TESTIMONY OF GEORGE KARLIN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP73B00296R000500140004-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 96
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 20, 2005
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: November 5, 1969
• Content Type: REPORT

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TESTIMONY OF GEORGE KARLIN
HEARINGS
BEFORE TEE
SUBCOMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE
ADMINISTRATION OF THE INTERNAL SECURITY
ACT AND OTHER INTERNAL SECURITY LAWS
OF TUB
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
NINETY-FIRST CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
PART 1
NOVEMBER 3, 4, AND 5, 1969
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
46-158 WASHINGTON: 1970
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JAMES 0. EASTLAND, Mississippi, Chairman
JOHN L. McCLELLAN, Arkansas
SAM J. ERVIN, JR., North Carolina
THOMAS I. DODD, Connecticut
PHILIP A. IIART, Michigan
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts
BIRCII BAYII, Indiana
QUENTIN N. BURDICK, North Dakota
JOSEPH D. TYDINGS, Maryland
ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia
ROMAN L. IIRUSKA, Nebraska
HIRAM L. FONG, Hawaii
HUGH SCOTT, Pennsylvania
STROM THURMOND, South Carolina
MARLOW W. COOK, Kentucky.
CHARLES McC. MATHIAS, JR., Maryland
ROBERT P. GRIFFIN, Michigan
SUBCOMMITTEE To INVESTIGATE THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE INTERNAL
SECURITY ACT AND OTHER INTERNAL SECURITY LAWS
JAMES 0. EASTLAND. Mississippi, Chairman
THOMAS J. DODD, Connecticut, Vice Chairman
JOIN L. McCLELLAN, Arkansas
SAM J. ERVIN, JR., North Carolina
BIRCII HAYTI, Indiana
ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia
HUGH SCOTT, Pennsylvania
STROM THURMOND, South Carolina
MARLOW W. COOK, Kentucky
ROBERT P. GRIFFIN, Michigan
J. G. SOURWINE, Chief Counsel
JOHN R. NORPEL, Director of Research
ALF ONS 0 L. TARAB ?CHIA, Chief Investigator
RESOLTJTION OF THE INTERNAL SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
Resolved, That the testimony given by Mr. Yuri Krotkov (under
the name of George Karlin) before the Subcommittee in Executive
Session on November 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 13, 18, 24, 1969, and March 9,
1970, is de-classified and released from the injunction of executive
secrecy and shall be printed and made public.
JAMES 0. EASTLAND,
Chairman.
Approved: November 19, 1970.
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CONTENTS
Testimony of George Karlin: Page
November 3, 1969 1
27
59
November 4, 1969
November 5, 1969
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TESTIMONY OF GEORGE KARLIN
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1969
U.S. SENATE,
SUBCOMMITTEE To INVESTIGATE THE
ADMINISTRATION OF THE INTERNAL SECURITY ACT
AND OTHER INTERNAL SECURITY LAWS
OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:15 p.m., in room 2300,
New Senate Office Building, Senator Strom Thurmond presiding.
Also present: J. G. Sourwine, chief counsel.
Senator THURMOND. Do you solemnly swear that the evidence you
give in this hearing shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing
but the truth, so help you God?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, Sir.
Mr. SOURWINE. Off the record.
(Off the record.)
Mr. SOURWINE. May the record show, with the chairman's permis-
sion, that the classification of this hearing record is secret.'
Senator THURMOND. Without objection, that will be done.
Mr. Sou-RwiNE. Would you give the reporter your full name, please?
Mr. KARLIN. Real name?
Mr. SOURWINE. Yes.
Mr. KARLIN. Yury Visilevich Krotkov.
Mr. SOURWINE. And there are two spellings to your first name?
Mr. KARLIN. In my book it was Y-u-r-i.
Mr. SOURWINE. Y-u-r-i Or Y-u-r-i-y?
Mr. KARLIN. Those are the two spellings.
And the second one, that is my father's name, V-i-s-i-l-e-v-i-c-h.
That is my father's name.
Mr. SOURWINE. You do not use two l's in Visilevich?
Mr. KARLIN. I personally do not. It could be two. Because that is
how it sounds. It must be a rather soft sound. It is possible to put the
apostrophe in.
Mr. SOURWINE. You are a native of what country?
Mr. KARLIN. The U.S.S.R.
Mr. SOUR-WINE. Where were you born?
Mr. KARLIN. I Was born in a town called Kutaissy. That is in
Georgia, but that is the U.S.S.R., in the Trans-Caucasus. That is
the second city in Georgia, because the first is the capital, Tbilisi.
But I was born in Kutaissy.
Mr. SOURWINE. You are a Georgian, then?
Mr. KARLIN. No, I am not, because originally I am Russian. My
father was Russian and my mother was Russian.
I Declassified by resolution of the subcommittee dated July 11, 1970.
(1)
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Mr. SOURWINE. But you are a Georgian by birth?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes; by place, and by 19 years living there.
Mr. SOURWINE. Now, you bear credentials showing another name.
Will you tell us about that?
Mr. KARLIN. That is one of my other names. By my English
document I am Karlin, K-a-r-l-i-n, George Karlin.
Mr. SOURWINE. This is a document issued to you by the British
Home Office?
Mr. KARLIN. That is correct.
Mr. SOURWINE. Showing you as a stateless person?
Mr. KARLIN. That is correct, sir.
Mr. SOURWINE. When did you first enter Great Britain?
Mr. KARLIN. That was in 1963, the 2d or 3d of September, with a
group of Soviet tourists. And the idea was to stay 10 or 12 days.
Mr. SOURWINE. Did you stay 10 days?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, until the end. I defected on the last day, the
13th of September 1963.
Mr. SOURWINE. You asked the British for political asylum?
Mr. KARLIN. That is correct., sir.
Mr. SOURWINE. And it was granted?
MT. KARLIN. Yes, sir.
Mr. SOURWINE. And you have not been back to the Soviet Union
since?
Mr. KARLIN. No, sir.
Mr. SOURWINE. Could you go to the Soviet Union without being in
physical danger?
Mr. KARLIN. Well, in my document there is a statement that I can
go to any countries except the U.S.S.R. I do not know the reason for
it being put there, but it is there.
Mr. SOURWINE. That is as far as the permission of your document
goes?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. But actually, if you returned to the U.S.S.R.,
would you be in physical danger?
Mr. KARLIN. Well, I would be shot, I guess.
Mr. SOURWINE. What position did you hold, if any, at the time
you left the Soviet Union?
Mr. KARLIN. Officially I was a member of, we call it the creative
union, movieworkers union. That is not a trade union organization,
that is a sort of professional organization on the top level. And I
was a member of this organization. That is first.
Second, I was a member of a literary organization, Literary Fund
of the U.S.S.R., a sort of a writers' organization. But that is not the
Union of Soviet Writers, I want to emphasize.
And then I was a member of the whole Russian Theatrical Society,
the VTO.
And then I was a member of a very big organization, "Obshestvo
po raspostraneniu politicheskich i nauchnix znanik" which organized
the lectures and many different sorts of educational work. That is
a rather special organization, because it looks like a voluntary organi-
zation, it looks like that, but in reality of course it is under party
and Soviet control.
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I was a dramatist, and script writer. Of course I was a member of
the Moscow Dramatists Committee. That is a professional organization.
It is rather difficult for the Western people to understand the
profile of these organizations, because they are rather different if
compared with Western organizations. Because they look like they
are professional and voluntary, but of course all of them are ideo-
logical and under the party control.
''Now, I was a play writer and script writer. Of course, at the same
time, I produced some articles?well, in a way I worked as a columnist,
journalist, if you like. And I did some critic's work too in the movie
union.
Of course, it was inevitable for me that I took part in some meetings,
in the social life of the circle of these organizations, because if you
are not doing it, your position isn't good.
Mr. SOURWINE. Let's separate yoiir different activities, although
they were related.
First, I think probably your premier activity was as a playwright.
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SouRwiNE. How many plays did you write which were com-
mercially produced?
Mr. KARLIN. Commercially produced was one play. Can I name it?
Mr. SOURWINE. Yes; I want you to.
Mr. KARLIN. In Some ways it was a rather famous play I would
put that in quotation marks?under the title "John, Soldier of Peace."
That was based on the life of Paul Robeson, American Negro singer.
And that was purely an active anti-American play. It was written in
1950?actually in 1949, I would say, because I began to write it after
a story which happened in Peekskill here, in the -United States. And
in that place, according to newspapers at that time, Paul Robeson
took part in the meeting, and then after that someone wanted to lynch
him. It was the plot of the story. And it was written in 1949-50.
Mr..SOURWINE. When was it produced?
Mr. KARLIN. It was produced in Moscow, firstly, in the Pushkin
Dramatic Theater?formerly a very famous theater ?K anerny
Theater?which was in the history of Russian contemporary theater
one of the modern ones.
My play was produced there in 1950, when the theater was, under
the personal order of Stalin, "reconstructed" and "renewed." It
became more "Soviet," because there was before some thought, from
Stalin's point of view, of bourgeoisie ideology.
Mr. SOURWINE. Was this a successful play?
Mr. KARLIN, It was at that time a successful play, from the point of
the Soviet idea of success, because there were many, good reviews in
the newspapers, and the good Soviet kind of advertising.
Mr. SOURWINE. How long did the play run?
.Mr. KARLIN. I would say 3 years.
Mr. SOURWINE. 1951 until 1954?
Mr. KARLIN. I guess it was until 1953?no, sometimes it was staged
after Stalin's death, but not so often. In the first year it was staged
three or four times monthly, and then only one or two times monthly.
There is a different system of theater performance in the Soviet
Union and in the United States because in the U.S.S.R. theaters
show sometimes 10 different plays monthly.
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Mr. SOURWINE. It is what we would call a repertoire?
MT. KARLIN. Yes sir.
Mr. SOURWINE. What awards, if any, did this play win?
Mr. KARLIN. We were very close to get the Stalin prize, but accord-
ing to Mr. Lebedev, he was at that time the chairman of the Com-
mittee of Art, of the U.S.S.R.?I heard it from the director, of the
Pushkin Theater who was very famous man, Mr. Vanin, that when
our show was on Stalin's desk he looked at the introduction and said:
"It is too early to give them a prize, because we just changed the
face of the theater, let them wait a little bit." That was the Stalin
prize. And there could be only one award at that time.
Mr. SOURWINE. Would you say you were nominated for the Stalin
prize?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, we were nominated. And there was a very impor-
tant review in the paper, the Central Communist Party's paper, called
Culture and Life. And the review was written by another very famous
orthodox Russian dramatist and writer, Virta. And we were so sure
that we would get the prize that I remember with Mr. Nazvanov
who played the hero parts we bought the cheese, and ate it and
walked along the Gorkiy Street in Moscow.
Mr. SOURWINE. You said you wrote scripts. I presume you meant
for motion pictures.
MT. KARLIN. Yes sir.
Mr. SOURWINE. 'What motion picture scripts did you write for
pictures that were produced?
Mr. KARLIN. Four of them.
Mr. SOURWINE. What were the pictures?
Mr. KARLIN. The pictures were fictions, and artistic pictures. The
first was titled, "They: Were Borne By Hurricanes."
I prepared the movie script from a novel written by another person.
Mr. SOURWINE. Who was the author of the novel?
Mr. KARLIN. He was one famous in the Soviet history, the writer
Nicholai Ostrovsky.
He was famous, but he was?he lost his visual capacity, he became
blind. And there was an interesting story about him.
And his novel was about the October revolution---
Mr. SOURWINE. We do not need to know at the moment what it
was about.
Mr. KARLIN. My second script was entitled "Captain of First Rank."
That was another script I have done, from the book entitled in the
same way.
Mr. SOURWINE. Who was the author?
Mr. KARLIN. The author was Novikov Priboy.
The third was under the title "Threshold of Your Future." Some-
thing like that. And it was about the Georgian contemporary life.
This movie was shot in Tbilisi.
Mr. SOURWINE. Was that a script that you wrote based on a book?
Mr. KARLIN. No, we wrote it, but I had a coauthor.
Mr. SounwiNE. Was it an original script in which you collaborated
with another person?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. Who was your collaborator?
Mr. KARLIN. Grigol Chikovany, a Georgian writer.
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And the fourth was again an original script for children. I did it
again with this Georgian writer.
The movie for children entitled "Uncle Jijy."
Mr. SOURWINE. Over what period of years did you do those scripts?
Mr. KARLIN. From 1955, the second part of 1955 or the beginning of
1956. And the last one was, I guess, in 1960.
Mr. SOURWINE. In what newspaper or newspapers did your column
appear?
Mr. KARLIN. In the newspaper Trud?that is the Soviet trade
union paper. It means "truth."
MT. SOURWINE. The Russian name "Trud"?
MT. KARLIN. Correct.
And then the magazine Ogonek.
And then in one of the most popular political magazines, Novoe
Vreme, that is New Time.
Aud then in the Soviet Culture newspaper.
And then in the Soviet writers' newspaper: Literaturnaiy Gasetta.
Mr. SOURWINE. Did you appear regularly in all of them?
Mr. KARLIN. I would not say I appeared in all of them regularly.
I would say that I was published by them occasionally, because this
job was not my fundamental job.
Mr. SOURWINE. Did you appear regularly in any of them?
Mr. KARLIN. No, I would not say regularly.
Mr. SOURWINE. Did you have a byline when your stories appeared?
MT. KARLIN. A byline?
Mr. SOURWINE. Yes, was your name carried as the author?
Mr. KARLIN. Sure.
Mr. SOURWINE. It is true in Russia as it is here that bylines are
given only to the better writers?
Mr. KARLIN. Well, in some ways. It is very hard to say in such
a particular matter. It depends sometimes on the particular situation_,
and what sort of article and what sort of relation a writer has with
the editor of the newspapers and so on. Therefore, I do not think it is
possible to make an exact answer in this way.
Mr. SOURWINE. Would this be true, that you may be a very fine
writer and not be given a byline?
Mr. KARLIN. SUIT.
MT. SOURWINE. But you would not be given a byline unless you
are a good writer?
Mr. KARLIN. There are many pretty bad Soviet writers with
bylines.
Mr. SOURWINE. Now, between the time you wrote your play in
1950 and the time you wrote your first script in 1955, what did you
do?
Mr. KARLIN. I worked a long period during the wartime in Moscow
Radio, and in the Soviet Informational Bureau, and in some commit-
tees?there were and now there are many committees, for example,
the Peace Committee, the Committee of Slavonic Nations, the Com-
mittee of the Soviet Youth, and the Women's Committee, and so on.
