FROM RUSSIA, WITH TRADITIONALISM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000300380032-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 8, 2004
• Sequence Number: 32
• Publication Date: December 23, 1975
• Content Type: NSPR

WASHINGTON POST
23 DECEMBER 195
Approved For. Release 2004109/28: CIA-RDP88-01314R0
From ussia, with Tradit~Th~tsm
Third (,)J' is Sf-ries
By Peter Osnos
Washington F'ost Foreign Service
MOSCOW--Across Dzer-
zhinsky Square from
Moscow's largest children's
store, a short walk from the
Kremlin;, stands an imposing,
seven-story building with a
newly renovated mustard
colored facade.. There are,no
special markings- outside
but none are necessary:
As the main.: headquarters
for the Soviet Union's Com=
mittee of State Security -
known universally by its
initials in Russian, KGB
that building is a seat of
enormous power in this
country, second only perhaps
to the Kremlin itself.
The KGB is successor to the
All-Russian Extraordinary
Commission for Combatting
Counterrevolution,
Speculation and Sabotage
founded after the, Bolshevik
Other, Cloaks, Other Daggers--.-!!!
Revolution as the Communist security and espionage
Party's secret political police agency, combining the fun-
-- the dreaded "Cheka" that ctions of the U.S. Central
became the agent for Stalin's Intelligence Agency and the
domestic terror in the.1930s.. Federal Bureau of
The Cheka was hardly a Investigation with its original
.unique, institution in Russian and still primary -
history.. The Bolshevik secret responsibility for maintaining
police: ..was the : lineal internal political control.. -
descendant of" the, Czarist The KGB's chairman is an
.Okhrana, the-feared hunter of urbane, white-haired 61-year-
revolutionary. elements that old named Yuri Andropovwho
had penetrated every major was elevated to full mm-
.political, opposition group. bership in the ruling Politburo
Czarist . agents . turned in 1973. As a longtime backer
deliberate provocation to and friend of Soviet leader
.commit illegal acts into a fine Leonid Brezhnev, he is
art. The Bolshevik Cheka thought to have a. strong voice
recruited skilled personnel in all policy decisions -
from the middle levels of the possibly even outstripping
Okhrana. Premier Alexei Kosygin.
Today, the ;KGB has been From his ' spacious
`developed into the world's mahagony-paneled' office off
largest and maybe also its the third floor' of the KGB
most formidable single building -(that belonged .to an
presides over some-500,000
employees, not counting an
incalculable number of
parttime informers and spies.
. Included are said to be
nearly 100,000 "staff officers".
bearing military-style rank
from lieutenant to general.
The majority, working in the
2d' and 5th Chief Directorates
are assigned mainly -to
domestic duties:' monitoring
and suppressing all forms of
political dissent (there is a
special department for Jews) ;
keeping track of all foreigners
.in the country; compiling
detailed dossiers on "vital
events" in defense, technology
and other fields for the
Politburo; and supervising
vital communications and
code systems.
There is also -a separate,
army of uniformed KGB I
bordder guards - a sign of
how important the Soviets
regard frontier security, even
along Eastern European
borders. . _
Foreign operations fall
under the agency's 1st Chief
Directorate (there are no 3d
and 4th Directorates) which
Wsstern experts say number
around 10.000 agents of whom
a quarter are thought to be
abroad at any time. Among
intelligence specialists, it is
widely assumed that a large
proportion of Soviets sent out
.of the country _ estimates
range from a third to three-
quarters - perform some
kind of espionage role.
Over the past 15 years-,
according to Western sources,
nearly 400 Soviets have been
expelled from posts in 40
countries 4 or spying. Many
were working as diplomats,
trade representatives,
journalists and academics. In
the latest case, the young
press spokesman in West
Berlin for Intourist, the Soviet j
travel agency, was.abruptly
withdrawn this fall when he
was identified as a spy-team
leader.
.' A few weeks ago, the
Australian government
discovered that all three
members of a Soviet scientific
delegation about to arrive
there had. been previously
identified as KGB agents..
Their visas were promptly
canceled.
Some KG o ratives
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agents of influence'
assigned to;et information on porting guerrillas throughout ! French am assac or in So pervasive is the KGB
strategic and political sub the world and participating in Moscow, in a web of seduction influence that many Russians
jests, recruit possible sym- coups and other plots. and blackmail that would are convincecithat the current
pathizers and put' out Robert Conquest, a eventually force him to I congressional investigations
Moscow's propaganda line, prominent British political collaborate as an "agent of of the CIA and FBI must be far
including fabricated scientist who is strongly influence" close to French more of an upheaval for the
"disinformation.." Others critical of the Soviets President Charles de Gaulle. United States- than the
perform the dirty work of generally, has compiled a list ! Dejean did not succumb to Watergate affair, which
espionage - "mokrie dela" of what he considers were 1 sexual blackmail, but his merely toppled a president. I
the caeerwasruined
l
t
i
W
th
KGBt
ir
d
h
bli
i
l
(wet affairs in Russian)
subversion, sabotage and in
the.past. at least, political
assassinations. ,
in 1971, Qleg, t,yili.n, an
agent from the KGB's
'department . "W" which
specialized in that sort of
tactics, defected. to Britain. He
named 105 Soviet agents who
were then imnediately ex-
pelled. Among his other
disclosures was the fact that
although assassinations of
ites
Eastern
frotsk
y
;
={
European Socialists, emigre guerrillas in Angola, Latin
Russians and other' America and the Persian Gulf.
