Vladimir Semichastny was a KGB man to the end. A staunch critic of the politics and morals of the new Russia, Semichastny headed the KGB from 1961 to 1967. Under his watch the Cold War turned chillier during the rise of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
"I have no regrets. I believe everything was done correctly," Semichastny told NTV shortly before his death earlier this year at the age of 77.
It was also during Semichastny's tenure that the KGB arrested Oleg Penkovsky ?€” the Russian intelligence officer often credited in the United States and Britain as being the most valuable double agent during the Cold War.
Penkovsky joined the Soviet army intelligence directorate, GRU, in 1949. Shortly thereafter he became an intelligence officer, rising to the rank of colonel by 1960. His job was to collect scientific and technical intelligence on the West, but between 1961 and 1962 he passed information to the United States and Britain on Soviet weapons technology ?€” data that the United States found particularly valuable in identifying Soviet missile systems placed in Cuba during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Arrested by the Soviets in October 1962, Penkovsky was convicted of treason and executed the following May.
The following is an excerpt from Semichastny's memoirs, compiled before his death by Moscow writer Nikolai Dobryukha. During his conversation with Dobryukha, Semichastny discusses his dealings with Penkovsky after the spy was arrested in 1962 ?€” at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Dobryukha:
Penkovsky was convicted of treason nearly 40 years ago, yet the affair continues to raise interest today. Some say he was the most dangerous traitor in the history of the Soviet Union who paid for his deeds with his life. Other accounts say Penkovsky was a phony double agent set up to misinform the West and that he is still alive today, living under a different name with a different face. Still others say his body was burned after his conviction to leave no trace of him. This was all happening while you were heading the KGB. What can you tell us of the Penkovsky case?
Semichastny:
In reality, he didn't go anywhere. He was shot. All sorts of things have been said about Penkovsky. Some claim he was the resident coordinator for all of the West's intelligence activities in the Soviet Union. They even say the KGB burned Penkovsky alive in a furnace. There are certainly a lot of fairy tales about the KGB!
I said to him: "First tell us what harm you have done to the state. What have you told the Americans and the British?" He started muttering something, and I said: "Keep in mind that we know more than what you are telling us now. Go off to prison. When it all comes back to you in your cell and you decide to tell us everything then let us know and we'll meet again."
As it happens, I didn't meet with him again. Our investigators were already on his case. They had arrested Greville Wynne [the British businessman who served as Penkovsky's link to British intelligence] and started playing with him. One day, as if by accident, they lead Wynne along the corridor as Penkovsky was approaching in the opposite direction so that both could see that the other had been arrested. Of course, they had no idea how much the other would reveal. This kind of psychological game made them easier to handle during interrogations.
Dobryukha:
What were the consequences for his family after he was arrested? Did they also suffer?
Semichastny:
No. In fact the opposite is true. After all we had broken into his apartment earlier. We had already discovered the hiding place [in his apartment] where he had a fake passport and several thousand rubles. Later I gave the order that a large portion of this money should be left for his family. While observing Penkovsky we became convinced that the other members of his family (his mother, wife and two daughters) were respectable individuals who never suspected his treachery.
In order to protect them we swiftly transferred his older daughter to a different school and moved the family to a new area. But the family remained intact. Later, it turns out, they changed their surname so that Penkovsky's crimes did not haunt them. Penkovsky's wife, incidentally, wasn't just anyone. She was the daughter of the head of the political department for the Moscow military district. How about that!
Back to Penkovsky. He had been working as an aide to Artillery Marshal Sergei Varentsov, commander of the Red Army Rocket Forces. He managed to worm his way into the good graces of Varentsov's family, his wife and daughters. They even trusted him with the keys to their dacha.
Much of what the agent passed on to the Americans and the British originated from Varentsov. He socialized, after all, with members of the military, weapon designers and other individuals with high security clearance. Penkovsky knew in detail about all of Varentsov's trips and where the rocket forces were deployed. He passed all of this on to the West. Ultimately, even the unsuspecting Varentsov suffered because of Penkovsky: He was demoted from artillery marshal to the rank of major general.
