for the KGB, the Soviet Union's principal intelligence agency.  For some years he took home a large storehouse of information about KGB operations and hid it for years.  He defected to Britain, bringing with him what became known as "The Mitrokhin Archives".  He later co-authored a book about KGB operations with Christopher Andrew, a distinguished Cambridge historian.  If you are interested in 20th century intelligence work, it's a must-read.

Soviet files: KGB defector's cold war secrets revealed at last

Vasili Mitrokhin's demand granted 20 years on as 2,000 pages of notes he made from KGB archives begin to be made public

When the scruffy-looking KGB officer walked into the British embassy in Riga, the Latvian capital, one of his first demands – after being offered a cup of tea – was that his unique cache of files on Moscow's foreign intelligence operations he smuggled out of the Soviet Union must be published.

Twenty years later, Vasili Mitrokhin's wish is beginning to come true. the first batch of 2,000 closely typed pages of notes he made from the KGB archives is being opened to the public...

The documents, including more than a hundred pages devoted to KGB claims about its "agents, controllers and cultivations" in Britain during the cold war, have been made available, after vetting by Whitehall weeders, at the Churchill Archives Centre at Cambridge University.

The files describe how Guy Burgess, of the notorious Cambridge Spy Ring, was "constantly under the influence of alcohol", yet managed to provide the KGB with 389 documents in the first half of 1945, and a further 168 in 1949. Donald Maclean, another member of the Cambridge ring, is also described as being "constantly drunk" and "not very good at keeping secrets", telling his lover and brother about his "work".

An appendix in the archives copied by Mitrokhin suggest that the KGB claimed it had contacts with 200 people in Britain.

Mitrokhin's files record in meticulous detail how the KGB in the 1970s spied on the sermons and meetings of the Polish cardinal Wojtyla, later Pope John Paul II. They include maps identifying the location of KGB booby traps and hidden arms caches in western Europe.

They claim that Philip Agee, the former CIA officer who publicly named a list of US agents, had used material offered to him by the KGB, and that Yuri Andropov, head of the KGB in the 1960s and 1970s, infiltrated Ramparts, the radical US magazine which consistently opposed the Vietnam war and also published Che Guevara's diaries. Andropov played a key role in crushing the Prague spring in 1968. Mitrokhin's documents include a long list of targets, mainly editors and student leaders, which 15 "experienced intelligence agents" were ordered by Andropov to pursue in an operation the KGB named Progress.

Mitrokhin's files were translated for journalists at the Churchill Archives Centre by Svetlana Lokhova, a colleague of Christopher Andrew, the Cambridge historian who pioneered the study of intelligence agencies and later appointed MI5's official historian.

The FBI described the Mitrokhin files as "the most complete and extensive intelligence ever received from any source". However, intelligence analysts and some Soviet defectors have warned that the KGB seriously exaggerated the significance and number of its contacts and operations to impress the Soviet leadership – and increase its budget...

Mitrokhin copied the files between 1972 and 1984 when he supervised the transfer of the KGB's foreign intelligence archives from the Lubyanka to its new headquarters in Moscow. He smuggled out his notes, typed them up in his dacha, and hid them under the floorboards.

In 1992, he took the overnight train to Riga dressed as what was described a street pedlar, hiding a sample of his documents under old clothes and sausages. He went first to the US embassy but was put off by the long visa queue there.

He then went to the UK embassy where he was put in touch with a young member of the staff who asked him: "Would you like a cup of tea?", before getting in touch with MI6 who later exfiltrated him and his family. Mitrokhin died in Britain in 2004. Asked about what kind of man he was, Andrew described experiencing the former KGB's officer's feeling of relief – that of a someone who, in the Soviet Union, had not been able to confide in anybody but himself for as many as 30 years.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/07/kgb-defector-cold-war-vasil-mitrokhin-notes-public

[WestCoast]

Makes you wonder how realistic shows like the Americans are? The show is about 2 Soviet intelligence agents posing as a married couple to spy on the American government.