There were many possibilies to write articles for those committees.
And very often they translate these articles and send them to the
West, or to the East, for the propandistic publication.
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And I worked as a free lance writer, as you call it here in Western
society, free lance contributor for those organizations. It was not so
prestigious, I would say, but from a practical point of view it was an
easy way to make money. And they paid good money. I did this?I
repeat, a purely propagandistic job--well.
Of course I have written many other plays and scripts which were
not accepted. I got some money for the scripts, even three of them,
which later were not produced. But I had contracts, I worked, I
got paid, and therefore I was busy with all these jobs.
Mr. SOURWINE. The four motion pictures that were made from
scripts that you prepared or in which you collaborated, were these
what we would call A pictures?that is, top-flight motion pictures?
Mr. KARLIN. No, I would not say so.
Mr. SOURWINE. Would you call them B pictures?
Mr. KARLIN. I would say they were ordinary, middle-rank pictures.
From the political point of view they were well-distributed, because
from the point of the ideology or propaganda, the party needed
such pictures.
Mr. SOURWINE. Do you have the star system in motion pictures
in the U.S.S.R.?
Mr. KARLIN. You mean among the play -writers?
Mr. SOURWINE. No, do they have motion picture stars, movie
stars?
Mr. KARLIN. They have, of course. But in reality it is absolutely
different from the system you have here. They call them stars and
they try to advertise them. But their position in the U.S.S.R. are
second-class positions, because at the first place there are script writers
and directors, because the movie must be first of all ideologically
and politically acceptable. And that only could be done by the directors
and script writers. And the actors are only participants.
Mr. SouRwiNE. Were any famous or important actors involved in
any of the four movies that you scripted?
Mr. KARLIN. Oh, yes, I think sonic of them.
For example, in the movie "Captain of the First Rank," there
was one actor who was?and I guess he is still alive, but he is an
old man now?he was a great actor. He visited the United States, I
guess, with the Moscow Art Theater. It is Boris Livanov. He is a
really great actor. And I know him personally, because he was the
friend of Boris Pasternak and I met him, many times there in Paster-
mink's home. And he was and he is?even the Soviet authority news-
papers still mention him as a great actor, despite the fact that he was
not so obedient, and he is, I guess, a drunkard, and he created many,
many scandals, and lie was not such a comfortable man for the Soviet
authorities.
Now another one?well, in a way he was a famous, because later he
was a participant in one of the KGB operations, Michail Orlov. He
was very popular in Moscow. He was the prime singer in-the Moscow
Operetta. He was a young fellow at that time. And he had great
popularity, among the females particularly.
And they were others famous, for example, in the Soviet state of
Georgia.
Mr. SOURWINE. When was the last of these four scripts written?
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Mr. KARLIN. I guess the last two Georgians were written approxi-
mately at the same time?there could be a difference of 2 or 3 months'
time. It was done in 1958-59, I think.
Mr. SOURWINE. What did you do between 1958 and the time you
left the Soviet Union?
Mr. KARLIN. I have written probably three of four others scripts.
Mr. SOURWINE. Were they produced?
Mr. KARLIN. No, they were not. And particularly the last one?
which was, I would say, probably comparatively the best, because
there was some hope, do something well and in a way honestly, only
there was a very little hope, because that was particularly the time,
we called it the thaw time. That was the Khrushchev period.
Mr. SOURWINE. Were these four scripts that you prepared after
1958 all rejected?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, they were. The last one was suspended, you see.
Despite of this fact, I was paid for it. It was co-production with
Mexicans, the Zaharia Co. Someone told me it is famous in Mexico.
That was a period when we hoped to do something with foreign
movie representatives. Why it was suspended? Because first, the
Minister of Culture, Mrs. Furtzeva wanted to do it, and later "situa-
tion" changed, and she said, well, we Must wait.
Mr. Severn, Jerry Severn, who is, or he was?not a producer, but
the man between the producers' he represented Zaharia Co.?came
to Mosc,ow. I was introduced to him and I met him.
And then I have written this script, which was called "The Rose of
Castellanos." This gentleman, Jerry Severn, came to Moscow with
the idea of making this movie, and with a sort of libretto, the first
script. And he at that time represented tins Mexican Zaharia firm.
Then there was a decision in Moscow to do that. And I have written
the script.
But after that as I say the situation changed.
It is a very, very typical situation, I would say.
Mr. SOURWINE. In order to make a movie jointly with another
country, the U.S.S.R. finds it necessary to retain script control, does
it not, in order to be sure that the script is ideologically acceptable?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes. It is all very complicated. The Soviet position is
this: they wouid do only these movies winch would be O.K. for them
from the ideological point of view. And there were so many pretty
sharp quarrels between the foreign producers and the Soviet repre-
sentative I remember this: Alexander Mnushkin (Frenchman) visited
the U.S.S.R. with an idea to shoot Soviet-French movie. He told me, it
is impossible to have any business with the Soviet officials, because
they want to do something different, and they do not think about
commercial interest, and: they want to press us, and we cannot do that.
Mr. Minishkin wanted, as far as I remember, to make a movie about
a great Russian composer by Tschaikovsky. At the beginning both
sides tried to produce a movie without any politic?a movie which
would be comfortable for Soviets and French. But later the Soviet
authority tried to use even the name of Tschaikovsky for their political
benefit. But nothing about the contemporary Soviet life of course.
They think that something like Tschaikovsky and Chekov is a good
propaganda too.
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MT. SOURWINE. You never did a movie script on your story about
John?
Mr. KARLIN. Oh, yes. That was an interesting story. It was not
my idea. It was an idea which was originated in the Central Commit-
tee, of the CPSU when Mr. Paul Robeson came to Moscow, which
was in 1959, I guess. And I even went to see him with the manager
of one of the biggest Moscow studios (Gorky Studio), Mr. Britikov,
and another gentleman, Bain (chief of the script department).
We went outside of Moscow to the Kremlin Hospital, Barviha.
This hospital was only for the very top Communist's bosses. And Paul
Robeson was there. We went to see him to discuss a possibility to
shoot a movie. The idea was to create the movie based on my play
with Paul Robeson playing the central part. At that time we dis-
cussed it with Paul Robeson.
He gave us the hint that by some reason?as far as I remember
that was not his personal reason?for some reason he thought it
would not be good to do this movie, because, well, he said, "if I would
do that, I don't know whether I would have access back to my country
and whether I would be able to do some politics there."
And then he mentioned about his son Paul Robeson, Jr., and so
on. He said he preferred not to participate in this job.
After that the chief of the movie department, Mr. Rachuk, sent a
letter to the Central Committee of the CPSU. It was again suspended.
But the idea was the Central Committee's, not mine.
Mr. SOURWINE. Did you actually go so far as to prepare a movie
script?
Mr. KARLIN. No. I wrote only two or three pages, an excerpt, sort of
libretto. Still in my play there was John Robertson, another Negro
who was like Paul Robeson. But in the movie they wanted to do
that in a different way, to use Paul Robeson, so you would see his
personality.
Mr. SOURWINE. Now, did you at any time come to work for the
KGB?
Mr. KARLIN. At that time?
MT. SOURWINE. At any time.
MT. KARLIN. Yes sir.
MT. SOURWINE. liOW was this and how did it come about?
Mr. KARLIN. It happened in 1946. I was recruited?in Russia we
say co-opted?by the KGB, and at that time it was MGB, Ministry
of-Security, government security.
MT. SOURWINE. Ministry of State Security?
Mr. KARLIN. Ministry of State Security, that is right. And I was
co-opted.
I could not say to the MGB?"No." Sometimes a very personal
matter could be vital in such a situation. I worked at that time in
Moscow Radio. in External Service, Anglo-American Department.
Mr. SOURWINE. Anglo-American?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes. I guess now they have two separate, English
and American services. it that time they were together.
Mr. SOURWINE. And you worked on the English language broad-
casts to Great Britain and the United States?
Mr. KARLIN. It is correct, sir. Being in Georgia in the wartime
period, I met one family, the Mykuschkovs. He was a kind of news-
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paperman. Later I realized that he was a little bit?being a newspaper-
man, he was a man who could do everything. And he was of an
adventuristic nature. And I met his wife in Tbilisi too. We had?well,
it happened?we had a love relation. And when they both came
back to Kiev?because originally they were from Kiev, during the
wartime they evacuated and went to Georgia, and when they came
back to Kiev she started to work in the milk factory. I guess she
being an engineer did some sort of illegal thing there.
In. other words, one day she came to Moscow, and she told me that
she is in trouble, that she could be arrested, that she wanted to be
hidden somewhere.
Well, that was rather a psychological case. And it is difficult to
explain all this in such a short time, but I will try to give you a schema.
I decided to help her. She stayed in my place, in my room. Her
husband was in Kiev. The situation was very dangerous, because, well,
the Soviet police tried to find her everywhere. There is a. special
service, a whole Soviet Union search, and she was the object of tins
search.
Therefore, any knock on the door of my place was rather unpleasant.
One morning there was a knock at the door. And we were very
frightened. When I opened the door there was a young fellow who was.
introduced to me later as Volody. He smiled in such a nice way, and.
he showed me a little red card with the three letters, MGB. He told.
me he did not want to enter my room, he stayed in the corridor, and
he told me in a whisper, half a voice, that he wants me to go out to
the street and not to talk here. And he wanted me to dress?well,
I was dressed but not completely?and that he would wait in the.
corridor, and we would go out.
Then I looked at?her name was Berta Nemlicher, she was the
wife of Mykuschkov. She was a Jewess. I did not tell her anything.
And we had seine gestures. And I left her.
went with this Volody to the street, and he said, "Well, I would:
like to take you to some place." He did not tell me anything, what
is the idea, and I did not ask him anything, because it was such a
funny thing. And I thought at that time that he came because of her.
But at the same time I thought, why?
That was the KGB, but she was under the search of the criminal.
police,. But still in the U.S.S.R. every crime could be a political one,
it is vary difficult to put a slightly clear line between the two sorts of:
crimes, political or pure crimes. And, therefore, I was in a position to
wait, to see what is going on really.
We went to the street, we took the underground. I thought that he
had: decided to take me to Lubiankm it is the headquarters of the.
Soviet Secret Service, the KGB or I\'/IGB. But we passed and we
stopped in the Krasniy Vorota station. That is the underground..
station.
Then we went to Chapligin Street. We entered a yard, and then we
turned to the left, and I guess it was the third or second floor. And he
rang there.
The door was opened by some; very, very Slavonic type of man
about 35, blond, smiling, very gentle, "Come in, come in, folks." And
we entered.
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Then I had approximately 2 hours conversation with this gentleman,
who introduced himself as Sergey Ivanovich Rumynzev. It was not
his real name, that was his agent's name. Later I have known his real
name was Egorov. And we talked about 2 hours.
But in this period I could not still realize what was going on, whether
they were either from KGB, or whether that was a game, and they
still wanted to know something about this lady, this Berta, and what
my position was in this. I was frightened by this situation, because it
was really clangorous, first of all, for her, and in some way for me.
But then later he mentioned about my trip to Germany which I
had done at the end of the war in 1945, working in the Moscow Radio,
and about my trip with Mrs. Churchill, Clementine Churchill, when
she visited the U.S.S.R. in 1944. I accompanied her as a correspondent
of Moscow Radio. And there were many, many funny stories. And
they asked me whether so-and-so happened. And I told them. And
there was laughing.
They (Sergey Ivanovich and Volody) were very polite. They came
close to saying that I could be very useful to them?that it was a
rather unusual life, it would be slightly hidden, and nobody would
know about it, and that they need such a person as I am. They gave
me some compliments at that time. Well, they mentioned that it
would be pretty adventurous life to work with them.
It was their game.
It was necessary for me to give the answer, yes or no. And I said
yes. And I guess there were many, many reasons why I did it. But
the first was, of course, the destiny of this lady. Because I still thought
if I would say yes, and if I would become a KGB co-opted worker,
it would make it easier to help Berta.
I said yes. They gave me a paper to sign, an obligation to keep
everything between us in secret.
And from this time my future as co-opted worker of the MGB
was decided?I started to be a co-opted worker, that was the moment
when I did it.
And that was in 1946.
Mr. SOURWINE. Were you paid for this work?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes. Later they gave me the hint that they will try
to help me financially. But it would not be a regular payment.
First of all, for any operation I would be paid money, usually a
little bit more than necessary. And on a special occasion?that could
be May Day, October Day, three or four times a year, or whenever
it was?a co-opted worker would say, "look, I have some trouble, could
you give me a little money," and they would do it. But they would
not pay regularly. They do not do that. And therefore it is not so
expensive for them to have this institution, particularly when the
person is in a top position, he does not need any money. But if that
is necessary, if that is a good opportunity for this, they do that.
Mr. SOURWINE. What type of work did you do for the KGB?
Mr. KARLIN. To answer this question generally, I guess I would say
that my work was exclusively among foreign representatives in Mos-
cow and abroad, when I have been abroad. That was only among the
foreign representatives, diplomats, newspapermen. And there was not
any one operation, generally talking, among the Soviet people. And
therefore I guess I was in a different position absolutely if you compare
it with Mr. Kuznetsov's co-optive activity.
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Mr. SOURWINE. Did you know him?
Mr. KARLIN. No, I do not know him personally.
Mr. SOTJRWINE. What was the nature of your duties, generally
speaking, in dealing with these people, the foreigners that you just
mentioned?
Mr. KARLIN. Generally speaking, the interest of KGB, was to
find any possible way to use everyone from the foreigners to do
"something" for KGB. That means practically, first of all, to get
them to be dependent on the KGB, to involve them, and to recruit
them?not co-opt, to recruit them?and with many, many different
ideas, to use them in Moscow, and abroad. Well, they have such, so
many, different and pretty big plans, they are not making jobs only
for today, they are thinking about tomorrow, about many years
?ahead in the future, and so on. But they are looking to use any possible
way to get these foreigners, to have them in their game.
If you want to know their job, I would say this: they want to know
the whole secrets, in Moscow, in embassies?it is not so important,
but it is important. And then, of course, the most important thing is
to use recruited foreigners abroad.
Mr. SOURWINE. I would like to have you go back and tell us the
facts of your birth and parentage and how you were educated. I will
ask questions on it, if this is agreeable.
What were your parents' names, and what was their station in life?
Mr. KARLIN. My father first Or mother?
Mr. SOURWINE. Either way.
