FORMER KGB OFFICIAL OLEG KALUGIN/RESTRUCTURING OF KGB

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000401890001-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 22, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: September 3, 1991
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO N REPORTS, ~N~.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 [phone]
rorz PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
~~~ The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour
WETA-TV
PBS Network
DATE September 3, 1991 7:00 P.M. CITY Washington, D.C.
su~ECT Former KGB Official Oleg Kalugin/Restructuring of KGB
ROBERT MACNEIL: We turn now to a conversation with a
man who's been at the center of some of the most celebrated spy
battles between the KGB and Western intelligence, the kind
immortalized in John le Carre's tales of George Smiley and other
spymasters on both sides of the Iron Curtain. He is KGB Major
General Oleg Kalugin, a top counterintelligence officer who
trained for the job as a student at Columbia University and with
tours of duty in Washington and New York. He helped organize a
major KGB espionage coup, the Walker spy ring, which turned over
valuable code information to the Soviets. Another coup was the
defection of CIA agent Edward Lee Howard, who escaped to Moscow
with the names of many CIA contacts in the U.S.S.R.
But Kalugin grew disenchanted with the KGB and publicly
broke with it last year. For that, President Gorbachev stripped
him of his rank and medals. Despite the punishment, Kalugin was
elected soon after to the Russian Parliament on a reformist
ticket.
On Sunday, Gorbachev restored Kalugin's honors. Shortly
after that, Kalugin talked with correspondent Charles Krause.
CHARLES KRAUSE: General Kalugin, thank you for joining
Was President Gorbachev's decision this past weekend to
restore your rank and your medals a signal to your former
colleagues that he's serious about reforming the KGB?
OLEG KALUGIN: Well, I think yes. The exoneration I got
from the President and the reinstatement of my previous position,
including my pension, suggests that President Gorbachev is
OFFICES IN WASHINGTON D C ? NEW YORK ? LOS ANGELES ? CHICAGO ? DETROIT ? AND OTHER PRINCIPAL CITIES
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willing to go far enough to overhaul the security service
organization. In fact, I understood that when I heard him the
day after the coup when he spoke at the Supreme Soviet session.
He had finally understood that without reforming profoundly the
KGB, we would never have peace in this country.
KRAUSE: Has the Fifth Directorate, which had, or has,
at its responsibility protection of the constitution, has that
been abolished?
KALUGIN: Well, it hasn't been abolished yet, but there
will be another outfit inside the KGB. It will deal with
problems of control over subversive elements. And I emphasize
subversive in terms of preaching and organizing attempts to
violently overthrow the government of the U.S.S.R. Also terror-
ists, as I said. And also cases of corruption by top leaders of
the Soviet Union. These will be the major functions
of the former Fifth Department.
No political parties, no public associations, or
anything like that, would be under control, neither the church
nor culture nor sports nor other facets of public life will be
under control of the KG8 any longer.
KRAUSE: You said that Mr. Bakatin has agreed that there
will be no more political surveillance in this country. Do you
think he has the power to make that happen?
KALUGIN: Well, if he doesn't change the top personnel
of the KGB, he will not be capable of doing it. This is why he
asked me to help change some of the chief lieutenants of Mr.
Kryuchkov and replace them with people who we may trust.
KRAUSE: And has he acted on your recommendations?
KALUGIN: Well, he asked my recommendations, and I
prepared some. We'll see whether he'll act or not.
KRAUSE: The KGB had as its principal activity defending
the Communist Party. And over the past couple of weeks Mr.
Gorbachev, at various times, has sort of demonstrated a soft spot
in his heart for the party. Do you think he really wants to
depoliticize the KGB?
KALUGIN: I tend to believe him, though I should have no
reasons to believe him. He on so many occasions deceived the
public and his own party and the people who trusted him. And yet
when I saw him the day after he made his historic speech in which
he dissolved the party, and also said very harsh words about the
KGB, I had the notion that he would really do it. In fact, I
came up to him afterwards and said, "Mr. President, if you are
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serious enough, and I have no reason to disbelieve you, then I am
on your side. And my friends will be on your side." I mean the
friends from the democratic wing. And he was really shaken by
the coup, and I really felt sorry for him.
In these circumstances, I have no other choice but to
support him for the time being.
KRAUSE: President Gorbachev has said that he was
deceived by General Kryuchkov. And yet you and a number of other
people were warning publicly that General Kryuchkov did not
support this process.
going on?
How was it that Mr. Gorbachev failed to see what was
KALUGIN: Well, I have only an educated guess on the
subject. I think Gorbachev, as one of the party leaders, always
relied on the KGB information and was deeply involved in the
assessment of facts they presented. He thought it was very
reliable and good information, and I think he was wrong.
Second, he thought the KGB is the best-organized unit i~~
the Soviet political hierarchy and he thought it would be the
last defender of -- if anything happens, the KGB will be his last
supporter.
