FIRST OF TWO INSTALMENTS RED AGENT'S VIVID TALE OF TERROR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP67B00446R000100260001-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 29, 2004
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: March 23, 1959
• Content Type: OPEN

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FLEEING HIS PAST, the
defecting Deriabin emerges
in this symbolic picture to-
ward a bright future in the
free world from darkness
of his life in Soviet State
Security. Among his hate-
ful tasks as member of se-
cret police he had to post
machine gunners at ceremo-
nies (left) to protect Krem-
lin leaders from possible at-
tacks by Russian people and
help arrange kidnaping of
eminent anti-Red (center).
FIRST OF TWO INSTALMENTS
RED AGENT'S
VIVID TALE
OF TERROR
A historic defection gives U.S.
first full story of secret police
by PETER DERIABIN
For five years Peter Deriabin, a .former officer
of the Soviet security police, has been living in
the U.S. Because of the sensitive nature of the
information he brought to the West his pres-
ence has been a secret. Here his story is told
for the first time. A more complete account
will appear next fall in a book, The Secret
World, to be published by Doubleday and Co.
ON the evening of Feb. 15, 1954, four very
nervous members of the Soviet intelli-
gence network sat in Vienna, waiting.
Sergei Feoktistov, a Russian-born engineer
who had lived for years in Austria, was at his
regular table in the Graben-Cafe, a brightly
lighted rendezvous for bridge and chess play-
ers on the corner of one of the city's fanciest
shopping streets. Feoktistov was a Soviet un-
dercover agent. The man he waited for was a
ranking officer of Russian intelligence in Aus-
tria known to him as Smirnov.
On the other side of the city an attractive
French citizen named Lisa Kotomkina sat in
her apartment and from time to time dialed a
familiar but very private telephone number,
U6-1875. Lisa was secretary to Louis Saillant,
and FRANK GIBNEY
a top official of the Communist-dominated
World Federation of Trade Unions, and she
needed to change an appointment she had
made for the next day. She had been sched-
uled to meet with a Soviet official and give him
a complete account of her boss's office conver-
sations. The official, whom she was now try-
ing to reach, was a man named Korobov.
In the Hotel Imperial offices of the Soviet
high commission (soon to become the Russian
embassy) Counselor Evgeny Kovalev was ex-
pecting an official with an urgent report. Ko-
valev's prominent diplomatic position hid a
much more important assignment: he was the
head of the far-flung Soviet intelligence ap-
paratus in Vienna. The man he was waiting
for was his most valuable subordinate, who
had been investigating a recent Soviet defec-
tion to the West. The subordinate's code name
in the Soviet Union's State Security network
was K on stanti n
In the embassy garage Anotoli Yelfimov, a
chauffeur for the embassy by circumstance but
a noncommissioned officer in the State Secu-
rity by profession, was standing by, waiting
for instructions from his superior, Major Peter
Ceplls] I3K
Yel,OCTOBEPEH HE Al) 62'01
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IDENTITY CARD of the
kind carried by Soviet citi-
zens abroad lists Peter Dc-
ria bin's occupation as "em-
ploye in the Soviet High
Commission." This "cover"
title insured him diplomat-
ic protection but it masked
his true position as a major
in the Soviet State Security.
III
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RED SPIES' VIENNA HANGOUTS
PRATER PAVILION in Vienna's amusement park is restaurant with outdoor
cafe where Deriabin would meet agents. He once supplied 15 bottles of wine
for some Soviet churchmen having party in upstairs room of building at rear.
GRABEN-CAFE in the center of city was a favorite meeting place for Soviet
State Security operatives. Russian agents would drink wine, play bridge and
chess with elderly cafe habitu?while waiting for their contacts to show up.
MOULIN ROUGE was high-priced strip-tease joint where State Security offi-
cials sometimes took important visitors. To preserve decorum only wine was
served at floor tables. Whisky drinkers had to move to nightclub's balcony.
112
AGENT'S TALE CONTINUED
Sergeicvitch Deriabin, local chief of Soviet internal counterintelligence.
The four nervous people were all waiting for the same man?and they
would have a long wait. Two hours earlier, Major Deriabin?alias Smir-
nov, alias Korobov, code name Konstantin?had walked into a U.S.
military headquarters in Vienna and asked for political asylum.
The Russian-speaking officer who interviewed Deriabin was as stag-
gered by what he heard as were Deriabin's Soviet associates when they
learned of his escape. For Deriabin was no ordinary defector. In cross-
ing the border between the Communist and free worlds he had cut short
a career which was taking him straight to the top of Soviet Commu-
nism's New Class leadership. Since childhood he had been a member of
the Communist Party or its affiliated organizations, and he had risen to
an important position in the Party. He was a four-times-wounded vet-
eran of Stalingrad, a wartime graduate of the Soviet army counterintel-
ligence school, a graduate of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism which
trains high-level Party propagandists?and a survivor of 15 years of
uninterrupted Soviet security checks.
