Filip Kovacevic: The Soviet-Chinese Spy Wars in the 1970s - What KGB Counterintelligence Knew (4)

 Blog Series: Reading Secret Journals of the KGB

Title: On the Unique Features of the Subversive Activities by the Chinese Intelligence Services against the Soviet Union from the Territory of Xinjiang

Authors: Colonel G. Ya. Nikitin & Lt. Colonel A. A. Penkov

Publication: Volume 26, Papers of the Dzerzhinsky Higher School of the KGB, Moscow, 1982, pages 269-276. Classified as Top Secret.

Article Analysis by Filip Kovacevic, PhD

This article is written by the head of the Second Main Directorate of the KGB (counterintelligence) in the Kazakh Soviet Republic, Colonel Nikitin and his deputy, Lt. Colonel Penkov. They give an overview of the activities of the Chinese intelligence services in the Kazakh Soviet Republic in the 1970s and early 1980s and discuss a number of specific cases from their operative practice to illustrate the Chinese intelligence sources and methods. This article has never been officially declassified by the Russian government and is analyzed here in English for the first time.

As we have seen in the previous analyses of the KGB counterintelligence articles (see Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3), the proper form of a KGB journal article requires that it begins with a reference to the conclusions of the most recent Soviet Communist Party Congress. For Nikitin and Penkov, the most recent is the 26^th Party Congress held in February 1981 during which the Soviet leadership accused China of making an alliance with the Western powers to sabotage the Soviet Union and the unity of the Soviet-controlled Socialist bloc. Nikitin and Penkov take this statement as a starting point and claim that the aggressive Chinese anti-Soviet plans and geopolitical designs condemned at the Congress are reflected in the increasingly hostile activities of the Chinese intelligence services. They use the Chinese intelligence activities in the Kazakh Soviet Republic where they hold the two top positions in the KGB counterintelligence directorate as an illustrative case study.

According to Nikitin and Penkov, the rising interest of the Chinese intelligence services in the affairs of the Kazakh Soviet Republic can be observed since the early 1960s. Over the following two decades, the Chinese intelligence focus has expanded to include the information regarding the Soviet Kazakh military and border guard infrastructure, the economic situation and agricultural planning, the domestic and international political issues, the biographical data, sources, and methods of the KGB and MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs) personnel, and the living conditions, attitudes, and moods of the Chinese diaspora. Nikitin and Penkov claim that the launching pad for the Chinese intelligence activities in the Kazakh Soviet Republic is the neighboring Chinese province of Xinjiang and set out to discuss these activities in detail and provide concrete examples. They reveal that their sources and methods include the counterintelligence activities against the Chinese intelligence officers operating under diplomatic cover in the Soviet Union, the investigations and interrogations of border violators and defectors, the KGB active measures, and the KGB agent networks in the Chinese diaspora.

Nikitin and Penkov indicate that the favorite method used by the Chinese intelligence services to infiltrate their agents into the Soviet Union involves illegal border crossings. They note that the number of the border violators has steadily increased since the mid-1960s. They put their total number at more than 800 individuals since 1967 and give the exact figures for several years preceding the publication of their article: 69 violators in 1978, 72 violators in 1979, 89 violators in 1980, and more than 120 violators in 1981. They state that the violators come from several ethnic groups, including Han Chinese, Uighur, and Kazakh, and that those who turned up in the early 1980s were typically better educated and younger than the ones from the previous periods.

Nikitin and Penkov interpret this trend as a potential deceptive tactic by the Chinese intelligence services to facilitate the violators’ recruitment by the KGB and their subsequent return to China on KGB missions. They state that the violators appear to be very familiar with the Soviet legal system which allows them to remain in the country after serving a short prison sentence for illegal crossing. According to Nikitin and Penkov, this legal norm may facilitate the long-term Chinese intelligence operations within the Soviet Union and the deep cover infiltration of their agents into the Soviet state institutions, including the military and intelligence structures.

Nikitin and Penkov assert that the KGB counterintelligence activities in the Kazakh Soviet Republic in the period between 1978 and 1980 led to the exposure of more than 10 agents of the Chinese intelligence services among those who crossed into the Soviet Union illegally. They also provide several detailed case histories. The first one is the case of an individual codenamed “Nyui” (born in 1960) who was arrested in August 1980. After the KGB investigation, which included the information gathered by an informer placed inside his prison cell, “Nyui” confessed that he was trained by the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) to offer his services to the KGB with the expectation of being sent back to China to work on the KGB behalf, thus comprising its espionage network there.

Another case from the same false defector category was the individual codenamed “Kin” (born in 1957) who was arrested the same year. “Kin” was also trained by the MSS but, in contrast to “Nyui,” was instructed to claim that he was an underground member of the Eastern Turkestan Revolutionary Party suppressed by the Chinese Maoist regime in 1969. He was to ask the KGB for the material assistance, including both money and weapons, to bring back to his alleged comrades hiding in Xinjiang and getting ready to rise up against the Beijing government.

According to Nikitin and Penkov, just like the MSS, the Chinese military intelligence service also trained false defectors. In this respect, they mention the case of an individual codenamed “Student” (born in 1958). “Student” admitted that he underwent special training in the Xinjiang Military District headquarters from May 1977 until September 1978 in order to become a deep cover agent within the Soviet Union. He was supposed to join the household of his relatives living in the Kazakh Soviet Republic and wait for a contact from China.

In addition, Nikitin and Penkov claim that the Chinese military set up small special forces units in the border areas to kidnap Soviet citizens. They discuss the case of a Kazakh shepherd (Soviet citizen but born in China in 1932) codenamed “Sputnik” who vanished in August 1978 while tending his livestock only to re-appear two months later. During the interrogation by the KGB counterintelligence, “Sputnik” admitted that he was recruited by the Chinese intelligence services. He revealed that he was subjected to intense psychological pressure and ordered to write personal, anti-Soviet statements until he acquiesced to become a spy. Nikitin and Penkov comment that such methods of “persuasion” have also been mentioned by other recruited Chinese-born Soviet citizens. They also note that the Chinese intelligence services often use the fact of these individuals having been born in China as the main rationale as to why they should assist them in their subversive activities. Moreover, Nikitin and Penkov state that the number of recruitment attempts rose in the late 1970s with the increase of Chinese citizens from Xinjiang visiting their family members in the Kazakh Soviet Republic and vice versa. However, they do not fail to mention that the Soviet Kazakh KGB counterintelligence keeps a close eye on the visitors from China and, no doubt, also tries to recruit them to serve the Soviet cause.

Lastly, Nikitin and Penkov claim that the Chinese military units from Xinjiang sometimes make incursions into the Soviet territory to test Soviet defenses. They note that several shootouts between the Soviet border guards and the Chinese soldiers occurred during the 1970s, including one in August 1971 when two Chinese soldiers were shot 17 km away from the border. A Russian-Chinese dictionary was found among their belongings, which Nikitin and Penkov interpret as a sign that they planned to collect intelligence by contacting local population. Nikitin and Penkov also note that the KGB special forces unit found a machine gun cartridge produced in West Germany in the Alaqol border region in June 1978, the indication not only of the presence of a Chinese military unit in that region, but also of the fact that it was armed by the Soviet Western adversaries. Along the same lines, they state that in 1981 the U.S. government provided China with spying equipment for the surveillance of Soviet missiles and radio communication which was positioned along the border in Xinjiang. [The same information was reported by the New York Times on June 18, 1981].