However, after reading about Anna Chapman and the exploits of her group of 'deep cover' operatives it seems unlikely that the Soviets did much better in the US. The Soviets did seem to have better luck in the UK and other places like Germany. Perhaps the politics in those places was closer to the Soviet mindset?

[Larry]

However, after reading about Anna Chapman and the exploits of her group of 'deep cover' operatives it seems unlikely that the Soviets did much better in the US. The Soviets did seem to have better luck in the UK and other places like Germany. Perhaps the politics in those places was closer to the Soviet mindset?

In the great days of Soviet intelligence, the 1930s and 1940s, they were successful in every major country.  In Britain, they recruited the Cambridge Five, who provided excellent information as they obtained more and more responsible jobs in the British government.  In the US the NKVD had agents passing on information about The Manhattan Project, building the atomic bomb.  In addition, they recruited agents such as Alger Hiss, Duncan Lee, who was assistant to the head of the OSS, as well as high Treasury Department official Harry Dexter White.

Those who are interested in Soviet intelligence operations in the US during that era can read the excellent book "The Haunted Wood" by Allan Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev.

The Soviets had several important spy rings in Nazi Germany, including The Red Orchestra and the Lucy ring.  In Tokyo the GRU had Richard Sorge, who thoroughly penetrated the German embassy and also had a man who was a top aide to the Prime Minister, Prince Konoe.

[jake11]

Makes you wonder how realistic shows like the Americans are? The show is about 2 Soviet intelligence agents posing as a married couple to spy on the American government.

However, after reading about Anna Chapman and the exploits of her group of 'deep cover' operatives it seems unlikely that the Soviets did much better in the US. The Soviets did seem to have better luck in the UK and other places like Germany. Perhaps the politics in those places was closer to the Soviet mindset?

I too 'see people' but my lips are sealed, my friend. They are ten thousand strong in our native land, Canada but what can I do, I fell in love, my friend. Nothing else matters except my Russian girlfriend. Not even a hot American chick can change that. I FELL IN LOVE!   ....you left me, neck deep in sh**. You got me, hand in the cookie jar...." I am a scary judge of talent...

[jake11]

I sincerely apologize.

[jake11]

SVR is a worthy Canadian adversary. Epitomized by British intelligence as one of the successful operations mounted by the Soviets on the British, Le Carre's THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD, was convincing proof of the discipline and the tenacity of the Soviets during the Cold War.

[jake11]

UNWARRANTED AND BASELESS ACCUSATIONS
Discovering discrepancies in official statements of persons expressing unwarranted and outrageous incriminating statements in public have placed some of their founders in extreme precarious situations. They have been considered by those authors of such public utterances as threats thus making the discoverers subject of scrutiny, victims of harrassment, provocations, malicious prosecutions and times, victims of murders or mayhem. The only reason has been that the intended victims of such slanderous statements have been completely vindicated in the eyes of the public.

There have been documented cases that have shown these to be true. One sees them often in the newspapers. There have also been cases that have demonstrated what emboldened these principals of such atrocities. Maybe because the critics were once the least penurious and most ascetic in this supposedly civil society the majority of which have been aiming for the high stakes or the good life. They single out the weak and the hapless. They spare the mighty.

Desperation in life has caused these perpetrators of these crimes to produce these baseless incriminating statements. It might have been that they found out the life has been useless or hopeless because of the quagmire they have been in. Psychologists describe these persons as people "always looking for trouble". Moralists describe them as so very depraved that they want others to be like them or else suffer the consequences. Nonetheless, I have always given every criminal lawyer the benefit of the doubt. Yes, there might be rotten apples. But there have been very best ones aiming for the simple life, and those of truth, honesty and integrity minus the chicanery and mendacities of criminal defense lawyering. They either work for the Solicitor General's Office of the Inspector Generals of CSIS(Canadian Security and Intelligence Service).
It has been incumbent on any lawyer to defend his client. Whether guilty or not, it is imperative for the defense lawyer to object when the question to the client is irrelevant, imcriminating, leading, or immaterial. He sees to it that his or her rights has not been violated.