But what made Deriabin's defection all but incredible was the fact
that for the last 10 years he had been an officer of the dreaded Soviet
State Security apparatus (now called the K.G.B. and formerly known
as the M.G.B.. N.K.V.D. and 0.G.P.U.). -Deriabin had spent the lirst
five years of this period in the Okhrana, or Kremlin Guard Directorate,
the Moscow organization charged with the protection?and sometimes
the surveillance?of the nation's leaders. The role of an Okhrana officer
is so sensitive that no former member of the organization is supposed to
be given an assignment outside the borders of the -U.S.S.R. But after
his Okhrana service, Deriabin worked in the foreign intelligence section
in Moscow, then got assigned to Austria during a period of bureaucratic
confusion. At the time of his defection he was stationed at the Soviet
embassy in Vienna. There his job, ironically, was to spy on his own peo-
ple to make sure they did not leak information or defect to the West.
After 10 years in the State Security, Peter Deriabin looked back on his
career and decided to defect himself. Within the Soviet world he held a
position of rank and esteem. But to achieve it he had been forced to lie,
cheat and plunder, and he found the thought of the future intolerable.
So one day he walked out of the embassy and never returned. As far as
is known, he is the only Okhrana member to escape from Soviet control.
For the last live years Peter Deriabin, now 38, has been living under
cover in the U.S. He hopes soon to receive his citizenship. As co-author
of this article, he has chosen to refer to himself in the third person. Now
living a new life under a new name, he feels no personal relationship
whatsoever to the man who once worked for the good of the Soviet
Union. Sonic of the information Deriabin brought to the West must
remain classified, but what can be told comprises an unparalleled picture
of Soviet intelligence operations, seen through the eyes of a man who
played an important role in them.
Deriabin's story appears in LIFE in two instalments. This week's article
describes his work with foreign intelligence in Moscow?the cynical for-
mulation of policy, the engineering of the famous Linse kidnaping, the
ruthless recruiting of agents to penetrate the West?and his counter-
intelligence work in Vienna, where his host of secret agents investigated
not only prominent Soviet officials but even one another. Next week's
article will describe Deriabin's experiences guarding the Kremlin leaders
and his remarkable life as a member of the New Class. Altogether. U.S,
experts consider Deriabin's revelations the most thorough single report
on Soviet intelligence that the West has ever obtained.
The depredations of Soviet spies
THE foreign intelligence section of the Soviet State Security consists
or a well-trained corps of some 3,000 operational officers in the
Moscow headquarters and another 15,000 officers and civilian agents in
the field. Almost no country in the world has escaped the depredations
of this agency or its sister service, Soviet military intelligence. The U.S.
and Britain in particular have reason to respect the Russian spy setup.
There is little question that Soviet agents played a major role in robbing
the West of its nuclear superiority. "If it weren't for our work in the
U.S. and Canada," Deriabin heard the deputy chief of the State Securit,
say in 1952, "the Soviet Union would still not have the atomic bomb.''
When Deriabin joined the State Security's foreign intelligence early in
1952, its unpretentious headquarters was the old Cc minform hotel build-
ing on Tekstilchikov Street in Moscow. Its various departments con-
sisted of low-ceilinged offices packed with filing cabinets and numerous
safes. Deriabin's department was the Austro-German branch. With
almost 80 officers, it ranked next to the American branch in size and
importance?an interesting indication of how obsessed Russia is with
German problems. Dcriabin quickly learned that the intelligence arm is
one of the few agencies in the U.S.S.-R. with direct access to the tiny
group of men in the Central Committee's Politburo who rule the Soviet
Union. One of the first questions he was asked (and it was clear that his
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AGENT'S TALE CONTINUED
PRELATE, Orthodox Metropoli-
tan Nikolai is agent in secret police.
AMBASSADOR Panyushkin was
State Security official while in U.S.
SOVIET AGENTS IN THE WEST
STATE Security agents are planted in almost all Soviet agencies abroad.
Most Soviet consuls and vice consuls are members of the Russian se-
cret police; among other things their job is to prepare dossiers on visa appli-
cants and try to force Russian emigres in their areas to return to the homeland
or enlist as spies. Other State Security officers are to be found in Soviet em-
bassies and traveling delegations, where they keep an eye on touring Russians.
Since coming to the U.S. Deriabin has amused himself by spotting former
colleagues among visiting Russians. When he saw the Moiseycv dancers per-
form in New York he spotted his old friend Lieut. Colonel Kudriavtscv
sharing in the curtain calls as a member of the production staff. In 1957 a
Soviet trade delegation to the U.S. included another State Security acquaint-
ance of Deriabin's, Major Sergei Zagorsky. The major, listed as a "construc-
tion engineer," had once worked at the unconstructive job of amassing in-
criminating evidence for the Moscow dossiers of East German officials. A dele-
gation sent to the U.S. in 1956 by the Russian Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow
was headed by Metropolitan Nikolai Dorofeycvich Yarushevich, who is both
second-ranking prelate of the Russian Orthedox Church and a State Security
agent of long standing whom Deriabin once met in Vienna. During the Brus-
sels Fair Dcriabin saw a news picture of a group of visitors at the U.S. exhibit.
