ATTACHED WAS PASSED TO ME TODAY BY LLOYD CUTLER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86M00886R002600070004-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 48
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 21, 2008
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: March 30, 1984
• Content Type: MEMO

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TC: 1 1-
EXECUTIVE SECRETARIAT
ROUTING SLIP
SUSPENSE '10 Apri
STAT
1 1 DC!
5 DD1
6 DDA-
7 IDDO
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11 IG
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15 D/PAO
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17 1,AO/DCI
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For recommendation to DCI. Please
prepare response for DCI's.signature.
10 Executive `ecretary
2 April 1984
Dole
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3,537 (103;)
 Approved For Release 2008/08/21: CIA-RDP86M00886R002600070004-6
The Director of Centdal Intelligence
Washinetcr. RC 20505
84- 1552
30 March 1984
NOTE FOR: General Counsel
FROM: DCI
Attached was passed to me today by
Lloyd Cutler. Look it over to see to
what extent we can be helpful--probably
not much. He wants a lot of information
on Oman in 1977; all he wants are some
leads to find the right people.
William J. Casey
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 STAT
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Next 2 Page(s) In Document Denied
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Tr 7
W\ (3 RII.Lll'
THE SECRET WAR OF
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM
CLAI
STERLING
HOLT, R HART AND WINSTON
Reader's Digest Press
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During Ecevit's year and ten months in office, the terrorist
kill rate had more than quintupled (from less than one to over
five a day). A decent and civilized left-wing democrat, he had
started out in January 1978 believing that the right was at the
bottom of all the nation's troubles. He was a much-chastened
man when he stepped down.
There was no separating the Fascist right from the revolution-
.ary Communist left in Turkey's spreading terror. Both were in it
up to their necks, with the same sinister intent, and had been
egging each other on for a good ten years. There wasn't much
doubt about who started it, either. The left did.
More precisely, the Russians did. For invaluable clues in
this case we are indebted to a defector from the KGB named
Viktor Sakharov, whose documented story is told in John Bar-
ron's KGB.7 A bright young man with five years of Arabic stud-
ies, Sakharov was sent to Yemen in 1967 to be broken in. He
went on to Kuwait in 1968, as a full-fledged KGB agent. The
KGB rezident there, who specialized in Turkish affairs, spoke
no Arabic. Neither did the man from GRU, handling Russian
military intelligence. A translator from the KGB Center was
long overdue, causing a huge backlog in communications. Sa-
kharov, asked to help out, had access to a fabulous store of
information.
He was operating at the heart of the KGB's VIII Depart-
ment, embracing the Arab states, Afghanistan, Iran, Yugosla-
via, Albania, Greece, and Turkey. Agents' reports crossed his
desk from all over the area. (They were actually written in
invisible ink.) Accordingly, he was able to learn in detail about
three major Soviet-operations in his zone. They were: -
1. to sabotage Saudi Arabia's oilfields and, if possible. dislodge
its pro-Western monarchy;
2. to build terrorist cells in the Arab oil sheikhdoms around
Kuwait and the Persian Gulf, notably Qatar, Bahrain, and
Oman, offering scholarships and guerrilla training in the So-
viet Union; and
3. to mount a "brutal campaign of urban terrorism, kidnapping,
and assassination against Turkey." 8- .
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The going wasn't too easy in the sheikhdoms, whose rulers
were deeply suspicious and extremely well informed. Still,
eighty tribesmen did get off to Moscow from Qatar alone while
Sakharov was around, to his knowledge. Oman's Dhofar tribes-
men also began to shape up around then, for the ten-year siege
to come. (The special camp reserved for them near Aden, in
South Yemen, was set up in 1968.) The earliest Palestinian
guerrillas got started then as well. But of the three major proj-
ects, Turkey's was the most advanced by far.
As NATO's farthest outpost in the Middle East, facing the
Russians across the Black Sea and guarding the Dardanelles,
Turkey was a very special Russian target. The Russians had
come close to neutralizing if not annexing it just after World
War. IT, when they were stopped short by the Truman Doctrine.
They were in a better position to try again after 1960, when
nearly half a century of rocklike Turkish stability came to an
end.
Kemal Ataturk's extraordinary revolution had swept the
Turks from a closed and medieval Islamic society to 'a Euro-
peanized nation with parliamentary government )y then. But
Ataturk, though still revered, was dead; his political legacy had
been squardered by a recklessly spendthrift and venal regime;
and a patrotic army took over briefly in 1960 to set things
straight. The army promised to restore civilian rule and, mirac-
ulously, kept its word. (Colonel Turke?, bent on tough military
rule even then, was sent off as ambassador to India to be kept
out of mischief.) Though the democvatic order was restored,
however, the system was weakened at the core and never re-
covered its strength.
The cor vulsive change for the worse may be measured by
the fact that not a single Turkish life was lost when the army
took over in 1960. Indeed, the last straw for army leaders that
year had been the death of two students-two-in demonstra-
tions against a wildly corrupt and inefficient government. There
would be no further political bloodshed until 1969, by which
time the Russians had put in quite a lot of work.
Sakharov. who defected from his KGB post in Kuwait mid-
way throuyb 1971, had ample evidence of Russian penetration
staring in e early sixties. It began when the KGB in Ankara
recruited a ; ew promising young Turks for training in Russia.
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Back home, the freshly groomed Turkish agents recruited more
radicals into a nascent terrorist movement. These were shipped
secretly to Syria for guerrilla training. Ostensibly. they were
going into Palestinian camps there. Actually, the arrangements
were made for them by two KGB agents working out of the
Soviet embassy in Damascus: Vadim A. Shatrov and the usual
embassy "chauffeur" Nikolai Chernenkov.
From Syria, Turkey's terrorist cadets inevitably spilled over
into other Palestinian camps from Lebanon and Jordan to
South Yemen, to be taken in hand by George Habash and Wadi
Haddad. University students in Ankara and Istanbul "would
just disappear for three or four months and then just show up
again," as an Ankara professor told me. By 1970, a group had
already been caught in the act of mounting a terrorist hit, as
they returned from training by way of Diyarbakir in eastern
Turkey-on a straight line as the crow flies from Baghdad, Wadi
Haddad's headquarters in Iraq. Year after year after that, Turk-
ish graduates of Palestinian camps-Russian-supervised or the
Habash-Haddad Front's-would be picked up as they made
their way back home: in batches of ten or twelve, by boat or
car, loaded down with Soviet-bloc weapons .9
Meanwhile, the KGB's Disinformation Department (De-
partment A of the First Chief Directorate) was setting the scene
for a high-priority campaign against the American-NATO pres-
ence in Turkey. Between 1966 and 1970, the Disinformation
Department carried off three spectacularly successful forgery
operations. One was a widely circulated book purportedly
written by a Turkish senator,-"proving" an American plot to
undermine "progressive" Turkish 'politicians and strengthen
right-wingers. Another document "proved" American inter-
ference to beef up rightist forces in the Turkish army. A third
"proved" an American conspiracy with the ruling right-wing
military junta in Greece to take over the half-Turkish island of
Cyprus by military coup, annex it to Greece, and tack it on to
NATO. This last was passed on to the Turkish Foreign Ministry
as urgent intelligence information-by Soviet Ambassador Vas-
ili Federovitch Grubyakov, a veteran KGB officer-with sensa-
tional results.
