KGB IN NEW YORK:THE UNITED NATIONS SOVIET SPY BASE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81M00980R000600060041-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 18, 2004
• Sequence Number: 41
• Publication Date: August 1, 1978
• Content Type: NSPR

ARTICLE Ap ed For Release 24t4} 1?E: j p M1 M00980R000600060041-5
'ON PAGE.,_ &C August 1978
Some 200 Russian agents are
working under. United Nations cover to destroy
our country. The United States pays
25 percent of their salaries.
UNITED NATIONS
OVIETSPY BASE
BY JOE TRENTO AND DAVE ROMAN
he Soviet Union's international se-
cret police-the KGB-is operating
at an unprecedented pace and
scale in the United States today. A. six-
month-long investigation by this magazine
reveals that the KGB-the largest, best-
trained, and best-paid intelligence service
in the world, consisting of approximately
500,000 employees-is now basing all
American operations out of the United Na-
ligence officials and several Soviet agents
and reviewed U.N. personnel files. It
learned that KGB agents are currently con-
centrating their major efforts on the follow-
ing vital areas:
? The CIA computer system at Langley;
? The Nevada Nuclear Test Site, where
highly accurate MIRV warheads are tested;
? The - recruitment of fired CIA officials,
embittered over their treatment by CIA di-
tions complex in New York. , -' rector Stansfield Turner;
More than 200 Russian KGB agents work ? The Trident Nuclear Submarine Pro-
under U.N. "cover" as employees at all
levels of the U.N. Secretariat, which han-
dies all administration and programs for the
world body. These agents act in obvious
contravention of their U.N. oath not "to ac-
cept instructions ... from any government
or other authority."
Furthermore, American citizens, who
pay some $118 million each year to the
United Nations, are literally financing 25
percent of the KGB agents' salaries.
Penthouse`also learned:
? There is no efficient security check
conducted to make certain that U.N. em-
ployees are not affiliated with foreign intel-
ligence services or that they do not have
other questionable backgrounds.
? Because the most knowledgeable and
expert CIA counterintelligence officers
were forced out of the agency in 1975, the
KGB and other foreign intelligence agen-
cies now have a free rein within the United
States.
? A large percentage of the KGB force
operating from the United Nations are
known officers in Department V-the KGB
elite specializing in murder, terrorism, and
sabotage.
During its investigation Penthouse inter-
viewed former top CIA and FBI counterintel-
gram.
"The KGB is made up of top profession-
als, who are dedicated and well rewarded
for their efforts," James Jesus Angleton,
the former head of CIA counterintelligence,
told Penthouse. Angleton confirms the U.N.
activities by the KGB and says, "Diplomatic
access and immunity make the United Na-
tions a spy nest." He told Penthouse that
the "key" figure in all of the Soviet Union's
'U.N. activities is Vassili V Vakhrushev.
At fifty-five the urbane Vakhrushev is at
the height of his profession as both a U.N.
and a KGB administrator.
Since 1975 he has been acting director
of the United Nations Information Center in
Moscow. But one set of duties that is not in
his U.N. pledge is the one that he conducts
for the KGB. According to FBI officials,
Vakhrushev is running the KGB operation in
the United States.
Angleton has a high regard for Va-
khrushev's abilities as an agent and a
KGB officer. "He is a top man. He gets the
best of everything because he has proven
himself to the KGB, and their system of
rewards and promotions is much less bu-
reaucratic than our own."
Vakhrushev's post has traditionally been
held by a KGB official. But in 1975, when
Vakhrushev was approved as the new "act-
ing director," the appointment was made!
with the understanding that he would
supervise the KGB's U.S. operation from'
the safety of Moscow. When he needs to
come to the United States, his diplomatic
immunity allows him to do so as often as
necessary.
His hiring at the United Nations was or-
chestrated with the smoothness that one
would expect from an international organi-
zation. Two high U.N. officials, W.H. Tarzi of
Afghanistan and A.S. Efimov of the Soviet.
Union, arranged for the contract. Soviet aid
to Afghanistan was one lever the KGB'
pushed to get their man approved.
In addition, the Soviets are allowed to call
Vakhrushev "acting director" no matter how'
long he holds his post. This provision allows
the KGB to move him to another post with-I
out any U.N. investigation.
As one U.N. spokesman put it, "it is a
political thing. We have fifty of these U.N.
information offices, and the Soviets enjoy,
this title business by themselves."