One of them was a State Security man from his old office in Moscow.
Most Westerners underestimate the brazenness with which the State Security
dispatches its agents. While Alexander Panyushkin was ambassador to the
U.S. from 1947 to 1952 he was a major general on active duty in the State Se-
curity. He later became boss of the foreign intelligence directorate in Moscow.
BRUSSELS FAIR VISITORS examining a U.S. mail order catalogue includ-
ed man (far right) who took State Security classes with Deriabin in Moscow.
114
entire future hung on the answer) was: "Can you write a good report
for the Central Committee?"
The men working in intelligence mere an extraordinarily sophisticated
group. Well educated and widely traveled, they included a high percent-
age of technical specialists and accomplished linguists. (During World
War 11, for example, one State Security officer, Colonel Alexander Ko-
rotkov, had passed himself off as a trusted staff worker at Wehrmacht
headquarters in Berlin. Later, as deputy director of Soviet foreign intel-
ligence, he supervised the activities of such agents as the recently exposed
Colonel Rudolf Abel and the -U.S. double agent Boris Morros.) The
foreign intelligence officers were a breezy, cocky crew, heedless of the
heavy discipline that is usually found in Moscow governmental offices.
They all had military ranks, but they rarely wore uniforms. instead of
greeting their superior with stiff salutes, Deriabin and his colleagues
would call out a cheery "Hallo, boss!" in English. Among themselves
they habitually referred to him, also in English, as "the Chief."
But the use of English did not denote any softness toward the English-
speaking world. There was no nonsense about "peaceful coexistence" in
this atirospherc ?nor had there ever been. As far back as 1944, when
Deriabin attended an Army counterintelligence school in Moscow, he
had been startled to discover that U.S. and British intelligence methods
were studied as intensively as the techniques of the German enemy.
"Re-member," the colonel in charge told his class, "your allies today are
your enemies tomorrow." in 1952, in the Moscow of the Cold War, there
was no question who "the enemy" was. Deriabin and his friends would
talk endlessly about the operations of the U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency and other foreign intelligence organizations, speaking with the
familiarity born of constant bitter rivalry. "Well, Peter," his friend
Vasili Rornanovich Sitnikov, an expert on the U.S., would say, "old
Allen Dulles has fixed us in Austria. But in Berlin . .
If these men had few illusions about Communism's Cold War aims,
they had equally few about the system's internal flaws. They were too
urbane to be fooled by the standard propaganda that poured from the
Kremlin. As part of their job, they read the Western press assiduously,
and their travels enabled them to make firsthand comparisons between
the Soviet and Western systems. As Communist Party secretary for the
Austro-German branch, it was Deriabin's job to exhort these worldly
intelligence officers with the stock slogans about the glories of Marxism
and Leninism. More than once he detected the beginnings of a smile
among the members of his sophisticated audience.
But there was no protest from these officials. They knew Communism
was not what it claimed to be, but they also knew that they were among
its principal bcrefciarics. Their elite status was reflected in their high
salaries and perquisites: apartments, cars, long vacation trips, handsome
summer villas, and many other things far beyond the reach of the aver-
age Russian. Deriabin's monthly salary was 4,200 rubles; the average
engineer's was 1,500.
The role of Russian intelligence
DERIABIN quickly learned that his Austro-German branch, like oth-
ers in the intelligence setup, had three functions, two of them obvi-
ous, one less so. In the course of its routine operation the branch was
charged with: I) seeking out intelligence information about Germany
and Austria as well as about all allied military forces on the soil of those
two countries and 2) watching Soviet military and diplomatic personnel
and officials of the East German government for any signs of contact
with Western officials. (It was not until 1953 that the State Security al-
lowed East German officials to move out of their easily watched resi-
dential compound near Soviet headquarters in Berlin. Before that, they
were in effect prisoners in the area.)
The third and less apparent mission of the Austro-German branch
was one not usually associated with intelligence. Unlike Western intel-
ligence organizations, the Soviet State Security makes policy as well as
reporting on it. As part of this function, it engages in a wide variety of
criminal activities?including assassination, terror and sabotage. Deria-
bin soon got a taste of this work.
In the summer of 1952 Europe and the U.S. were aroused by the ab-
duction from West Berlin of Dr. Walter Linse, a respected lawyer and
vigorous anti-Communist. Early one morning his neighbors had been
startled by sounds of a struggle on the sidewalk outside Dr. Linse's
home. There was a shout for help, followed by a shot. Passers-by, hurry-
ing toward the scene, saw a man being thrown into the seat of what
looked like a West Berlin taxicab. The cab was later seen speeding across
the border into East Berlin. One of Dr. Linse's shoes was found on the
pavement outside his house.