The combined effect-might haveled any red-blooded young
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Turk to vow that Turkey would be "the graveyard of American
imperialism," just as many a young Turk did. Few realize to
this day that'all three-"documents" were egregious fakes.10
The anti-American riots breaking out on Turkish campuses in
1968 looked natural enough. Who wasn't rioting against the
United States in 1968? The appearance of an inflammatory
Marxist student organization called Dev Geng in 1969 looked
natural too. Turkish students were bound to feel the pull of
revolution, in a society wrenched from its rural and traditional-
ist Islamic moorings; struggling to pull abreast of industrial
Europe; stricken with inflation, unemployment, corruption,
and wretched shantytown slums. Yet the leap in a single year-
from setting fire to the American ambassador's car on a campus
in 1968 to a ready-made; professional underground terrorist
apparatus by 1969-was a dead giveaway.
It wasn't long before Dev Genc showed unmistakable signs
of prefabrication in structure, strategy, methods, slogans, litany,
logistics. "A subtle change in the catchwords of students' public.
statements, meetings, boycotts, was observed during the late
'60s, particularly since 1968..?.. Instead of merely deploring.the:_
situation in moderate terms, demands were voiced loudly and
insistently and sometimes expressed by violent deeds," noted a
widely respected scholar of Turkish affairs. Catchwords
changed no less while in foreign affairs "the emphasis shifted
from Cyprus to anti-imperialism, anti-Americanism, neutral-
ism, foreign capital and the Vietnam War." it
Dev Genq's classic two-tiered form alone became a text-
book model for the decade's urban guerrilla movements. (The
Organization in Italy, the Provisional IRA, and ETA-Militar all
followed suit a couple of years later.) An'open political arm
handled revolutionary propaganda, demanding a Leninist re-
gime in place of parliamentary democracy.12 An underground
military arm got going right on schedule, with a "brutal cam-
paign of urban terrorism, kidnapping and assassination against
Turkey." 13
The campaign was not a response to Fascist provocation;
there was none to speak of in 1969. While Colonel Turkel did
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 Approved For Release 2008/08/21 : CIA-RDP86M00886R002600070004-6 .~.~
BY
READER'S DIGEST PRESS
Distributed by E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc.
New York
1974
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SECRETS FROM THE DESERT
The impact of the KGB upon world affairs sometimes best can be seen
through the eyes of individuals who are drawn into the subterranean
world it inhabits. The experiences of one such man, Vladimir Sakharov, yield remarkable revelations about KGB influence upon one
of the continuing crises of current history, the travail of the Middle East.
Both Sakharov himself and the fate that befell him are unusual. But
the life he led while perched amid privilege atop Soviet society and while
stationed in Soviet diplomatic posts abroad typifies important realities
that rarely can be glimpsed by anyone outside the KGB.
The story that follows is based primarily upon extensive interviews
with Sakharov. Throughout the interviews he spoke of his experiences
and emotions frankly, sometimes painfully so. There is, though, one phase
of his life that he has pledged to keep hidden. Otherwise the story is
told as he lived and felt it.
At twenty-two, Vladimir Nikolaevich Sakharov was a young man
everyone envied. He stood six feet three inches tall, weighed a muscular
235 pounds, had wavy chestnut hair, hazel eyes, a handsome face, and
a reputation for brilliance. His family was influential and by Soviet stan-
dards wealthy; his wife was graceful, blonde, and beautiful. Among his
closest friends were Igor Andropov, son of the KGB chairman; Mikhail-
Tsvigun, son of a deputy KGB chairman; and Viktor Kudryavtsev, son
of Sergei Kudryavtsev, the old master of subversion.
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uished himself during five years of Arabic
d distin
h
g
a
Sakharov
studies at the most prestigious school in the Soviet Union, the Institute
of International Relations. Awaiting him was a diplomatic career that
promised perquisites, immunities, and material benefits usually reserved
for the elite of the New Class.?
In the spring of 1967, Sakharov said good-bye to his wife, who was
expecting their first child, and left Moscow for six months of field train-
ing in the Middle East, preparatory to his graduation. He volunteered
for duty as a probationary consular officer in the strategic Red Sea port
of Hodeida in Yemen._ When he arrived in April, the temperature was
128 degrees and the humidity 96 percent. In the next few days he
learned that neither ever fell much lower.
The body perspired continuously, a fresh shirt became soaked in
five minutes, and shoes, if worn regularly, soon disintegrated from rnos;
ture. The Russian colony, consisting of about six hundred diplomats and
KGB officers, construction personnel, and wives and children, lived is
dread of virulent native diseases for which their doctors had no cure.
Most feared was a strain of bacteria that produced feverish death b;:
consuming or, as Soviet doctors said, "burning up" the brain. The corpse=
of Russians it killed were hurriedly carted into the desert, drenched wit:.
gasoline, and cremated to prevent contamination. In the streets, tl
Russians winced at the sight of amputees who were victims of the anciet
riminaL,
Yemeni practice of cutting off the hands of thieves. Suspected c
still were caged and pilloried in the marketplace, where passersby. coul=
poke, stone, or spit upon them. The Yemeni openly relieved themselve
on the streets, using stones in lieu of toilet paper, and a latrine steno
permeated the air.
The dangers posed by volatile, unpredictable Yemeni tribesmen wer,
real enough. But these were exaggerated in the minds of the Russians
rumors only partially founded on fact. According to the lore prevale`
in the Soviet colony, tribesmen without warning or cause had gutted tb
U.S. embassy in Taiz with bazooka fire and. burned down the Wes
German embassy, killing several .people. According to another ruin_
widely believed in the Soviet colony, desert marauders had beheade
two KGB officers the previous year, mistaking them for Americans Ic:
near the Aden border.? ?
? 'The New Class is the term first applied by Yugoslav political philosopher Mdo?-
Diilas to the small minority that rules and administers a communist nation. The nu.'
New Class created by the communists after the R~olutionncconsists
=
s that because
oligarchy, political bureaucrats, and Party
minority controls the disposition and use of national resources, by the Roman definit
of property it owns the state.