In conclusion, Nikitin and Penkov seem to be particularly wary of the ability of the Chinese intelligence services to recruit many who come into contact with them. They voice a strong suspicion even of some of their own agents who have returned after completing intelligence missions in Xinjiang. For instance, they write of the return of their agent codenamed “Un” in the summer of 1981. “Un” was sent to Xinjiang in 1971 and returned ten years later with three of his relatives. Nikitin and Penkov state that the KGB investigations show that there is a cause for serious concern that both “Un” and one of his relatives have been doubled by the Chinese intelligence.

Thus, in the final analysis, not only are the Chinese intelligence services increasing the number of agents they send into the Soviet Union, but they also seem to be successful in turning some of the KGB’s own. They are, in the words of Nikitin and Penkov, an adversary both “aggressive and insidious” for whom the KGB counterintelligence had yet to find an antidote.

 

Filip Kovacevic: The Soviet-Chinese Spy Wars in the 1970s - What KGB Counterintelligence Knew (3)

 Blog Series: Reading Secret Journals of the KGB

Title: Some Questions Regarding the Subversive Activities of Chinese Intelligence Services Directed Against the Military Forces of the USSR

Author: Major A. A. Karyaev

Publication: Volume 15, Papers of the Dzerzhinsky Higher School of the KGB, Moscow, 1978, pages 130-145. Classified as Top Secret.

Article Analysis by Filip Kovacevic, PhD

This article was published two years prior to the articles by Captain Kuznetsov and Major General Kovalenko & Colonel Ponomaryov analyzed in Part 1 and Part 2. In contrast to those two articles, which are based on the files of the Second Main Directorate of the KGB (counterintelligence), Karyaev bases his article on the files of the Third Main Directorate of the KGB (military counterintelligence). However, as we will see, his conclusions are not much different. Chinese intelligence services are perceived as a formidable adversary whose methods and sources are a persistent source of concern for the KGB. Just like the two previous articles, this article has never been officially declassified by the Russian government and is analyzed here in English for the first time.

Karyaev begins by referring to the conclusions of the 25^th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party (held in 1976) which stated that the Chinese Communist leadership had shifted ideologically to the right and became openly hostile to the Soviet Union. According to Karyaev, China now perceives the Soviet Union rather than the capitalist countries of the West as the “main adversary.” Consequently, China is using the “whole arsenal” of intelligence methods and tools to undermine the Soviet internal political stability and the Soviet reputation in the international community, especially among the socialist countries of the world. The significant targets in this covert intelligence war are the military forces of the Soviet Union. Karyaev claims that the situation is particularly acute in the regions bordering China and he mentions the Soviet Far East, the Baikal region, Siberia, Kazakhstan and other Central Asian republics.

According to Karyaev, the Chinese intelligence services are collecting all types of information regarding the Soviet military forces (the number of units, equipment, location, personnel, morale). They also focus on the military transportation and communication networks, training, and civil defense organization. Karyaev specifically refers to the April 1976 Chinese intelligence requirement which stressed the importance of obtaining the information regarding the location of Soviet military units and their movements and supply lines in the border regions. According to him, the espionage effort against the Soviet military forces is directed by the Military Council of the Chinese Communist Party and the Second Directorate of its Department of Investigation, but he also notes the involvement of the PLA’s Directorate for Intelligence, the Ministry of State Security, and the border guard intelligence units.

Karyaev emphasizes that in its spying activities directed against the Soviet military forces, the Chinese intelligence services are using both legal and illegal human platforms. He notes that the Chinese intelligence officers under diplomatic cover often travel to the Soviet border regions attempting to engage in the visual reconnaissance and photographing of Soviet military infrastructure and transport and communication lines. This for instance was found to be the case during the visit of Chinese diplomats to Khabarovsk in the mid-1970s. Likewise, during the Chinese diplomats’ visit to the Turkmenistan Military Region, they extensively questioned a Soviet officer codenamed “Narymov” about the military units based in the region, including military hospitals, the age, salaries, and ethnic composition of the personnel, and even about the visits of the Minister of Defense. Conveniently for the KGB, “Narymov” was actually an officer of the Third Main Directorate. Karyaev does not say so, but it is likely that “Narymov” was used to feed the disinformation to the Chinese.

Karyaev states that the surveillance of the Soviet military forces by the Chinese diplomats extends beyond the borders of the Soviet Union. He points to the increased Chinese diplomatic activities around the Soviet military infrastructure in all areas of the world in which the Soviet military maintains its presence, from Eastern Europe (Poland, Czechoslovakia) to Africa. For instance, he brings up the example of the Soviet navy ships anchored in the Somaliland port of Berbera being photographed from a car with the Chinese diplomatic license plates.

Another setting favored by the Chinese intelligence services is the Moscow-Beijing railroad. According to Karyaev, the Chinese intelligence officers often work under the cover of train conductors. In addition to the visual reconnaissance of the places that the railroad passes through, they also try to strike up conversations and make friends with the travelers, especially Soviet military officers and their families, including children. After establishing contact, they tend to invite their new acquaintances to their official compartment and offer them fruits, gifts, cigarettes, etc. Karyaev mentions the case of a Soviet officer who accepted the invitation and was questioned about his personal affairs as well as about political and military matters.

In addition to having officers operating under a legal cover, the Chinese intelligence services run the long-term (future-oriented) illegals programs where they try to infiltrate their officers into the Soviet Union using illicit means. Referring to the testimonies of those he calls bona fide Chinese intelligence defectors, Karyaev claims that the Chinese intelligence leadership used mass border migration into the Soviet Union as a convenient cover for its illegal intelligence officers. According to the exposed Chinese officer codenamed “Khuan,” the Ministry of State Security began a systematic training of its illegal officers for operating in the Soviet Union in the mid-1960s. The training lasted from one to three years and included both general and special subjects. The officers came from both the Han Chinese ethnic group as well as from the ethnic minority groups. Karyaev tells a story of another exposed Chinese officer referred to as D. who entered the Soviet Union illegally and then traveled through Kazakhstan collecting military-type information until he was arrested.

According to Karyaev, in recent times, the Chinese military has begun training special forces units called “the Tigers” and preparing them for the anti-Soviet sabotage activities. Karyaev claims that these actions represent a real threat to the Soviet border military infrastructure and warns that they need to be taken seriously. In addition, Karyaev notes that the Chinese military has dramatically increased its capabilities regarding technical and SIGINT intelligence collection by purchasing the optical and radio equipment from West Germany and other Western countries. This makes it quite capable of eavesdropping on Soviet border military exercises as well as on missile and satellite launches.

In conclusion, Karyaev advises a high degree of vigilance and offers some hope that the KGB counterintelligence will be able to act quickly to limit any damage that the Chinese intelligence services might cause. However, there is also a sense that the Chinese espionage pressure will intensify over time and will put a very heavy strain on the KGB resources, perhaps even comparable to the strain of Western intelligence services. The most unsettling for Karyaev and the KGB seems to be the realization that China and the West are now on the same geopolitical side and that their intelligence activities have the similar anti-Soviet core orientation. They know well that to fight on two fronts in the global spy war is daunting and generally leads to defeat.

 

Filip Kovacevic: The Soviet-Chinese Spy Wars in the 1970s - What KGB Counterintelligence Knew (2)

 Blog Series: Reading Secret Journals of the KGB

Title: Some Contemporary Tendencies in the Subversive Activities of the Chinese Intelligence Services Against the USSR

Authors: Major General A. G. Kovalenko & Colonel B. I. Ponomaryov

Publication: Volume 21, Papers of the Dzerzhinsky Higher School of the KGB, Moscow, 1980, pages 447-456. Classified as Top Secret.