The Russians reacted indignantly to suggestions that they were in-
volved in the kidnaping. The Soviet high commissioner in Germany
appeared astonished when he was questioned about it by the U.S.
High Commissioner, John J. McCoy. "You do not think, I hope,? he
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A GALLERY OF SOVIET AGENTS
SPY MASTER in Vienna
DEPUTY BOSS of Vienna
was Colonel E. h Kovalev, agents was E. K. Galuzin.
DERIABIN'S SUPERIOR
was Vladimir N. Pribytkov.
EXPERT ON U.S. was
V. Sitnikov, now in Bonn.
LADY SPY was known
to Deriabin as Suchkova.
AT SOCCER MATCH in Vienna, virtually entire
intelligence contingent from embassy turned out
to cheer official State Security team from Moscow,
the Dynamos. They got choice scats. Those identi-
fied by Deriabin are: 1) Lieut. Colonel Anatoli
Vlasov, a repatriation official; 2) Lieut. Valya
Gavrilova, interpreter; 3) Colonel Mikhail Zhu-
kov, who was engaged in Yugoslav intelligence in
Austria; 4) Mrs. Vladimir Korneyev; 5) Colonel
Vladimir Korneyev, Austrian operations chief and
second secretary of embassy; 6) Lieut. Colonel
lvan Guskov of the Soviet emigration section;
7) Lieut. Colonel Mikhail Gorchakov, an expert
on U.S. affairs; 8) Major Aleksey Samozhenkov, in
charge of French intelligence in Austria; 9) Colo-
nel S. N. Zelcnov, Austrian intelligence, now in
Bonn; 10) Major B. A. Solovov, Austrian intelli-
gence, expelled from Italy last year for spying;
11) Mrs. Evgeny Galuzin; 12) Colonel Evgeny
Galuzin, the deputy chief of State Security in Vien-
na; 13) Major Vitali Nikolayev, who worked with
Deriabin in section concerned with security of So-
viet colony in Austria. All State Security people
held additional "cover" jobs in Soviet embassy.
'AGENT'S TALE CONTINUED
said, "that the Soviet Union would have any complicity in this plot!"
The Soviet Union, of course, engineered the whole thing, with Deria-
bin's boss, Colonel Kovalev, supervising from Moscow. Here is the full
story of the Linse kidnaping, made public for the first time.
In early 1952 Soviet intelligence found out that an anti-Communist
German group, the Investigating Committee of Free Jurists, planned
to run an international congress of lawyers in Berlin that August. The
Soviet regime in East Germany had suffered much from the Free Jurists'
activities. Through its own operatives, the Committee was sometimes
able to learn when a man was being tried on faked charges in East Ger-
many. Often the anti-Red organization was able to penetrate the opera-
tions of the East German courts and free those unjustly accused. The
U.S.S.R. had become more and more irritated by this harassment, and
the prospect of a world congress in Berlin, focusing attention on the crim-
inal activities of the East German satellite, was the last straw.
Deriabin drew up a report outlining the activities of the Jurists. On
the basis of the report the Soviet director of foreign intelligence ordered
that the forthcoming congress be wrecked, preferably by taking action
against its organizers. An order for the kidnaping of the Jurists' presi-
dent was drafted by Deriabin, approved by his superiors and sent to
State Security headquarters in East Berlin for action. (Like all such top-
secret directives, the order was handwritten. Only Deriabin and three of
his superiors saw it.) Then, just as the Soviet agents were about to move,
the president suddenly left on an unannounced trip to Sweden, leaving
his deputy Dr. Linse as acting head of the organization. The Soviet gen-
eral commanding intelligence in East Berlin thereupon requested?and
received, through Deriabin?permission to kidnap Linse instead.
On the night of July 7, East German agents of the State Security
stopped a West Berlin cab driver in East Berlin, held him overnight on
charges of black market activity, and transferred his cab's license plates
to the kidnaper's car. Early the next morning three East German mus-
clemen parked in the kidnap car near Linse's house. When he came out
on his way to work, one of them asked him for a light. While he was
fumbling for a match, another pinioned his arms and tried to throw
him into the car. Linse struggled furiously, breaking free once and con-
tinuing the fight after he had been forced into the car. When he managed
to get one foot outside the door, one of the agents calmly shot him in
the leg. Then the car raced across the border to East Berlin.
Linse was immediately interrogated by the Russians. Wounded and
116
terrified, he was no match for them. His arrest was swiftly followed
by a methodical hunt for agents and sympathizers of the organization
throughout East Germany.
As the -U.S. fired off protests to the Russians, the State -Security re-
ceived a plaintive interoffice communication from the Soviet Foreign
Ministry: "With regard to the disappearance of Dr. Linse, we would
like to know how we should reply or react." After checking with his
superiors, Deriabin sent back a rather thin guidance reply: "We know
nothing about this matter."
