Book Review | The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World

CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence
Studies in Intelligence, 2006

The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World

Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin. (New York: Basic Books, 2005), 677 pp., endnotes, bibliography, appendices, photos, index.

Reviewed by Hayden B. Peake, curator of the CIA's Historical Intelligence Collection

The operational material former KGB Colonel Vasili Mitrokhin brought with him from Russia in 1992 was initially viewed with skepticism by some academic critics because they could not have access to the documents cited in the endnotes. Two approaches to this question of source validation soon put the matter to rest—one traditional, one not. The traditional way involved comparison with existing and newly released material in which the Mitrokhin data confirmed earlier assessments and, in other cases, filled gaps. The unusual, and to some extent unexpected, way involved interviews with people who were directly involved and who admitted their heretofore unacknowledged roles as agents. The most shocking example was the case of octogenarian Melita Norwood, the longest serving and most important female British KGB agent. When asked by the press about the claims in the book, Ms. Norwood quickly stepped forward and proudly admitted her role. It is all true, she said, and under the same conditions, "I would do it again. I thought I had got away with it." From then on Mitrokhin was taken seriously.

Mitrokhin brought out so much material that it had to be published in two volumes; this is the second. The first book focused on KGB operations in the West. This one looks at four geographic regions: Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. In the foreword, coauthor Christopher Andrew presents new details of Mitrokhin's early life, his KGB career, the reasons for his defection, and other personal data that could not be presented while Mitrokhin was still alive.

Each of the four geographic parts of the book begins with an introduction wherein Professor Andrew describes the political circumstances of the period concerned and lays out the often surprising role the KGB played in promoting Soviet foreign policy in the region. In the substantive portions of the book Mitrokhin's files portray KGB activities in the Third World in great detail. Of particular interest is the extent and variety of KGB forgery and disinformation operations. Clearly, the Soviets intended to spread communism in third world countries as a step towards achieving their goal of a worldwide communist state—they said so unequivocally. Many of the cases are familiar from evidence collected and published by Western intelligence services. Cuba is an example, though new details are added, as for example the role of Raul Castro in gaining Soviet support. The chapters on India, on the other hand, discuss KGB support for some important Indian leaders and the extent to which the government had been penetrated. These specifics were new, at least to the Indians, and caused a major flap. Stories about how the KGB recruited political figures and influenced policy were in the local papers for weeks.

There is extensive detail about KGB operations in Nicaragua and Africa, where in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Soviets publicly denied attempting to apply any influence. These claims were believed by many in America. The KGB role in Afghanistan is particularly interesting, as are the attempts to influence Egypt and Iraq. In the case of Vietnam, where the Soviets kept a low profile, what they told the North Vietnamese left no doubt as to their long-term goals. In 1980, KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov told the Vietnamese interior minister that "the Soviet Union is not merely talking about world revolution but is actually assisting it…. Why did the USA and the other Western countries agree on détente in the 1970s and then change their policies? Because the imperialists realized that a reduction of international tension worked to the advantage of the socialist system. During this period, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia and Afghanistan were liberated." (471) This was the distorted KGB view of Soviet reality.

In retrospect, it is hard to comprehend that anyone in the Soviet government really thought they were ever on the road to making the world communist. Volume one shows how hard they tried to subvert the West. Volume two leaves no doubt that the KGB made an even greater attempt to achieve this goal by subverting Third World nations. And almost until the end they believed that the world was really going their way.