RFE/RL Profile of CI Centre Professor Oleg Kalugin

PROFILE
Oleg Kalugin: 'Man In The News' Once Again

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

9 April 2002, Volume 2, Number 14

On 26 March, Russian newspapers were filled with sensational headlines concerning the most recent controversy surrounding retired KGB Major General Oleg Kalugin. Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) chief Nikolai Patrushev in ITAR-TASS unequivocally announced that Kalugin caused "colossal damage" to the Russian intelligence community.

But this is not the first time Kalugin has come under government scrutiny. His vocal attacks on the KGB won him both notoriety and a political following in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 1990, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev signed a decree stripping General Kalugin of his rank, decorations, and pension followed by charges by the military prosecutor accusing him of leaking state secrets. Kalugin capitalized on these charges by running successfully for the Supreme Soviet, or "parliament" of the USSR, thereby obtaining immunity from prosecution. From that post, he continued his attacks on KGB abuses and his calls for democratic reform. Following the August 1991 putsch, all charges against him were dropped and his pension was restored.

According to Kalugin, he received a phone call at his home at around 9 o'clock on Friday evening, 22 March, from Second Secretary Consul Nikolai V. Pukalov of the Russian Embassy, who insisted on meeting Kalugin and immediately proposed coming to his home. When asked why, the Russian official refused to provide details over the telephone. "He made it clear this could only be done in person," stated Kalugin. Instead, Kalugin invited Pukalov to come to his office the following Monday. On 25 March, Kalugin was served a summons by Pukalov from the FSB to appear at chief investigator Y.V. Pospelov's office in Moscow for questioning on 28 March. No information was provided either by the official or in the summons as to the reason for the summons. Furthermore, the summons warned that failure to appear without a reasonable excuse could result in Kalugin being "taken by force" under the Russian Criminal Code. Kalugin described this as pure intimidation and an affront to the U.S. legal and diplomatic procedures.

But this came as no surprise to Kalugin. On 14 February 2001, NTV's "Top Secret" program included former Soviet intelligence chief Leonid Sherbarshin labeling Kalugin a traitor and admitting that he has not been formally charged but claiming, "We the veterans will find ways to settle scores with him." The next clip showed a man being hit on the head. According to RIA-Novosti in March 2001, Russian military prosecutors indicated a willingness to open a case against Kalugin for revealing state secrets for his statements to the media that two recent Russian defectors to the U.S. from Canada and the UN might very well be intelligence officers.

Kalugin has recently been the object of intense criticism in Russia, since he testified in the trial of alleged spy and former U.S. Army Colonel George Trofimov after being subpoenaed by the U.S. Department of Justice. Even friends and supporters of Kalugin in Russia were quick to distance themselves from him after his testimony in the Trofimov trial. While Kalugin has denied that it was he who revealed Trofimov as a spy, it did little to dampen the strong sentiments against him in the media. In a recent "60 Minutes II" broadcast that coincidentally aired on 27 March, it was clear the U.S. federal government had in its possession detailed information from British intelligence services, obtained from the archives of Vasilii Mitrokhin (see "The Sword And The Shield" by Christopher Andrew and Vasilii Mitrokhin). These archives contained the specifics of Trofimov's activities and his contacts. This allowed the U.S. government to subpoena Kalugin to testify, knowing full well his knowledge of Trofimov's espionage. At the time, with Kalugin's wife dying of cancer and his previous open letter of 20 March 2000 denouncing acting Russian President Putin for calling Kalugin a "traitor," his fate was sealed: either testify or face the consequences in Russia. Kalugin further explained that, after President Putin branded him a traitor two years ago for criticizing Russia as criminalized and corrupt, "It's simply unwise to go to Moscow under any circumstances." He added, "When the president of a country convicts you in the media as a traitor, it's impossible to expect fair treatment."

Kalugin's open letter to Putin of 20 March 2000 was incendiary. Kalugin made clear that he viewed Putin's rise as nothing more than a victory for "the spirit of Chekism-totalitarianism and the Bolshevik mentality with its inherent hatred and intolerance toward dissent." He cited Putin's decision to rehabilitate former KGB Chairman Yurii Andropov with a memorial plaque in Lubyanka and his visit to a former KGB chairman and the ringleader of the 1991 putsch, Vladimir Kryuchkov, Kalugin's KGB nemesis. Kalugin also quoted from Artem Borovik's last article, published in "Top Secret" magazine, that cited Putin saying, "There are three ways to influence people: blackmail, vodka, and the threat to kill." Kalugin pointed out that shortly after this article appeared Borovik died in a mysterious plane crash.