That was only for the record. At a higher level more guidance was
needed. The deputy head of foreign intelligence telephoned the deputy
foreign minister and said: "I think that it would be best to answer in
this way regarding the Linse affair. Although they found his shoe in
the West sector, this proves nothing. There is no other evidence. As for
the car, it had a West Berlin license plate. So the whole business must
have been instigated by people inside West Berlin." Subsequently, the
Soviet high commissioner in Berlin disclaimed any knowledge of the
Linse kidnaping, in notes to the West that said almost exactly what the
State Security had ordered.
Deriabin meanwhile had written a report on the Linse operation for
Georgi Malenkov, then deputy premier, and other Politburo members.
Re stated that the Free Jurists had been found engaged in "anti-Soviet"
espionage under U.S. guidance, and that as a countermeasure one of
the organization's leaders had been led to East Berlin and arrested. The
words "kidnaping" or "abduction" were scrupulously avoided.
As for Dr. Linse, he was sent to a Soviet prison. Deriabin does not
know where.
Recruiting Soviet agents
01N DING agents to undertake such dirty work as the Linse kidnap-
ing was no problem. While Deriabin was in Moscow, the Soviet
Union had hundreds of agents in both Germany and Austria. Recruiting
such agents was an important part of Deriabin's Moscow job. Behind his
desk was an imposing array of filing cabinets, many of them filled with
derogatory information about foreigners who might someday be black-
mailed into becoming agents for the U.S.S.R.
Many of the best Soviet agents in Germany and Austria were re-
cruited from among prisoners of war after World War 11. A special
team of State Security officers combed every prison camp in the Sovi-
et Union looking for prisoners in four broad categories: 1) men who
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AGENT'S TALE CONTINUED
KIDNAP VICTIM Walter
? Linse, well-known anti-
Communist, was abduct-
ed from West Berlin in
1952 on Soviet orders.
Only trace found of him
was shoe (left) lying on
sidewalk near his house.
had informed against their fellow prisoners while in camp, 2) men
with such good connections back home that they would be particu-
larly valuable as spies, 3) long-term prisoners who would be likely to
agree to almost anything to obtain their release, 4) members of Nazi
intelligence or counterintelligence groups, well-trained operatives who
presumably would work for anybody.
When a good agent possibility offered itself, the State Security
spared no efforts to enroll him. A colleague of Deriabin's, Major
Georgi Litovkin, spent six months tracking down a prisoner named
Schmidt, a wartime German intelligence officer who was -fluent in
Russian and Polish. When Schmidt agreed to work for the Soviet Un-
ion, he was brought back to Moscow for instruction in Soviet intelli-
gence techniques. There Ile was given a large room at the Balchug
Hotel, all the money he needed, and the free run of the city subject
only to some unobtrusive surveillance. He had the pick of the State
Security's own corps of party girls a few dozen attractive working
girls who had been so compromised politically (e.g., by being seen
with foreigners) that they were grateful for a chance to have their
moral compromises accompanied by a generous retainer. Ultimately
Schmidt, now a full-fledged agent of the U.S.S. R., was quietly released
with a group of legitimate German PWs returning to West Germany.
Even when the Russians had absolutely no intention of releasing a
prisoner, they often tried to use a fake promise of his release to enlist
one of his relatives. Soviet agents arranged a meeting in Germany
with the wife of Colonel Hans Pieckenbrock, assistant head of the
German Military Intelligence in World War II, and said he would be
freed if she would help them. They showed her a forged letter, ostensi-
bly in the colonel's handwriting, urging her to agree to this arrange-
ment. The woman went to West German Intelligence and revealed
the whole Russian plan. Thereafter West German agents kept her
under watch during all her meetings with the Russians.
This would seem like a notable intelligence victory for the West,
except for one detail: through Soviet agents inside West German in-
telligence, the entire surveillance procedure was reported to Moscow
the moment it was arranged.
The outcome of the Picckenbrock incident offers .a curious example
of what might be called counter-counterintelligence. It illustrates
major purpose of the Soviet espionage system: to get inside the West's
espionage setup and make it useless. To accomplish this the Russians
are prepared to go to fantastic lengths.
In 1952 they decided to find out how the U.S. "introduced its agents
into Siberia," a matter which had sorely troubled them for some
time. (Actually, it is doubtful whether any U.S. agents were there.) To
achieve this, they decided to infiltrate one of their own agents into
the U.S. intelligence setup. They picked a veteran informer with the
code name John who lived in Vladivostok and was an expert on
Siberia. Deriabin became involved because it was decided, improb-
ably, to work John into the U.S. intelligence system through Ger-
many. That way, figured the Soviet officials in a tortuous variety of
Communist triplethink, the U.S. would never guess that John's ulti-
mate secret destination was Siberia. To explain his absence from
Vladivostok, John told his neighbors he was being transferred to a job
with a special supply mission in the Arctic Sea. Then he headed for
Moscow, where Deriabin met him, installed him comfortably in a
hotel room and began an intensive. two-month briefing period.