Penkovsky, of course, had been looking for an opportunity to betray [his country]. On several occasions he sent letters to the Americans and to the Brits offering his services. As I recall, the Americans were initially wary. But the British went for him. We started to notice him when he started to establish a link with the British. Or, to be more accurate, we caught him with a fleeting contact at GUM department store, by the fountain. That's where our external observer got a fix on him. After that they followed him and followed him. We stuck with him for about four months, shooting an entire documentary film about Penkovsky. This film is still in the KGB archives, but it will never be shown. It is forbidden to show secret documents. But I'll mention one interesting moment in the film, when the wife of a secret agent in the British Embassy is sitting in a public square. Penkovsky gives her little girl, who is about 3 or 4 years old, a box of chocolates. The girl runs to her mother with the box ?€” which contains microfiche as well as sweets. She was like a postman for the secret mail service.
Penkovsky also traveled abroad, to London and Paris, where the American and British special services met and spoke with him at length. These negotiations revealed his true, mercantile nature ?€” his constant requests for money and rank. Do you know, he was actually a colonel serving in three intelligence agencies: ours, the Americans' and the British. He conceitedly believed that the queen herself should grant him audience. In fact, he wanted to meet the queen so much that the British had to introduce him to some lord or other in order to cool him off. He asked for money ?€” allegedly in order to give presents to the necessary people. In reality, it was all for himself.
Dobryukha:
The West called Penkovsky their most valuable agent of the Cold War. Is it true that he caused a great deal of harm to Soviet security?
Semichastny:
Of course not! He was certainly the greatest traitor of all our spies. And it is true that we were forced to recall some 200 spies from overseas because Penkovsky knew them personally, but this business of the Western secret services turning Penkovsky into their "agent of the century" is nonsense. They made it sound as if they had recruited one of the highest-ranking secret officers of the Soviet Union. People talked about it for so long that they made it sound as though ?€” thanks to Penkovsky, who allegedly stole the Soviet's secret formula for rocket fuel ?€” a nuclear war was avoided. Rubbish! Nothing of the sort happened! All he did was use the library of the Soviet intelligence directorate. They say that he took top-secret materials from there and, after photographing them, sent them on to the West. You may ask, what top-secret materials could they keep in a library, even in the intelligence directorate? The fact was that the foreign secret services exaggerated the success they had with their "super agent" in order to secure additional financing for their activities.
How could he have sold Soviet rocket fuel secrets to the Americans? He could not have gotten hold of this formula ?€” even from Varentsov. He might have been able to show where the rockets were deployed, the names and types, but he couldn't have given the exact number and said exactly which rockets were deployed where. He could only record their general location based on Varentsov's working trips.
Furthermore, not a single sheet of paper will be given out ?€” even to a highly placed official ?€” until that person presents in writing why he needs it. At least, that is the way the system is meant to work. This is the way it was with Penkovsky. We filmed four, 30-minute-long films of his "research." I even showed these films to Fidel Castro, who told his [security] minister: "Watch and learn!" We gave Penkovsky some kind of junk to make the Americans' heads spin. He passed it all on to them, and they took it for the real thing, paying him handsomely. As a result, they poured money into unnecessary countermeasures.
Dobryukha:
What about Penkovsky's arrest?
Semichastny:
Penkovsky was supposed to have gone abroad on several occasions, but we stopped him under some pretense or other. We didn't arrest him because we were waiting to catch Wynne [his British contact]. But Wynne didn't come to Moscow. He did travel to Budapest, though. I immediately sent my plane there with a team to capture him and bring him back here. Once we had Wynne, Penkovsky was brought in.
Dobryukha:
Recently another book, "Espionage and the Cold War: Oleg Penkovsky and the Cuban Missile Crisis," came out in the West, signaling that they still consider him to have been a key agent.
Semichastny:
The Americans may have had their doubts about Penkovsky, but he never gave them the opportunity to come to their senses. He had the gift of gab, convincing his contacts in the West that he was on friendly footing with one and all. That enabled him to milk even more money out of them. The Americans and the British were stuck with him. And later, in order to cover up for this almost comical situation they got themselves into ?€” one that is unforgivable for such super powers ?€” they had to posthumously dub Penkovsky their super agent of the century.
But we really did have super agents ?€” such as [the Soviet's double agent in the British intelligence service Kim] Philby, and others they will only hear about a hundred years from now. The main thing is that these spies can't be compared to Penkovsky; he worked for money, while they worked for an idea. Time will speak in defense of these spies who worked for an idea. They are the real people ?€” the ones who cannot be bought.