Mr. KARLIN. My father?that is my name, Krotkov Vasiliy. He
was Russian. He was a painter?well, he was a known artist in Georgia.
He produced some pictures, some paintings. And at the same time
he worked in the central Georgian newspaper as a cartoonist.
Mr. SOURWINE. Caricature cartooner?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOTJRWINE. When you said painter, you meant he was an
artist?
Mr. KARLIN, Yes.
Mr. SouRwiNE. He painted portraits?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes. Until now I cannot understand the nature of my
father and many, many others, because he was an honest man, but
at the same time he did his paintings about Stalin's life, and then he
was invited twice to visit Beria in the Tbilisi vicinity in his dacha,
and he sketched him. And this was a very famous portrait of Beria.
And even when my father died, Beria sent a telegram from Moscow?
that was in 1938 with, you know, an expression of sympathy.
My mother was an .actress, a dramatic actress. She died in 1937.
My father was not?no one in our family had been a party member,
including me. But my father was among the active Georgian Soviet
artists who did everything to glorify Soviet life as it was at that time.
But at the same time, I can remember?among ourselves, of course
it was impossible not to see the reality. But that was probably the
problem of his children, you know, he tried to find some compromise.
That was his own tragedy.
My mother died, and my father died after that 7 months time. And
after that I went to Moscow to
Mr. SOURWINE. Let's go back a little.
When were you born?
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Mr. KARLIN. I was born in 1917, November 11.
Mr. SOUR-WINE. You have told us where?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. Did you go to school in that city?
Mr. KARLIN. I went to school in Tbilisi. At that time that was a
labor school. That was a 7-years school.
And then I went to 2 years professional school to be a metal-worker.
Then I went to the Academy of Art where my father was a teacher
at the same time. And I spent a couple of years there. And therefore
I was, and I am, a little bit of an artist, too.
Mr. SOURWINE. Do you work in oils?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, in oils; and even as a sculptor.
Mr. SOUR-WINE. In clay?
Mr. KARLIN. In clay; yes.
That was what I like more than the other thing. But at that time
I had rheumatism, and this sort of work that is a very humid area
in the studio.
And then I went to the Tbilisi University. That is the capital of
Georgia. And I guess I spent there a year and a half.
And then after my mother died I went to Moscow. And I joined
the Literary Institute of the Union of Soviet Writers.
Mr. SOURWINE. When did you graduate from the university?
Mr. KARLIN. The Tbilisi? I did not graduate.
Mr. SOURWINE. You attended it for 2 years?
Mr. KARLIN. About a year and a half.
Mr. SOURWINE. You graduated from the equivalent of our high
schools?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes; probably SO.
Mr. SOURWINE. In what year did you graduate from the Russian
equivalent of high school?
Mr. KARLIN. That was in 1938 but I did not graduate. You see,
when my mother died, with the help of my father, I moved to Moscow
to the Literary Institute of the Union of Soviet Writers.
Mr. SOURWINE. Perhaps the record is not clear because I have not
asked the right questions.
Your first schooling was for a period, I think you said, of 7 years?
Mr. KARLIN. Seven years, that is true.
Mr. SOURWINE. And that would be seven grades of school? One
grade a year?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. And you started when you were about 6 years
old, or 7?
Mr. KARLIN. The first year?it was usual at that time?that was
not the first class. There was the preschool, you know, for children.
And then it was 7 years.
Mr. SO-URWINE. You started about 1924?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, it could be.
Mr. SOURWINE. And you finished that school about 1931?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, that is true.
Mr. SOURWINE. And then you went to another school for 2 years?
Mr. KARLIN. A technical school.
Mr. SOURWINE. That would be a technical school or trade school?
Mr. KARLIN. Well ...
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Mr. SOURWINE. What we would say a -junior high school trade
school?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SounwINE. And then you went for another 2 years?
Mr. KARLIN. In the Academy of Art.
Mr. SOURWINE. Which is what we would call a high school, I guess.
Mr. KARLIN. That is a unique academy, because there were and
there are now, I guess, only five or six in the whole country. (U.S.S.R.)
Mr. SOURWINE. You had 11 years of schooling then?
Mr. KARLIN. But you know that is only for starting the arts, and
with some history of art, and that sort of thing.
Mr. SOURWINE. And that brought you to 1935, did it not?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes. And then the university.
Mr. SOURWINE. You had 11 years there of schooling, and then
you went to the university?
MT. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. And that 11 years of schooling would be approxi-
mately the equivalent of the American grade school and high school;
would it not?
Mr. KARLIN. It could be, I guess so.
Mr. SOURWINE. We figure 12 years of schooling through the 12th
grade finishes high school, and then one is ready for the university.
Mr. KARLIN. But still your education is better than mine was at
that time, because that was a time when education in the U.S.S.R.
was badly organized.
Mr. SOURWINE: But anyway, you started the university in 1935?
. Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SounwINE. And you went for 2 years?
MT. KARLIN. Approximately.
Mr. SOURWINE. And then you transferred to Moscow?
Mr, KARLIN. That is true.
Mr. SOURWINE. In 1937?
MT. KARLIN. Yes; after my mother died.
Mr.- SOURWINE. And your father and mother both died at that
time?
Mr. KARLIN. My mother died in 1937, and my father in 1938.
Mr. SOURWINE. After you moved to Moscow?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
MT. SOURWINE. Was he with you in Moscow?
Mr. KARLIN. No. But he gave me?not himself, but he told some
important people in Georgia, and they gave me some references, some
letters to Moscow, because it was not so easy to join the literary insti-
tute.
This institute was rather Unique. That was only one institute in the
U.S.S.R. which had to produce writers, if one can produce writers.
Mr. SouuwIxE. if you want to produce writers at one end you have
to put them in at the other?
MT. KARLIN. Sir?
Mr. SOURWINE. You have to put writers into it at one end if you
want to bring writers out at the other.
Mr. KARLIN. The idea was to select capable people who can write,
who decided to start with some ability, and then to have them?well, I
guess the idea is wrong?but still I joined this institute which Mr.
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Kuznetsov joined, and Mr. Belinkov, and we have three of us from this
institute now in the Western society. Belinkov is in the States now.
I was in this institute until the beginning of the war.
- Mr. SOURWINE. Until 1939?
Mr. KARLIN. No, 1941.
Mr. SouRwiNE. Until 1941?
MT. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. That is, until Russia got into the war?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. You did not graduate from that institute?
Mr. KARLIN. There was, I guess, only 1 year I spent 3 years
there, it was a 4-year course. Therefore I did not graduate, and there-
fore I did not get the official diploma.
MT. SOURWINE. But you came out of that course a writer, did you
not?
Mr. KARLIN. Well, at that time I had done something. I guess
there were a couple of plays which I tried to stage, but without success.
Mr. SOURWINE. Do you hold any college degrees?
Mr. KARLIN. No I do not.
Mr. SOURWINE. How soon after you left that institution of learning
did you begin to make a living by writing?
Mr. KARLIN. Oh, I would say even being in the institute I have
made it, because first of all, they had a special subsidy, and they paid
me a little money.
And then I worked as the chief of the literary department, or
division, in one of the Moscow theaters. My job at that time was to
read plays and to try to find a good one, and to stage?I was respon-
sible for the plays, you see, for new plays for the theater. I guess I
got at that time about 400-rubles, which was good money.
Mr. SOURWINE. That was a Government job?
Mr. KARLIN. Well, all jobs in the U.S.S.R. are Government jobs.
The theater was the Government theater and so it was a Government
job, yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. Actually, then, your employment was by one
branch or another of the Government from the time you left college?
from before the time you left college?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes and before when I was in Tbilisi I got some
money when I wrote the script for the movie. And it was very close
to be produced. And they paid me again. And that was probably
one of my big earnings at that tune. And that was the movie about the
train going to Gory. That is a little place where Stalin was born.
And that was something about "the enemies of people," the people
whom Stalin arrested at that time, about the KGB, and how they
were trying to secure the U.S.S.R., and so on.
There were periods when Stalin decided to make only five or six
movies a year, and therefore they stopped many of them. But that
was before I went to Moscow, being a student of the Tbilisi University.
Mr. SOURWINE. So that when KGB wanted you to do work for
that agency, you said they co-opted you?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. And they found you already working for a Govern-
ment agency, and it was just a matter of changing your duties and
your place of work?
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Mr. KARLIN. They wanted to use me because they realized that I
was in a position?at that time I worked in Moscow Radio, and I
had made some writings for the Soviet Informational Bureau, I had
conducted many interviews With different people, and I could visit
practically everybody?there was a limit, of course. And therefore,
when we started "our" job, at first they send me to visit some Soviet
people. And they trained me at that time, and I was all right for them
because I had an easy access to other people, because I worked in
Moscow Radio.
Mr. SOURWINE. You said you had no university degrees, but you
speak a number of different languages, do you not?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes; but they came in a practical way from my life.
Mr. SOURWINE. You did not study languages in the university?
Mr. KARLIN. Oh, yes. But in that period., particularly, the foreign
languages were rather a formality, and not serious studying.
Mr. SOURWINE. What languages do you speak?
Mr. KARLIN. What do you mean when you say speak?
Mr. SOURWINE. Do you speak Georgian?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, Georgian--of course, but I forget it. In school
d
I learned this language, an my friends were Georgians. But when
you have not hac the opportunity to use language, it deteriorates.
And, therefore, now it would be difficult for me to talk Georgian.
Mr. SOURWINE. But you speak Russian?
Mr. KARLIN. That is my native language.
Mr. SOURWINE. And you speak English, obviously.
Mr. KARLIN. I spent about 3 or 4 months when I worked in TASS?
that is the Telegraph. Agency of the Soviet Union?because they wanted
to send me abroad. And they gave me an opportunity to use my work-
ing time to study English; they gave me the teacher. And we worked
together without any group in an individual way, I would say, 4 or
5 hours daily. And that is the only period when I learned English.
Mr. SOURWINE. And when was this?
Mr. KARLIN. This was in 1943.
Mr. SOURWINE. And this was after you had gone to work for
the KGB?
Mr. KARLIN. No; that was before.
Mr. SOURWINE. But the KGB controls TASS, does it not?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, the KGB controls all this organization which
has a relation with foreign countries.
Mr. SOURWINE. But TASS is one of the covers for the so-called
legal agents of the KGB in foreign countries, is it not?
Mr. KARLIN. Correct, sir. It is absolutely correct. But that is a
rather delicate thing. They are trying to do that?for example, they
can create some rumor sort of cover. They bring a newcomer, and call
him an engineer, they say he would work half a year in TASS, in the
foreign department, because they want to send him abroad later.
They would say that this gentleman came for training, and then go
abroad. That means he is from the KGB, you know.
The real newspaper columnists, they know one another by names.
1\4r. SOURWINE. Which were you, a real newspaperman, or were you
training to go abroad?
Mr. KARLIN. Again, I repeat, that is a very delicate thing. I can
give you an example, and it will clarify your question.
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Later in my KGB activity, I met such a gentleman?:he is well
known and he is now in a very, very top position- ---Micbeev. He was
TASS's correspondent in Australia. And I remember, when we had a
close relation, how he told me that he had big trouble, because he had
two masters. One master was Palgunov. That was the boss of TASS
at that time. He was a member of the Central Committee, a very top
man.
Of course, someone from KGB would call Palgunov, and he would
do everything. But still he was really responsible for this TASS job.
Micheev had to do some job for TASS as a columnist. But at the same
time he had some special order, from the KGB (1\4GB). .
And there was another master, you see, And sometimes two
masters didn't know what is going on. And he was in trouble because
there was a rumor in Moscow, in TASS, that Micheev is doing
something wrong, you see. But he did not do anything wrong, he
worked for another master.
And then, for example, he told me he wrote a note to Malenkov?
he was at that time one of Secretary of the Central Committee of
CPSU?he said, "Please make it clear, one said orders are to do so,
another side so."
Mr. SOURWINE. Were you in such a delicate position at the time
you were getting your English language training?
.Mr. KARLIN. III TASS?
Mr. SOURWINE. Yes.
Mr. KARLIN. At that time I had not any relation with KGB. It
was in 1943, when I worked in TASS.
Mr. SOURWINE. You were training to go abroad: were you not?
Mr. KARLIN. That is right. I came from Tbilisi in 1943.. And I sent
a letter to Mr. Dekanosov. He was one of the closest associates of
Beria. And I know very well his wife. We have a private relation with
her. When I came to Moscow I wanted at that time to work with the
Minister of Foreign Staff. And I sent .this letter through her to him.
Dekanosov was the Soviet Ambassador to Germany before the war.
And he was the first boss of the International Department of NKVD
when Beria, was there. And he was a very big man. And I asked him
to help me to get work in the Minister of Foreign Staff.
Well, he sent me to this Polgunov, whom I mentioned. But that?
that time Polgunov had two positions. He was the boss of TASS and
he was the boss of the Press Department in the Minister of Foreign
Staff. When I met him he said: "Listen, I would like now to put you
in TASS to work in the internal, not external, internal department, and
to start to learn a language. And then I will be able to send you abroad
to work."
And that is what I have done. I started to work in the Internal
Dept., but I thought that they would send me abroad later.
Mr. SOURWINE. Your understanding was, then, that you were
training to be a real member of TASS, a news gatherer?
Mr. KARLIN. You know, at that time I was not so familiar with
all Soviet systems. In the Soviet reality, even officially, exists such an
idea that every patriotic Soviet man must be ready to help the KGB.
Mr. SOURWINE. YOU must work for the state?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, with the idea of, sometimes something very
idealistic, that sounds very clean and so on. And therefore, everyone
who wants to go to work abroad must be ready for this additional
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service. But at that time I did not think about particularly this
really. Because, well, I thought first I would learn English and then
see what it would be.
Mr. SOURWINE. You were expecting, then, to be sent either to
England, or to the United States, or to Canada, or at least to some
English-speaking country?
Mr. KARLIN. Sure.
Mr. SomtwINE. So you had about 6 months language training,
you say?
Mr. KARLIN. No, I guess about 4 months.
Mr. SOURWINE. About 4 months of learning English?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. And that is all the formal studying of English
you did?
Mr. KARLIN. That is correct, sir.
Mr. SOURWINE. And yet you speak and write English?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. Do you read English?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. Now, you speak some French, do you not?
Mr. KARLIN. No I would not say that.
Mr. SOURWINE. I50 you speak Spanish?
Mr. KARLIN. Oh, yes. But that is what I have done here, being in
Spain. But when I was in my own country I did not talk Spanish.
Mr. SOURWINE. Off the record.