? ? Yemen moved its capital from Taiz to Sanaa after the 1962 revolution. Howe
many nations retained embassy buildings in Taiz because offaaeslack of f acia~
consulates in Hodeid
Sanaa. The Russians and Chinese additionally opened
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 SECRETS FROM THE DESERT 31
- The Russians assigned to Hodeida huddled together in a cramped
compound of apartments that lacked air conditioning and provided one
kitchen for each two families. A wall separated the compound from the
grounds of the Chinese consulate. Frequently, in the dead of night,
Chinese mounted the wall and banged tin pans, blew bugles, and
shouted curses at. the Russians. Sometimes they augmented the racket
by circling the compound in cars, chanting imprecations through portable
loudspeakers. Awakened by the din, Russian babies cried, distraught
mothers complained, and husbands cursed helplessly. Soviet policy pro-
hibited any response.
Although the Russians had bought control of Yemeni President Ab-
dullah al Sallal, he was afraid to consort with them openly in the capital.
So the KGB acquired a house in Hodeida for secret meetings, and Soviet
--- Ambassador Mliizo Rakhmatoviclr-Rakhmatov periodically drove across
the desert from Taiz to rendezvous with the President there. Arriving
early one morning is late April, the ambassador stopped by the consulate
and asked for Sakharov, whose uncle was one of his oldest friends. He
announced without explanation that the regular consul in charge at
Hodeida, Ivan Skarbovenko, would not return from the vacation he had
just begun in Moscow.
`Young man, I congratulate you. You are now the acting consul,"
Rakhmatov said grandly, offering a hearty handshake. "Skarbovenko
assured me you were quite capable of carrying on in his absence, and.
knowing your uncle, I have confidence you can do the job until a perma-
nent replacement comes." Sakbarov was too astounded to ask for a defini-
tion of his new duties, and the ambassador hurried off without offering
him any guidance.
The consulate had no telephones at the time, so the Russians often
communicated through hand-delivered notes. The morning after the am-
bassador's visit, Sakharov received a scribbled message saying, "Come
see me, please." It was from Vladimir Ivchenkov,, the KGB Resident who
posed as chief engineer of the State Committee for Economic Relations.
Ivchenko, a wiry blond in his late thirties, was a keen and aggressive
professional charged with nervous energy. Consecrated to his, clandestine
calling, he had amassed an encyclopedic knowledge of Arab culture, and
he approached all problems clinically. He did not indulge in contemp-
tuous diatribes against the Arabs; but would often tell Soviet newcomers:
"The Egyptians need a hundred years to master our ways, the Yemeni
three hundred." Yet he was not expressing personal disdain, merely his
dispassionate judgment.
40,000) which provided a springboard for subversion along the Red Sea coast and
against nearby oil sheikdoms.
The West German embassy was burned in September 1984 and the American
embassy building ransacked in May 1967, but no fatalities occurred during either
attack. Whether two KGB officers actually were beheaded is not known.
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Inviting Sakharov to make himself comfortable in an office cooled
by a Westinghouse window air conditioner, Ivchenkov remarked, "I sup-
pose you know who I really am." Sakharov nodded.
"Well, let me be frank and straightforward," said Ivchenkov, lighting
another of the British cigarettes he chain-smoked. "It is of course expected
that you work for me. Your youth and background can make you quite
useful, and your Arabic is admirable. However, our first duty, yours and
mine, is too look after our own people. I want a report about everybody
who comes to you. I want to know who's seeing Arabs, who's speculating
in currency, who's sleeping with whom, who's dissatisfied-everything
that's going on. You understand?"
'Perfectly," answered Sakharov.
Pouring himself a heavy slug of King George IV Scotch, Ivchenkov
asked, "Want some?" It was not yet 9 A.M., and Sakharov politely de-
clined. "If you are to deal with Arabs, you must learn to control and
exploit alcohol," Ivcbenkov continued. "It turns them into absolute
putty."
We are taught that their religion forbids it," replied Sakharov.
"Just so," said Ivchenkov. "They covet the forbidden, and they can-
not handle it.- Fidgeting and pacing the office, he began to lecture.
"Seat the Arab at a table lined with bottles. Give him soda and nuts,
while you drink whisky and comment about how relaxing it is. After a
while, suggest that occasions of state take precedence over social -custom,
so it is permissible for him to take whisky. Once the Arab starts, he can-
not stop. When he's drunk enough, he'll agree to anything, sign anything.
"Shelenkov ? won a commendation here. It was actually for stupe-
fying the Foreign Minister and photographing everything in his brief-
case.
While Ivchenkov retained the ultimate, hidden power over all Rus-
sians in Hodeida, Sakharov, as acting consul, became the man to whom
they came for help in their personal lives, quarrels, and other troubles.
Bored and crammed together in the tiny,. torrid apartments, wives argued
and even engaged in hair-pulling battles over use of the kitchen or bath
or over even pettier issues. Ethnic rivalries led to brawls among construc-
tion workers recruited from different Soviet republics. Summoned one
night to stop a fight between an Armenian and a Kazakh, Sakharov
found one had a broken arm and the other a broken leg.
No one could have assuaged all the human vexations with which
he had to contend. But he tried, with patience, wit, and sympathy. Be-
fore long, Volodiya, as admirers called him, came to be known in the
colony as a fair and compassionate arbiter, a "good guy" too young to
be encrusted with bureaucratic cynicism.
?,Ivchenkov referred to Aleksandr Ivanovich Shelenkov. Stationed in Taiz, Yemen,
until 1966, Shelenkov in 1971 turned up as the KGB Resident in Amman, Jordan.
 All the while,. of course, Sakharov privately reported to Ivchenkov,
who entrusted him, with more substantive assignments-the identification
of Yemeni sympathetic to the Chinese, the spotting of potential KGB
recruits among Egyptian forces stationed in Yemen, and the noting of
likely Arabs who could help penetrate into the oil-storage areas of
Aden. The two conferred almost daily and, because they liked each
other, often stayed up late into the night drinking together.
- After the Arab-Israeli war in June, the Chinese intensified their prop-
aganda, accusing the Russians in leaflets and over loudspeakers of having
caused the Arab defeat. Sakharov was so occupied in KGB efforts to
counter the Chinese campaign that he fell further and further behind in
his administrative duties. The morning of July 10 he worked at the con-
sulate alone, hoping to reduce a pile of paperwork. About 10 ari. he
heard an ominous- babble-in-the street-and from a-window saw the ap-
proaching vanguard of a Chinese-incited mob. Had he fled, Sakharov
probably could have escaped. Instead, he chose to protect the consulate
by bolting the doors, locking the windows, and turning on all the lights
to create an impression that others were present. By the time he finished,
the building was surrounded by some 1,500 frenzied Yemeni shouting
Chinese charges of Soviet perfidy. Stones pounded the building, and as
splinters of glass from smashed windows showered down around him,
Sakharov climbed to the roof. There he looked down on the shrieking
crowd armed, with their long, curved knives and old British Enfield
rifles. Recalling the attacks on the American and German offices, he con-
eluded that eventually somebody in the mob would think of setting the
consulate afire.
