Vladimir Kryuchkov was appointed to the position of the chairman of the KGB in 1988. Prior to that, Kryuchkov was the chief of Soviet foreign intelligence (the 1st Main Directorate of the KGB) for 14 years. He was one of the leaders of the coup d’état in August 1991 and was subsequently imprisoned. Kryuchkov died in 2007 at age 83.
This interview was published by the Russian state-controlled newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda on December 5, 2005. Below is my translation available only on this blog.
The last chairman of the KGB Vladimir Kryuchkov: If UFOs existed, I would have been informed about it.
Komsomolskaya Pravda, December 5, 2005
For several years I have been preparing for this conversation with the former chairman of the KGB, Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kryuchkov. And, finally, I got a chance to ask the questions that have provoked a lot of interest in our society for a long time and which the former KGB chief agreed to answer.
Did the KGB know everything?!
Question: Not a single day goes by without the media talking about the unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and various anomalous phenomena. The opinions of scientists and astronauts with whom I have had the occasion to talk differ. But, in one thing, they are unanimous: “The most accurate answers to these questions can be given by intelligence services whose job it is to investigate and study the cases that provoke social interest!” You have been in charge of Soviet intelligence for the longest time (1971-1988), and then, more recently, (1988-1991), you were the chairman of the KGB. So, hardly anyone is better informed on this issue than you.
Kryuchkov: On no occasion did we receive the materials confirming the existence of UFOs or some other kind of supernatural phenomena. At the same time, the Party Central Committee and the Council of Ministers at the highest level have repeatedly asked me to confirm or deny the reliability of rumors about this or that inexplicable event taking place in nature and on our planet. This was especially true of the UFOs and the “Yeti Snowman.” I tasked our best experts, intelligence officers and agents to establish the sources of the dissemination of information that disturbed the population and could make an impact on its security. In the end, they all turned out to be the products of imagination according to the principle: fear takes molehills for mountains. Sometimes some phenomena which appeared incomprehensible to unprepared observers were interpreted by them in their own, mystical, manner, and sometimes, in order to produce a sensation, they were deliberately declared as something extraordinary. It also happened that the claims of some scientists were passed off as something otherworldly that existed but was kept secret by the KGB.
I declare with full responsibility: nothing of the kind has actually been found in our country or in any other countries during my working career! When I talk about other countries, I rely on the information that our intelligence officers received from their sources in the highest official, military, scientific, and technical circles and also from the main intelligence services of foreign countries. The fact is that in all major powers, presidents, prime ministers, and heads of intelligence services, like us, issued special orders to investigate and provide a comprehensive explanation for this or that anomalous incident that caused a stir. As a result, there, too, always and everywhere, the answer of the competent people was the same: “No!” I myself have read, as it were, the copies of these reports.
In the end, I concluded that, for good or ill, there is nothing supernatural on Earth!
- What then about the “self-ignition of the sacred fire” in Jerusalem?
- I must disappoint you. This is just a clever setup or, if you like, a trick of local priests, which has nothing to do with the “divine principle.” I will say more, our experts from the Scientific-Research Institutes of the KGB could set up in Moscow such a fire that the one in Jerusalem would be completely overshadowed. But that would be just playing a game with the religious feelings of believers! In this whole thing, there is a certain kind of disrespect for them, counting on their ignorance of certain natural phenomena and of classified scientific discoveries.
At the same time, it is possible that we are far from being alone in the infinity of the cosmos! The cosmos is “teeming” with different forms of life, but, of course, they are not like those that the dishonest scientists-businessmen and the people with a sick imagination are trying to shock the humanity with. Perhaps the only thing where we found some grounds for serious reflection was the theme of the Tunguska meteorite.
- Did the Party Central Committee task you to collect information about this issue in the United States?