Article Analysis by Filip Kovacevic, PhD

This article is published in the same volume as the article by Captain Kuznetsov analyzed in Part 1 and their titles sound somewhat similar. Written by high-ranking KGB counterintelligence officers Major General Kovalenko and Colonel Ponomaryov, the article offers additional information regarding Chinese intelligence activities not available in Kuznetsov’s article, including the detailed discussion of two cases of Chinese espionage on the Soviet territory in the 1970s. It has never been officially declassified by the Russian government and is analyzed here in English for the first time.

Kovalenko and Ponomaryov begin by claiming that the Chinese foreign policy in the 1970s has an explicitly anti-Soviet, expansionist, and aggressive character. They dismiss the significance of the Soviet-Chinese negotiations which took place in Moscow in September 1979, sarcastically commenting that their only lasting consequence will be the increase of the Chinese intelligence presence at the Chinese Embassy. They claim that during the period of the negotiations, the number of Chinese personnel at the Embassy increased by 25 percent (from 150 to 200) among whom they suspect at least 30 intelligence officers. In addition to the traditional collection and recruitment activities, they assert that these officers are also interested in looking for ways to subvert the Soviet state from the inside.

Just like Kuznetsov, Kovalenko and Ponomaryov point to the Chinese Embassy in Moscow as the control post of Chinese espionage in the country. They claim that the Embassy personnel engages in the following intelligence activities: the collection of political, economic, military, and scientific-technical information; the collection of rumors and similar information that could be used as “ideological diversion” against the Soviet state in international forums; the coordination of intelligence networks and agents within the country; the monitoring of the Soviet media (they allege that the Chinese acquired the special equipment for recording Soviet TV programs from West Germany); the overall recruitment efforts (including those directed at foreign journalists and diplomats in the USSR, especially those from the so-called developing countries); the supplying of equipment and providing support to the Chinese intelligence officers who are operating without the official cover (illegals). They also emphasize that the Embassy has purchased the vast number of Soviet publications, spending about 4,500 rubles a year on Soviet newspapers and journals and about 160,000 rubles a year on books and specialist publications [In 1979, 1 ruble was equivalent to $1.52].

In addition, Kovalenko and Ponomaryov note that since 1971, the Chinese diplomats based at the Embassy resumed the so-called intelligence collection trips across the USSR halted during the Cultural Revolution. They report that two Chinese diplomats, one of whom was identified as the Chinese assistant military attaché, took a trip to Kishinev, Kiev, and Kharkov in October 1978. The two were observed trying to conduct the surveillance of military objects in Moldova and Ukraine. They also questioned local inhabitants (some of whom were KGB informers) about the size of military units and various industries in the region. Another pair of diplomats took a trip to Baku, Yerevan, Tbilisi, and Sukhumi in January 1979. They were actively collecting political and economic information in their meetings with local officials. According to Kovalenko and Ponomaryov, they also engaged in explicitly anti-Soviet, subversive activities by telling their interlocutors in the Caucasus that they would be better off if they “liberated themselves” from the Moscow “pressures” and “Russification” efforts. 

Kovalenko and Ponomaryov also describe an espionage case linked to the Chinese Embassy in Moscow in the 1970s. They tell a story of the Chinese agent codenamed “Scorpio,” a Chinese national who immigrated to the USSR in 1955 with a wife who was a Soviet citizen. According to Kovalenko and Ponomaryov, “Scorpio” was recruited by the Chinese intelligence officers at the Embassy after more than a decade-long period of testing and meetings. In 1972, he was told to apply for Soviet citizenship claiming that he was an ethnic Uzbek and then buy a house in the south of Ukraine (probably in the Crimea) near a major ship-building center on the coast. The Embassy supplied him with the necessary funds and he was told to begin collecting economic, military, and scientific-technical information. He was supposed to maintain the contact with the Embassy through a Chinese citizen who lived in Moscow and frequented the Embassy events. He himself was never to visit the Embassy again or to go to China in the next 15 years. Kovalenko and Ponomaryov do not say how and when “Scorpio” was caught, but what they do reveal shows the high-level of sophistication of the Chinese intelligence efforts. The case illustrates the Chinese intelligence officers’ slow and painstaking work to recruit the agent and then engage him in a complex and multi-leveled operation with the elements of a genuine spy thriller.

The second espionage case described by Kovalenko and Ponomaryov also resembles an elaborate spy adventure story. It concerns the case of a Chinese intelligence officer codenamed “Tsun.” In 1973, “Tsun” was arrested for illegally crossing the border between the USSR and China. He stated that he wanted to immigrate into the USSR in search of a better life and was released after serving a short prison sentence. Soon afterwards, however, he began to engage in intelligence collection activities both within the Chinese immigrant community and on his own by travelling to Vladivostok and Khabarovsk in a personal vehicle and monitoring military and heavy industry locations. When he felt that the KGB counterintelligence was closing in on him, “Tsun” attempted to flee by stealing a boat on the river Amur but was arrested before being able to cross into China. The information in his possession was found to contain Soviet state and military secrets and he was sentenced to 7 years in prison in 1974. Kovalenko and Ponomaryov use this case to emphasize the seriousness of the Chinese intelligence efforts in the border region between the two countries. They also add that these efforts involve air and radio surveillance and that the Chinese border guard and trade delegations’ meetings with the Soviets as a rule include intelligence officers on the lookout for recruiting disgruntled Soviet citizens. (One of such cases was described by Kuznetsov).

Kovalenko and Ponomaryov also allege that the efforts of the Chinese intelligence services are also directed at subverting the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan which, at the time of their writing, was in its initial stages. They state that China is training special forces and undercover officers in the Xinjiang region with the aim of sending them into Afghanistan to assist the anti-Soviet groups. Moreover, they claim that the Chinese intelligence in Afghanistan has established contacts with the CIA reflecting the geopolitical “collusion” between the “imperialists” and the Chinese Communists on the international level.

As we can see, Kovalenko and Ponomaryov’s article does not differ from Kuznetsov’s in terms of perceiving the Chinese intelligence activities within the USSR in the 1970s as a serious and complex threat to the Soviet state. They do seem to be more eager to boast of the KGB counterintelligence successes, but this is hardly surprising considering that their military rank is much higher and their leadership stakes greater than Kuznetsov’s. Still, even they admit that in order to address fully the challenges of the Chinese intelligence activities, the improvements in both Chekist theory and practice are necessary.

 

Filip Kovacevic: The Soviet-Chinese Spy Wars in the 1970s - What KGB Counterintelligence Knew (1)

Blog Series: Reading Secret Journals of the KGB

Title: Toward the Question of the Detection of the Activities of Chinese Intelligence Services Using the Legal Cover on the Territory of the USSR

Author: Captain N. S. Kuznetsov

Publication: Volume 21, Papers of the Dzerzhinsky Higher School of the KGB, Moscow, 1980, pages 203-216. Classified as Top Secret.

Article Analysis by Filip Kovacevic, PhD

Written by KGB counterintelligence officer N. S. Kuznetsov, this article presents the KGB’s Second Main Directorate (Counterintelligence) insights about the operations of the legal officers of Chinese intelligence agencies in the USSR in the 1970s. The article has never been officially declassified by the Russian government and is analyzed here in English for the first time.

Kuznetsov begins by referring to the 1975 speech of the KGB chairman Yury Andropov who stated that the subversive activities of Chinese intelligence in the USSR represented a threat to state security. Accordingly, Kuznetsov refers to China as the “adversary” throughout the article. (Note that, at the same time, the United States was referred to as the “main adversary”).

