Not only did Robert Gates meet with Russia's top domestic spy chief -- Viktor Barannikov, the head of the Security Ministry, formerly the KGB -- he also met President Boris Yeltsin inside the walls of the Kremlin before leaving Moscow for St. Petersburg on Saturday.
For the heads of the CIA and KGB to meet was a telling symbol of the end of the Cold War. But that has not changed the secretive nature of the two services. Neither revealed the substance of their discussions, other than to say that they involved proposals for cooperation.
Yeltsin told reporters he had enjoyed an interesting meeting with Gates on Friday, and said that the two intelligence agencies should widen their cooperation on international crime, drug trafficking, nuclear proliferation and other areas.
"Possibilities of contact and joint activity between the Russian and American intelligence services were discussed", the U. S. Embassy said in a brief press release Sunday. "The talks were cordial and both sides were satisfied with the results".
Of course, the Russians are not ready to open all doors to the United States, Yeltsin was reported to have told Gates.
"We cannot give away all information, for instance, about our intelligence network", Yeltsin said, according to Itar-Tass.
At the start of the meeting, Gates offered details of an elaborate American effort to resurface a sunken Soviet PL-722 submarine in 1974, Interfax reported. Much of the vessel, which sank six years earlier, fell apart before reaching the surface. But the U. S. did recover six bodies and identify three of them, Gates reportedly said.
During his visit. Gates also met with Yevgeny Primakov, head of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, and Russian Defense Ministry officials, Itar-Tass reported.
Primakov said two weeks ago that he was prepared to stop spying on any country that promised to reciprocate, but so far there have been no takers.
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