- No. Because there was no basis. If there had been any basis, we would have done it. But, there was none! There was nothing in the USA or in other countries! By the way, the Americans were engaged in the so-called “para-psychological experiments,” but they did not make any real progress. Just like our own institutes which also achieved almost nothing in this respect, though they did run tests. There was more smoke than fire. More precisely, there were no discoveries, though, in fact, the most creative and open-minded KGB scientists worked in this area. This is the kind of a research field in which you can work for many decades - and for more than one generation - and still discover nothing worthwhile. That is why it should be approached with a lot of caution and without making any premature announcements. At the same time, it is definitely worth to continue to pursue various paths. And then, perhaps, there is some hope that something new will be discovered. Therefore, all these rumors about the KGB making their agents into zombies or about the entire closed cities for running special experiments are from the field of dark fiction written by unscrupulous people who are playing on the emotions and ignorance of ordinary people in the spirit of the proverb: they hear the ringing, but they do not know where exactly it is coming from. At the same time, I think that there is something in this field that should be studied more deeply, because the human body is still not well explored and, as our experiments have shown, it possesses enormous potential.
In short, if there had been at least something somewhere, our officers would have immediately reported it to me.
Poisons for Covert Assassinations
Question: The world is full of films and books about how intelligence agents use poisons that do not leave any trace, shoot from experimental weapons, or kill a victim with one move. How true is this? Who does this and in what cases?
Kryuchkov: All this did take place and some of it is still going on. But what’s coming into fashion more and more is the intelligence work as the fight of the intellects. Intelligence services, especially in foreign intelligence, seek to outplay their adversaries through smart covert operations. As the saying goes, they strive to make fools out of them. In any case, the murder of Stepan Bandera was one of the last cases of the KGB using violent methods to get rid of the “unwanted elements.” Since the time of Andropov, the USSR has abandoned this practice. The same policy was proclaimed in the West as well. However, there is information that gives rise to very serious doubts that the Americans kept their words aligned with their deeds. For instance, our helpers in the United States who were foreign citizens would disappear, and then it turned out that they were no longer alive!
- There are rumors that the KGB itself did not “remove” people, but that, with the assistance of the KGB, the state security services of other Socialist countries used deadly poisons to covertly “remove” their opponents. They say that the Bulgarian dissident Markov was “removed” in this way.
- As for the Bulgarians, I will say: if this is true, it means that the Bulgarian comrades were not frank with us when they claimed that they were not involved in his murder.
- [Oleg] Kalugin allegedly confessed that he was involved in this case and gave such a poison to the Bulgarians.
- This statement is on Kalugin’s conscience. Former KGB general Kalugin is a defector and a liar. No wonder he was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison, though he deserves capital punishment.
- And how could it be carried out? Is that possible at all? And, in general, is it possible to kidnap someone abroad and covertly bring him to Russia?
- On the operational and technical level, it’s no problem! There would only need to be an appropriate order! For instance, it was decided to kidnap the former Soviet naval officer Shadrin who in the 1960s began working for the United States. And it was done! And they did the right thing. Kalugin could have been kidnapped. There is no question about that. You only need an order! But they won’t go for it now. And rightly so! Because the relations between countries are more important than success in any particular case!
The time has passed when such things were done. Let’s say today we kidnap one person, and then tomorrow, another. Where is the confidence that this will not lead to some seriously unpleasant thoughts about us? Other countries can rightly say: “We cannot trust them! We can’t deal with them!” The relations with other countries are more important for Russia than punishing some [vulgar expression] like Kalugin.
- And yet, if there is an opportunity to kill someone, who gives a permission to use weapons or poison? The head of the state security service or the head of state?
- During the years I worked in intelligence, I myself did not have the right to issue such a permission. Only in coordination with the Prosecutor General! And, in those years before I worked in the KGB, the head of the state security service could go ahead with it only with the knowledge of the leader of the country.
- Did Brezhnev and Gorbachev know who exactly carried out their intelligence tasks?
- They had the right to know, but, as a rule, they did not make use of it. I remember how Andropov wanted to tell Leonid Ilyich [Brezhnev] the name of an intelligence officer who obtained information that was very important for our country.
- “Don’t, Yuri, don’t! - Brezhnev began waving his hands. “And then I'll blurt it out somewhere and expose the whole thing.”
When Andropov told me this, we laughed a lot. I will say more, even I, as the head of foreign intelligence, most often did not know my agents, as they say, by sight, or by name. The security of an agent can only benefit from the fact that only two or three people who directly supervise his work know who he is.