Sakharov had accepted the fact that he might have to die unnatu-
rally; perhaps even in disgrace. Though he feared such a possibility, he
was prepared for it, provided that his death could have a meaning and
serve a cause. But to die now, having accomplished nothing, burned up
or dismembered by crazed men in a forsaken, miserable Arab town,
would be meaningless and terrible. Beating his fist against the palm of
his hand, he cursed himself for not having run away. At that moment
he heard the sound of rifles being fired into the air and the rumble of
trucks bringing Egyptian troops to rout the mob.
By the next day, Sakharov was a hero. His honest attempts to ex-
plain that he had done little were interpreted as the modesty becoming
to authentic bravery. To everyone in the compound he was the valiant
Russian who singlehandedly stood up for his country against the loath-
some "yellows" and "subhumans"-and triumphed. The ambassador sent
proud congratulations. Ivchenkov embraced and kissed him. The construc-
tion workers cheered him, and the children shouted "Volodiyal Volodiyal
Volodiyal"
Through the summer, Sakharov yearned more and more to go home
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34 KGB
and see j s baby daughter, Yekaterina, who had been born in May. The
evening before his return to Moscow in September to conclude his studies
at the Institute of International Relations, Ivchenkov gave a farewell
dinner. As the other Russians started to leave, he insisted that Sakharov
remain. "I want you to read something," said the Resident.. It was the
fitness report he had written assessing Sakharov's work in Yemen: Every-
thing stated was factual, or almost so, but was so cleverly worded that
the report as a whole exaggerated the magnitude of Sakharov's achieve-
ments. Anyone reading the evaluation would have concluded that Sa-
kharov was an exceptionally gifted young man with all the native talents
of a great intelligence officer. "Can you think of anything we should
add?" asked Ivchenkov.
it is far too good as it is," replied Sakharov.
'Well, I think you deserve it," said Ivchenkov. "In any case, it won't
do you any harm in Moscow. Now let's celebrate."
By 4 A.m. both were quite drunk, and Ivchenkov announced they
must refresh themselves with a swim in the Red Sea so they could drink
more. Staggering to.rard the beach, he boasted of a newly acquired
mastery of karate. British intelligence symbolized his professional ideal,
and he had persuaded himself that all MI-6 officers were karate experts.
He had recently ordered a karate book to make himself the equal of his
cunning British adversaries. Once in the water, he tried to demonstrate
his techniques on Sakharov, and the pair nearly drowned grappling in
the hot sea. Suffused with the spirit of laughing, intoxicated camaraderie,
Sakharov thought no one could have a finer friend.
Back in Moscow, after he recovered from a round of welcoming
parties, Sakharov called upon Skarbovenko, the consul who strangely
had not come back to Hodeida. His appearance shocked Sakharov, for
he seemed to have aged a decade in a few months. Bitterly, Skarbovenko
..
told what had happened.
His wife long had dreamed of a sea voyage, so he arranged passage
on a ship sailing from Alexandria to Odessa. Never had -his` wife ben
happier. She anticipated each hour of the voyage and also planned to
-pick up enough fine Egyptian cotton to sew dresses for a-lifetime. Intent
upon realizing her every expectation, she bought dollars in Yemen for
use in Egypt and aboard ship. She knew, all Russians were forbidden to
deal in foreign currency. Yet because so many of them flouted the regula-
tions, she made little effort to conceal her purchase. Ivchenkov found
out about it and inexplicably decided to report her to the Center. When
Skarbovenko reached Moscow, he was summoned to the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, demoted, and barred from going abroad again.
"Ivchenkov did that!" Sakharov exclaimed.
1vchenkov did it," Skarbovenko said, shaking his head. "I thought he
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j .d". F- .?ra.l ? ? ?`lw-,i.x. ~ -~,....e.. -rra..' _s4. >- - .. ..r_'
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 SECRETS FROM THE DESERT 35
was my best friend. Remember, I told you last year that if you needed
help, you could trugt Ivchenkov."
"I cant believe it," Sakharov said.
"You'd better believe it," replied Skarbovenko. "It is too late for me,
but for you there is still time. You must learn to guard yourself against
the Chekists. They have the highest positions, but they are the lowest
form of our society. They spend all their lives betraying people, selling
people. They sell us in the MFA [Ministry of Foreign Affairs]; they sell
Party members, they even sell each other. Then the sons-of-bitches de-
fect to the Americans and sell the whole Soviet people.
"The Chekists eventually will call you; they will try to make you
one of them. Heed me, Volodiya. Have nothing to do with theml?
But Sakharov, for secret reasons of his own, already had determined
-that if the Chekists did call, he would answer as they wished. Far from
dissuading him, the story of Skarbovenko only fortified his resolve to be-
come an officer of the KGB.
The call came in November. The personnel director of the Institute,
himself a KGB officer, handed Sakharov a slip of paper and told him to
telephone the number written on it. He did so, and received instructions
to come at ten the next morning to an office on Neglinnaya Street, half
a block from Dzerzhinsky Square, and to ask for "Vasili Ivanovich."
A sentry ushered Sakharov into a reception room furnished only with
a wooden table and two chairs. Vasili Ivanovich, a plump, middle-aged
officer with white hair and a paternal manner, greeted him politely. "You
understand, of course, that I represent the most respected organization
in the Soviet Union-the Committee of State Security of the Council of
Ministers of the U.S.S.R.," he began.
"My purpose in talking to you is to explain some of the work of
our organization and to invite you to become a member. We have ob-
served you during the last year of your study. We know of your command
of Arabic and English. You have been given the highest recommendation
by the Institute, and your work in Yemen was outstanding. In fact, I
myself congratulate you. In these times we need gifted, educated young
men to contribute to the success of our state in the'international field."
The officer specified numerous benefits the KGB would provide, in-
cluding immediate and permanent possession of a good apartment in
Moscow and a new suit and a new pair of shoes each year. Without dis-
paraging the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he stressed that KGB officers
abroad have much more influence, opportunity, and money than ordinary
Soviet diplomats. "At the same time, you will have all the prestige and
privileges of a diplomat, which is what everyone will think you are. And
for a young man our work is far more interesting and challenging. I will
not tell you that it is completely without hazards. But I can assure
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you that always the full might of the Soviet Union stands behind you."
The interview, which was really a briefing, continued about two
'hours. Sakharov understood that after specialized KGB training lasting
a year or two, he probably would be assigned to the American Depart-
rnent of the First Chief Directorate and. posted to Washington or New
York. But he gathered that from time to time he might also make use of
his training as an Arabist by working against the United. States in Arab
lands.
You may discuss our conversation with your father, if you desire,"
said the officer. "However, you are to mention it to no Qne else, not even
your wife or mother. You can take a couple of days to think it over, but
I would be happier if I could have your decision now."