And third -- this is something which I have certain
reasons to believe it's true -- the KGB may have something about
Mr. Gorbachev which we do not know yet exactly what. But it
keeps him as if dependent on KGB. And I think Kryuchkov,
specifically, knew exactly what he had in mind. I do not
discount the possibility that there is something on the President
which makes him vulnerable, and the KGB may someday use it.
Probably even Chairman Kryuchkov. I mean when put in, you know,
dock, I mean at the courts, he will probably say something very
detrimental. In fact, he may even concoct something just to
blacken the President. But he may also have something really
truthful, something which will not be good for the President of
the U.S.S.R.
KRAUSE: Why was this coup so poorly planned? The KGB
was aparently in it from the beginning, and presumably your
former colleagues would have known how to do it right.
KALUGIN: Well, I would answer rather simply, though yo~~
may not like the answer. Whenever the Soviet Communists tackled
any problem, they always failed, be that the construction of
Communist .society, agriculture, or preparing coup d'etat. I mean
they failed miserably each time.
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Also, you must know Chairman Kryuchkov, he's very
indecisive and cowardly, in many ways. He would obey the orders
of Lukyanov. He was inspired by him, I'm sure. But he was very
hesitant about what to do and how to proceed. He's not a
professional, as you know. He's a typical party apparatchik who
knows about everything and knows nothing about anything.
You know, this is the trouble with our society. It was
run by people who were not knowledgeable about things they were
supposed to know.
And third, of course, the split inside the KGB. I
me~itiuned this on several occasions, publicly, that there was a
widening gap between the leadership of the KGB and the rank-and-
file officers, the younger generation, who simply did not believe
all this stuff about, you know, Western imperialist circles
trying to impose their will on the Soviet people, you know. And
at a crucial moment they simply refused to obey. This is why the
coup failed.
KRAUSE: Even though there have been changes and there
is some reform in the KGB, do you see any threat of a repeat of
what happened two weeks ago?
KALUGIN: We cannot exclude such a possibility, provided
we do not stop economic chaos, and possibly hunger and other
things, you know, the national conflicts which would result in
bl~~odshed. If these things go on and happen again on a massive
scale, then there'll be another attempt, not necessarily by the
present leaders of the military, armed forces or the KGB, but
some disgruntled people who simply get together one day and try
to stage a coup d'etat by whatever means they have available to
them at that moment. They'll not be, necessarily, any structural
organization, you know, part of the government; they will be
simply disgruntled, unhappy, you know, people who would just try
to topple the government.
And this is why I suggested that the West should give
massive aid to the U.S.S.R., not in cash, but in food supplies
and some consumer goods which would fill the shelves, empty
shelves in stores, and people would feel there is some change.
If we manage to, you know, keep ourselves on the
surface, I mean keep afloat, for another six months, probably by
the spring we shall manage to get on our feet and then proceed on
our own.
KRAUSE: The Walker spy ring, I believe, was one of your
most successful operations. Over the past several years, has
anything changed, in terms of KGB activity in the United States
and CIA activity here in your country?
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KALUGIN: Well, I think both the KGB and the CIA
suffered serious setbacks in the last few years. The CIA
operations in Moscow and in some of the East European countries,
particularly in Moscow, were undermined by Lee Howard's decision
to go over to the Soviet side. As you know, as a result quite a
few people, invaluable agents of the CIA, were arrested and
executed.
As far as the Soviet side is concerned, numero~~s
defections by KGB officers, as well as the arrest of some of them
who were CIA spies, also made this organiLation very weak. In
terms of its possessions today, I doubt they have anything
serious at all.
I don't know about the CIA right away. I think the CIA
has now better possibilities than the KGB, because they are on
the --you know, they could work on the tide of sympathies towards
the West, even an ideological closeness, in some ways. While the
U.S.S.R. security services and intelligence have really nothing
to rely on, simply money. But money doesn't work when you have
so many defections. People are afraid to get in touch with the
KGB.
So, I believe there is no comparison.
KRAUSE: Can George Smiley go to his grave knowing that
the West won the Cold War?
KALUGIN: Well, I think we all won. If we look at it
seriously, in terms of a victory, humanity won. I mean we got
rid of, not completely yet, but of totalitarian state. And in
that sense, I feel the victory is universal.
KRAUSE: But that's an easy answer. You spent a whole
career trying to...
Yes, win, to make my side a winning one.
Well, let me say, quite sincerely, I also won. I won
simply because I understood some years ago that I couldn't live
with the lies and hypocrisy and deceit which surrounded my
country and my people. So I suffered, to a degree. But in the
long run, I won. And I think the Russian society, the Soviet
society, whatever remains of the Soviet Union, also won.
KRAUSE: By obtaining their freedom.
KALUGIN: By obtaining their freedom.
KRAUSE: Thank you.
KALUGIN: Thank you.
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