One of Vakhrushev's predecessors in the'
U.N. job had been Mikhail Mikhailovich:
Antipov-a Department V'officer who had.
saturated the United Nations with KGB op-
erations during the 1960s.
Vakhrushev's secret employment file. j
which was examined by Penthouse. re-i
veals that not even a cursory investigation I
into his background was made. He first!
caught the eye of Soviet intelligence offi
cials during his wartime career in the Red'
Army. In postwar Russia he was lifted out of
obscurity and sent to the International Rela-
tions School at Moscow University. The
KGB sponsored his education. His on-the-
job training was begun in the Foreign Minis-
try in Moscow in 1948. His knowledge of
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 oth$ir cultuIes shon~~ blOysbv Feasee2=tln/lot/tgrltio!AC q M I R 064 tft uarantee the int rit
assigned to the K s disinformation tall, former FBI Security Director Wiil am of the sys em, an 9 one will exist in the
branch at the Foreign Language Publish- Sullivan told Penthouse that "Vakhrushev is foreseeable future."
ing House in Moscow a refinement of the Soviet intelligence pro- Speaking to Penthouse recently, Angle-
Listed on his 1975 U.N. application is one" cess. Installing him was a stroke of genius, ton said that his worst fears had been
VN. Pavlov. This reference would be more since he could use the U.N. sanctity to proved right. "Everything in the CIA ar-
suitable if one were looking for a job as a send U.S. military and political secrets chives is now in the CIA computer, and over
political hit man. Pavlov is today an admin. through the U.N. diplomatic pouch." the last five years the computer has been
istrative officer in Department V. He was Among the papers that Penthouse ob- breached from the outside. The threat to
tossed out of Canada during Expo 6T tained concerning Vakhrushev is a special the national security from that computer is a
for his operation of a terrorist unit there. order naming him "diplomatic pouch cer- tremendous one." Angleton's staff discov-
Vakhrushev had worked- under him in tifying officer." According to CIA counterin- ered that an employee for a large computer
Canada.. telligence officials, this position allows company that serviced the CIA computer
Another famous reference on Va- Vakhrushev to send secret transmissions had been recruited by the KGB. He ex-
khrushev's application is Yakov A. Malik, safely back and forth. plained how the Russians worked: "We en-
founec. Soviet. representative- to the- UN_ Vakbrushevs position with- the- United- gaged. in. game. theorem We- played-wittt
Malik had been deputy director of all clan- Nations involves running the U.N. informa- programming the computer-as we got in-
destine services abroad for the KGB dur- tion center in Moscow, one of fifty such cen- formation, we fed it into the computer and
ing the transition period after Stalin died. ters around the world. His duties include we learned how the CIA operated."
Also listed as a character and job refer- promoting U.N. activities within the Another area Vakhrushev concentrated
ence is one of the few KGB agents with full Soviet bloc, recruiting Soviet-bloc citizens on was the U.S. weapons program, specif-
ambassadorial rank-S.A. Vinogradov, for U.N. jobs, and handling all secret U.N. ically the MIRV program and neutron bomb
who oversaw KGB operations from his dip- correspondence within the Soviet bloc. project being tested at the Nevada nuclear
lomatic post in Egypt during Nasser's ro- This job allows him access to U.N. confer- test site.
mance with the Soviets. Penthouse learned that the KGB had
(According to CIA sources, these op- - agents posing as newsmen on the site and
erations included the murder of U.N. in active test tunnels as recently as six
Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold in months ago. The Russians also have
the Congo in 1961. These sources indicate agents working for a construction company
that the Russians murdered Hammarskjold at the site. These agents, who were cleared
because of his opposition to their scheme More than 200 by the American government. were work-
to install a "troika"-a three-man tribu- Russian KGB agents ing in test preparation.
nat-to run the United Nations. A secret Perhaps the most frightening aspect of
report prepared by the CIA for President work under U.N. cover as the KGB's U.N. operation is one of the
Kennedy in 1962 stated: "There is evidence employees at all United States' own making. The CIA, under
collected by our technical field operatives the orders of Adm. Stansfield Turner, its di-
that the explosive device aboard the air- levels of the U.N. rector, has ordered almost a thousand vet-
craft was of standard KGB incendiary de- Secretariat. eras CIA clandestine-services personnel
sign." The CIA sources say that Kennedy fired. Many of those being fired are just
kept this information secret because its short of retirement. Many are considered to
publication would have destroyed any be brilliant. Politically the group is slowly
chance for agreement on a nuclear test- banding together James Angleton's Se-
ban treaty with the Russians in 1963. The curity and Intelligence Fund, which was
United Nations rejected the "troika" pro- formed last year, has been a rallying point
posal after an emotional appeal by Ken- ences and permits him to travel freely on a for many of the fired operatives.