"I am greatly honored by this opportunity to serve the Soviet peo-
ple," Sakharov responded. "I accept your invitation and pledge that I-
will always strive to be worthy of it."
It was as simple as that. The KGB, through its staff officers and in-
formants at the Institute, surely observed Sakharov. But there was no
searching investigation of his background, no examination of his ideals
and motivation, no attempt to divine what he really thought. The reason
for this lapse was that the KGB considered Sakharov's family credentials
overwhelming. His father was a Ministry of Foreign Affairs courier, a
job far more important and prestigious in the Soviet Union than in the
West. For twenty years he had efficiently ferried Soviet secrets around
the globe, all the while performing myriad useful services for the KGB.
As a consequence, he had influential KGB friends in Moscow and numer-
ous foreign capitals. Moreover, Sakharov's uncle was deputy director
of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs archives department; his grandfather
was an honored Red Army colonel assigned to the Central Committee.,
His mother-in-law was a Kremlin psychiatrist, trusted to treat Party lead-
ers; her father commanded a concentration camp for political prisoners,
_another position of prestige in the Soviet Union. The KGB also )mew that
Sakharovs closest friends were--the sons of its -highest-ranking officers.
Everything about him was ideal-his breeding, background, academic
record, and performance in the field. Indeed, he represented the quintes-
sence of the New Class.
From his earliest childhood, Sakharov's family imbued him with. the
values and aims of that class.-the acquisition and preservation of special
privilege, material possessions, and social status. The family carefully
supervised his choice of playmates to ensure that he associated with no
one beneath him. Children of Party officials, KGB officers, and senior
bureaucrats were acceptable; those of ? doctors, engineers, and workers
were not. As a small boy, when meeting possible new playmates, Sa-
kharov's first question invariably was, "Who is your father?" His family
shamelessly indulged him with foreign products, the ultimate status
 SECRETS FROM THE DESERT
symbol. His father, with a diplomatic passport and highly placed friends,
had constant access to dollars and Western goods. The dollars he sold
in Moscow yielded a fortune in rubles, while those he kept bought West-
ern merchandise cheaply at the special restricted stores that accept only
hard currency. Sakharov learned at an early age that Foreign goods
bought favors. Once he accompanied his father to a KGB laboratory
hidden in an old house on Sadovoy Koltso to have an IBM it ape recorder
repaired. His father rewarded the KGB technicians with Parker pens and
Ronson cigarette lighters.
Virtually everything in the commodious Sakharov apartment near
the American. embassy came from abroad. Most of the furniture. was
Scandinavian; the refrigerator Finnish, the vacuum cleaner a Hoover,
----the-stereo-a-Philips,-the television from RCA, the short1wave radio a
Roebuck. The first coffee Sakharov
the shower head from Sean
ndi
G
,
g,
ru
ever tasted was Nescafe; his first cigarette was a Winsto~ and his first
whisky White Horse. His best suit came from Brooks Brothers and his
favorite tweed jacket from the English Shop in Copenhag n. He boasted
a collection of nearly five hundred American records, th most prized
being those of Stan Kenton, Glenn Miller, Cannonball Adderley, Frank
Sinatra, Dave Brubeck, and Peggy Lee.
Along with such luxuries, Sakharov's father brought wondrous tales
of the West, especially of Washington, which he loved. " (here is where
I would like to live out my life," he told his son. "It is my city-quiet,
beautiful, -friendly. The people live in. their own cottages If they want
to go somewhere, they just get in their car and go." Returning from a
trip to Washington in 1960, he remarked: "America is the happiest coun
try in the world. It is written on the faces of the people. ''`'hatever you
may hear, I have seen it for myself."
While secretly admiring the United States, Sakharov's father bore
no deep grievances against the Soviet system under whic~ he prospered.
However, because Sakharov's mother herself traveled fre6ently during
the prolonged absences of his father, he lived much of the year with his
grandparents, and they, in different ways, were virulently anti-Soviet.
Turkish ancestry endowed his grandmother with a dark, gypsylike
beauty and a defiant, indomitable spirit that made her loathe everything
Soviet. "Shit!" she habitually exclaimed upon reading Prav4. "Everything
the Soviet press prints is shit. Tonight we will get the truth from the
BBC." Sakharov often fell asleep listening to the BBC or the Voice of
America on, an American-made radio with unjammed frequencies.
Sakharov's grandfather was a model officer whose military record
and political reliability had brought him through purges and earned him
a staff position with the Central Committee. As an idealistic young com-
munist he. had fought with the special Cheka troops durif ig the Revolu-
tion and afterward helped destroy unsubdued anticommupists is well as
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marauding criminal bands plaguing the countryside. He received two
decorations for his valor during the 1941 Battle of Moscow. However,
the 193538 purges in which most of his army friends perished and the
subsequent official confirmation of the mass murders under Stalin left
him with nothing but scorn for the cause to which he had given much
of . his life. Beyond his. own comfortable survival, he now cared only
about the future of his grandson.
On Sakharov's twelfth birthday, his grandfather took him for a walk
in the park and spoke to him earnestly, summarizing the philosophy under
which Sakharov was to grow up. "Our society is controlled by a small
group of men," the old man said. "You can achieve a worthwhile life
only by becoming a member of that group. It is not enough to be on
the perimeter; you must gain the inner circle, and that is not easy. But
it can be done with hard work and study. If you will work and study;
I will give you anything, buy you anything you want.
"As you make your way upward, you will see with young eyes cruel-
ties and injustices. You cannot change them, and it is futile to worry
about what you cannot change. Once you are secure with money and
position, you will learn to close your eyes and live your own life."
The family concluded that the surest route to the inner circle lay
through the Institute of International Relations, whose students were
graduated into careers affording status and the opportunity to work
abroad, and hence to make money. The Institute was-almost exclusively
the preserve of the New Class. Even so, there were about fifteen appli-
cants with the right family credentials for each of the six hundred annual
openings, and the competition for entry was fierce. Sakharov's family thus
devoted his adolescence to preparations that would give him advantages
in the competition.
He swam, boxed, wrestled, played tennis, and won third place in
the Moscow rowing championships, because athletic accomplishments
were a plus. He took private German and..piano lessons, because knowl-
edge of a foreign language and music would further. set him apart from
other youths. After Khrushchev decreed that university applicants who_
had worked at a- job would receive -preference over - those who had. not,
Sakharov's uncle* arranged a "job" at a high-school physics laboratory
administered by a friend. He was' paid during the next two years for
ostensibly working from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. while attending night school.