From Moscow, John went to Rostock in East Germany for a stay
of nine months, long enough to establish a new identity as a purchas-
ing agent of the Soviet fishing monopoly there. In Rostock he was to
act the part of an inefficient official, lazy, overtalkative, fond of drink
CONTINUED
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AGENT'S TALE CONTINUED,
and women. At last (according to the plan) he would be recalled to
Moscow for disciplining?but instead would "flee" to the western
sector of Germany. Once he got there he was to describe himself to
U.S. officials not as a Siberian but as a Ukrainian. This, the Soviet
officials deviously reasoned, would enable him to ask for U.S. intel-
ligence duty in Siberia?because the Ukraine obviously would be
hot spot for him and Siberia is about as far from the Ukraine as
man can get and still be inside Russia.
After all this elaborate scheming John was picked up by U.S. offi-
cials shortly after he reached the West, and the whole structure of
the Soviet plan was exposed.
That did not keep the State Security from trying similar plans
again. A few years ago newspapers in the U.S. and Europe carricc;
accounts of the flight to freedom of a former slave laborer who had
endured months of privation making his way to the West from a
camp in Siberia. This man, whose identity is being kept secret by
Western officials, was a fake and was eventually taken into custody.
Actually he had escaped from the labor camp guards, but with the
connivance of the State Security, in accordance with a plan Deria-
bin's office had been working on for years. On his "flight" through
the Soviet Union and its satellites, intelligence officers met him at
convenient points to give him food, clothes and directions to the next
point of contact. When Deriabin heard of this man's flight to the
West he was incredulous. In Moscow lie had argued that no sane
person would ever believe the man's "escape" story.
Even more closely guarded than the schemes for planting agents
were the preparations for sending outright "illegals" into foreign
countries. An "illegal," in Soviet intelligence lingo, is a State Securi-
ty agent who works inside a foreign country without any sort of
diplomatic protection--in other words, a professional spy. An ille-
gal's identity and his communications with Moscow are matters of
the highest security, usually entrusted to a single officer in headquar-
ters. One such illegal was Colonel Abel, the convicted Soviet spy who
was caught in Manhattan two years ago. Although Abel was un-
questionably doing active espionage, some illegals are sent into for-
eign countries with orders to stay inactive, sometimes for years, until
Moscow notifies them to start working. 'Meanwhile they develop cov-
er occupations and try to merge with the life of the local population.
One of Deriabin's last jobs while he was in Moscow was to super-
vise the training of two such "cold storage" agents, as they are called,
as part of a project which offers an astonishing insight into Soviet
planning. The two illegals were expert conversationalists in German
and English. They were ordered to East Germany, where they were to
pose as an Austrian and his English wife. They were to set up a busi-
ness and then wait for further orders?which would be forthcoming
only if East Germany passed out of Soviet control! In that event
they would immediately go into action as operating spies.
A welcome chance to transfer
ASIGNMENTS in Western Europe were viewed as plums by of-
ficers in State Security. (One of Deriabin's friends made enough
money selling bedspreads he had bought in Rome to be able to build
his family a small villa outside Moscow.) In 1953 when Deriabin was
given a chance to leave Moscow headquarters and go to Vienna, he
jumped at it. As a former Okhrana officer, he should never have been
transferred outside the country, but his superior officer in Moscow,
Colonel Kovalev, who was himself being transferred to Vienna, man-
aged to get Deriabin assigned with him in the confusion of the post-
Stalin days. There was a little back-scratching involved too. Deriabin,
as Communist secretary for the Austro-German section, repaid Ko-
valev by giving him a glowing recommendation in the Party records.
In Vienna it was Deriabin's chief job to watch not Austrians or
Americans or other foreigners, but Russians. It was his duty to in-
vestigate any suspicion of disloyalty on the part of any Soviet citi-
zen in Vienna, from the ambassador down. One adverse report from
Deriabin would be enough to send the average Soviet officer packing
to Moscow, on his way to anything from a reprimand to a long term
in prison as an "enemy of the people." Even if such a man success-
fully established his innocence, Deriabin's unfavorable report would
prevent his ever again getting a job of importance in the U.S.S.R.
Deriabin also was responsible for some direct counterintelligence?
seeing what the other side was doing.
Deriabin was one of 71 State Security officers in Vienna. Each had
a "cover" job to mask his identity as an intelligence operative?some
within the embassy, others as officials of Soviet-run businesses in
Austria, or as newspaper correspondents. Major Deriabin was given
a high-sounding title to approximate his State Security and Party
rank: assistant to the chief administrative officer of the embassy.