nedy in 1961; he asked the nations of the U.N. passport to the United States. Penthouse spoke to a man who had di-
world to honor Hammarskjold's memory by Vakhrushev's real duties-those with the rected much of the cooperative effort with
turning down the Russian scheme.) KGB-involve not only running U.S. opera- multinationals in Latin America. He told a
The rest of Vakhrushev's background is, tions for the KGB but also overseeing the bizarre story of KGB recruitment.
according to Angleton, typical of a KGB entire Western Hemisphere, with special "They came to me through a CIA guy
official. The KGB put him through ad- emphasis on Canada, Mexico, and the who was axed last summer, after eighteen
vanced training in history and in communi- Caribbean. Day-to-day KGB communi- years with the agency He was a photo in-
cations. He became fluent in English, cations from the United States are sent terpreter. He told me that all I had to do was
French, and Spanish for his assignments. through the Soviet embassy in Washington, to describe the energy-monitoring pro-
But it was his ability to get along with D .C. When major decisions have to be gram of the agency and I would find myself
Westerners that brought him to the atten- made, reports are sent to Vakhrushev via with $30,000 in my bank account.
tion of the KGB's top brass on Dzerzhinsky the diplomatic pouch. (According to Pent- "I asked who wanted to know, and he told
Square in Moscow In 1959 Vakhrushev was house sources, Arkady Shevchenko, the me it was information for a U.N. official. I
assigned to be the interpreter for Averell Soviet U.N. official who defected to the asked him why he had sold out; he said he
Harriman on the latter's trip to Russia in U.S. in April, was not part of Vakhrushev's needed the money They had cut him off
connection with the blossoming cultural- KGB operation in the United Nations.) without a nickel of retirement, and he had
exchange program with the United States. The CIAs central computer system is an invalid child at home. I couldn't turn him
In a. book that Governor Harriman wrote, he perhaps the KGB's most important Ameri- in," the former CIA official told Penthouse.
thanked Vakhrushev for his company on can target. The implications of the system's "The danger of some of these people
the trip. According to one former Angleton being breached are enormous. Angleton is being recruited is real. The agency has left
staff member who asked not to have his certain that a breach has occurred. In 1972 some of them emotionally raw The over-
name used. 'This caused Vakhrushev's a CIA counterintelligence memo warned whelming amount are pros, they will sur
stock to soar. He made a real breakthrough the CIA itself that "the lack of an in-house vive, and they are patriotic, but the agency
with winning Harriman's confidence. From repair capability and the problem of will never be the same," Angleton said.
then on he had a role in selecting false breaching the computer system through Angleton's own personal experience
Soviet defectors to feed disinformation to electronics signal devices from the outside gives his words a bitter veracity-he him-
the CIA. Vakhrushev was considered to be present a dire security question. As of now,
an expert on the Ara%P8aV'aohit' Releas 1e1 '~-ff8%1dN8 2Q886bgb00t schemes.
SONT IlA ul,i-
 Approved For Release 2004/06/15
Angleton had long been a thorn in Kis-
singer's side. Although the counterintelli-
gence expert continually expressed con-
cern that Kissinger refused CIA briefings
on how to avoid trap questions by Soviet
officials, Kissinger continued to meet alone
in Washington with high Russian officials.
In such meetings it is standard CIA prac-
tice to brief the diplomat to make certain
that a pattern of questioning is not develop-
ing that would lead the diplomat to reveal
U.S. secrets. Angleton-said he was worried
that Kissinger might be inadvertently giv-
ing the Russians valuable information
about the U.S. nuclear strategy.
After CIA Director Richard Helms was
replaced by William Colby, the buffer be-
tween Kissinger and Angleton was gone.
As Angleton explains it, "Politicians were
running the CIA with Colby and his people."