Concerning his statements at the trial, Kalugin explained, "I simply confirmed what had been known already for years. I confirmed that I was his supervisor," Reuters reported. But such confirmation is anathema to his former colleagues and something that was sure to bring condemnation. Clearly, the consequences of the U.S. Department of Justice subpoena for Kalugin were predictable and so was the reaction to his testimony. Kalugin's compliance only solidified the animus many in his old profession felt about the outspoken former KGB general. These actions, whether intentional or not, have probably permanently removed him from both Russia and its turbulent political scene.

Kalugin summarized his situation, "I will apply for U.S. protection, if necessary, but for the time being I see no reason because it's not a court action, it's an action of the domestic service which has no right to intervene." Kalugin said the action "shows an increasing influence of the old KGB guard on Mr. Putin and his security services.... It's an act of revenge and nothing else."

Kalugin's career has always been high-profile, from his days as one of the first Soviet Fulbright exchange students at Columbia University in 1958 as an undercover KGB agent to his election to the Supreme Soviet in September of 1990 with 57 percent of the vote in Kransnodar. Kalugin admits in his book, "The First Directorate," that he crossed the Rubicon after publicly denouncing the KGB in an address on 16 June 1990 at a meeting of the Democratic Platform organized by Yurii Afanasiev at the October Cinema in Moscow. Kalugin's long journey from Columbia University as the poster boy for the Soviet Union -- where he was described by "The New York Times" in a 1959 "Man in the News" piece as "a popular Russian" -- to the pinnacle of the KGB before finally returning to America in 1995 is among the most intriguing of post-Soviet dramas. Kalugin -- from popular exchange student, to Chekist, to outspoken critic -- is now exiled again.

Who is Oleg Danilovich Kalugin, the man who retired with the rank of major general in the Soviet KGB on 26 February 1990? He was born in Leningrad on 6 September 1934. His father was an officer in Josef Stalin's NKVD. He attended Leningrad State University (actually the Institute of Foreign Languages) in 1952 and was recruited by the KGB for foreign intelligence work, serving in the First Chief Directorate. Under cover as a journalist, he attended Columbia University in New York as a Fulbright scholar along with the man who was later to become known as the father of perestroika under Gorbachev, Aleksandr Yakovlev. (Yakovlev, who rose within the Politburo itself, would also eventually be accused of being a CIA agent by Vladimir Kryuchkov.) After Columbia, Kalugin worked as a Radio Moscow correspondent at the UN in New York, conducting espionage and influence operations. From 1965 to 1970, he served as deputy resident and acting chief of the KGB residency at the Soviet Embassy in Washington as first secretary, press officer. He was exposed as the "playboy spy" in a Jack Anderson article, leading to his return to Russia.

General Kalugin rose quickly in the First Chief Directorate, becoming the youngest general in the history of the KGB, and he eventually became head of Foreign Counterintelligence (KR Line). In this job, he built the organization into a huge one that managed all Soviet penetrations of foreign intelligence and security services. The staff of KR Line nearly doubled and foreign recruited assets tripled, according to Kalugin. Expansion included the establishment of security offices in all foreign Soviet embassies. He also expanded the disinformation service and managed high-profile defectors such as Kim Philby. While serving at the center of some of the most important espionage cases of his period, including John Walker, he quickly became known for his aggressive operational methodology.

Kalugin claims that his conflict with Vladimir Kryuchkov, the former chief of the KGB's First Chief Directorate and later the KGB itself, is the source of much of his troubles. The tension was based on a clash of character. Kalugin, outspoken, sometimes brash, and forthright, never got along with his new boss. Kryuchkov was clearly a man of different character. Kalugin describes Kryuchkov as a hypocrite and a bureaucrat who was obsessed with his own health. He was resented by his fellow officers as a man who entered the KGB from the Communist Party and rose through the ranks from his position in the KGB secretariat. According to Kalugin, Kryuchkov was a man with a clean desk who surrounded himself with "yes men" and had no operational experience. Kryuchkov, on the other hand, described Kalugin as undisciplined and unruly with a taste for the good life and alcohol, drinking with KGB colleagues after hours in the KGB offices. Kryuchkov believed Kalugin was overly self-confident and argumentative.

Kryuchkov received his college degree by correspondence during the war and avoided wartime service because of his Komsomol leadership role. This was another reason some veterans disliked him.