Actually, he showed up only in the morning to do his homework and left
in the.early afternoon to work at sports The Institute required that every
applicant present a written endorsement from Komsomol, the youth
branch of the Party. The more glowing the recommendation, the better
an applicant's chances. Sakharov looked upon Komsomol as a plebeian
absurdity, and though he paid dues to retain paper membership, he did
not deign to attend meetings. But his father telephoned a friend who had
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 SECRETS FROM THE DESERT 39
a friend who was Komsomol chairman of the Moscow District. There
was some discussion of a portable RCA television. The testimonial the
Komsomol chairman supplied as a result portrayed Sakharov as a veri-
table latter-day Lenin, the ideal communist youth '
Sakharov took his five entrance examinations in June 1962. The first
consisted of writing a political essay, which was graded subjectively. It . .1: ";,
served to eliminate all female applicants except the daughters of the =:'<
wound up at the MFA school for typists and stenographers; if talented,
they were sent to the Institute of Eastern Languages. Another exam con-
sisted of a standard set of questions about geography, accompanied by
queries arbitrarily chosen for each applicant. By putting hard questions
to some and easy ones to others, the faculty weeded out applicants with
insufficient family influence. Out of -a- possible twenty-five points, Sa-
kharov scored twenty-four on his examinations, and his family celebrated
an entire weekend.
By virtue. of admission to the Institute, students entered an exalted
caste, recognized by one and all as the'source of future oligarchs. Adults
deferred to them, youths from other schools envied them, and girls looked
upon marriage to one of them as a ticket to security, affluence, and the
good life. Among themselves, the students maintained a highly refined
system of snobbery. The lowest stratum was made up of those relatively
few youths of humble origins accepted by the Institute for show, or
because they worked for the KGB. Without family influence .and forced
to exist on monthly stipends of about forty rubles (roughly the amount
Sakharov spent each month on -taxis to and from school), they willingly
acted as informants in return for KGB patronage. The status of other F:
students was largely determined by their ratners station in the oligarchy.
If a father suffered a career reversal, the son suffered socially. Dmitri
Tarabrin was perhaps the most brilliant and popular of the young men
at the Institute until his father was suddenly ousted from the American
Department of the KGB. As knowledge of this disgrace spread among
the students, Dmitri stopped receiving invitations to their private parties.
His ostracism was complete after about a year, when he appeared in
.Russian clothes rather than. the American ones he had worn previously.
Igor Andropov, whose father soon was to become KGB chairman, was
in a class all his own. He alone could skip school as he pleased. After a
prolonged vacation in Hungary left him unprepared for his annual exams,
professors obligingly visited him at his apartment to administer special
tests in private.
Except for the courses explicitly devoted to political indoctrination,
the curriculum at the Institute was generally free of propaganda. The in-
struction, particularly in languages, area studies, and military intelligence,
was outstanding. In an atmosphere of semimilitary discipline, subtly en-
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forced by KGB officers on the faculty, and the knowledge that the
informants were everywhere, students applied themselves during the da
Outside of school, though, a majority, including those in Sakharo'
clique, lived a life bordering on the dissolute, and a goodly number drat.
as much as a bottle of vodka every evening. Weekends were given ov-
to alcoholic and sexual orgies at apartments of students whose pare---
happened to be away. Igor Andropov hosted such an affair in the sprit
of 1964, at which Sakharov wound up sleeping with a girl in the bed c
the man who now heads the KGB.
Conditioned from boyhood to be conscious of class and to shu
social inferiors, Sakharov had no friends outside the Institute except f.
some intimates of the family. He shopped in special stores, closed to t
-common citizenry; vacationed at state spas off limits to the public, dine
at restaurants only foreigners and the oligarchy could afford. He eve
took taxis to school rather than the subway to avoid the stigma of m
gling with the herd. Not until 1964, when he was nineteen, did he ev
have any real associations with ordinary people.
That spring he vacationed in Estonia, using money his grandfath
had given him as a reward for high grades at the Institute. Although t:
Russians occupied the little Baltic nation in 1940 as part of a deal w
Hitler, the Estonians have stubbornly striven to perpetuate their langua_
and culture. Sakharov found it delightful. However, he was constant
aware of a sullen hostility which the Estonians communicated in. - eve:
manner they safely could. Twice after requesting street directions;
was deliberately steered far from where he asked to go. In shops, cle-
ignored him as long as another customer was present. One evening in
Tallinn hotel lobby, he met Aeroflot crew members who invited him
come along for a birthday celebration at a restaurant that had a is.
band. When the party was recognized as Russian, the band abrup-
stopped in the midst of a jazz tune and started playing "Deutschla
fiber Alles." Many diners joined in this insult to the Russians by risi
and singing the old German anthem._.
Once Sakharov saw a man buying a fishing rod in a store. I
decided to purchase one.
"These are only for display, not for sale," said the clerk, a -thin lit,
man of about sixty.
"But I just saw you sell one," Sakharov persisted.
"For display only," repeated the unyielding Estonian.
"Look, what have you got against me?" exclaimed Sakharov in ec
peration. "What do you want?"
"We want you to go away and leave us alone," replied the cle
Sakharov's next experience among ordinary people occurred in S.
tember of 1965. During a morning class at the Institute a Party secret
announced: "All students will devote six weeks to assisting our ag -i.
 w.a. _ - ''": _ .-slti '~T:~ __ _i_~Y i.: _ .:% .a~..a'::~,.5 +~ viT'_ ~'f..a-+- 6 ~w4'{?sa.Fti.,l" `~~iq;,? . :r
_
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SECRETS FROM THE DESERT 41
tural workers. We leave tomorrow to demonstrate our solidarity with our
comrades at the kolkhoz. Be here with appropriate clothing by 0700
hours."
Though Sakharov and his friends had never seen a collective farm,
they had read numerous official stories depicting the collectives as scenes
of pastoral happiness born of wholesome toil. Bouncing in a bus along
a rutty road toward the kolkhoz, some hundred miles north of Moscow,
they looked forward to a diverting lark in the country. But their first
twenty-four hours at the collective left them incredulous and mortified.
The inhabitants lived in clusters of one- and two-room log huts
spaced along an are through the potato fields. The huts had dirt floors
and no plumbing or electricity. What little heat there was in any of them
came from small wood-burning stoves. The kolkhoz contained one ram-
shackle store to sell bread, vodka,- canned-goods, and sundries, but its
shelves were mostly empty. Years before, Moscow planners had allotted
the store a piano and two motorcycles. They still were there, unsold and
encrusted with the dried spittle of contemptuous people who could
neither afford nor use them. The students' first three meals consisted
solely of milk and potatoes. As it turned out, milk and potatoes were all
they ate for the next six weeks except on the four days when bread was
available.
Physically fit young men raised on the kolkhoz escaped by enlisting
in the army, and the more attractive girls escaped through marriage.