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. SOURWINE. You speak pretty good Spanish.
Mr. KARLIN. It is a result of my being in Spain. .
Mr. SOURWINE. Let the record show that I asked him a question
in Spanish, which was answered in Spanish.
Do you speak German?
Mr. KARLIN. Well, some German. Because I have been in Germany
many, many times. The first time I was there, 2 months time. That
was in October and November 1945. And then being co-opted by the
KGB, I have been in Germany over a half a year. That was the second
time.
Mr. SOURWINE. YOU must learn languages quickly.
Mr. KARLIN. I would say limited languages, practical languages,
yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. In what other languages that we have not men-
tioned, if any, can you make yourself understood?
Mr. KARLIN. Well, again, I talked Armenian.
Mr. SOURWINE. You ''do talk Armenian? ?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, but that was a long time ago. Because we had
many neighbors in Tbilisi, and we talked Georgian or Armenian
altogether.
Mr. SOURWINE. Do you speak any Lithuanian?
Mr. KARLIN. No. I have been in Estonia a long time, but it isn't
Lithuania.
Mr. SOT_TRWINE. Do you speak Estonian?
Mr. KARLIN. Well, some words.
Mr. SOURWINE. Any other languages?
Mr. KARLIN. No. I guess that is enough.
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Mr. SOURWINE. Oh, I think so. Off the record.
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. SOURWINE. Back on the record.
When did you first leave Russia to go to any foreign country?
Mr. KARLIN. It was in?it is Germany, 1945. But that was the
Soviet Zone at that time, I was only in the Soviet Zone.
Mr. SOURWINE. You went to East Germany?
Mr. KARLIN. That is correct.
Mr. SOURWINE. HOW- 101Ig?
Mr. KARLIN. I had been there 2 months.
Mr. SOURWINE. In what capacity did you go?
Mr. KARLIN. Well, it is a rather complicated story. I will try to
explain it.
In 1945 I worked in Moscow Radio, as I mentioned before, in
Anglo-American department. Once a friend of mine called me from the
Movie Institute. He said: "Listen' we have now here possibility for
many people to go to Germany for a dismantling job." And you
know, at that time they needed to take a picture of the parts of some
big machines, and the places from. where they dismantled them, and
all that.
And like everybody, I could take pictures, I know how to do that.
And he said: "Listen, it is very easy to put anybody's name in the
list of our institute, students or teachers. And they all will be sent
to Germany to help--to work in this dismantling job. If you want,
I can put your name on this list. Can you get, well, a month or two
months off from your office?
I said, "I will try. Let's see what I can do."
And I went to my boss and I said; "Listen, I would like to do
that, can you give me two months for vacation?"
And he said, "Okay."
And I was there as a lieutenant. But that was, all was fiction,
because these people were sent as military with these shoulder straps,
but that was not
Mr. SOURWINE. You mean you wore a lieutenant's uniform on
that trip?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes. But that was a formality.
Mr. SOURWINE. A lieutenant of what?
Mr. KARLIN. That is a good question. Army.
Mr. SOURWINE. You wore a uniform of a lieutenant in the army?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, without any specification?in 2 Or 3 weeks
time the Germans understood everything, and they could recognize
whether it was a real military person from the army or whether it
was a dismantling team man. But still we were wearing the uniforms.
And I had been there 2 months time. And I did not know anything
about the dismantling job. There was such a mess. No one knew why
he was coming here. And we had a document for the feeding, and
so on.
And practically, I would say I had taken 20 pictures for dismantling,
and no one needed them, and I never gave them to anyone.
But at that time I was very free, and I could travel there in Ger-
many, and I could get some clothes, and it was ideal for all of us to buy
something, because though Germany was ruined, it was a place where
you could get something, and in my country we could not get anything.
Mr. SOURWINE. How long were you in Germany?
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Mr, KARLIN. At that time, 2 months' time.
Mr. SOURWINE. What place?
Mr. KARLIN. My central place was Dresden. And that is in Saxony.
And I have been in Berlin, in whole parts of Berlin. At that time there
was not any limit, no zones?there were sectors, but it was easier to
enter.
Mr. SOURWINE. You could go anywhere in Berlin?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. HOW did you get to Berlin, by air?
Mr. KARLIN. By plane.
Mr. SOURWINE. From Dresden?
Mr. KARLIN. No, from Moscow to Johannestal. That was the air-
port at that time.
Mr. SOURWINE. And then you went from Berlin back to Moscow?
Mr. KARLIN. No; by train I went to Dresden, and Leipsig, and then
I came back to Berlin, and from Berlin back to Moscow by plane.
MT. SOURWINE. And then you had to take your uniform off?
Mr. KARLIN. Oh, yes. And I flew, by the way, the same plane with
Yehudi Menuhin. And I remember it was rather cold then, and he
walked into the room flexing his fingers like this [indicating], training.
It was cold at the time, it was in November and it was cold.
Mr. SOURWINE. Is that the only time you ever wore a uniform?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, sir.
Mr. SOURWINE. You never actually were in the army?
Mr. KARLIN. No. I was firstly in the war period?We called it at
that time destroyers, the battalion of destroyers. This was a voluntary
military formation. In the beginning of the war, there were two kinds
of them. One was under the army responsibility, and another one
was under NKVD. At that time it was NKVD.
Mr. SOURWINE. Which one were you in?
Mr. KARLIN. I was under the NKVD, destroyer battalion. And then
I had my first meeting, and only one, with the very top man in NKVD,
Sergey Sudoplatov. He was the chief major. That was a very top
position. NKVD's men at that time had very different titles. And he
was the boss of the international department.
When the war started, I was in this destroyer battalion, regiment,
as a soldier. And I sent a letter, because I remembered my father's
relation with Beria, I sent a letter to Beria asking that I would be
used in a more important way in the war. And Beria was at that time
a member of the committee of defense. There were five men in it.
One Sunday on my off hours when I came to my place I found a
piece of paper with a telephone number to call immediately. When I
called, that was the NKVD telephone. They told me, "Well, we want
to see you."
I said, "I am in such a destroyer battalion."
And this gentleman told me, "That does not matter. Can you
come now?"
"Yes,"?or maybe the next day. 1(10 not remember exactly. But the
next day I Came to the NKVD.
From my point of view I think Sudoplatov was very elegant, a very
clever man. He had many decorations. And T would not say that he
was a typical KGB man, he was a more refined man. As far as I
know, later, he was shot by Stalin, that was mentioned in Khoklov's
book.
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20
He talked to me, and he said, "I can take you to my brigade."
And at that time they put all their activity, of course, against th e
Germans, because his department was responsible for all counter-
espionage activity abroad. But at that time the most important thing
was of course the Germans.
And he said, "Well, we will put you in our brigade, you will be out of
Moscow, and we will give you all necessary teachers to learn German,
and our job, and then we will drop you somewhere in Germany."
Everything was actually ready for this. But at that time the Ger-
mans saved me, because there was such a very- fast move of Germans
to Moscow that even the KGB (NKVD) left Moscow.
I visited them twice, I guess. And I met another gentleman, Mak-
larsky. He was the assistant of Sudoplatov. And I think probably that
he did not like me. Sudoplatov was very polite with me, and he
mentioned even the name of Beria; he said, "Well, you sent a letter to
Beria. Well, I want to help you." I do not know whether it was personal,
but Maklarsky was different. He talked to me in a different way. I
think he did not like me for some reason. And therefore I was saved.
That was my first relation with the NKVD. And in that time I was
in uniform, sir, because I was in the destroyers battalion.
Mr. SOURWINE. And that was before you went to Germany?
Mr. KARLIN. Before?
Mr. SOURWINE. Yes.
Mr. KARLIN. That was in the beginning of the war, that was in
1941.
Mr. SOURWINE. But you did not go outside Russia?
Mr. KARLIN. No, sir.
Mr. SOURWINE. And then the only other time you were in uniform
was when you went to Berlin and Dresden and other places in Saxony?
Mr. KARLIN. Correct.
Mr. SOURWINE. What kind of a uniform did you wear with the
KGB destroyers battalion?
Mr. KARLIN. That was a rather funny uniform, and a rather
improvisation of something. Because that was not really?it was half
military, even. Because they gave us only this part
Mr. SOURWINE. The tunic?
Mr. KARLIN. The tunic and they had such a funny three angle?
this red sign on the lapel?that does not exist in the army.
Mr. SOURWINE. What rank?
Mr. KARLIN. We had not any rank at that time. That was the
commander, and the Boetz fighters. They were created in the first
place because they thought there could be German parachuters, and
then to keep order in Moscow during the bombing period. Therefore,
our job till October was only to keep the order at night, and to try to
do something against this firing of bombs which make fire and, first
of all, to check people to covering windows, in this period.
But we had German rifles, Mausers, I remember, at that time. I do
not know where they got them. But we had only those.
Our commander called us fighters. Each Moscow district had a
battalion. We had No. 22, the Sverdlow region. And later, a little
bit later, when the KGB people were fleeing, they came from every-
where, and later our chief was KGB man. I think probably his as-
sistants were KGB men also.
We were fighters. We were not soldiers in the army.
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Mr. SOURWINE. How long did you wear that uniform?
Mr. KARLIN. Until October 16.
Mr. SOURWINE. And then what?
Mr. KARLIN. Well, you SOO, that is again a very particular situa-
tion. I will try to explain it.
I had been in the fourth year in my institute. And among our
students there were some from the first year, and some from the
second year, and there were 10 or 12 of us from the fourth year. But
in that time?first, many, many students from the institutes were
taken to the army. Among them there were many important tech-
nical students. And Stalin decided that he needed these people.
And he signed the order to take all these people back from the army,
or from any military formations. And he mentioned the students from
the fourth year.
And of course the order came to our battalion in October, the
worst period, when the Germans were 2 miles from Moscow, and
everything was really awful. And at that time the whole of us, students
from the fourth year were called back from battalion. They gave us
before the machineguns, grenades that was the real thing?and
we knew that we were going to die there. But particularly this time
the order came from Stalin. And the chief of our battalion called us
12 and said, "Well, go out, that is an order, you must go somewhere"?
because at that time in Moscow everything was like that. And we went
practically at the street.
We gave him our machineguns, grenades, our uniforms, and we
were on the street. And we went to the Union of Soviet Writers and
we asked them; what shall we do? IN want to be evacuated. We
want to be taken from Moscow.
And they put us on the last train. And that was all a mess. And
in such a funny way my military career at that time was finished.
Mr. SOURWINE. Where did you go from Moscow?
Mr. KARLIN. Well, we went firstly to Kazan.
Mr. SOTIRWINE. What did you do there?
Mr. KARLIN. We thought how to get someone who would help us
to become military correspondents, to join the staff of military news-
papers.
Mr. SOURWINE. Did you do that?
Mr. KARLIN. We tried, but we could not find any way to do that.
Because at that time the military offices were in different parts.
And some people from the Union of Soviet Writers told us, you must
ou to the Soviet Asia. But I decided to go to Georgia, because still
Georgia was my land, my place, and I knew everybody there, and
they knew me.
And with many difficulties, rather unusual things, I came to Baku.
When I was in Baku, I was all right, because thenI went to Tbilisi.
And another reason why it was possible for me to do all that is,
because, from childhood, my heart was not so good. And therefore
I had some specification--I remember that it was No. 31 paragraph?
they could not take me to be a soldier because of my heart. And
therefore, being in Tbilisi, I had such a special card, and I was out
of being taken to the army. And I worked in Tbilisi.
Mr. SOURWINE. You had a special card?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes; a medical card.
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And then I worked in Tbilisi, in the Georgian radio, and as 9 car-
toonist, as my father worked, because I could do that too. I was very
successful there?that is very funny?I remember now. And I made
money this way. And that was until 1943.
And in 1943 I went to Moscow. And it was absolutely impossible to
go to Moscow at that time, because that was immediately after the
Stalingrad battle. How could I do that? Only because there were
some of my father's paintings in Moscow, and I said, let my father's
paintings go to Tbilisi. Georgian authorities knew my father, and he
was popular there. And they gave me permission to fly to Moscow.
And they gave me the money.
And when I came to Moscow at that time, my room was occupied,
because 2 years had passed.
Mr. SOURWINE. This was 1943 when you went back to Moscow?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes. When I first joined TASS it was in 1943.
Mr. SOURWINE. All right.
Mr. KARLIN. But I went firstly to Moscow to take these pictures,
but I used them only as a pretext.
When I came to Moscow, I went to my institute and asked them to
help me to come back to study. And they gave me all the necessary
papers.
And at that time the assistant of Beria?he was in very close relation
with my father, because he was an amateur actor, was Merkulov. He
was the first assistant to Beria. And at that time I guess he was the
minister of M GB. That was after the NKVD. And I sent him a letter
with some of my father's paintings to remind him of my father,
telling him that I had lost my room, and: "Can you help me?"
In 2 days' time he had done everything. And I again became the
owner of my flat.
And then I went back to Georgia. My first visit was, I (mess, at
the end, probably, of 1942 or the beginning of 1943. I remember that
was immediately after the Stalingrad battle, 1 or 2 months time, of
course. And then when I came back to Moscow second time I had my
room again.
I went to the TASS, with the help of Dekanosov, whom I mentioned.
And I remember another reference was from a famous actor?again
my father's friend?the people's actor of U.S.S.R., the actor or the
Moscow Art Theater, Khmelev.
And I worked in TASS until 1944, when I went to Moscow Radio.
And I was in Moscow Radio until 1946. When I was co-opted by KGB,
I was in Moscow Radio. And the MGB knew about my -trips with
Lady Churchill. And they knew about my first trip to Germany.
Someone told them about all that.
Mr. SOURWINE. What do you mean when you say your trip with
Lady Churchill?
Mr. KARLIN. In 1944 Mrs. Churchill came to the U.S.S.R. officially
as the boss of the Red Cross, the British Red Cross. She came with
her assistant, Miss Johnson and her secretary.
At that time they were the guests of the Soviet Red Cross. Being
in Moscow she met, I guess, Stalin and Molotov. But then she made
a trip in the U.S.S.R. She was in many different cities. And she went
to Crimea. She visited 'Yalta, and then Odessa. And at that time she
was accompanied by the top Soviet. Foreign Ministry officials. One of
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them?the chief was Zinschenko. He was the assistant?later he
became, the assistant of Trygvie Lie in the U.N. And then he was
arrested by Beria. And I was at that time in their cortege, representing
Moscow Radio.
I went with her to all these places, in Odessa, in Yalta. And that
is what I call the trip with Mrs. Churchill.