Kuznetsov focuses on the Chinese intelligence officers who operate under the diplomatic cover. According to him, these officers are based at the Chinese Embassy in Moscow, the headquarters of the Chinese state news agency “Xinhua,” and the Chinese civil aviation office at the Moscow Sheremetyevo airport, which was located in the Siberian city of Irkutsk until 1974. In addition, Chinese intelligence also has its personnel in the trade and border guard delegations in the border towns of Zabaikalsk and Grodekovo as well as on the Beijing-Moscow railway line. However, Kuznetsov stresses that the main controlling post of Chinese espionage in the USSR is the Chinese Embassy, which houses both the officers of the Chinese state security & foreign intelligence service and the Chinese military intelligence service.

Kuznetsov characterizes the Chinese intelligence officers as extremely cautious and circumspect in their dealings with Soviet citizens. He states that they are well-trained in Russian language and often successful in avoiding KGB surveillance. According to Kuznetsov, their favorite recruitment opportunities are the diplomatic events and parties organized by the Chinese Embassy. He notes that, in the period from 1972 to 1976, the Chinese Embassy organized more than 60 events with the participation of about 2,500 foreign citizens, 1,000 Soviet citizens, and 400 Chinese permanent residents in the Soviet Union. The Chinese permanent residents as well as other members of the ethnic Chinese community in the USSR (Kuznetsov estimates their number at 250,000) have traditionally represented the largest pool of recruits for Chinese intelligence. However, he emphasizes that the recruitment only takes place after a lengthy process of checks and controls, including the unannounced visits to the places of residence, and typically takes years.

Kuznetsov enumerates the following signs that the Chinese intelligence has begun paying attention to a particular Chinese permanent resident living in the USSR: frequent invitations to the Embassy events, always being received by the same Embassy official, gifts (national souvenirs, small amounts of money), and inquiries about him or her via other channels. He states that while it is possible for the KGB to dangle its undercover agent from the Chinese community for recruitment, it requires an air-tight cover story, including real-life family connections to China. The KGB agent must also be ready for extensive questioning by Chinese intelligence officers. Kuznetsov also warns that Chinese intelligence officers are very suspicious of all volunteers.

According to Kuznetsov, the most effective way to infiltrate a KGB agent into the Chinese espionage network in the USSR is to use the existing KGB agents among the non-Soviet diplomats and journalists from the developing and even “capitalist” countries. He emphasizes that the Chinese intelligence officers have shown themselves to be very active in trying to recruit from this group, in addition to recruiting from the Chinese immigrant community. He also notes that the partner counterintelligence services of Mongolia and East Germany have come to the same conclusion.

In addition, no matter how guarded and cautious the Chinese Embassy officials appear to be, Kuznetsov notes that the KGB counterintelligence is on a constant lookout for their potential moral failings and compromising behavior. For instance, he chronicles a visit of two Chinese diplomats known only under the initials Ch. and M. to Irkutsk in 1969 when one of them behaved immorally (he leaves out the specifics of what the official did). In addition, Kuznetsov mentions that some Chinese trade officials visiting the border town of Grodekovo were observed by the KGB agents stealing money and souvenirs from each other. He underscores that these and similar situations can be used as counterintelligence recruitment tools.

Kuznetsov describes several actual cases of the Chinese recruitment of Soviet citizens. The first case is that of the Chinese language translator codenamed “Monk” trying to recruit the Soviet translator codenamed “Mole” (not very creative code name, I know). “Mole” worked as a translator in the Chita region from 1954 until 1961 and was demoted for alcoholism. His career failure was used as a recruitment tool by the Chinese intelligence. In the period from 1972 to 1974, “Mole” was asked to supply the Chinese with classified information about Soviet military and industrial infrastructure and was promised monetary gifts and even exfiltration to China. Obviously, “Mole” operated until the control of the KGB and was giving the Chinese intelligence useless or misdirecting information.

The second case described by Kuznetsov is that of the airport official codenamed “Rogov” whose recruitment was attempted while the Chinese civil aviation office was still located in Irkutsk. “Rogov” was being checked and re-checked by the Chinese for two years while being asked to read Maoist political pamphlets and discuss them with his handlers. He was also asked to write an anti-Soviet article for the Chinese newspaper. Just like “Mole,” he too was under the control of the KGB.

Kuznetsov also discusses the case of the Chinese spy known only under the initial Ch. Ch. came to one of the regional KGB headquarters in 1975 and voluntarily confessed that he was spying for China. Already a permanent resident, Ch. stated that he was recruited by the Chinese intelligence before his arrival to the USSR and began spying in 1961. For more than a decade, he performed secret assignments by the intelligence personnel based at the Chinese Embassy. He stated that he would typically meet with them in the Embassy car or he would be covertly driven into the Embassy compound. Ch. also said that, if needed, he would communicate with the Chinese intelligence officers via phone using coded messages. Kuznetsov does not indicate anything about Ch.’s ultimate fate. It seems likely that Ch. was turned into a double agent and may still have been operating when the article was written.

In conclusion, Kuznetsov admits that the issue of Chinese espionage in the USSR is a complex one and calls for the compilation of all available data (historical and operative) in one place in order to create a general model of Chinese intelligence activities. He claims that the existence of such a model would not only allow the KGB counterintelligence to avoid mistakes in planning its operations but would also make it possible to deal “pre-emptive blows” to the Chinese intelligence services, if and when necessary.

As we can see, the animosity between the Soviet and Chinese intelligence services was running high in the 1970s. The KGB counterintelligence seems to have had notable successes and yet, at the same time, it exhibited a degree of insecurity making it seem as if the Chinese were able to gain some hard to define, but tangible advantage in the spy war. Kuznetsov tries to sound hopeful, but there is hidden anxiety subsumed in his narrative.

 

Moskovskaya Pravda: Interview of Lyudmila Nuykina, Veteran KGB Illegal Intelligence Officer

On October 30, 2020, the City of Moscow daily newspaper Moskovskaya Pravda published an interview of Lyudmila Nuykina, veteran KGB illegal intelligence officer. The interview was conducted by Ilona Yegiazarova, a long-time journalist who has recently published a book on Soviet intelligence officers. Below is my English translation available only on this website.

I have also translated two other recent interviews of Nuykina, one published by RIA Novosti on March 7, 2018, and the other published by Moskovsky Komsomolets on February 21, 2020. They can also be accessed on my website here and here. 

Ilona Yegiazarova: Lyudmila Nuykina - I Was Lucky With My Husband

Moskovskaya Pravda October 30, 2020

A beautiful, elegantly dressed, energetic lady. Her speech mixed with English and French words. In her 80s, the retired colonel, illegal intelligence officer Lyudmila Ivanovna Nuykina makes you turn after her... She was declassified only three years ago, and her husband, Colonel Vitaly Nuykin, this year to mark the 100^th anniversary of the SVR. Their biographies include a couple of decades of productive service in almost two dozen different countries, dangerous missions, life under false names, separation from their children. Lyudmila Ivanovna recalls some events with tears in her eyes and others with a laugh…

Childhood

Talking to Lyudmila Ivanovna, I admire her aristocratic manners and her European charm, and I can’t believe that she comes from the Siberian hinterland, from the village of Verkh-Uba in the Shemonaikhinsky region [Kazakhstan] where she grew up doing farm work.   

She hardly remembers his father. He was drafted in 1941 and, a year later, they were informed that he was missing in action. On the eve of a big battle, he wrote: “We are going into battle. We will either be decorated heroes or die fighting.” For him, the latter came true.