The older or crippled men who remained monopolized jobs involving
farm machinery. No matter how idle they might be, because of over-
staffing and broken-down machinery, they concocted excuses for not
going into the fields. Younger women chained to the farm by their plain-
ness fought viciously for jobs in the crude kolkhoz dairy. So the tilling
of the fields-the digging of potatoes-was left mostly to old women and
children, who labored from 8 A.M to 6 P.M. six days a week.
For the adults, the kolkhoz was a world without hope; nothing re-
lieved their days save the oblivion of alcohol. A river offered the only
means of bathing, and its waters were so frigid from autumn through
spring that baths were rarities. Deprived of facilities or incentive to
maintain their appearance, stripped of individual dignity and self-respect,
everyone spoke to each other with a venom and vileness of language
that shocked Sakharov. They. spoke even more hatefully to the students,
whose status and prospects symbolized everything they would never at-
tain.
- Sakharov felt the most compassion for a woman who, with her
daughter, was forced.out of her hut to make room for himself and ten
of his classmates. She had a dumpy, worn body with straight, stringy
hair and a forlorn, creased face marked by dark.moles. Each_ morning
and evening she was required to come and cook potatoes for the stu-
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 she sometimes stayed awhile to talk with hum.
She longed to own a cow. Its milk, which would sl or consume,
would give her a tiny measure of liberty. Its mere possession would make.
her superior to her neighbors. The state formerly permitted each family
on the kolkhoz to keep one cow and cultivate a small private the theory that people would be
Khrushchev abolished this policy on
more productive if not distracted by private enterprises. However, many
of the cows that were confiscated by the state perished because the
kolkhoz was not supplied with added fodder. Moreover, because the peo-
ple worked no harder in the fields, the quantity of food grown declined.
Now the state once more allowed the private plots and cows. But the
woman had no money to buy a new cow or seed.
Sakharov had brought some of his belongings to the kolkhoz in a blue
KLM flight bag given to him by his father. just before the students re-
turned to Moscow in October, he handed the bag to the woman, saying,
"I want you to have this as a present." She unzipped the bag to find it
contained bottles of vodka and nearly a hundred rubles, all the cash
Sakharov had with him. "For a cow," he said. Tears flowed down the
woman 7s wrinkled face.
Heretofore, Sakharov s experiences had denied him any sense of
identity with the Soviet people-or any concern for them. The influences
of family, class, and schooling all taught him that the purpose of life
was the pursuit of his own interests. But riding back to Moscow, thinking
of the kolkhoz and Estonia, he began to wonder if perhaps there might
not be another purpose.
That fall, at a weekend party, Sakharov spotted- an eighteen-year-old
girl with golden silken hair, green eyes, beautifully formed features, and
an exquisitely contoured body that made men stare. Having plied her
escort into alcoholic collapse, he gallantly offered to take her home in a
taxi. Instead, he took her to his grandparents' apartment for the night
The alluring girl, Natalia Palladina, was as brilliant as she was
beautiful. Because of sheer native intelligence, she quickly and easily
mastered whatever she undertook to learn, whether ballet or cooking,
foreign languages or esoteric art, social graces or Marxist theory. But
Natalia was an even more spoiled child of the New Class than Sakharov.
Her psychiatrist mother was determined that she should be a future
queen of the Soviet Union. She molded her daughter from infancy on-
ward to fulfill the ordained role. The rigorously controlled upbringing
endowed Natalia with sophistication and regal manners that enabled her
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42
dents who had displaced her. Shamed by his contribution to her evic-
tion and additional servitude, Sakharov tried to make friends with her,
but his efforts were unavailing until he thought of giving her a bottle
of vodka. For the first time, he saw her smile, and on subsequent evenings
 SECRETS. FROM .THE DESERT 43
to captivate adults. Yet beneath the beguiling veneer, her mother's am-
bitions and values made her selfish, willful, and materialistic.
Upon meeting Natalia, Sakharov's family was ecstatic. Nothing was
more important to them than his choice of a wife. Since his early adoles-
cence, they had tacitly encouraged him to bring girls home for the night,
discouraging him only from forming emotional attachments. Not only
did they want to inspect each girl; they wanted his normal drives grati-
fied, so that sexual impulse would not influence his marriage. Natalia
personified their ideal. In her they saw every qualification his career re-
quired. "This is the girl for you!" raved his father, who immediately set
out to promote a marriage, showering Natalia with presents from New
York, among them a fur jacket from Saks. Natalia's mother, equally en-
thralled with Sakharov and his career prospects, became just as ardent a
proponent of marriage.
Physical attraction was the strongest bond Sakharov and Natalia
shared. Under the influence of it and parental pressures, they married in
November 1965. But their differences in personality, temperament, and
outlook soon caused sharp conflict. Sated by the materialism of his up-
bringing, affected by his experiences in Estonia and on the collective
farm, Sakharov no longer looked upon luxury, privilege, and status as
ends unto themselves. In quest of other goals, he read underground
literature and came to regard Solzhenitsyn as a sublime example of
courage and Russian patriotism. He had not completely shed the biases
and class snobbery taught to him since childhood. Yet he had developed
a tolerance and compassion toward others that made him interested in
matters beyond his own self-interest. Nat3dia wholeheartedly embraced
the New Class materialism and aspirations he now rejected. She looked
upon Solzhenitsyn as a fool for not bending his talents to service of the
state and reaping rewards in return. And she treated the slightest frus-
tration of her whims as cause for indignation or an outright tantrum.
They argued frequently and tempestuously. Sometimes after arguments,
days passed without their speaking to each other. Had it not been for the
birth of Yekaterina and awareness that divorce would preclude them
from achieving their common goal of going overseas, they certainly
would have separated.
As soon as Sakharov announced his readiness in November 1968 to
join the KGB, Vasili Ivanovich consummated the recruitment by requir-
ing him to sign the standard KGB secrecy oath. It did not occur to Sa-
kharov that he first should consult his family. He assumed they would
be proud. Though never discussing. details, his father always left the
impression that he served the KGB as much as the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. Once he boasted: "If I wanted, I could come home tomorrow in
the uniform of a KGB colonel." Yet when Sakharov confided'that he was
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;Dining the KGB, his father, for the first time in his life, shouted at him
in rage.
"My son will not be a Chekist!" he yelled. "Never!" With unprece-
dented vehemence, be named friends fired from the KGB after the
death of Stalin, after the discovery in 1962 that Colonel Oleg Penkovsky
was a spy, and as a consequence of some unexplained convulsion in the
mid-1960s. "One man makes a mistake, and ten innocent men are fired,"
he continued. "They discover one American or British spy, and a hun-
dred are fired. And when the KGB fires you, your life is at an end. You
can do nothing. No one will touch youl
"If you slip in the MFA, you can catch yourself. You are not ruined.
There are other places to go. And the MFA does not take away your
soul"
Overwhelmed, Vladimir asked in bewilderment: "Ise t it true that
you yourself have worked for the KGB? Aren't many of your friends
in the KGB?"