Kalugin thus could not be more different from Kryuchkov. Kalugin -- with his worldly, articulate ways and his fluency in languages -- never connected with his more dour boss. General Kalugin's internal criticism of cronyism within the KGB, specifically the leadership of Kryuchkov, caused friction within the KGB's top management. Kalugin would eventually be exiled to Leningrad in 1980-87 in the Second Chief Directorate (or internal KGB Service). As first deputy chief of Leningrad's regional KGB, he saw the Soviet internal system firsthand, and his alienation grew. In Kalugin's book, he claims his conflict with KGB top management reached a breaking point over allegations that the first asset Kalugin recruited in the U.S. was a CIA agent. The scientist in question, who provided Kalugin with samples of America's formulas for solid rocket fuel, eventually fled to Moscow to escape FBI scrutiny after the defection to the U.S. of Yurii Nosenko. His disillusionment with the system was interpreted as the actions of an American spy by the KGB's domestic service. Kalugin was ordered to obtain this man's confession. When he failed and challenged the judgment of his superiors, he was removed from the foreign intelligence service and posted -- or rather exiled -- to his native Leningrad. It was in Leningrad that he claims his tranformation into a full-fledged opponent of the regime took place.

Kalugin left the KGB in 1990 and became a vocal critic of the communist system. In 1990, after being charged with leaking secrets, Kalugin was elected to the Soviet Parliament -- and thus protected from prosecution. From that post, he continued his attacks on the KGB and the Communist system. Following the August 1991 putsch, Kalugin became an unpaid adviser to reformist KGB Chairman Vadim Bakatin, another man who would be branded a traitor in the Russia press. Bakatin's delivery to the U.S. Embassy in 1991 of surveillance-system plans for the unoccupied American Embassy annex in Moscow led to these accusations. In the first volume of Vladimir Kryuchkov's two-volume book published in 1996 by Olymp, "Personal File," on page 303 he states, "Bakatin and Kalugin are like minded and accomplices with Yakolev in the destruction of the [Soviet] Union and the destruction of the Committee of State Security."

In March of 1991, then-Senator David Boren (D-Oklahoma), who was chairman of the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, first met Oleg Kalugin in Moscow. In an unpublished introduction to the paperback edition of Kalugin's book, "The First Directorate," Boren describes his attempt to gain access to the court proceedings Kalugin had initiated against Gorbachev to regain his pension and medals: The judge denied the senator access to the proceedings because he failed to obtain a pass six months in advance. He also recalls his meeting with Vladimir Kryuchkov, then the chairman of the KGB. The meeting so alarmed the senator that he immediately reported his concerns to President George Bush concerning Kryuchkov's strong anti-Gorbachev opinions. The senator warned President Bush that Kryuchkov might lead a coup against the government. History proved Senator Boren absolutely correct: The coup attempt occurred; Kryuchkov was arrested; then he was released and he has since been rehabilitated. For the first time in the history of the Soviet and Russian security services, Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted a gathering in January 2002 of present and former intelligence and security officials in the Kremlin Palace to celebrate V.I. Lenin's founding of the VChK-KGB, strana.ru reported. Seated in the first row as an honored guest was Vladimir Kryuchkov.

In 1995, Kalugin came to the U.S. to take up a teaching position at the Catholic University of America and has since remained.

The controversy concerning Kalugin will no doubt continue, aggravated by almost continuous charges, media hype, and government actions. This is matched by the absolute disdain that many former KGB officials have for Kalugin's criticism of former colleagues. Kalugin finds much in today's Russia repulsive, and his outspokenness will no doubt continue to aggravate the powers that be. After a week in the news amid charges of Kalugin having caused "colossal damage" and being a "traitor," other voices are emerging. In "Pravda" on 4 April, Andrei Cherkasov writes, "Kalugin was chosen as a scapegoat, probably because he is unattainable." "Izvestiya" on 3 April reported that, "Each Russian regime -- the current regime, the Soviet regime, and the Tsarist regime -- shares an odious characteristic:... petty vengefulness." The article mentioned retired oligarchs Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky, along with intelligence officers Kalugin and Aleksandr Litvinenko as examples of this and how the actions of the government helps them become "successful and full-fledged political emigres."

Some claim that the latest vendetta against Kalugin and Litvinenko is related to the controversial Berezovsky film "Assault On Russia," which attempts to link the unsolved Moscow apartment bombings of 1999 to an FSB operation justifying the Chechen military campaign and catapulting the relatively unknown Vladimir Putin into the Russian presidency. Both Kalugin and Litvinenko appear in the movie.

Thus Kalugin has been thrust once again into a role that others have written for him, both in Russia and the U.S. But for now, it is a role in which he appears to revel and will no doubt play to the hilt. (PMJ)

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