"I have no regrets. I believe everything was done correctly," Semichastny told NTV shortly before his death earlier this year at the age of 77.
It was also during Semichastny's tenure that the KGB arrested Oleg Penkovsky ?€” the Russian intelligence officer often credited in the United States and Britain as being the most valuable double agent during the Cold War.
Penkovsky joined the Soviet army intelligence directorate, GRU, in 1949. Shortly thereafter he became an intelligence officer, rising to the rank of colonel by 1960. His job was to collect scientific and technical intelligence on the West, but between 1961 and 1962 he passed information to the United States and Britain on Soviet weapons technology ?€” data that the United States found particularly valuable in identifying Soviet missile systems placed in Cuba during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Arrested by the Soviets in October 1962, Penkovsky was convicted of treason and executed the following May.
The following is an excerpt from Semichastny's memoirs, compiled before his death by Moscow writer Nikolai Dobryukha. During his conversation with Dobryukha, Semichastny discusses his dealings with Penkovsky after the spy was arrested in 1962 ?€” at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Dobryukha:
Penkovsky was convicted of treason nearly 40 years ago, yet the affair continues to raise interest today. Some say he was the most dangerous traitor in the history of the Soviet Union who paid for his deeds with his life. Other accounts say Penkovsky was a phony double agent set up to misinform the West and that he is still alive today, living under a different name with a different face. Still others say his body was burned after his conviction to leave no trace of him. This was all happening while you were heading the KGB. What can you tell us of the Penkovsky case?
Semichastny:
In reality, he didn't go anywhere. He was shot. All sorts of things have been said about Penkovsky. Some claim he was the resident coordinator for all of the West's intelligence activities in the Soviet Union. They even say the KGB burned Penkovsky alive in a furnace. There are certainly a lot of fairy tales about the KGB!
I said to him: "First tell us what harm you have done to the state. What have you told the Americans and the British?" He started muttering something, and I said: "Keep in mind that we know more than what you are telling us now. Go off to prison. When it all comes back to you in your cell and you decide to tell us everything then let us know and we'll meet again."
As it happens, I didn't meet with him again. Our investigators were already on his case. They had arrested Greville Wynne [the British businessman who served as Penkovsky's link to British intelligence] and started playing with him. One day, as if by accident, they lead Wynne along the corridor as Penkovsky was approaching in the opposite direction so that both could see that the other had been arrested. Of course, they had no idea how much the other would reveal. This kind of psychological game made them easier to handle during interrogations.
Dobryukha:
What were the consequences for his family after he was arrested? Did they also suffer?
Semichastny:
No. In fact the opposite is true. After all we had broken into his apartment earlier. We had already discovered the hiding place [in his apartment] where he had a fake passport and several thousand rubles. Later I gave the order that a large portion of this money should be left for his family. While observing Penkovsky we became convinced that the other members of his family (his mother, wife and two daughters) were respectable individuals who never suspected his treachery.
In order to protect them we swiftly transferred his older daughter to a different school and moved the family to a new area. But the family remained intact. Later, it turns out, they changed their surname so that Penkovsky's crimes did not haunt them. Penkovsky's wife, incidentally, wasn't just anyone. She was the daughter of the head of the political department for the Moscow military district. How about that!
Back to Penkovsky. He had been working as an aide to Artillery Marshal Sergei Varentsov, commander of the Red Army Rocket Forces. He managed to worm his way into the good graces of Varentsov's family, his wife and daughters. They even trusted him with the keys to their dacha.
Much of what the agent passed on to the Americans and the British originated from Varentsov. He socialized, after all, with members of the military, weapon designers and other individuals with high security clearance. Penkovsky knew in detail about all of Varentsov's trips and where the rocket forces were deployed. He passed all of this on to the West. Ultimately, even the unsuspecting Varentsov suffered because of Penkovsky: He was demoted from artillery marshal to the rank of major general.