Kissinger asked Colby to do anything he
could to force Angleton and his entire staff
to resign. In 1974 Colby provided Kissinger
with information about an illegal mail-
surveillance program that Angleton tech-
nically supervised. In point of fact, the pro-
gram was a counterintelligence tool.
Through Colby, Kissinger released the
story to the press. Then Angleton and his
staff were summoned to Colby's office. Ac-
cording to Angleton, Colby said that be=
cause the story was out, the counterintelli-
gence team would have to resign for the
good of the agency. They all did.
"With that intensely political act, the
counterintelligence shop we had built for
thirty years was destroyed," Angleton says.
Angleton is not alone in feeling that, with
the destruction of an effective U.S. coun-
terintelligence, the Soviets have been
given carte blanche. (In fact, there has
been much speculation recently that the
American intelligence community has
been infiltrated by a Russian agent-or
"mole"-at the highest levels.) One FBI in-
spector told Penthouse that counterintelli-
gence at the FBI has become "a routine of
tailing diplomats and electronic surveil-.
lance. But when it is done through the dip-
lomatic service, you need a CIA operation
to control this kind of activity. It just isn't
working very well anymore. We once had
hundreds of agents assigned to covering
the KGB. But, hell, the mounties in Canada
do a better job now."
What angers Angleton most about the
U.N. operation is the irony of the United
States' funding 25 percent of the salaries of
all 374 Soviet citizens working in New York.
The United States pays the highest as-
sessment for the U.N.--some $118 million
for 1978. Angleton estimates that between
"40 and 65 percent of the employees that
the Russians have at the United Nations are
KGB operatives." As a professional, Angle-
ton admires the U.N. operation. "How could
you do any better? You travel in the highest
social and economic circles. It is a perfect
place to recruit, to blackmail, and to gain
access to information."
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It's simple for KGB officials to be hired by
the United Nations. The United Nations
takes potential employees at their word.
According to U.N. spokesman William P
Powell, "We have working here a group of
international civil servants who have sworn
to uphold an oath. We take them at their
word. We require no security clearances."
Powell dismissed reports of previously
expelled U.N. officials as KGB agents as
"just newspaper stories" and confirmed
that Vakhrushev's contract does not expire
until 1979.
One area that does concern Department
of Justice officials is the blatant operation
of Department V teams in the United
States. "We know the Soviets have trained,
saboteurs working in teams in California'
and the Midwest," one FBI official said.
"But it we try to do something about it,
people will call us paranoid."
"The FBI is paralyzed," Angleton says
angrily.
According to one member of Angleton's
former team, working as a congressional
adviser, it is not just the United States the
KGB people target on. They go for their
own defectors. They seek out and blackmail
and kill defectors. Recruiting back a defector
is valuable for them, and they can do that
rather easily if the defector has a family in
Russia."
Some of the methods used by the KGB
are very heavy-handed. Indiscreet con-
gressmen have been blackmailed by the
KGB. The use of sex is very popular as a
tool by the KGB," says the congressional
aide. Penthouse learned, for example, that
the KGB tried and failed to blackmail
former Illinois Congressman Kenneth J_
Gray. The KGB threatened to reveal Gray's
relationship with Elizabeth Ray, whoworked
for him in 1972 and who was later to accuse
Gray and other congressmen of sexual
misbehavior. Gray rejected the KBG threat
and announced his retirement from Con-1
gress in 1973.
Another method of gaining information is
through unsuspecting American jour-
nalists. According to Angleton: "They are
always looking for a story" and "sometimes
a KGB agent, posing as a news source, will {{;
feed a reporter a story. I know it happened,
because the CIA used to make certain the
KGB had phony stories, too." Once the report- fi
er gains confidence in the source, information
goes back and forth between them. Va
khrushev's resume, not so incidentally, re-
veals that he is a member of the Soviet
journalists' union.
At the bottom of the dozens of pages of
Vakhrushev's U.N. file is the oath he signed
when he accepted his position: "I solemnly
swear ... to exercise in all loyalty, discre-
tion, and conscience the functions en-
trusted to me as an international civil ser-
vant of the United Nations, to discharge
these functions and regulate my conduct I
with the interest of the United Nations only
in view, and not to seek or accept instruc-
CIA-RDP8ggfi?"8ifQ4WWQtie)thl$ie5ceof my
duties from any government or other au-
thority external to the organization."per }
=3
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7 July 1978
Please include the attached article to your
7 July 1978 Media Highlights
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