Her mother was left with three small children. Lyuda, five years old, was the eldest. All three fell ill with pneumonia. Lyuda and her brother made it, but her younger sister died.

-The living conditions were difficult, recalls Lyudmila Ivanovna. A loaf of bread cost a lot of money. My grandmother saved me from hunger: she took me to her village. She had a farm: potatoes, carrots, cows, calves, pigs... There were no men in the family and women were all at work. As a result, I learned to do everything by myself: to milk the cows, to prepare the compressed dung [used as fuel], to plant vegetables, to heat the stove.

A tragic page in the biography of our heroine is connected with the stove. In 2012, her 96-year-old mother and her brother died as a result of its malfunction.

-There used to be a big stove in the house, but they had to replace it when they decided to expand the room. I was there when the new stove was being installed, and I immediately told the person doing it that it was not done correctly. But he replied that I should mind my own business... I think my family first suffocated from carbon monoxide. Then, apparently, the fire started. There was one gas cylinder in the kitchen and the other in the hallway and they exploded. Nothing remained of my loved ones. My cousin found only a splinter of a skull with soldered hair, by which she identified my mother: she had combed her hair the day before. It’s tragic to live to be 96 years old and die such a terrible death... I had been telling my mother to move to Moscow and stay with me for a long time, I even prepared a room for her. She didn’t want to do it. She didn’t want to leave her son. Now they are together forever...

The only relatives I have left are two cousins ​​and their children. One lives in Moscow, she worked as a nurse for 22 years, and the other stayed in Kazakhstan.

- Did your relatives know that you and your husband were intelligence officers? - I asked in order to change the painful subject.

- Our relatives believed that all these years we worked at the Foreign Ministry. We never discussed the details. But after the screening of the TV series Seventeen Moments of Spring, my brother began to have a vague idea that something more was going on. Still, he remained silent and did not ask any questions.

They only learned the truth in 1985. I came from a long assignment abroad to visit my mother and arrange for my son to go to school and then I was planning to return to my husband. I remember doing the laundry, and a woman came running in and said: “Tell me, who is Nuykina here? KGB is looking for you.” My heart sank: I thought my husband was arrested abroad. However, the news was that our mission was over, that Vitaly was successfully exfiltrated by our people and that we were all returning to Moscow.

Horses, Childbirth, Prisoners

If you think that from her youth Lyudmila dreamed of being an intelligence officer, you are wrong. She graduated from the medical school as an obstetrician-gynecologist and assisted in the dozens of births.

-I really loved my job, it’s a miracle to be the first to see a child being born, smiles Lyudmila Ivanovna. - But it was difficult. The medical unit was located near an impenetrable forest and the branches of the trees converged so that the light did not penetrate into the thicket. Sometimes, I’d be called to assist a birth 12 or even 20 km away. I went there on horseback. Sometimes I would fall from the horse and sometimes I mistook the big trees for the bears. Although I am not a coward, I was afraid of bears. In addition, there were prisoners working for the logging cooperative. They even came to the medical unit with axes: they demanded a fake medical note or alcohol. The nurse always kept the back door unlocked in order to escape if there was trouble. They could easily attack me in the forest.

And one day I almost froze to death. In winter, it gets dark early and I should have stayed overnight with the people I went to check on. However, they did not offer me to stay, so I had to go back. I was a young girl, desperate, in a harnessed carriage, and the snow started to freeze. Well, I either fell asleep, or fainted from the cold.  Completely covered with snow, I was found in the carriage by a watchwoman. The horse got to our medical unit by itself. They stirred me up, rubbed me with alcohol, gave me alcohol to drink. After that incident, the chairman of the village council said: “You won’t ever go alone anymore. From now on, you will have an escort.”

Love

In the conversation, Lyudmila Ivanovna refers to her husband by using the English word “father.” She thinks of him with reverence: - I am an Old Believer, for us a man is a God. But Vitaly really deserved love and respect. He was very erudite and was interested in everything, from technology to politics and religion.

And Lyudmila met him at the age of 16.

- Vitaly’s father, who served in the KGB, returned from Germany, and he was offered a job in Ust-Kamenogorsk [Oskemen, Kazakhstan]. He agreed because he was originally from the neighboring region, from the Altai Territory. So that was where Vitaly and I met and were friends for five years. Then Vitaly went to study at MGIMO, and in December, having passed the external exams, he came back for me. From that moment, I began to live with his family. After a while, when he was about to return to his classes in Moscow, his father asked: “Hey, guys, when are you going to get married?” It never crossed our minds. We went to the registry office, and, fortunately for us, a woman who worked there was a friend of my uncle. She registered us right away. There was no wedding, the whole event was very modest.

They will have one more marriage registration during their assignment “in another life.” Our heroine will get married in a foreign country, under a false name, as a foreigner (as a German woman brought up in a French family) to another foreigner. In the country where the Nuykins were based, one had to wait for three months to get married. But the Center was in a hurry and looked into alternatives. So, they went to another country and first put the ad in the newspaper three times according to the local rules: Mr. So-and-So is getting married to Miss So-and-So (this was done in order to check whether they were currently in another marriage). Then, they waited for two weeks and – after that – tied the marriage knot.

-Lyudmila Ivanovna, when did your husband tell you that he was working for the intelligence service?

- In 1960, when his father died. Vitaly came to his hometown for the funeral and said to me: “Redhead, do you want to get a job with someone else’s passport?” I was surprised: “Why do I need somebody else’s passport? My own serves me pretty well.”

Of course, my husband was sure that I would follow him to the end of the world, but it was also necessary for the foreign intelligence service to give its approval. Fortunately, I was approved. We began to study together, although we studied different languages. For example, I firmly refused to learn German and said that I would not speak the language of the people who killed my father. We learned how to communicate using the radio and also various sabotage techniques. Although we were not military intelligence officers, we were trained according to the laws of wartime: while there is peace today, war could break out tomorrow. Later my husband and I obtained additional education in Europe. Vitaly was very well-versed in technology. I remember how in his youth, as if preparing in advance for his future intelligence work, he would take apart and then re-assemble the first television sets in the USSR.

I was nine months pregnant when he was sent on an assignment to be an intern in the company that produced TVs. They did not ask him for a diploma, they just left him for an hour in a room with tools and a broken TV and said: fix it. And he did it.

As a result, their cover story was always linked with the companies that produced and developed new technical equipment. Vitaly Alekseyevich was considered a valuable specialist [by these companies]. He was often sent on business trips by them, which was also useful for his intelligence activities. By the way, some of these companies are still doing well. Lyudmila Ivanovna does not specify exactly what secrets she and her husband obtained for the Homeland but notes that what they did was very significant. “We took everything we could lay our hands on,” she says, laughing.

- When we were in the foreign intelligence service, the country’s leadership did not treat intelligence officers with proper respect. It is only now that many illegal intelligence officers are decorated with the title of Hero of Russia. Before, even lesser medals were rarely awarded. So, my husband has two Orders of the Red Banner: one from the SVR, and the other from the GRU. His third order is that of the October Revolution. This shows you how effective his work was.

- You yourself have the Order of the Red Star and the Medal For Courage. Are you proud of your awards?

- It feels good, of course. I remember once they invited me to the theater “Sovremennik” when they had a play about intelligence officers, and Galina Volchek [Soviet actress and theater director] said: “I am very embarrassed in front of you because I have all four Orders “For Merit to the Fatherland,” but what did I really do for our country that was so important?!”

- How did you live abroad?

- We lived modestly. Everything we earned in our foreign-based companies, we sent to the state treasury and what was left to us was the salary paid by the Center. It was difficult for us to live up to the level of our rich friends, my husband’s colleagues. And some, probably, considered us misers.