Penkovsky, of course, had been looking for an opportunity to betray [his country]. On several occasions he sent letters to the Americans and to the Brits offering his services. As I recall, the Americans were initially wary. But the British went for him. We started to notice him when he started to establish a link with the British. Or, to be more accurate, we caught him with a fleeting contact at GUM department store, by the fountain. That's where our external observer got a fix on him. After that they followed him and followed him. We stuck with him for about four months, shooting an entire documentary film about Penkovsky. This film is still in the KGB archives, but it will never be shown. It is forbidden to show secret documents. But I'll mention one interesting moment in the film, when the wife of a secret agent in the British Embassy is sitting in a public square. Penkovsky gives her little girl, who is about 3 or 4 years old, a box of chocolates. The girl runs to her mother with the box ?€” which contains microfiche as well as sweets. She was like a postman for the secret mail service.
Penkovsky also traveled abroad, to London and Paris, where the American and British special services met and spoke with him at length. These negotiations revealed his true, mercantile nature ?€” his constant requests for money and rank. Do you know, he was actually a colonel serving in three intelligence agencies: ours, the Americans' and the British. He conceitedly believed that the queen herself should grant him audience. In fact, he wanted to meet the queen so much that the British had to introduce him to some lord or other in order to cool him off. He asked for money ?€” allegedly in order to give presents to the necessary people. In reality, it was all for himself.
Dobryukha:
The West called Penkovsky their most valuable agent of the Cold War. Is it true that he caused a great deal of harm to Soviet security?
Semichastny:
Of course not! He was certainly the greatest traitor of all our spies. And it is true that we were forced to recall some 200 spies from overseas because Penkovsky knew them personally, but this business of the Western secret services turning Penkovsky into their "agent of the century" is nonsense. They made it sound as if they had recruited one of the highest-ranking secret officers of the Soviet Union. People talked about it for so long that they made it sound as though ?€” thanks to Penkovsky, who allegedly stole the Soviet's secret formula for rocket fuel ?€” a nuclear war was avoided. Rubbish! Nothing of the sort happened! All he did was use the library of the Soviet intelligence directorate. They say that he took top-secret materials from there and, after photographing them, sent them on to the West. You may ask, what top-secret materials could they keep in a library, even in the intelligence directorate? The fact was that the foreign secret services exaggerated the success they had with their "super agent" in order to secure additional financing for their activities.
How could he have sold Soviet rocket fuel secrets to the Americans? He could not have gotten hold of this formula ?€” even from Varentsov. He might have been able to show where the rockets were deployed, the names and types, but he couldn't have given the exact number and said exactly which rockets were deployed where. He could only record their general location based on Varentsov's working trips.
Furthermore, not a single sheet of paper will be given out ?€” even to a highly placed official ?€” until that person presents in writing why he needs it. At least, that is the way the system is meant to work. This is the way it was with Penkovsky. We filmed four, 30-minute-long films of his "research." I even showed these films to Fidel Castro, who told his [security] minister: "Watch and learn!" We gave Penkovsky some kind of junk to make the Americans' heads spin. He passed it all on to them, and they took it for the real thing, paying him handsomely. As a result, they poured money into unnecessary countermeasures.
Dobryukha:
What about Penkovsky's arrest?
Semichastny:
Penkovsky was supposed to have gone abroad on several occasions, but we stopped him under some pretense or other. We didn't arrest him because we were waiting to catch Wynne [his British contact]. But Wynne didn't come to Moscow. He did travel to Budapest, though. I immediately sent my plane there with a team to capture him and bring him back here. Once we had Wynne, Penkovsky was brought in.
Dobryukha:
Recently another book, "Espionage and the Cold War: Oleg Penkovsky and the Cuban Missile Crisis," came out in the West, signaling that they still consider him to have been a key agent.
Semichastny:
The Americans may have had their doubts about Penkovsky, but he never gave them the opportunity to come to their senses. He had the gift of gab, convincing his contacts in the West that he was on friendly footing with one and all. That enabled him to milk even more money out of them. The Americans and the British were stuck with him. And later, in order to cover up for this almost comical situation they got themselves into ?€” one that is unforgivable for such super powers ?€” they had to posthumously dub Penkovsky their super agent of the century.
But we really did have super agents ?€” such as [the Soviet's double agent in the British intelligence service Kim] Philby, and others they will only hear about a hundred years from now. The main thing is that these spies can't be compared to Penkovsky; he worked for money, while they worked for an idea. Time will speak in defense of these spies who worked for an idea. They are the real people ?€” the ones who cannot be bought.
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