Mr. SOURWINE. How old was she then?
Mr. KARLIN. I can tell you exactly. She was 61. Because she
celebrated her birthday in Yalta. And she sent the cable to Winnie.
Every day she sent some cable to Winnie, to Winston Churchill.
Mr. SOURWINE. Mr. Churchill was not there?
Mr. KARLIN. No, he was in London.
Mr. SOURWINE. Then where did you go?
Mr. KARLIN. After
Mr. SonawrigE. Perhaps I took you out of order when I asked about
the Churchill trip.
Mr. KARLIN. That is all right.
Mr. SouRwisE. I was just attempting to get your movements from
the time you went to Moscow until the time you left the Soviet Union,
particularly with reference to when you left the country, where you
went.
Mr. KARLIN. Let me put it this way: After 1943, that is TASS,
then I went to Moscow Radio. And I was there until 1946. And then
I became a free lance contributor for Moscow Radio, and for the
Soviet Informational Bureau. And I started to write plays.
And then in 1949?I had written this play which I mentioned before,
"John, Soldier of Peace." From that time I became a writer, dramatist,
and movie script writer, all that, until 1963, when I came to London.
Mr. SOURWINE. How many times were you out of the U.S.S.R.?
Mr. KARLIN. That is what I want to say now.
Mr. SOURWINE. You told us about the first time.
Mr. KARLIN. Germany. That was the first time.
Mr. SOURWINE. That was 1963?
Mr. KARLIN. No, 1945.
Mr. SOURWINE. 1945?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes. And the second time I came to Germany in 1947.
That was an operation?that was one of the first KGB operation.
Because at that time I was a co-opted worker, in 1947. And I was
there about half a year. That was the second time.
And in that time particularly I went to Czechoslovakia. I was in
Czechoslovakia at that time. And in Poland. But that was only 1
day, I guess.
And then after that in 1959 I went again to Germany, Czechoslo-
vakia, and Poland, as a Soviet tourist, with cars. That was the first
time when the Soviet people went as tourists with their automobiles
in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Poland.
That was my second time going outside of the U.S.S.R.?No, that
was the third.
Now, the fourth was my trip to Japan, the Philippines, and India.
And that happened in 1962, when there was a Cuban crisis. Do you
remember when there was a Cuban crisis, Mr. Sourwine?
At that time I had been as a tourist again there was a tourist
group, Soviet movie writers, artists, musicians. We went to Japan, to
Tokyo, and other cities. That was a 2-week trip.
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Then on the way back we went to the Philippines, and we stayed
there 1 day.
We stayed, I guess, 3 days in India, as tourists. And we came back.
But in this particular case, the third tourist visit to Germany,
Czechoslovakia, and Poland, and the fourth visit to Japan, the Phil-
ippines, and India, I was there as a tourist, simply as a tourist, without
any special order from the KGB.
Of course, I have some special relations with the watchdog in this
group, because he knew, he was told about me, and he wanted me to
help him in his job. But I was without a special order or special task
from the second chief directorate of the KGB. That simply was my
tourist travel in that time.
And the fifth was the last, when I was in this tourist group again,
when I came to London, and when I defected.
All together, there were five visits outside the U.S.S.R.
Mr. SOURWINE. This is perhaps a good pausing place.
You have brought with you today, for the committee, some papers?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes. I brought something which I mentioned last week,
something I want to give you.
These are the real documents from KGB, when they asked me to
make this movie script about foreign diplomats life in Moscow.
MT. SOURWINE. These are the first--
Mr. KARLIN. Those are the names of the Diplomatic Corps which
they wanted me to mention in this script, their names, their families,
and all that, and what would be all right to be shown and mentioned
in this script.
But I guess probably you have it.
Mr. SOURWINE. Let me see. What you have given me here are
photocopies of documents, one of three pages and one of two pages?
Mr. KARLIN. That is correct.
Mr. SOURWINE. typescript to Russian?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes. That is an original KGB document.
Mr. SOURWINE. And this was given to you by the KGB?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. When?
Mr. KARLIN. In 1962, or the beginning of 1963, when I started to
work at the script about the diplomats life in Moscow.
Mr. SOURWINE. I see. This is an instruction with respect to the
diplomats in Moscow?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. The committee is very happy to get these. They will
be returned to you in good condition.
Mr. KARLIN. And this one too. But I am sorry, the faces were
taken out in England. That is the whole company that is the
Ambassador, that is his wife, that is me, that is the hero, and that is
another lady, and one of our participants in the operation.
Mr. SOURWINE. This is the last page of this document?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. So what we have are two documents, one of two
pages, and one of four pages?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. With the extra page you have given us?
Mr. KARLIN. That was one of the invitations from the French
Embassy. The French Ambassador's.
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Mr. SOURWINE. I note that this spells your name I-o-u-r-i.
Mr. KARLIN. Yes; that is the French way.
And that is what I brought. Those are three original reports which
I have done in Moscow after meeting with the Indian Ambassador.
Mr. SOURWINE. And these are reports that you made to the KGB?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes; exactly word for word, which they have in their
archives.
Mr. SOURWINE. Those are 4 pages, and they bear the page
numbers 122, 123, 124, and 125.
All right.
Mr. KARLIN. And now, you told me that it would be interesting to
see--
Mr. SOURWINE. I return this photograph that you showed us.
Mr. KARLIN. The letters in connection with my?when I tried to
go to the publishers. Those are letters which show you the situation.
For example, that is a Heinemann letter.
Mr. SOURWINE. This is a letter of William Heinemann, Ltd.,
Publishers, to the witness under date of March 28, 1966?
Mr. KARLIN. And that is the same kind of letter from Pall Mall.
Mr. SOURWINE. Pall Mall Press, Ltd., under date of February 5,
1966.
Mr. KARLIN. And that is from the Macmillan publishers.
Mr. SOURWINE. MacMillan & Co., Ltd., under date of May 9,
1967.
Mr. KARLIN. Here is one from Heinemann, what he mentioned
about the ?
Mr. SOURWINE. From Heinemann, Ltd., Publishers, under date of
May 12, 1966.
Mr. KARLIN. I guess this is one of the most interesting, because
that is from Johnson.
Mr. SOURWINE. From Johnson Publications, Ltd., under date of
July 13, 1966.
Mr. KARLIN. And that is, I guess, the answer from--
Mr. SounwiNE. From E. P. Dutton and Co., Inc., under date of
January 16, 1968.
Mr. KARLIN. Now, you told me that you wanted to see this answer
which I got from the American Embassy in London with the refusal
to emigrate to America.
Mr. SOURWINE. I should like to have this. This is from the Embassy
of United States, addressed to Mr. Karlin under date of January 6,
1966.
Mr. KARLIN. On the same thing, that is from the Canadian Embassy
when they refused me to go to Canada.
Mr. SOURWINE. From the Canadian Embassy under date of June 10,
1966.
Mr. KARLIN. And also this?there are two of thorn, I do not know
why.
Mr. SOURWINE. Under date of June 20, 1966, both referring to the
same file number, but signed by two different men.
Mr. KARLIN. I guess they tried to assure me.
And that is the last one.
Mr. SOURWINE. This is a letter from Reader's Digest under date of
October 6, 1969, signed by "John." That is John Barron.
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26
Mr. KARLIN. And all these letters too. That is the last one.
MT. SOURWINE. And we have here also?these are letters, appar-
ently, of a series from the Reader's Digest under date of July 22,
1969, under date of August 6, 1969, under date of July 30, 1969,
under date of July 29, 1969, and under date of July 10, 1969.
These items will be photocopied for the committee files and returned
to you.
Mr. KARLIN. Fine. It is good. I want you to have them.
Mr. SOURWINE. This is a good stopping place. Let's call it a day.
And tomorrow we will begin going into the nature of your work for
the KGB on a case-by-case basis. And we will discuss the manuscript
that you brought with you.
MT. KARLIN. All right.
Mr. SOURWINE. We will meet again at 1 o'clock.
(Whereupon, at 3:50 p.m., the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene
at 1 p.m., Tuesday, November 4, 1969.)
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TESTIMONY OF GEORGE KARLIN
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1969
U.S. SENATE,
SUBCOMMITTEE To INVESTIGATE THE
ADMINISTRATION OF THE INTERNAL SECURITY ACT
AND OTHER INTERNAL SECURITY LAWS
OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee .met, pursuant to recess, at 1:15 p.m., in room
1116, New Senate Office Building, Senator Strom Thurmond presiding.
Also present: J. G. Sourwine, chief counsel.
Senator THURMOND. Mr. Karlin, I will remind you that you are
still under oath.
Mr. SOURWINE. You told us yesterday that the time came when
you were co-opted by the KGB. Tell us when that was and how it
came about, would you, please?
Mr. KARLIN. You mean the procedure of how I was co-opted?
MT. SOURWINE. Yes.
Mr. KARLIN. That happened in 1946, as I told you yesterday. And
I was taken by one KGB fellow to the private flat. And than we talked.
Mr SOURWINE. Who was this young man?
Mr. KARLIN. I mentioned this yesterday, his lame. And after that
the second fellow, Egorov
Mr. SOURWINE. Do you still remember the name of the first fellow?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes. Volody. That was his real name. But Egorov,
when he introduced himself, used his code name, Rumynzev.
Mr. SOURWINE. Had you known either of these men before?
Mr. KARLIN. Oh no, never. That was my first meeting with them.
Mr. SOURWINE. How did they approach you? Did they come to
your living quarters?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes; they came to my flat?it was a communal flat,
with 11 rooms, and 21 neighbors all together.
And I had been there with this lady whom I mentioned yesterday,
with whom I had love relation, and whom I wanted to save, because
she was under the search, an it could be that the criminal police
would be able to arrest her. And I was with her.
It was early, early in the morning, I guess about 8:30. And suddenly
there was a knock to the door. And he asked me to come to the cor-
ridor, and he asked me to go with him to the street.
Well, I did not ask him anything at that time, because I was rather
frightened, because I thought first of all that that was the case of this
lady. I did not know that the. MGB real idea was to co-opt me.
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But later, I realized that someone from Moscow Radio reported
to them about me and, one might say, recommended me. The KGB
knew many things about my life and where I had been, and what
happened to me.
I guess before they recruited me they studied all my biography,
you see, and how I worked in the Moscow Radio. They knew that I
talked English, though not so well. And with my columnist job I
could be among the top Soviet people and the foreigners too, working
in the Anglo-American section of Moscow Radio.
I met, for instance, Lillian Hellman. She visited Moscow in 1949.
Her play, "Fox," I remember, was at that time staged in Moscow.
She was a tall, rather masculine woman with a rather masculine voice.
And I met her in the hotel, probably in the Metropole Hotel.
Then I talked to her, and invited her to Moscow Radio, and
recorded her impressions about the Soviet Union.
So I was in a position to meet foreigners in Moscow, and basically the
visitors. At that time I had not any opportunity to meet the officials
from foreign embassies. But I met many, many visitors, and news-
papermen, correspondents. And even some of them, in 1944?until
1946 made their broadcasts, some of them, through Moscow Radio.
And therefore it was natural for them to visit us.
For example, I was in some relation with Mr. Magidov, Robert
Magidov. I think at that time he was the correspondent of the
Associated Press. I think he is now somewhere in the American
Universities.
And there was another gentleman from BBC, David Tutaev. He
is now in London, I know that.
So I was among foreigners and among the Soviet top officials,
therefore, it was all right for the MGB to luwe such a man, and to
try to cultivate him, and to use him for their purpose.
Mr. SouRwrNE. You got sidetracked a little bit. We were asking
you to tell us when you were co-opted, how you were notified, and what
happened. You got off the trail and wound up with Lillian Hellman,
which took place before you were co-opted.
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, but the point is?I told it yesterday, but I can
repeat it again.
We went with this young fellow to the underground. And he talked
in such a lovely way about the weather, and so on, without mentioning
where we were going. And he showed me in the corridor his red ticket
with the MGB letters. And being in such a situation?well, it is
rather difficult to ask questions.
I wondered at that time what his idea was, whether they are looking
for this lady, because she was under search. And as I told you yesterday,
in Soviet life it is sometimes hard to put the line between a criminal
case and a political case. And I wondered why it was MGB, it should
be the criminal police.
Then when we passed Lub'ynka, where the MGB's building is, we
passed that, and we stopped in the station, the name of which means
the red gate. And then we went to Chapligin Street. That was a
huge block. And we entered, through the yard entrance. And we
went to the third or second floor, I do not remember now. And he
put his finger on the bell.
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And another gentleman, at that time about 35 years old?the
young fellow was Volody, and the other one who opened the door was
this Egorov, whom I mentioned before, this Rumynzev. And he was a
major of the MGB.
Mr. SOURWINE. You were alone, were you not, except for one man?
Mr. KARLIN. From my place to this place, we came with this
Volody.
Mr. SOURWINE. Who is "we"?
Mr. KARLIN. I and him.
Mr. SouRwINE. Just the two of you?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. No one else was with him except you?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes. And this Egorov, I found later that he was a
major?of course at that time he was in civilian clothes?introduced
himself. And this was a two- or three-room flat, modestly furnished,
nothing special. He smiled and asked me, "Well, please tell me about
yourself," in a very polite manner.
I could not put any important questions of my own. I said, "What
do you want to know about me?"
"Well, all of your life, your biography."
We talked a couple hours time.
And the questions which he pat indicated that?I realized that he
knew many things about me?that was only a formality, or he wanted
to see how I related with people, and so on, so there was not many
new things which I mild tell him.
Well, when I mentioned about my being in Georgia, about my
father's relations with Merkulov?at that time Merkulov was
the Minister of State Security, the boss of MGB, his boss?he was
rather confused. Ile said, "You have such big people, as your father's
friends. You could complain. It would not be so nice for me."
After that he told me that they, the KGB, need the help of such
people as I, because that is a patriotic duty because there are enemies
among Soviets and foreigners.
At that time he did not indicate what their particular job is,
whether they worked with foreigners or Soviets; it was a general talk.
Well, I repeat again, because yesterday I mentioned this, that my
choice was very, very limited at that time, because?physically I
could say no, but as a practical matter, if someone would know the
Soviet reality at that time, and now too, it is nothing different in this
arca?it is difficult to say such a word, for many reasons.
First of all, you will indicate that you are not a 100 percent Soviet
patriot, because from Lenin's time there existed a belief that each
Communist, either officially or inwardly, is a potential chekist?that
means a Secret Service man.
