MISSIONS FROM MOSCOW

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000201110074-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 21, 2010
• Sequence Number: 74
• Publication Date: December 4, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/21 : CIA-RDP90-00806R000201110074-5
ARTICLE APP
ON PAGE,
WASHINGTON POST MAGA-
4 December 1983
ISSIONS FROM MOSCO
The upended glass
oblong that glints
over the East River is
more familiar as the
platform for the
world's improbable postur-
ings than as a house of spies.
BY DANIEL NOSSITER
Daniel Nossiter last wrote
for The Magazine on teen-
agers.
hooded eyes who gives his
pants a vicious jerk as he
seats himself in a corner. An-
other good bet is the man
with the thick eyebrows, bee-
tling brow and high cheek-
bones who sits mournfully
waiting for that fateful
human contact.
Emilio de Olivares, the
genial executive assistant to
the secretary general, laughs
at the exercise. "We'd love to
have a formula to know who
is KGB or CIA. Every Rus-
sian looks suspicious and
every man with a trench coat
is FBI. What the hell -can
But the United Nations, says
the Federal Bureau of Inves-
tigation, provides cover for
the largest concentration of
hostile agents in America.
There are about 253
credentialed representatives
in the Eastern Bloc missions,
perhaps half as many again in
support staff-secretaries,
chauffeurs, etc.-and more
than double the total in the
Secretariat itself. They work, .
ostensibly, as international
civil servants who have sworn
oaths of. primary loyalty to
the world body rather than to
their country of origin.
The Soviet Union has 111
members in its mission and
another 432 in the Secretari-
at. Phillip Parker, deputy
assistant director of the FBI
for the intelligence division,
says about half of these re-
port in some way to the KGB
and almost a third actually
draw their pay from the spy
masters in Moscow.
"What they discuss at the
U.N. has little value," Parker
says, "but what an individual
knows could be of value. Only
through human contact can
[a spy] get at that,"
Human contact, chatting,
cajoling, courting, badgering,
is best observed in the dele-
gates' lounge near the Gen-
eral 'Assembly chamber. Spy
hunting here is another sport.
There's the elegant fellow
with a naked skull and
they get at the UN? I really
believe it's paranoia."
But Arkady Shevchenko
counters that the espionage
that goes on under cover of
the U.N. is a serious and
threatening business.. Shev-
chenko was under secretary
general for political and Se-
curity Council affairs, the
number-two job at the U.N.
until he defected to the
United States in 1978 rather
than be recalled to Moscow.
"This is one of the very
serious efforts of the Soviets
to get technology. Why in-
vent a bicycle, they say, when
you can get it from the Amer-
icans" he contends, in a
heavy Russian accent.
'irne aeiecror, wnu soya ,.i
was not employed by the
KGB, says the agents sent-to
New York are graduates of
the Soviet Union's elite col-
Shevchenko says seven of leges in electronics, aerospace
the 13 Russians he nominally science and other advanced
supervised when he was at technical schools and subse-
the Secretariat in fact were fluently given two more years
the-
operatives of the KGB or the of training in espionage ~atThey
.
GRU, the Soviet Defense KGB's own college. ? a
?
Ms secret intelligence are Teal speci4j5, s Shevchenko with some heat
agency. "The proportion was "They receive a shopping list
the same for the other East-
em Bloc nationals at the from Moscow every week,
Secretariat," he adds. "The every month They know ex
.chiefs of sections under me' actly where to go for public
would complain that they information and they pretend
were never working [on U.N. to be working on U.N. busi-
business), but there was no- ness to establish contacts.
thing I could do." You don't realize how stupid
Shevchenko says the num- [some Americans] are. They
ber of Soviet spies at the drink too much or can't pay
U.N. rose dramatically after for something-and so they
Yuri Andropov became head are suborned.
of the KGB in 1965. When One such graduate, Shev-
Shevchenko was in charge of dx!nko says, was a Soviet
political affairs at the Soviet Navy captain who came to
mission in the late '60s, "I the United States in the mid-
had 28 diplomats under me 1970s ostensibly to negotiate
but only seven were really at the Law of the Sea Confer-
diplomats. The other 21 were en e. He was also, says Shev-
KGB or GRU. They were chenko, a GRU agent Ac-
supposed to work one-third cording to Shevchenko, the
of the time for me so as not to captain would pose as a Ger-
look like idiots, 'but they man working on U.N. busi-
didn't. It was embarrassing; I ness; he would travel about
i needed help." the country interviewing em-
Also under Andropov's Ployes of mining and oil com-
tenure as KGB chief, the dip- Pames for information about
lomatic rank of the spies at deep-sea minin g techniques.
the mission rose, Shevchenko "He would get a lot of infor-
says, from a top post as first mation, some of it classified
secretary to ambassadorial information," Shevchenko
status. Shevchenko says the says. Shevchenko is not sure
resident-the chief KGB whether the FBI was aware of
agent-in New York now is the captain's activities.
Vladimir Kazakov, ~ who "The FBI has its own
boasts the third highest posi- Policy on whoto warn and
tion in the mission, deputy who to expel," Shevchenko
permanent representative. says-. The agency did not
expel the captain, he adds.
LTUED
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/21 : CIA-RDP90-00806R000201110074-5