One day, my husband’s company sent him on a business trip, and, out of the Soviet habit, he decided to buy a plane ticket in the economy class. He was immediately summoned by the management of the company and told: “You should never do that again, otherwise there will be rumors that our company is cutting corners because we are going bankrupt.”

Another time when he went with top company chiefs on a business trip abroad, everyone bought gifts for home, but he didn’t because he could not afford it. They said to him: why didn’t you buy anything; don’t you love your wife? So, he had to get me some souvenir.

My husband and I didn’t really care about the money. We were accustomed to a modest lifestyle from our youth. I remember when we just moved to Moscow, Vitaly was sent to study at the School No. 101 (today, it is called the SVR Academy. - Ed.). We had little money. We rented an apartment in Balashikha, and paid a lot for it, 35 rubles, although the conditions were more than modest: two people could enter the room, but the third already could not. For the kindergarten of our son Yura, we paid 12.50 rubles. I worked as a doctor at the clinic and received 45 rubles. Vitaly and I had already passed various tests at the KGB. I successfully passed yet another test and was sitting by the Bolshoi Theater, waiting for my husband. On one end of a long bench, there was a woman with a child, and I was sitting on the other. Suddenly a man sat down, too. I tried to move away, but he came closer. He asked me to go with him and offered 40 rubles. I got up and started waving my bag. The man shouted at me: “You fool” and ran away. I came home and told the landlord, and he said to me: “Well, the truth is you are a fool. You pay 35 rubles a month for an apartment, and here he would give you as much as 40 rubles. You’d even have 5 rubles left.” I almost hit him, too.

Beauty is a Powerful Force

- An attractive woman is a delicate topic in intelligence work. Did your appearance help or hinder you?

- Oh, the looks have always been my problem. I dyed my hair blonde, I was young... Men were constantly after me.

I would home and cry. I complained to my husband. Do I look like a fallen woman? Why do they always pester me?! I liked neither Paris nor Italy because of this. When I went somewhere without a husband, I made myself look older on purpose. I put my long hair in a bun, I wore scarves, but even this didn’t always help.

Once in a certain country an Italian man started flirting with me at the airport. According to my cover story, I was a young woman on my way to meet my fiancé in a communist country. And this Italian began to dissuade me. He did everything to distract me. So much so that I missed my flight because of him. The suitcase flew away without me. A person in that country was supposed to meet me and now what would he think? What happened to me, right?! The next plane was in a week. I also had another problem. I had very little money with me. So, I told the representative of the airline: “If you don’t send me to my fiancé right away, I will blow everything up with a Molotov cocktail.”

Fortunately for me, on that exact day, a Bulgarian dance troupe was returning home after their tour, and the airline promised to seat me on the plane together with them. The representative of the airline took my passport with the words: “Just don’t blow up anything here please.” I was taken to the hotel to rest before my flight. And there I sat, a sad-looking blonde in the hotel lobby, reflecting on what transpired. Suddenly the waiter brought me a cup of coffee and a piece of cake and said: “That man over there sent it to you.” Naturally, I didn’t accept, then this man came up to me and introduced himself as the owner of the hotel. He asked me who I was. I told him my cover story about going to meet my fiancé. He also began to dissuade me: that’s a communist country, everyone is put in prison there... Though many years have passed, but I still remember the lesson that this man taught me. He said: “Never give your passport to anyone. Who are you now [without it]? Nobody. People can do whatever they want with you…” Believe me, my heart sank to my heels.

He invited me to a restaurant. I was scared. If he kidnaps me, how will they ever find me? After this incident, I didn’t like to give my passport to anyone, not even to our border guards.

In the end, I was able to fly out. Nobody was there to meet me. How will I make my presence known? Where is our embassy? I asked at the hotel reception desk. I told them that since I was in a communist country, I got very interested in the Soviet Union and I wanted to visit it, but I didn’t know how to go about doing that. They gave me the phone number of the Soviet embassy. I called, but what language should I speak? In a mixture of English and French, I gave them a hint as to what happened, and they found the person who was supposed to meet me. He came by immediately... In general, everything ended well. But the main culprit was that cursed Italian Don Juan.

- Was your husband jealous of you?

- He didn’t show it. Once we were standing on the street and reading a newspaper at the stand. I was on one side and he was on the other. A short man from the Caucasus region appeared and began to pester me. I told him right away: “Here is my husband.” He turned to Vitaly and said: “What a lucky man you are. She is such a beauty.” My husband grumbled to me: “You cannot be left alone for a second,” and I answered: “Well, then, don’t leave me.”

Once in Paris, my husband decided to take a picture of me at the Pigalle against the backdrop of those “entertainment” houses. I didn’t even have time to cross the street, and the “clients” were already accosting me... (laughs).

- Did you have to use your female charms on duty?

- That was unpleasant, and I did it only at the request of my husband. Once, I remember, we worked in a certain country – it was a small one, but it was a hornet’s nest - all the intelligence services of the world were operating there. We had acquaintances, a woman from the Philippines and her English husband.  Our trained eye immediately identified them as intelligence operatives. They didn’t have a job, but had a villa on the ocean shore, and were inviting everybody to their parties. You know, ocean, beach, swimming, games. And in the evening, good food, drinks, everyone staying overnight. It was a golden mine for collecting information. And then somehow “father” [Nuykina uses the English word “father” to refer to her husband] fell asleep there, and I was guarding him, I thought, you never know, he got drunk and could accidentally say something in Russian. And then a drunken Pole came up to me, nasty, red-faced, wet, either from sweat, or from swimming, and in his swimming trunks, he invited me to dance. And Vitaly said: go dance. I did. We made friends. He then invited us to visit him and introduced us to the German ambassador who was a big fish. That was a promising acquaintance, but the Center forbade us any further meetings. The German turned out to be a career intelligence officer, so the only information we collected from him was during that first meeting.

Children

This is the most difficult chapter in the biography of Lyudmila Ivanovna. While talking about her children who had to be left behind, sometimes for years, this “iron woman” cannot hold back her tears even today. Her eldest son Yura, in fact, grew up without his parents being present at all.

- Yes, our children didn’t receive enough maternal love. That was so hard on me. I worried a lot and cried. You are somewhere far away, and you think: what if he got sick and needed his mother now, what if nobody is around. Yura lived in a boarding school. We missed his entire childhood. I was rarely allowed to travel home. I would visit him in the boarding school, and he would run to greet me in sandals in the wintertime. Or he’d be in a shirt with frayed sleeves. He had a suitcase full of beautiful clothes, but there appeared to be no one to make sure that he was dressed well. I would say to the boarding school staff: how can this be happening?! Why aren’t you doing your job?

Sometimes the people sent to meet with us abroad would bring us the photographs of our children. They would just show the photos to us and immediately take them away. I had one tiny picture of Yura and hid it on my chest. That was a severe violation of the rules. Only once were we allowed to take the letters from our loved ones abroad. The Center already trusted us one hundred percent, and we didn’t stay in a hotel but in our own apartment. We arrived, we read the letters in the calm surroundings, and then we burned them.

I stopped worrying a bit when I saw Yura on the photograph as a high school student. He grew up, he was handsome, he could definitely be on his own without the help of his mother. But this photograph could not remain with us either.

- However, your younger son Andrey still managed to get some attention from you. He was born abroad, wasn’t he?