That is a rather ideological background of all these things. But in
my case, that was another thing. I thought that if I would say no I
would not only have some trouble for myself, but that would be trouble
for that lady, whom I left in my flat, with whom I had love relation.
Mr. SOURWINE. Did they say anything to you about her to indicate
that they knew of her?
Mr. KARLIN. No, and that was a game. And even when I left them
I still wondered whether they knew it, whether they decided to use it
particularly in this case or not.
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But later when I thought about this, I came to the idea that they
did not know that. Because if they did know that, you know, in the
Soviet Union in such a situation it would be necessary for them to
report it to the criminal police. And particularly in such a case it was
not so important for them to recruit me, they could recruit many
others. But still she was a criminal from the point of law. And therefore
I think they did not know that.
I psychologically thought, if I would say yes, I would be somewhere,
you see, better, in a better position. And they would not search so
close to my circle, and maybe that would be right for her.
Well, I can say that that was a rather idealistic decision at that
time. But I was a young man, and I was in love at that time, and I
remembered it with pleasure, because I did something good humanly.
But that was the moment when I said yes. And they gave me the
paper. And they asked me to write that the whole of what we discussed
was a government secret. And that I knew that if I would reveal it
somewhere that there would be special punishment, and so on.
Then they asked me to compose here, right then, they told me, my
agent's name.
Well, knowing that Beria at that time was second or third man in
the country, that Merkulov was the Minister of State Security?and
they knew that I was from Georgia?of course, I composed a Georgian
word, Suliko, which nieans in Russian honey man, such a nice man, or
woman, and such a very polite word. But that is the Georgian.
At the same time it is the title of the very famous song which was
known as Stalin's favorite song, Suliko. From that time that was
my agent's name. And practically from that moment I became the
co-opted worker of the KGB.
When I came back to this lady who was in my flat, well, she was
trembling. But I told her that that was the KGB, and they wanted to
recruit me, but I said no.
And she was of course very happy, because she had thought that
that was because of her.
She didn't say to me anything then, but later when years passed,
when we separated, she told me: "No, you didn't say no, you said yes
at that time."
Mr. SOURWINE. Were you given any credentials?
Mr. KARLIN. What do you mean by credentials?
Mr. SOURWINE. Were you given anything to show that you were
working for the KGB?
Mr. KARLIN. No.
Mr. SOURWINE. Did they give you anything?
Mr. KARLIN. No, nothing at all.
Mr. SOURWINE. YOU had no official status?
Mr. KARLIN. No.
Mr. SOTJRWINE. Nothing that would give you any authority?
Mr. KARLIN. Nothing, only this paper which I gave them, and that
is all.
Mr. SOURWINE. You received nothing in return except occasional
payments?
Mr. KARLIN. That is correct.
Mr. SOURWINE. In money?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes. But that was later.
Mr. SOURWINE. Not at the time?
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MT. KARLIN. Not at the time.
Mr. SOURWINE. And they did not start paying you right away?
Mr. KARLIN. NO.
Mr. SOURWINE. How long was it before they started paying you, a
year, 2 years?
Mr. KARLIN. I think after the first?this preliminary operation,
they started first to train me, in a half a year's time. But still they
gave me a little money for my transportation, because they knew of
my relation with Merkulov' and so on, and they were rather careful
with this when they started, whether I would accept or not, they did
it in such a polite way.
But I guess the first money was in probably 2 or 3 months' time,
after the first little operation.
Mr. SOURWINE. What were the first two or three operations you
participated in, if you remember?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes; I remember them. There were exactly the train-
ing operations, because I do not think they were really important for
them. But at the same time it could be that that was important for
them.
Well, because at that time I was a free lance contributor for Moscow
Radio and the Soviet Informational Bureau, which I mentioned be-
fore, it was very easy for me to go to see any top level Soviet people,
particularly scientists. And they started with scientists. They told me
that there are some rather unstable and rather "difficult," especially
the old Soviet scientists, and particularly Jewish Soviet scientists,
and those who came from the western part of Ukraine, Poland. And
they mentioned two scientists particularly.
One was Schtern, Academician Schtern, Una Solomonovna. She
was known, because afterward she was arrested. Still she has a good
place in scientific history. She was a chief of the Institute of the
Experimental Physiology of the Academy of Science of the U.S.S.R.,
and she had a famous name all over the world. (She was Jewish.)
Egorov asked me to go to see her and to have an interview with her
about what the institute is doing particularly, and tell her that this
interview would be for outside publication, not for the Soviet press,
but for the Americans, English, French, and so on. Because the Soviet
Informational Bureau at that time produced only propaganistic
articles for foreign press.
Soviet Informational Bureau had many offices all over the world
to distribute these articles.
I went to see this lady. By the way, her assistant was another
Jewish man, whose son was the first husband of Svetlana Aliluygva,
Grigoriy Maroz. It is a very interesting name, because Morozov would
be a very Russian, and Maroz a typical Jewish name. You add another
two letters on the end of Maroz and you get Marozov. That makes a
difference. Stalin decided, because of the situation in the country, that
he needed to use some anti-Semitic sentiments among the Russian
people. And it was known all over Moscow and everywhere that he
ordered to change the name of his Jewish son-in-law.
I met this gentlemen Moroz there, and talked together with him
and Mrs. Schtern. The MGB boss, Egorov said: "Well, try to talk
with her, and try to understand her character, without asking any-
thing specific, talk to her generally" and?they wanted to know my
impression of her.
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When I wrote my -first reports?I guess that was my first?I men-
tioned how all that was, I described the whole situation. And there
was nothing specific, because my impression was, I would say, normal,
because she was a rather puffy lady with such a strong character,
very energetic, clever, I realized, and knowledgeable, of course.
Unfortunately--I am sure it was not because of me?unfortunately,
in 3 or 4 months later she was arrested. And that was later published.
But in the whole country there was such an atmosphere at that time.
Mr. SOURWINE. When you interviewed her, you had RO inkling
from anything she said or from her attitude that she was in any
tro uble?
Mr. KARLIN. No, nothing at all.
For myself when I knew about this, I thought that I didn't put
my finger in tins job, because I .have seen her only once, and I have
done this article, and this article was sent by the Soviet Informational
Bureau to her, and she put her signature on it confirming that every-
thing is correct, and it was sent abroad, and that is all.
The second case was very same. That was an academician again,
Panton, or Paton, or something like this again a famous one. I re-
member that it was very difficult to approach him. But still I tele-
phoned many times, and he said, "Yes, please come."
I guess lie was many times abroad, and I think he worked somewhere
in the west part of the Ukraine or Poland until 1939, when this part
was occupied by Soviet troops. He was a rather western type of man.
- I remember when I told him that I worked in Moscow Radio, in the
Anglo-American department, we talked a little bit English, and again
I made a report to the 1\4GB, and that is the very same story, with a
different end, because he was not arrested at that time as far as I
remember. Maybe that happened later. I am not sure. I do not know
what happened later with this man.
So those were two first cases. They wanted?the idea was to train
me to relate with people, to go to see them, to talk to them freely at the
top level, but thinking about the MGB interests.
Now if you want me to tell you the first foreign case . . . because
the next one, a foreigner--
Mr. SOURWINE. Please.
Mr. KARLIN. Once this Major Egorov, whom I mentioned before,
invited me to the Hotel Moscow. I want to admit now that, remember-
ing my 17 years' work as a co-opted worker with KGB, I would say
that the Moscow Hotel was, and I guess is their basic hotel. Of course,
they use other ones, but the Moscow Hotel in my memory was
simply another KGB office.
In this hotel Egorov introduced me to one Armenian. His name was
Karagiz'yn Lova, he came from Erevan. It is the capital of Armenia.
Egorov introduced me. Then he said: "Look, we have an idea: There
is one English diplomat in Moscow?whose name is Bulmer.. He is
responsible for the economic research work in the British Embassy?
Soviet research work?to see how the Soviet economy works."
He told me that Buimer's wife was Russian, from a Russian emigre,
and lives in Moscow with him.
Firstly, I met Major Egorov alone, without Karagizyn, and he told
me all that about Bulmer. Then he added that this Bulmer had a
friend in Armenia, in Erevan, whose name was Deykarhanov, that
this man works there in the movie studio as a photographer, and that
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they have a very, very "strange relation." From the point of KGB's
view, this Deykarhanov gave at that time some special information
to Bulmer, to this English diplomat, through his daughter.
His daughter, Irina, this Deykarhanov's daughter, lived in Moscow.
Egorov told me that he wanted to send me to Erevan to be acquainted
with this Deykarhanov. He sent me to Erevan. The Armenian KGB
office helped me there to be acquainted with this Deykarhanov.
I went to the studio. I knew him because they showed me his
picture. Well, the Armenian KGB organized there some story to hell)
me. To make a long story short I spent 3 or 4 days in Erevan, but
unsuccessfully, because Deykarhanov was very stern, he controlled
himself very well, and he was rather suspicious, and he did not want
to have any friendly relation with me.
Then when I came back to Moscow, the KGB decided that they
would try to come to this Bulmer from a different side.
After that this Karagizyn came to Moscow, where I met him, ashI
said; Karagizyn was in good relation with Deykarhanov. He brought
in a letter from Deykarhanov to Bulmer. This Karagizyn went to.
see Bulmer. And he mentioned then about me; he said that he has a
friend?and he named me. The next day, or in 2 or 3 days' time, I
went to Bulmer's apartment in Moscow, and I was 'introduced there
to him and his wife by Karagizyn.
Well, then, Karagizyn went back to Erevan. The idea was to bring
him to Moscow only to introduce me to Bulmer.
Then when I wanted gradually to start my "friendship" with this
English diplomat, another story happened, which shows that the
KGB sometimes does by one hand one thing and by another hand a
different thing. Deykarhanov suddenly was arrested in Erevan. And
he was, I guess, sentenced for 10 years as a foreign spy or something
like that. His daughter in Moscow immediately went to see Bulmer,
and he was frightened by all this story.
Of course, my relation with Bulmer was ended because he decided
not to see anyone, because of the arrest of Deykarhanov. And then
Deykarhanov 's daughter was arrested too.
Later I heard that in a year and a half she was released.
And in 2 or 3 months time, Bulmer himself died in Moscow. And
his wife went back to London.
So this first operation was totally- unsuccessful.
But that was still my first operation, with a British diplomat.
Mr. SOURWINE. This incident with Buhner was about 6 months
after you had first been co-opted?
MT. KARLIN. Yes, correct.
Mr. SOURWINE. And with regard to, with relation to when they
started paying you money, when was it?
Mr. KARLIN. Oh, well, you know, the whole operation with Bulmer
was rather expensive because of a trip to Erevan, plane there and
plane back, a hotel, you know, food and all of that. Then they thought
that it would be necessary for me to spend some money to be ac-
quainted with this gentleman, how to do all of this, and well, in this
case they usually gave me, and I think they did it the same to other
co-opted people, some money for operation, approximately, without
any specific estimations, and in this way it was necessary for me only
to put my signature confirming that I received such and such amount
of money from the KGB, and that's all.
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Mr. SOURWINE. If you needed more could you ask for it?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, sure. It would be necessary for me only to give
some hint, you see, because they usually gave a little bit more than
necessary with the idea that that would be sort of stimulation.
MT. SOURWINE. NOW, you continued in the employ of the KGB
from 1944 until 1963, is that right?
Mr. KARLIN. I am sorry, from 1946.
Mr. SOURWINE. 1946?
Mr. KARLIN. And, until my last day in Moscow in September 1963.
Mr. SOURWINE. Over seventeen years?
Mr. KARLIN. Seventeen years.
Mr. SOURWINE. Now, during that 17 years plus, during that time
did they keep you busy most of the while or did they use your spare
time only or what?
Mr. KARLIN. There were some different periods. There were periods
when I was busier, particularly with the French ease, but there was
a couple of years time when I was away from any job by some dif-
ferent personal reasons.
Sometimes I told them, this particularly when my play was at
the stage, and I was really busy with that job, and T couldn't do any-
thing for them, but later they used this play or that situation. I
repeat: there were different periods in my working for the KGB.
Mr. SOURWINE. Yes.
Well, now, between the Bulmer case and your play?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. There was a period there of a couple of years?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SounwiNE. What other eases did you handle for the KGB?
Mr. KARLIN. Well, Major Egorov, as I mentioned?was 35 years
old, and a rather ambitious man. He wanted to organize some big
operation.
He told me, he was a man with humor, and I would say a clever
man, he told me that we wanted to do something big. The Buliner
wasn't such a big thing for him, and he wanted to do something great,
and one day he invited me again to this Hotel Moscow and told me:
"Look, what do you think if we were to send you to Germany?"
Mr. SOURWINE. This was in what year now?
Mr. KARLIN. That was in 1947. That was particularly after Bulmer
died, you see. I mean not in 2 weeks time, but in a period of 3, 4
months' time, Egorov composed this project and lie told me that now,
Germany is the best place to try to make some big operations because
in Germany at that time one can see "friendship" between the allies,
English, American, French and Russian.
It was particularly time between the "friendly" relation and the
"cold war." But still there was, from. his point of view, and I think it
was correct, at that time, there was a very good environment for the
KGB's operation.
Mr. SOURWINE. Off the record.
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. SOURWINE. All right, we will resume.
Mr. KARLIN. That was the idea of operation?
Mr. SOURWINE. What was the idea?
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Mr. KARLIN. Then probably I realized what sort of a department
is his, you see, because in the :first half year of my, well, let's say 8
months of my relationship with Egorov I still did not know what is the
construction of their office, what they are doing really, where is their
limit, and who's doing another job, you know, and at that time still
I couldn't ask them any question, being only a co-opted worker.
But when they mentioned this operation I came to the idea was
their position, particularly his office, and the idea to send me to
Germany.
Well, Egorov wanted officially establish me in Germany as a
Soviet newspaperman, correspondent, and I was a correspondent and
Soviet newspaperman; therefore, It was very easy to do it and a
very natural thing.
Should I continue?
MT. SOURWINE. Please.
Mr. KARLIN. The KGB planned then to create such an atmosphere
that I would be able to be acquainted with many foreign correspond-
ents, you know, some English, particularly English officials, because
I realized in that time that Major Egorov was responsible for the
English department because Bulmer was the English diplomat too.
When he said about this trip to Germany he emphasized that he
needed me to be recruited by British intelligence, particularly British,
not American or French.
I had to be among allies, English officials, and to find a way to be
"sold" there showing that I am not a 100 percent Soviet patriot,
that I have .an Achilles' heel. Egorov planned that after I would be
recruited in Germany by English officials, after I would come back
to Moscow, the "game" would be continued in Moscow.