Deriabin's office in the Hotel Imperial, the huge baroque building
67600446R000100260001-2
CONTINUED
Appr ved For Release 2004/04/08 : CIA-RDP67600446R00010026000
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SOVIET RES:DENCE in Vienna was Grand Hotel, shown with sign pro-
claiming May Day. As security officer, Deriabin had keys to every room.
AGENT'S TALE CONTINUED
which the Russians used as their administrative headquarters, was
a bare gray room with a large Austrian safe in the corner. The safe
had only a few documents in it (Soviet embassies store all their
important papers in the code room), but it contained a small arsenal
of weapons: machine pistols, automatics and carbines. There were
four telephones, which were kept unplugged when not in use. Since
the telephone exchange was in the international sector of the city, the
Russians suspected the Americans of ingenious wire-tapping schemes.
One of the phones was on the regular city exchange, another led to
the embassy, a third was a special intercom system for the 16 top offi-
cers in the embassy, the fourth was a direct wire to Soviet military
headquarters in Baden (when using this phone, Deriabin had to give
the code word of the week before starting any conversation).
Although Deriabin was not at first identified among embassy per-
sonnel as a State Security officer, the word quickly got around. As
part of his work he used to listen to the broadcasts of the Voice of
America and Radio Free Europe. One day the man next door, the
chief of the embassy's finance section, reported him for this anti-
Soviet activity. Nothing was done about the report (the officer to whom
it was made was one of Deriabin's agents) and the finance officer
continued to look angrily at his new floormate. Then suddenly his
attitude changed and suspicion gave way to groveling servility. Delia-
bin knew that one more of his fellow citizens had tumbled to his thin
"cover." But though most of the embassy personnel soon realized
Deriabin was a State Security official, few were aware that his duties
involved their own day-to-day surveillance.
A man of many names
I N his work Deriabin dealt with a number of agents, taking care
that each knew him by a different name. By keeping his various
identities carefully compartmentalized he was able to prevent his
agents from comparing notes about him and his activities. He also had
a code name by which he received communications from Moscow?
plus his real name, by which he was known in the embassy. Deriabin's
agents were planted in key spots. Most embassy officials lived in the
Grand Hotel and had to sign in with the duty officer if they came
home after the curfew hour of 10 p.m. All duty officers were Deria-
bin's men. So were the chief of the communications section, the lieu-
tenant in charge of the embassy motor pool and the officer in charge
of the embassy garage. Through them Deriabin could keep close
track of the movements of any member of the embassy staff. Some-
times this surveillance reached ridiculous lengths. For example, while
the agent Feoktistov was watching certain Austrian contacts, another
Deriabin operative named Nekrasov was watching Feoktistov.
:Deriabin did not hesitate to use his intramural network of agents
to straighten out occasional clashes of authority. One occurred with
his nominal boss, the embassy's chief administrative officer, Major
General Sergei Maslov. Maslov, a bibulous Red Army oldtimer, ob-
jected to Deriabin's overriding his own authority and took out his
spite by petty harassments: interfering with the work of State Se-
curity noncoms, allocating them the worst rooms and making them
use the worst cars for their work. After the ambassador had dressed
down Maslov once for his interference, without noticeable effect,
Deriabin took steps of his own. He asked one of his stellar agents, the
chief telephone operator at the Grand Hotel, if Maslov had any girl
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AGENT'S TALE CONTINUE&
friends whom he was in the habit of visiting. The operator knew of
one, a personable stenographer named Katrina. Deriabin ordered the
operator to notify him the next time the couple made a rendezvous.
So it was that on a certain evening, Major Deriabin hung up his
telephone, took a camera out of his closet and marched upstairs to
the room where Katrina and Maslov were "visiting." After one loud
knock, he opened the door with his passkey. There was a long, em-
barrassed silence as Katrina and the general scrambled to their feet.
"Well, General," said Deriabin at last, "I think we had better talk
about this downstairs. Highly irregular procedure ..."
The very next day the State Security chauffeurs received by direct
order of General Maslov the pick of the embassy motor pool: a new
Czech Tatra and a highly prized 1949 Buick.
As embassy security officer, Deriabin viewed with suspicion the
slightest contact of any Soviet citizen with foreigners. To investigate
such cases Deriabin's section recruited amateur informants from
among the subject's close personal friends. Sometimes these inform-
ants were formally hired as State Security
agents; sometimes they were merely ques-
tioned. Either way, the informant had to
take an oath never to reveal anything he
might learn about the work of the State
Security in Austria.
It did not take much to get an investiga-
tion started, and in this respect high offi-
cials and minor employes got equal treat-
ment. During his time in Vienna, Deriabin
investigated: a Soviet businessman named
Okreshidze, who had been heard to say
that it would not be difficult for someone
in his position to transfer a million Aus-
trian schillings to a Swiss account and es-
cape to the West; a secretary who suddenly
began sending home gifts that she obvious-
ly could not afford (she proved to be a
shoplifter and wound up being sent home herself); and the chief of
the embassy's foreign political section, Andrei Timoschenko, who
had long been suspected of an unseemly liking for the West.