"I live as I must. You must live as you can," his father quickly
answered. "There are good men in the KGB, and I have friends. That
I do not deny, but we will not always be here to protect you.
"Now hear my warning. I cannot stop you. But if you join the KGB,
I disown you. I will never help you again. You will get nothing from
me, ever.
"Father, it is impossible," said Sakharov. "I have signed the papers.
Tomorrow I start the physical examinations. What can I do?"
"Do nothing. Just don't go near them again," his father ordered.
"I will arrange everything."
At the Institute the next afternoon, the Personnel Department sent a
note commanding Vladimir to telephone the KGB number he first called.
He ignored it, and the messages that followed. On the third day, the
KGB stopped calling. Seemingly, his father's influence had prevailed.
Earning twenty-three of a maximum twenty-five points on his final
examinations, Sakbarov was graduated from the Institute in January 1965
and assigned as an assistant attache to the Soviet consulate in Alexandria.
After weeks of briefings at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he, Natalia,
and Yekaterina departed from Odessa in May by ship. Awaiting them
at the pier in Alexandria was a Russian of about forty, with dark hair, a
pleasant round face, and a paunch spilling over his belt. "I am Viktor
Sbirunov, vice consul," he introduced himself. "I have a nice apartment
for you right across the hall from mine. Come on, my wife has supper."
As they drank and talked, Sakharov perceived that Sbirunov knew
virtually everything about him-his family's 'connections, his accomplish-
ments at the Institute, his service in Yemen, even his aborted recruitment
by the KGB. Obviously Sbirunov was the KGB Resident, a fact he pri-
vately acknowledged later in the evening.
 SECRETS FROM THE DESERT 45
Sbirunov was a tough, aggressive, effective officer, a genuine Chekist
who already had attained in life more than he expected. His career
started as a militia invesigator in the Caucasus. He later worked his way
into the KGB by acting as ' a local informant and by sheer tenacity ulti-
mately gained a transfer to Moscow. He then took night courses at the
university and, in the expansion of KGB foreign operations during the
early 1960s, was shifted to the First Chief Directorate. His language was
obscene, his jokes vulgar, his table manners messy. "I fought my way up
from the village into the KGB and made myself what I am today," he
liked to boast.
A small incident that evening demonstrated to Sakharov that Sbiru-
nov was a true Chekist. Three Russian women, one crying and hysterical,
came to the apartment as they finished supper. From what Sakharov
overheard of their conversation in the hall, he gathered that the crying
woman had just been the victim of an attempted rape. Nov she vaguely
sought some sort of redress, or at least consolation, from a Soviet official.
"You fool! What do you expect me to- do?" Sbirunov snapped. "The
Arabs are subhuman and act like animals. You are supposed to be civi-
lized and have sense enough to know that. I have told you not to go to
the marketplace at night. You are to blame, not the animal. Stop bawling
and go home. If you make more trouble, I will send you back [to the
Soviet Union]."
Returning to the table, Sbirunov 'shook his head. "The Egyptians
are Arabs, and the Arabs are all just like niggers," ? he declared. "Sub-
human. all of them. I tell you, though, sometimes I don't know who are
worse, the subhumans or our stupid women." Natalia smiled as if she
had just beard something very chic.
After the wives had retired to another room, Sbirunov referred to
Sakharov's dealings with the KGB in Moscow. "You tried to run away
from us," he said laughing. "No one gets away from us. You see, we have
you now." Sakharov laughed also. He realized that to avoid the bother
of contesting his father, the KGB had let him go in Moscow, fully in-
tending to recover him in Egypt. Sbirunov didn't even ask him if he
wanted to work for the KGB. From that evening on, Sbirunov and other
KGB officers simply told him what to-do and treated him as one of theirs.
Natalia and Sakharov were instantly popular in the Soviet colony.
The Russians liked to show off such a strikingly handsome couple in
diplomatic society, representing them as typical young Soviet emissaries.
Attired in clothes Sakharov's father had bought for her on Fifth Avenue,
Natalia was one of the more elegant women in Alexandria. She taught
herself English, learned to prepare exotic Middle Eastern dishes, and
? The word Sbirunov actually used was the plural of "ehernozhopy," the term by
which Russians popularly refer to black people of all nationalities. Literally trans-
lated, it means "black ass."
ff
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46
charmed those Russians and foreigners who could help her husband.
Though their private relations remained empty and often antagonistic,
in every other way Natalia was precisely the asset Sakharov's family had
sought for him. Sakharov, however, needed no help. The eagerness and
ease with which he accomplished assignments, menial or complex, led
the KGB to congratulate itself on its own perspicacity in co-opting him.
Everyone considered him an inordinately gifted young man who realized
that he still had much to learn and who was determined to learn so that
he could better serve his country. His thoughtful questions impressed his
superiors, and his habit of returning to the consulate to work alone two
or three nights a week further testified to his devotion.
These were important and dramatic times to be with the KGB in _
the Middle East, where the Soviet Union had mounted its greatest sub-
versive operation of the decade. Whereas the Czars yearned for warm-
water ports on the Mediterranean, Soviet leaders coveted control of
Middle East petroleum, which comprises about 60 percent of the earth's
reserves. Already, Western Europe and Japan depend almost entirely
upon the Middle East for the oil that fuels their economies. According
to some projections, unless American domestic resources are better ex-
ploited, by 1990 the United States will have to buy fully half of its
petroleum from the Middle East. Thus, Soviet strategists accurately
equated the power to control or interrupt the flow of oil from the Middle
East with the power to blackmail the West and Japan.
By the summer of 1968, the Soviet Union had progressed far toward
converting Egypt into its principal base of subversion against the Arab
world. In return for some $2.5 billion worth of arms and aid, President
Nasser had mortgaged both the policies and economy of his country to
the Russians. Soviet officers gave orders to the Egyptian military. Soviet
engineers supervised Egyptian 'workers in the construction of bases from
which Arabs subsequently were barred. An extraordinary delegation from
the Central Committee itself, along with some fifty KGB and GRU
officers, stood watch in Cairo to ensure that Egyptian actions reflected
Soviet interests. Among themselves, the Russians, i ns, only partially in jest,
referred to Egypt as the `Soviet Egyptian p
Nevertheless, Soviet dominance of Egypt was neither absolute nor
completely secure. Certainly the Russians could not consider Egypt an
integral part of their empire as they do East Germany, Poland, Czecho-.
slovakia, and Hungary. In each of these Eastern European satellites, the
Soviet Union has installed an indigenous New Class largely unsupported
by the people. Because their rule rests solely upon Soviet power, these
regimes must remain servile to Moscow. Nasser, however, commanded
the allegiance of the Egyptian populace and thus retained at least an op-
tion of independent action. The Russians also worried about a quiescent
minority of Western-oriented Egyptians who opposed subserviency to
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