This operation, how he mentioned later, was affirmed personally
by Abakumov. He was at that time Minister of the MGB. I was
introduced by Major Egorov to his boss who was a Lt. Col. Semen
Pavlovsky. He was Jewish, and he was ft very valuable Jew and
therefore he was in KGB because in that period there was 1, 2, 3
Jewish men there, you see, in the very top level. Then they organized
all practical matters. They gave me a sort of passport, ft red one, I
guess, for 6 months only, and then this Pavolvsky called me to come
to one known book store in Moscow.
He met me there with a magazine. Inside of this magazine I found
about 300 German marks and my ticket for the train. I went to Berlin
by train there.
Mr. SOURWINE. That was in what month of 1947?
Mr. KARLIN. That was May. No; that was the end of April because
the first of May I have been in Berlin with those people whom I met
there and we had a celebration there. I went through Poland to Berlin,
and the next day I came to Berlin, and that was fixed in Moscow and
went to Unter den Linden Strasse, at that time a known area, I
entered into known at that time book store, an "International book,"
Soviet bookstore, you see, that just opened there. I came at the fixed
time and Egorov was there in uniform of an artillery man. His striped
shoulders was artillery. That's understandable?
MT. SOURWINE. Yes.
Mr. KARLIN. Then we left this store and we walked a little bit.
I gave him my hotel address, my telephone and he said that in a
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couple of days' time Pavlovsky would come to Berlin and the next
day he telephoned me, but I guess we didn't see one another. But,
another day he telephoned me and he said: "Look, you must be
again in this book store, such a time." I came and he took me to
Lbuizen Strasse and that was the district of the Soviet Commendature
and there was one of the KGB buildings with the agent's flats. When
I entered this place I had seen there Pavlovsky in an aviation uniform,
he was an aviator, Egorov was an artillery man, and Pavlovsky was
a pilot. There was another gentleman. His name was Andreev. He was
in plain dress, but later I realized he was a major too, but he was one
of the assistants, one of the many, many assistants of General Sydney,
who was the boss of operative group, that's called the operative
group of the KB G in Berlin because the General Kovalchuk repre-
sented the MGB in whole East Germany being at the same time
the Assistant Minister of the MGB.
Mr. SOURWINE.
Mr. KARLIN. It would be K-o-v-a-l-e-11-u-k, a Ukrainian. I met
him later. And this Sydney was particularly my boss. I realized it.
Pavlovsky told Inc that everything is in order, that they decided when
they talked, discussed all that with General Sydney, they decided to
put me in the office, one of the Soviet press offices and that was the
Soviet Informational Bureau under the operation of the Soviet
Military Government in Germany.
There were many different departments. One was the Soviet Infor-
mation Bureau and the chief was Colonel, yes, he was a Colonel
Bespalov, a long time underground worker of Comintern, the Com-
munist International Organization.
Later we became closer and he told me all of his story. He even was
the real friend of Chou En-lai because he worked with him in Moscow.
The KGB decided to put me in this office and to make me?they
created the new position in this office as?it's rather difficult to explain
to you as sort of an assistant of the chief of this Bureau, but that's a
little bit?the assistant is a little bit too high.
Mr. SOURWINE. You would be assistant to the chief, not assistant
chief?
Mr. KARLIN. That's correct.
Mr. SOURWINE. You would have to report only to him?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. But you would have no actual authority over other
people?
Mr. KARLIN. Correct.
Only one man there knew about me, about my real position, that
was Bespalov.
Mr. SOURWINE. Well, you were, however, during this time actually
performing the functions of a correspondent, were you not?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, officially.
Mr. SOTJRWINE. Yes.
Mr. KARLIN. Officially, yes.
Well, you see, in this bureau, the Bureau of Information, there was
such a mixture between some corresponding job and some sort of
public relations job, too, because, for example, later, well, I myself
accompanied some American and British correspondents when they
visited the Soviet zone. I "helped" them to do everything, you see.
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There were many different functions in this bureau and there were
rather special functions, too, you see, functions among the Germans
to collect all sorts of underground information. This was a very im-
portant function and this one, of course, was under the observation
of KGB.
When I was settled in this bureau, I got an apartment, transporta-
tion, salary and so on.
Mr. SOURWINE. You were not just given a cover story, you were
given a cover?
MT. KARLIN. Yes they call it "the roof," you see.
MT. SOURWINE. Y. es.
Mr. KARLIN. Well, when I went to see Pavlovsky he said: "Now
you will have Major Andreev, he will meet you in a particular place,
no one will know anything, but you will make all reports through
this Major Andreev."
Mr. SOURWINE. Pavlovsky turned you over to Major Andreev
then?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, but Egorov was there too. I don't know why
he came, but it was his job, you see, but then I knew particularly
this Major Andreev, and then I went to see Bespalov, and by accident,
well it happened by chance I knew him before because I worked in
TASS, and he was in a very top position there, and he recognized me
a little bit. He showed that he understood what a serious situation it
is now?by the way, I realized at that time, that he himself wasn't
the KGB official man. But he accepted me as the professional KGB
man.
Mr. SOURWINE. Yes.
Mr. KARLIN. He felt that I am a rather superior. He was one of the
most typical characteristic of the Soviet life at that time. Let me tell
you this: Somewhere in Siberia there was a secretary of the party
committee, there was the chairman of the Soviet Council, but above
them there was a boss of the regional KGB, you see, and he was
upper. Now, that's probably a little bit different now. Well, I came
to Bespalov and he did all what was necessary to organize my life
there. He gave me a flat and he gave me a private room. Well, I
don't think that's really interesting. But then I started to visit
foreigners and to try to be "sold." I was among foreigners in their
press conferences. There were many press conferences in American
administration and British administration. There were many parties.
I represented everywhere the Bureau of Information of the Soviet
Military Administration. There was a lady, Evgenia Kaseva, in our
Bureau and she had some relation with the Soviet Military Intelli-
gence, and she introduced me to some foreigners, some foreign news-
papermen. I guess we went firstly to some two or three parties with
her, but then it happened Bespalov called me and he said look, there
are three British people, known British correspondents who want to
visit our Soviet zone, and he mentioned, among others, Burchette,
Wilfred Peter Burchette.
Mr. SOURWINE. Burchette, an Australian Communist?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes. And at that time he was the correspondent of
the Daily Express.
Mr. SOURWINE. Did he mention him to you as a Communist or
just as an Australian journalist?
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Mr. KARLIN. Oh, no, not one word about it. At that time Burchette
introduced himself as a correspondent of the Daily Express. That's all.
Later I knew, of course, that he was a Communist but at that time,
I repeat, he introduced himself as a second correspondent of the
"Daily Express" in Berlin.
Another correspondent was Eric Bourne, the chief correspondent
of the Reuters in Berlin, and the third was Dennis Wewar. Dennis
Wewar was a correspondent of the British newspaper "Manchester
Guardian". I don't know how to spell his name. Three of them wanted
to visit Peenemunde and I went there with them. That was my first
meeting with them and we spent 3, 4 days there.
We had friendly relation with them.
Mr. SOURWINE. All three?
MT. KARLIN. All three. I met there Jack Raymond also.
Mr. SOURWINE. Jack Raymond was from what paper?
Mr. KARLIN. He represented the "New York Times," at that
time he was its second correspondent. It was 1947. He was a young
man with a very beautiful wife, Gertrude, he introduced her to me
later.
Mr. SOURWINE. He was on this trip to Peenemunde?
Mr. KARLIN. He came with another Soviet Informational Bureau
officer, Ivan Romanzov. But we met there. It was most interesting
for every foreign correspondent to visit Peenemunde.
Mr. SOURWINE. Who was the other correspondent that came with
Raymond?
Mr. KARLIN. That was?I wouldn't call him correspondent, he
was from the Soviet Informational Bureau, officially, Ivan Romanzov.
Mr. SOURWINE. Well, was Raymond the only correspondent that
came with Romanzov?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, they were both of them, the two of them in
Raymond's car, "Adler."
Mr. SOURWINE. Did you and Romanzov enjoin forces and you and
your three correspondents and Romanzov and Raymond all go
around together?
Mr. KARLIN. No. We met them (Raymond and Romanzov) when
they came back from Peenemunde. They visited this place first,
before us, and we met them along the road.
Mr. SOURWINE. Came back to where from Peenemunde?
Mr. KARLIN. From Peenemunde to Berlin.
Mr. SOURWINE. You didn't meet them in Peenemunde?
Mr. KARLIN. No. That happened occasionally, somewhere, near
Peenemunde along the road, when we approached Peenemunde. I
knew that liaymond wanted to visit Peenemunde with Romanzov,
but that's another story. The procedure for foreign correspondents at
that time to visit the Soviet Zone was very complicated, and it was
necessary to have personal permission from the assistant of the com-
mander in chief in the Soviet Zone. Later I have done it for many
foreigners. But what I want to say is this: the reality in Peenemunde
was different than we showed these foreign correspondents, and there
was a particular place which was prepared to show them.
And then we organized, of course a big party, with caviar and
drinks and so on and the commander, the commandant Volkov of
this place, frankly told me: "Come here later alone and I will show
you something, really great."
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We showed foreigners that all here was destroyed, and we didn't
show the real part of Peenemunde which was different and foreigners
never have seen it.
When Burchette came to Berlin in 2 days' time, through another
Soviet Informational Bureau Officer with whom he was acquainted
before and had a good relation, good I would say, well, rather in quota-
tion marks Grinberg gave a sign that he wanted to sec me.
Mr. SOURWINE. Who did this?
Mr. KARLIN. Burchette, this fellow Wilfred Peter Burchette, and I
went to see him, of course, because in that time, you know, I was in a
position to find any buyer and to look who will buy me, and that was
my duty. When I came to see him he told me: "I want you to know
that one top official from Admiralty, from London came to see me and
talk to me, and he asked me everything about Peenem.unde." Why
Burchette did it? He did it only because, he wanted to tell the Soviet
side more than necessary. At that time I thought probably that's
not a buyer, that's a man who wants to sell himself. He was looking
for a buyer too. That was his first hint.
I came back and, of course, I told this to Bespalov and then I
reported it to Andreev. Then I realized that General Sydney didn't
like Burchette. I even remember Andreev told me that Burchette is
a very strange man with a very difficult background, and even that
Burchette knows Russian language, but he doesn't want to show it,
that he was in Russia, that lie worked somewhere in Siberia in a
intourist agency, you see, something like that.
Well, Andreev told me that and he said well, you can relate with
him, but that's not particularly the man whom we want for you. Then
they ?told me who could be this particular man whom they wanted to
buy me. That was the first correspondent of the Daily Express,
Mr. Panton,
He had a Russian wife. He lived in the same building where Bur-
chette lived but their relation wasn't a frank one.
Well, I went to see Panton, I mean I had been invited to his party.
There was a big party. I was introduced to him, but he wasn't exactly
infatuated by me. He was a very tough man, I would say, with his
ideas of his columnist's job. That's all.
I made another attempt. I remember I had seen him at 'another place
and again without any result. I reported all that to the KGB. Then
it happened spontaneously, I would say, I met Major Kolby. He was
from the British news department, and then I realized that's my
buyer, you see, psychologically, because he was a man of great interest
and he invited me to go into the British Sector of Berlin and then to -go
to the Greenwald Press Club and then one day he telephoned me and
said, "Listen, I would like for you to go with me to see the night life
in Berlin."
"Well," I said, "look, that's better if we will try to do that in 2
days' time, I am now busy." I need to call Andreev to ask go or not,
because that was the night life, and that was something different. He
said, "Go."
So, we went to these places, he knew all of them, places where one
can see homosexuals, lesbians, you know, and there was some Ali Baba
Club, we spent all night there and I realized that he was known there,
he was not a stranger there, particularly in famous homosexuals cafe,
Hanka.
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I guess it exists in Berlin now too. It was a homosexual place, you
see, and well, for me, for a Soviet man?well, it doesn't matter
whether I was at that time co-opted or not, but simply for Soviet
first to see a cafe with homosexuals was something like man's first
shot to the moon, you see. But at the same time I realized that there
was something wrong with this Kolby. Because he was very well
known there, and they all said, "Hey, hey, hello," you know, and
he related with all of the people there and then he invited me to his
apartment.
There were some persons and there was one Russian lady. It so
happened, that I had been with her separately from others and she
told me, "Be careful here, be careful here," and honestly at that
time I didn't want to be careful. You see, my situation was absolutely
opposite.
I realized that probably Kolby's idea was a combination between
two ideas, one may be interest?political interest?and secondly,
of course, was his abnormality, arid that's a homosexual interest,
you see, and I told this to Andreev. I related with Kolby at this time
because he had made some attempt, I mean a very delicate one to
"buy" me, but when I have seen him the last time he understood, that
any homosexual relation between us wouldn't be possible.
The case was suspended. Then against the wish of my bosses, an
American entered into this game. Well, I met before, of 6ourse, such
a gentleman, Gray, Bob Gray, Robert Gray. He was an officer in the
news department of American Military Government in Berlin. His
wife was Russian, Ukrainian, Gully. I met him many times, he liked
Russians and visited our place many times. It so happened that I
told him something, anti-Soviet, because that was my part to tell
this. I said that our life is not so good and even that there was really
no difference between Stalin and Hitler, and so on.
Bob realized that I am not a stable Soviet person in some way
and we become closer with him. It's funny, but it's interesting that
when I played my part at the same time I became honest and natural,
because I said something very authentic, my real thoughts.
In my big article, "Letter to Mr. Smith," I wanted to express that
inwardly, psychologically I was against the Soviet system, I would
say even wider?the Communist system long, Iong time ago. I was
against it. But it is very difficult to find the moment when it happened
with me absolutely, even I wouldn't say that later, being against this
system, I had periods of hesitations.
MT. SOURWINE. Now, your Letter to Mr. Smith is an article you
wrote which explained how you came to write your play?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes and no, because in this letter at the same time
I tried to explain what happened with me inwardly, why then I
came here, you see, what happened psychologically, I tried to show
what happened with the writer when he tries to write truth, when he
wants to be genuine and he can't, and there is some sort of a conflict,
inner conflict, which drove me here because I don't think only my
Mr. SOURWINE. Now, your Letter to Mr. Smith is an article you
KGB activity brought me here. That's all that I want to tell you here
because in this game with Gray there was two sides of this game, be-
cause I really thought to leave my country for the first time. That
was in 1947.