- Yes, between him and Yura, there is a difference of 16 years. Andrey was born a hero. He weighed 5.5 kg and the entire hospital staff came running to take a look at him. They envied us, because, apparently, only girls were being born there during this period. By the way, “father” often said that he wanted a girl. Everyone thought he was crazy. They didn’t know that we already had an older son, but he said something along the lines of ‘first, you have to get a nanny and then a baby’ [Russian proverb].

- But couldn’t the doctors see that you were a woman who had already given birth?

- Yes, and I had to tell them that my first child died. Can you imagine, he was alive, living in Moscow, and I had to say something like that!?

- Did the birth of Andrey make your work more difficult?

- No, on the contrary, he helped us! You know, who would suspect a young mother? I would breast-feed him with one hand and check the dead drop with another. Or I would do it while tying his shoelaces.

We had to leave Andrey in the USSR when he was four years old. When he arrived, he was a genuine foreigner. The plane landed at Sheremetyevo, and he sat and did not want to get up. He looked out of the window in shock: “Mommy, mommy, look at snow.” He had never seen snow before, not even in the refrigerator. He only knew it from fairy tales we read to him.

At home, he began to be demanding: “Give me bananas,” and I would say: “There are no bananas.” “Give me Coca-Cola.” “There is no Coca-Cola.” “Well, okay, then, give me Pepsi-Cola” (he did not like Pepsi-Cola and always drank Coca-Cola). I would say: “There is none of that!” And then he asked: “Why did we come here then?!” I answered: “This is our home.” “No, this is the home of the older brother.” Well, how could I explain it to him? What could I say when he used to live on the 45th floor of a building where there was a swimming pool on the 35^th floor and his father’s car was in the garage on the 7^th floor, and here the things like that did not exist? The tragedy of many illegal intelligence officers is that their children grow up as foreigners. Some even refuse to come back with their parents. They say: you are Russians, you go back, but we want to stay.

After all, when we are on a mission, we must bring up children the way the inhabitants of that country do. We cannot raise them in the Soviet way.

Andrey did not speak Russian. Even when we returned for good, everyone thought we were foreigners. We walked in our Tyoply Stan neighborhood and spoke a foreign language. And in the store, they would serve us ahead of everybody.

The boys in the neighborhood refused to play with Andrey. In winter, they would write things on his sled. They didn’t let him play with them, they said that he was an American spy, but he did not understand them. Maybe I made a mistake, but I translated to him what they said. So, he stopped speaking foreign languages. He wanted me to buy him the Russian dictionary and he studied it diligently. At first it was funny when he would say something like “give me [in English] a hand” but he soon got really good.

- Do your sons hold a grudge against you for the things they missed in their childhood?

- They never talked about it. Maybe there was some resentment that we couldn’t see. I remember that once when Yura was already an adult, a student at the university, I asked him: “Tell me, my son, did you need anything [when you were a child]?” And he replied: “I needed everything, I needed you.”

The Betrayal

Having a colleague who defects is a nightmare for any intelligence officer. And this nightmare, unfortunately, became a reality for the Nuykins. Their productive work abroad was cut short by the betrayal of Oleg Gordievsky. A former KGB station chief (rezident) in Copenhagen and about to become the station chief in London, Gordievsky knew the Nuykins very well and he outed them as soon as he was able to.

- He studied with Vitaly at the School No. 101 [The SVR Academy at this time]. Also, just imagine, he prepared the documents for my husband that my husband used for his cover story! Thank God, he did not prepare mine but, of course, he knew that I was helping my husband. Gordievsky would visit us at our home, in our apartment in the Tyoply Stan neighborhood. He taught my husband a few Danish words and expressions and I treated him with coffee and brandy. Before leaving for London, he visited Yury Ivanovich Drozdov (the head of the Illegal Intelligence Directorate of the KGB’s First Main Directorate - Ed.) and asked where we were working. Yury Ivanovich replied: “Don’t worry, not far from you.” That saved us. For 12 years they were looking for us in Europe, and we were in Southeast Asia.

- How do you feel about traitors?

- I feel contempt. But I also feel pity. They are afraid to walk the streets openly. They don’t like them even there [on the other side] and they try not to communicate with them too much, because if you betrayed once, you might betray again. They say that Gordievsky wears a wig and a mustache. He is now afraid of his own shadow. That’s his punishment.

Once a man drove me to visit a couple who were illegal intelligence officers. On the way there, we discussed the issue of betrayal. I said to that person: “If I met Gordievsky, I would scratch his eyes out.” And I made a show of putting my fingers in the eyes of that man. After a while, it turned out that he was also a traitor - Alexander Poteyev.

-And could you really scratch his eyes out?

- Yes, I could! I fight to the bitter end. [When I was a child] I would defend my brother from other boys who teased him about not having a father. I got on my horse and charged at them.

“But this is a failure!”

There are no trifles in the work of intelligence officers. Many of our heroes admitted how in the beginning they would betray themselves in minor everyday situations, but [fortunately] no one paid any attention to their mistakes. I ask Lyudmila Ivanovna to recall such incidents from her life. Nuykina laughs. There were indeed funny things that happened while she and her husband were on their serious missions.

- At first, the Russian word for “yes” [da] would come up now and then in the “father’s” speech [Nuykina uses the word “father” to refer to her husband]. And I had an embarrassing accident, too. I was travelling on a train in one of the socialist countries, I was tired and was sitting on the upper bunk bed. The borders were close to each other, and the border guards kept coming in and out. And here was another border, the people in uniform came in, and I blurted out in Russian: “What, again?!” I said that and froze in horror. Then I blushed and huddled in the corner, but no one paid attention to my mistake.

There was also a comical incident. Lyudmila Ivanovna arrived in a European country and went to the store to buy clothes. The saleswoman who helped her in the dressing room immediately realized by her bra that she was from the USSR. In the USSR, the bras were fastened with buttons, while in Europe they had small hooks.

Or here’s another story. Sending the Nuykins abroad under the cover story of the engaged, but not yet married couple, the Center did not consider that while civil marriages were not common in the USSR, abroad they had long become the norm.

- The service told us: while you are not married, you need to stay in different rooms at the hotel. But that was a big mistake, and it drew [unwanted] attention to us. In the West, that looked very strange. They told my husband: “Are you such a fool to pay for two rooms?”

I also remember a funny episode: at the very beginning of our assignment, I did something stupid. My husband and I went to the store, and, at that time, in the USSR, there was a shortage of toilet paper. So, when I saw it, I loaded the whole cart. Then, my husband came up and said quietly: “What are you doing? Get rid of it immediately.”

- You probably had to avoid buying certain products and control your eating habits so as not to arouse suspicion?

- Of course, we ate whatever was the diet in the given country. But when we got really homesick, I would cook a little borsch or prepare 20-30 dumplings, and we ate it very quickly. We didn’t worry that smells might give us away, since there was a Chinese restaurant under our apartment and the smell of garlic and onions from there overpowered the smell of everything else.

Once, when “father” [again, “father” stands for Vitaly] was on another mission, I received information that he had been promoted. I celebrated according to the Soviet tradition. I poured two glasses of liquor, clinked them, drank from one, and quickly got rid of everything.

- Have there been any other interesting, though not necessarily funny, situations?

- There was this situation on one of our missions. I went with my husband to a meeting with our contact with bags full of important information. If they captured us with this, we’d go to prison immediately. The contact had to identify us by our photo and say the password. We didn’t know who he was. We came and no one was there. Well, we turned around to go home. And then I saw a short, plump man running behind us. He turned to my husband and said: “Give me a smoke” and Vitaly replied: “Sorry, I don’t smoke.” Then he went on, muttered something under his breath, grabbed my hand and started speaking in Russian: “Guys, please wait, I forgot the password!” I broke free. And then this man, apparently making a supreme effort of the will, tensed up and suddenly remembered the password. In general, everything ended well. He apologized later, but the experience was far from pleasant.