Visitors from the U.S.S.R. came in for particularly close scrutiny.
Deriabin was ordered to put extra close surveillance on the veteran
Soviet literary propagandist, Ilya Ehrenburg, when he stopped in
for the Soviet-sponsored World Peace Council in November 1953.
Ehrenburg is known for his contacts with the West. "We have a big
file on him," said a visiting official, "so keep a good watch."
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trapped by Deriabin in
mom with stenographer.
As the months passed, there began to be something ironical about
Deriabin's position as the Russian who watched other Russians. For
ultimately the one who most needed watching was Deriabin. He was
in some ways a typical product of Soviet society. He had grown up
believing that the ideals of Marx and Lenin were destined to produce
a Utopia. But when he got close to the Utopia's leadership, he began
to experience deep disillusionment. He now knew that the secret
police apparatus, functioning on a mixture of fear, suspicion and
force, was the Soviet regime's principal source of power.
In Vienna the contrast between the relative freedom and riches of
life in the West and the meanness and corruption of his job began
to weigh more and more heavily on him. In Moscow, at foreign in-
telligence headquarters, he had been relatively detached from the
viciousness of the system. But since coming to Vienna he had become
a part of it personally participating in the lie that enabled the
U.S.S.R. to recruit and hold its agents. For example, one of his agents,
a Western European citizen, was married to a Russian officer who
had been recalled to the homeland. She would never see him again,
but she did not know it. Deriabin, who did, had to keep her working
for him with the promise that soon, any day now, she and her hus-
band would be restored to each other. The fact was that her officer
had been sent home because he had married her, an outsider.
In October of [953, at a WFTU "labor" congress in Vienna,
Deriabin met a Spanish Communist delegate who had slipped out
of his country illegally so that he could attend. "What a great coun-
try the Soviet Union is," the Spanish delegate exulted. "I hope in
Spain someday we can build a fine socialist country like that." "Ah,
yes," said Deriabin, who was at the time having a high Soviet offi-
cial, a delegate to the congress, shadowed on the Kremlin's orders.
"Yes, you must fight to achieve that. It's a great life we have in the So-
viet Union." It was daily becoming harder to give the right answers.
On the morning of Feb. 14, 1954, Colonel Kovalev called Deriabin
at 5 a.m. and told him to start an immediate investigation of a re-
ported defection. A Soviet official named Anatoli Skachkov had been
reported missing by his frightened wife. He had come home drunk
CONTINUED
A proved For Release 2004/04/08 : CIA-RDP67600446R000100260
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DERIABIN'S REFUGE when he defected in 1954 was the U.S. military
police headquarters in Vienna, Building is now an Austrian army barracks.
AGENT'S TALE CONTINUEC1
after an evening on the town with a visiting State Security officer
and had bluntly told his wife he was leaving to join the Americans.
He had packed some clothes and left. Deriabin spent the next 24
hours working on the case. It interested him. Had Skachkov really
defected, or had his meeting with the State Security man been the
prelude to a rigged defection leading to a counterespionage assign-
ment? If he had defected, where was he now, and how did he feel?
What was it like to leave behind the Soviet state and all it stood for?
At 3:30 p.m. on Feb. 15, Deriabin walked out of Skachkov's
apartment house, still not much further along in his investigation,
and strolled thoughtfully toward the food market at the edge of the
French sector. He was slowly reaching a tremendous decision. It was
a steel-gray, chilly day. At one of the market's open stalls he stopped
and ordered a sausage and a bottle of beer. Then he hailed a taxi
and rode to a large department store near the border of the Soviet
and U.S. sectors. He stood on the sidewalk and looked up and down
the street, trying to get his bearings in the unfamiliar American sec-
tor. A streetcleaner was passing by, pushing his long-handled broom
along the gutter. "Pardon me," said Deriabin suddenly, "where is
the American Kommandatura?"
On Feb. 21, 1954 the United Press carried this dispatch from Vienna:
"Soviet authorities asked Austrian police to join the hunt today for
two Russian factory officials who vanished after a drunken nightclub
spree and may try to escape to the West." The Soviet announcement
named Skachkov and Deriabin as the two "factory officials."
Soviet troops had been ordered into position astride every possi-
ble escape route leading from the city. They were too late. Barely
24 hours after his escape, Peter Deriabin was in the U.S. zone of
Austria, safe forever. So, for that matter, was his onetime quarry,
Anatoli Skachkov.
GUARDING THE KREMLIN
Next week's instalment reports Peter Deriabin's experiences in the
Okhrana, the hard-bitten corps that guards Russia's leaders in the
Kremlin. It tells of debauches by top officials, of quick death for hap-
less citizens who crossed the path of the Kremlin cops?and of the time
Deriabin stood watch over Dwight Eisenhower with a loaded pistol.
-RDP67600446R000100260001-2