Some arms sent to the Irish
nationalists had been common., Republican Army have also
under Stalin, the practice was.. been traced back to Moscow.
curtailed after- the dictator's d The. actual training of
Another defector..,.'-)4L,
Nosenko. has told American
author John Barrow, however,
that he believes adecision was
made in the early 1960s to
assign assassi:ha.tions to':
"hired foreign criminals. and
.
n
s
ere
e
e
p
o
o
epu
nsp
c
y
Soviet-
Egyptian Deputy Premier All Czechoslovak general who
Sabry's attempt to overthrow I fled. to the United States in
President. Anwar Sadat in 1968; asserted that the Soviets
1971; a plot against Gen. and their allies in the Warsaw
Jaafar Nimeri in the Sudan Pact (who work closely
that year; and encouragement together on espionage) had
for several anti-Tito groups in placed a number of potential,
Yugoslavia that hawe been ;.I saboteurs throughout Western
officially dismissed by the.. Europe and, North America
Kremlin as 'Stalinist" "to destroy vital installations
elements. at the outset of a war." He also
The KGB is also said tohave, said -. and Lyalin, the
provided support for Russian defector apparently
guerrillas.. is believed' to be
carried out by the GRU - the,
Soviet . military intelligence
service, which works closely,
with the KGB.
There are also ample
allegations of Soviet efforts at-
illegal agents `of. .'other_' wholesale plans for sabotage.
nationalities who could not According to one recent U.S.
easily. be linked to the Soviet: intelligence report, there have
Union." Neither version is- been more than 800 attempts
confirmable. to- enlist americans for
As for KGB involvement in espionage in the past decade
foreign political upheavals - mostly outside the country.
the sort of activity attributed, In a celebrated case, now
to the CIA in Chile, thealmost 20 years ago, the KGB
Dominican Republic, went to extraordinary lengths
-.. _. _.
Indochina ani the Co
ngo
Moscow has often been ac-
cused by Western intelligence
analysts of funneling funds to
leadership's new
sophistication and con-.
servatism ;- compared to the
revolutionary and brutal
Stalin - than a 'shift away
from a Soviet police state
.
their tasks; particularly those '4 Today, the KGB is doubtless
who might go abroad, the. (,:better ' trained,'. better ,
KGB assures the . best I organized and better. funded i
education.-available-at in'thaffin the uncertain past,
stitutes and universities ands 'when its-own ranks and the
uses the finest equipment .I party's '-were subject to
Soviet and foreign'technoiogy' frequent purges. The largely
can supply. KGB staff officers* successful containment of {
are said to earn five to six.. political- dissident activities
times as much as their-: testifies to the: KGB's ef-
counterparts in the armed fectiveness at home.
forces Abroad, the KGB is from all
"The KGB is our elite,"said ' accounts an essential element 1
one Russian who claims to - of Soviet strategy - like the
know the organization well.-q CIA is in the United States --
'They are the sharpest,"'
. but without the limitations of
smartest cadres we can find - public accountability.
and don't you Americans' NEXT: HowtheFrenchspy a
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confirmed - that there were,
plans for blowing ".up the
London subway in the. event
"of serious political dif-
ficulties."
The accuracy of all this is
impossible for an outsider to
judge, certainly not without
access to first-hand in-
formation. But, anyone who
has lived in the Soviet Union
can attest to the prominence
of the KGB's position. The
assailed here for excesses in J
the way the CIA and FBI are
being treated now in the
United States, they say; the
implications would he nothing
less than a complete overhaul
of theSoviet- system as,,
devised by Lenin and pursued
by his successors.
In a sense, however,
something approaching that-
did happen once. After Stalin
died, the new leadership;'
fearful themselves of the
ruthless police apparatus he
had created,. which was an-
swerable only to him, moved
decisively to downgrade it
Lavrenti Beria, Stalin's last
.police chief and principal
hatchetman was executed and
the MVD, as the agency was
then called, became the KGB. I
The new agency was
designated a state committee
instead of a ministry as it had
been and its operations were
placed under the control of the
party and Politburo. Instead
of veteran leaders of Stalin's
terror campaigns, -career
Communist bureaucrats like
Andropov were placed at the
helm.
=Until Andropov became a
full Politburo member two
years ago, the KGB was not
formally represented at that
agency is not just another
instrument of the state as
the CIA and FBI clearly are--
it is an integral part of the way
the country is run. - .
There are KGB agents or
informers in every sphere of
Soviet life: There are known
-operatives at top levels of the
foreign and trade ministries,..'
for example;: .-and every
Western diplomat who deals I,:. very highest level of the party.
with them is aware of-it. -" ' se changes seem -to
Important. factories >-and 1-
reflected more the Soviet I
One leading. official; of the
Writer's Union. i!. a.:KGB
research , institutes have
"special" KGB':departments--r
general. v > _ . r . w _