And here’s one more unpleasant situation. We came to visit a young American couple we were acquainted with. They had a large apartment; paintings covered all the walls. They left us alone and said they needed to change their clothes. And then I noticed a book in Russian left on the table: it was Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. I told “father” [Vitaly] about it in a whisper, and he whispered back: “Just pretend to look at the paintings.” Obviously, they wanted to see our reaction, and maybe they even recorded us. They soon returned and they asked us all kinds of questions in the course of the evening. It was clear beyond any doubt: they were intelligence officers. We all use the same methods, you know.

And once at the airport, a man with whom my husband had studied at MGIMO ran up to him, while my husband was undercover. “Hey, Vitaly, don’t you recognize me?!” My husband responded in French: “You have mistaken me for someone else,” and when this man did not calm down, my husband threatened to call the police. The man was so angry that he later went to our embassy to complain about the arrogant former friend from his student days.

The most unpleasant incident happened toward the end of our mission when they were looking for us everywhere. They rang the doorbell, I opened: there was the security guard of our building and three other people I didn’t know. They encircled me in the corridor so that I couldn’t leave. Then they said some nonsense about flowerpots, and one of them went inside. I immediately understood. They came in to plant a bug. In the evening, I showed it to my husband, and he said to leave it there.

- Did you forbid yourself to speak Russian at home?

- Yes, we forgot Russian as soon as we got into the car to go the Moscow airport. In general, I’ve developed a peculiar relationship with my native language. I made it my enemy, tried to forget it, and never made any mistakes, except during that situation on the train early in my career. So, I had the opposite problem. When I returned to the USSR, I could hardly remember Russian.

-And what about the famous episode from the [Soviet TV series] Seventeen Moments of Spring that women giving birth shout the word “mother” in their native language?

- I never understood why one would scream during childbirth. Maybe because I delivered so many babies when I worked as a doctor. Both times I gave birth, I did it in silence.

Out of modesty, our heroine is silent about a terrible and extreme situation in which she displayed incredible courage and self-control. Lyudmila Ivanovna almost died on the operating table. She lost consciousness and a lot of blood but did not give herself away.

-The mother of our Irish neighbor was visiting me, and he asked me to show her around the city. We took a walk and returned home to have coffee. I suddenly had a seizure, I turned pale, but I didn’t show it because I had a guest at home. She, however, noticed that I was not feeling well and left. I took a pill and went to bed. A whole day passed, but I didn’t get better. At night I went to the toilet and collapsed. I only remember that Vitaly took me in his arms and put me in the hall. When I opened my eyes, I saw in front of me a nun dressed in black. Well, I thought I already crossed into the other world. It turned out that I was in the hospital. I had a miscarriage, lost a lot of blood, had a surgery... “Father” [Vitaly] donated as much blood as he could, but 400 ml was not enough. I needed more blood, but the hospital could not provide it. Not knowing what to do, my husband shared his misfortune with our Irish neighbor. The Irishman said: “You are a member of the club (when abroad, in order to gain status in the community, you must be a member of some club), let’s go there.” They did and the Irishman said: “Our European woman urgently needs blood.” The men there acted immediately, got into three cars, and drove to the hospital. 15 people donated blood to the hospital’s blood bank. And immediately they had enough blood for me, while before that, they literally ignored me. 

- Were you afraid you would die in a foreign land?

- Yes, I was. I told my husband: if something happens to me, don’t leave me here, cremate me, and bring me home. You know, how many of our illegal intelligence officers die under false names and no one comes to their graves... I remember how all these thoughts came back to me at the funeral of Kim Philby, and I cried, although I didn’t know him personally.

Back in the USSR

Returning home after many years of dangerous and stressful work is certainly a joyful occasion for any intelligence officer. But the difficulties of [re]adaptation remain. It took Lyudmila Ivanovna a long time to bring back her fluency of the Russian language. She even had trouble getting used to her real name.

- Once I went to a bank and a girl at the service desk asked me: “What is your last name?” I couldn’t remember! I was so ashamed. But the girl seemed to be frightened even more. She thought that I was losing my mind and began to calm me down.

Upon returning to the USSR, I realized that I was very different from Soviet women. There are now emancipated women in Russia, but, at that time, the majority lived in the shadow of their husbands. Once, at a party meeting, I said publicly that the most oppressed woman in the world is the Russian woman. A whole scandal broke out! If they hadn’t known my character, they would probably have thrown me out, but they simply said: don’t talk about this topic ever again.

I felt free. I got used to the fact that in the West, there were people with jars in public places, collecting money for all sorts of things. So, when I already worked in the headquarters in Moscow and found out that my colleague’s husband got killed in Afghanistan and that his parents needed to go to a sanatorium, but that the woman didn’t have enough money, I took a large envelope and made a round of other offices. I didn’t know anyone, and I spoke Russian poorly. I entered a room with a long table and a lot of people - a meeting was underway. They told me that this was not my department. And I answered: “So, what’s the difference? We are all KGB.” And everyone donated some money for the colleague.

I also collected money for orphans. I put a five-liter jar near the cafeteria. The colleagues sealed the lid for me, made a small hole, and the jar was slowly getting filled. The party secretary, panicking, called his superiors: “Here some Nuykina is collecting money,” but the management already knew about my inventions.

I did not care about the institutional hierarchy. I did not understand who was subordinated to whom. I immediately went to the main boss who decided everything. I was used to that in my work as an illegal intelligence officer. Others signed up on the waiting list and waited, but I went straight in. I was very bold.

I noticed that my courage came to the fore especially in the moments of tension. I remember that once on a mission abroad, we had scheduled an “instant meeting” [in KGB terminology, “momentalka”] just to pass on something to somebody. We were walking down the street and I suddenly saw that there was a gendarme in the telephone booth. Why was he there? Maybe he just pretended to talk while he was actually there to observe us? And I had a bag full of materials, which we couldn’t take back. Instead of being paralyzed by fear, I started hugging and kissing my husband. We reached the right place, quickly did what we were supposed to do and then hugging and kissing took the same way back. That’s what being an emancipated woman means!

You know, Soviet people abroad could always be easily identified from afar. They looked as if shackled, their movements were rigid. Evidently, the Soviet system left a physical imprint on them. They felt relaxed only in large groups. By the way, my husband and I sometimes missed our homeland and our language so much that we would go to the airport just to watch the flights with Soviet passengers and listen to our native Russian swear words. 

Epilogue

-Lyudmila Ivanovna, there was so much tension in your life, so many nerve-wrecking events and hardships. Do you think that it was worth it?

- After our return to the USSR, when we encountered unfairness and when we were mistreated for no reason, I thought: “My God, is it for this that I left my two children, that my children grew up without motherly affection?!” But Vitaly would always calm me down, saying there were bad people everywhere. Looking back at what I lived through, I myself sometimes can’t believe it: has this simple village girl really done all of that? And I understand: I did it all for the sake of my husband. I was very lucky to have him. I only regret one thing: he passed away so soon, in 1998. He had a heart attack.

I remember how we would buy books in French and English, how we dreamed we would read them in retirement together. Now I read them by myself. But [I don’t despair], there is family continuation. Our two sons, who are doing well in their careers, two granddaughters and two grandsons: 37, 16, 15 and 9 years old, all very handsome. Vitaly, unfortunately, only got to see the oldest granddaughter. How happy he would be now!

What do I wish for? I want to live to see my grandsons getting married…