But there have been times that they go to such extent that unmindful of what society's critical impressions, they practice blatant duplicities, artifices and mendacities or what laymen calls as "double talk". Nonetheless, I opine that chicanery and mendacities have been immaterial when criticizing a criminal lawyer named Rocco or giving what has been due him. Who am I to judge when I have only been a poor factory worker from the city named ______ and subject of slander, slights, and boorish remarks everywhere I go to. I am not God and I do it, too, in my lawyering.

But....why "would CSIS or CIA aim their guns at you", Rocco? If they can tolerate Andrew Mitrovica for numerous counts of allegedly libelous and slanderous statements, thirty counts of unlawful identity disclosures and his explicit premonitions of his "possible indictment under the Anti-Terrorist Act ("Guilty conscience does not need accusers"-PNP), and provisions for his personal security that shall redound to their mutual benefit, much more can they be lenient with an allegedly-once law abiding person like you. American law states that "it would be unlawful for them to carry out assassinations". You have read that. Haven't you?

What CSIS has been fearing most has been that a disgruntled person with unattended gripes against these intelligence agencies makes a sacrificial lamb out of you and later places the blame on them.

This might be remote. But what if one of your terrorist client's victims still suffering on that lingering pain and out of vindictiveness puts the law on his hands and finish you off? As the primitive man says, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth".

What if one your Arab client's peers uses you too as a tool. You just gave them a very cordial invitation. And that would aggravate the situation CSIS has now been in. Always the blame is on CSIS. "CSIS did it. CSIS is spying on me. CSIS is going to kill me, etc, etc, etc"

You went straightaway in accusing the "US agency" instead of pinning the principal of the crime, the "third man from _____"!! You can easily suggest that because the "alleged has been on ______soil, his phone or the booth can be traced and his identity revealed on those surveillance cameras repleting on those lampposts. Thus if _____ police cannot produce the results with respect to your complaints, then maybe you have no valid case against the US agency or CSIS.

Hammer your way into pinning the "third man from _____!!!!!!!" Do not cease until justice is served!! Go on!! Do it!!!

Andrew Mitrovica with his thunderous and scandalous presences in the Globe and Mail has never elicited these kinds of death threat complaints against CSIS. But until when? His behaviour has been more impudent than yours. Hence, worthy of their animosities.

I pray for you, Rocco. Fervently pray for you and hope that the good God saves you on the Day of Judgment and gives you a trillion more years to live. I pray for you!
　
jake11, journalist and national security expert, Virginia, USA

[jake11]

https://www.facebook.com/events/1478966539076501/1481491822157306/

That is what is wrong with American and British spy agencies. Discrimination based on status (mentally ill persons). Canadian intelligence do not discriminate on the mentally ill. Flexible but resilient. Perceptive too. Look at me, Vice Chairman, Communist Party of Canada and Director of Operations, CSIS. If they turned their backs on me, how can they succeed?
I took the pictures. Can you attain what I've attained. Not even security guards of our spy agency.)

[yankee]

https://www.facebook.com/events/1478966539076501/1481491822157306/

That is what is wrong with American and British spy agencies. Discrimination based on status (mentally ill persons). Canadian intelligence do not discriminate on the mentally ill. Flexible but resilient. Perceptive too. Look at me, Vice Chairman, Communist Party of Canada and Director of Operations, CSIS. If they turned their backs on me, how can they succeed?
I took the pictures. Can you attain what I've attained. Not even security guards of our spy agency.)

Congratulation jake11 I am now ignoring you.

[jake11]

Do not blame me. I was given the prompt. "Just do it". Or else they'll confine me again in the psychiatric ward. Then they'll fire up the crazies inside. Nightmare! Ask jurisprudence what legal rights a person who was provoked has.