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41
That was real in my mind to do that and, therefore, I told him not
exactly what was necessary, I told him more, and there was a mixture,
you know, and therefore that was a rather dangerous time for inc
because in my reports to the KGB I wrote one thing and in my
conversations with Gray and later with Henry, the other man, I told
some different things, and I was rather afraid that in some way KGB
would know that.
Mr. SOURWINE. Now, what was Gray's position?
Mr. KARLIN. He was an officer in the news department in the U.S.
"military government," in Berlin.
MT. SOTJRWINE. American?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, American. I met him many times in Berlin. The
General Clay at that time was the commander in chief, and I once
was introduced to him, by the way. A very interesting man with great
character I would say. Then later when Bob Gray realized that I
would leave my country he introduced me to the gentleman who --
Mr. SOURWINE. You say when he realized, you mean when you led
him to understand that you would?
Mr. KARLIN. That's correct, but still it wasn't said in one direct
word.
MT. SOURWINE. I understand that you were cautious about it,
careful.
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, I have been careful. Once Bob said: "You don't
want to go, if you wanted you would be more active." Then once he
called me and invited me to come to his place. He said he would pick
me up, and he came to our Soviet sector of Berlin with his car, and it
was rather risky at that time because there were some cases when
American officials were arrested and even disappeared in the Soviet
sector.
When we cam.e to his house I think his wife was somewhere out,
the children were upstairs watching the movie, and there was a
gentleman. Bob introduced me to him and he said:
"I am Henry." That's all I knew about him. I realized, of course,
that he was an official, who was responsible for all this sort of thing.
Bob was really a newsman officer.
Well, I don't know, maybe he was the American co-opted, I don't
know, but that was his job, and he was there, you see. But this
gentlemen, Henry represented I think the American Secret Service.
Mr. SouuwiNE. Well, who was this gentleman?
Mr. KARLIN. Henry. What he said Was Henry.
Mr. SOURWINE. Just one word?
Mr. KARLIN. One word, and I told him: "Call me George." He
said to me that he heard from Bob that, I have an idea to go to
the U.S.A. Ho told me it's not so easy to do, because there is an
agreement between the Americans and the Soviets. He said that there
are many, many Soviet officers who want to do the same. But at the
same time I understood that he decided to know who I am and what's
my value and ability.
He asked me something about my position in the Soviet Bureau
of Information and whether I have an access to some secret documents
in this Bureau.
Well, I told him many, many things. But, of course, I didn't
mention about my KGB's position.
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42
SOURWINE. You were still selling your bill of goods?
M. KARLIN. That's true, and I mentioned to Henry that I have
:something which I will be able to tell him when I would be in the West.
Mr. SOLTRWINE. Well, did be ?
Mr. KARLIN. I said that it's very dangerous situation for me,
and therefore, I can't tell him everything, what I know, and so on,
but something would be said abroad. Well, he told me that's still?
he wanted to know what I know about the Bureau of Information,
because this Bureau was very interestino.b for the Americans at that
,fitnc, and that's good, I think they did it correctly, and I realized
that he knows his job, he knew, he mentioned many, many Soviet
.names, and that was my first good impression about American
intelligence.
I met Henry many times. I guess three or four times, and then once
Bob took me to some special flat. He didn't say anything, to whom I
would be introduced, but I realized that it would be somebody at a
top position, but he didn't come. I don't know what_ happened.
Of course all of these meetings with Americans were reported by
me to the K GB. But I repeat, Ihave done it not in the proper way
because I couldn't write in this report, you know, that I really wanted
to go to the U.S.A. or something like that and, therefore, there was
a very funny and dangerous game. Sort of mixture between my
natural?real thoughts?and my KGB part.
I must say that I had seen Sydney twice. He was, I would say,
rather primitive man, and later he was arrested in Moscow because of
corruption. When the ?lune with the Americans started, Pavlovsky
immediately came to Berlin and there was an alarm. The KGB was
rather afraid of what happened and in this time I realized that in the
structure of KGB there is the real borderline between different
departments: English-speaking countries, and that means England,
Pakistan, Australia, India, and New Zealand. American department
is different absolutely.
Well, I would say they are clever. That's not exactly a border
line. It could be sometimes consultations even shifting from one part
to another. It all depends on the job, what's the interest of the job
is and I know that when Egoroy first came to Berlin he knew all of the
Americans and was totally unhappy. He said, "Oh, no, we -need
British," because his department was particularly British, but then
someone, his superior decided?well, if there is any chance to make a
good job with the Americans, I mean that in quotation marks, job,
why not do so and they all came I guess twice to Berlin to consult,
to discuss, and then they decided, Ithink they decided themselves,
that it is a dangerous game and they told me that I must come for
a consultation for 2 weeks to Moscow.
Well, I called Bob Gray and said: "Bob, I must go to Moscow for
2 weeks." He told-me on the -telephone: "Please don't do that, I want
you to see me first of all, and I came to your press club."
I guess we had supper together with his wife and then we separated
and he told me: "Look, you must come tomorrow to my place and you
must escape. Everything must happen tomorrow because if you
wouldn't do it they won't let you come back to Berlin."
At that time he still didn't know that I was a co-opted KGB man,
you see.
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When I came to Moscow I realized that my position is rather un-
stable because of my relation with Americans. Egorov told me that
directly and he advised me to write something anti-American. He
gave me this hint, you know, to write some article anti-American,
anti-British, anti-imperialistic to make my position better, you see,
from the ideological point of view. As a result of these my article
was published in the magazine "New Times," which was titled some-
thing like "About Moral of the American Newspapermen."
I used in that article some details, -for example, the trip
to Peenemunde, how Dennis Wewar drank and so on. I knew from
Bespalov that his man at Peenemunde had tried to have a "gentle-
man relation" with one German driver and was looking for special
information. Of course he couldn't get information in the normal way.
I made such a speculative and I would say yellowed article, and
that really helped me. My position in the KGB improved again. I
became again a trusted man. At that time the boss of the second chief
directorate of the MGB was General Pedovranov. One of his assist-
ants, I don't know his name, invited me to the Hotel Moscow together
With Pavlovskiy and talked to me very politely. I don't know why
he asked me about my French language, but I didn't know French,
you see, and still?well, I realized that situation became better after
my article was published.
Briefly talking I would say that this operation, which we call
among ourselves "Operation Atlee", because at that time the Prime
Minister of Groat Britain was Atlee, and the idea was that, Atlee
would confirm my recruitment, you see, this operation was ended.
Sure, there were many meetings with many other foreigners, and
each of them from the point of KGB was potentially a buyer, I think
it's impossible to describe all of those because that would be a very,
long story, I went twice, to the Western Zones of Germany, and that
was usually a 10-days visit of Soviet correspondents in the Western
Zones at the same time, the Western correspondents visited the Soviet
Zone.
During those visits, again I tried to talk with foreigners in a pro-
vocative way, still it was a failure. But KGB people, I think, smelled
correctly. If they didn't take me back to Moscow at that time probably
I would defect into the West in how many years, 15 years earlier
period. I am not sure of this because I still, I had a chance, I remember
that when I met Bob and I told him that I would come back I told
Bob that everything would be all right, but inwardly I thought that
KGB wouldn't give me possibility to come back to Berlin.
I remember at the night, no, it was an early, early morning, maybe
6 o'clock when I drove to the airport through the American sector of
Berlin, and I knew that it was so easy for me to stop the car to say
to the German driver to stop it and go out, and that's all, I think even
this German driver if he had some money would go with me, you see.
But I didn't do that, and that's what I am trying to explain in my
book. Well, I don't know, it's very individual, but still I had three
opportunities until I had done it, and I didn't use those three, but
they were absolutely real. I think that there wasn't something inwardly
great enough, it was a rather difficult process inwardly. Therefore, I
couldn't do that at that time. I could meditate and I can now think
and analyze all of that, but emotionally in some way I couldn't do that
then.
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Well, I met many important foreign people in Germany, among
them was Lord Pachenham. He was the commander of the whole
English Zone. Well, I met the First Secretary of Social Democrats in
Germany, Kurt Schumacher, and then I met, he is now the boss, the
Communist Party boss in the western part of Germany, Max Reimann..
I had been in his flat as a Soviet correspondent, and then I visited the
Island Helgoland which was a rather important place at that time.
Mr. SOURWINE. Well, when did you first receive any money from
our side?
Mr. KARLIN. Fr01/1 your side?
Mr. SOURWINE. When did you sell yourself, as you say?
Mr. EARLIN. I never got it.
Mr. SOURWINE. You never got any at this stage at all?
Mr. KARLIN. No, unfortunately, sir.
Mr. SOURWINE. Well, I thought we would bring'thisTout because
you said you guessed this was the first time.
Mr. KARLIN. From the American?
Mr. SOURWINE. Yes.
Mr. KARLIN. Oh, no, no, nothing of this sort. No, I only had an
opportunity to smoke Chesterfield cigarettes, 1 would say I have
some chewing gum you see, but that was such a friendly relation,
and there was not any attempt, there was not any attempt to do that.
Mr. SOURWINE.- There was discussion about the possibility?
Mr. KARLIN. Well, that was only discussion. For example, when
I asked Bob Gray what I would be able to do in the States, how I
would make money there, he said, "That's no problem, you know the
Russian language, and you will be an interpreter or a teacher and
you will have good money."
Then he introduced me to Henry.
Mr. SOURWINE. Then you were introduced to Henry?
Mr. KARLIN. Henry didn't say anthing about money at that time.
Mr. SOURWINE. But Henry made no overt move to recruit you?
Mr. KARLIN. Well, yes. I mean, there was an attempt. Of course,
well, I didn't think he wanted to help me to come to the States
because of my beautiful eyes, and that's correct at that time "the
Cold war" started, and I think Americans realized that between them
and Soviets something not so friendly really exists.
Mr. SOURWINE. Well, you never reached a period where they trusted
you enough to give you any instructions or
Mr. KARLIN. I think we
Mr. SOURWINE. Or ask you for anything?
Mr. E ARLIN. We were on the way to do that, but it was still danger-
ous for me to give them valuable information because, well, you see,
still I didn't know whether I would do that really, inwardly, and then
wanted to do that, being out of the Soviet Union, because you know,
that's what I would like to tell you, because when this game with the
Americans started, when Egorov came to Berlin he told me many times
in such a funny way; "Well, you know what happened when our official,
one KGB boy decided to defect. He went to the Western Zone of
Germany and then two of our boys put him in the bag, and he is now
in Moscow."
He gave me a hint. That was the psychological pressure.
Mr. SOURWINE. Well, you must have been in a very bad situation
at the time, nobody trusted you then, even your own people.
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Mr. KARLIN. I want to say that all my life I was in that situation,
and that was, you know, that was inevitable because that was before I
was co-opted, even in the normal life in Soviet Union when you can't
say what you think, and that every time you're in such a situation
someone not trusting you, and you are saying some falsity and
that's awful and it's dangerous game even if you are not co-opted of
KGB, and now it's the same thing, no question about it.
Mr. SOURWINE. Well, what came of your experiences in Berlin?
Mr. KARLIN. What what?
Mr. SouuwINE. What was accomplished as a result of your trip to
Berlin?
Mr. KARLIN. Well, from the point of KGB I think I was rather
more experienced, and particularly in relations with foreigners because
before when I have been in Moscow, worked in Moscow Radio and
Moscow Information Bureau, well, I met some foreigners, but that was
occasionally, and I would say in that time I had a good English not
like this now because half a year I was among Americans and English.
I repeat from professional KGB point of view I became more
experienced, it was easier for me to relate, to be at the parties. You
know still for a stranger it's difficult to be in the parties and to talk.
You must talk in the parties. Sometimes you don't know what you
are talking about, you see, and you need to do it. You have to learn
it, you see, and I guess when I came back to Moscow I was better
talker.
Well, if you want to know about my real feelings, my psychological
feelings at that time, I think I was having in myself again very strong
conflict, inner conflict. I wouldn't say that I was active anti-Soviet
at that time. If I would I probably would have my story all different.
I lived with those typical and tragical mixtures between belief and
nonbelief, you see, which exists until now in the nature of Soviet
people.
Mr. SOURWINE. But you had no mission really, no project that you
carried out in Berlin?
Mr. KARLIN'. No, I think it was a failure.
Mr. SOURWINE. You went there as you said to sell yourself and
you never succeeded?
Mr. KARLIN. That's true.
Mr. SOURWINE. And nobody brought you anything to buy so you
eventually went home omptyhanded. How long were you in Berlin?
Mr. KARLIN. From May to November. I remember because when
I had been in the airport there was many who wanted to go for
celebrating November days, it could be the 6th, or the 5th of
November.
Mr. SOTJEWINE. And then you returned to Moscow?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. Now, what happened when you got back to
Moscow?
Mr. KARLIN. I must repeat that I felt then that my position wasn't
so good after my game with Americans, and I produced an article
against the American and English correspondents, which made my
position better, at that time. And I think the next operation was
organized in 1947, the same year. In that time I was out of KGB,
I guess maybe in a month, two, period.
Mr. SOURWINE. You were out of KGB?
45-155-70?pt. 1-4
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Mr. KARLIN. Well, I mean out of operations, out of activity.
Mr. SouawINE. You mean you had, after you returned from Berlin,
you got no new assignment for a month or so?
Mr. KARLIN. That's correct, sir.
Mr. SouuwiNE. Until the end of 1947?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, something like that.
Mr. SOURWINE. You came back in November and through Christ-
mas week and New Years?
MT. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. No new assignments?
Mr. KARLIN. My next operation started somewhere between the
end of 1947 and the spring of 1948.
Mr. SOURWINE. Spring of 1948?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. All right, what was that project then?
Mr. KARLIN. That was a project that concerned the Indian Em-
bassy. In that time the Indians opened their Embassy in Moscow.
Mrs. Pandit was the Ambassador, she was a very important person.
That's what I know exactly, and with her came the first secretary of
the Embassy. In 1963 he came again to Moscow as the Extraordinary
and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of India in Moscow. This was the
man who helped Svettana Alilluyeva to bring her manuscript to the
West.
Mr. SOURWINE. What is his name?
- Mr. KARLIN. His name is Triloki Kaul.
Mr. SOURWINE.
Mr. KARLIN. Kaul, yes. I don't really know how to spell the
Indian's name.
Mr. SounwINE. Is he Foreign Secretary of his country now?
Mr. KARLIN. I don't know what his position is now. I never read
anything like that in the newspaper. When I left Moscow he was then
the Indian Ambassador.
A story with Svetlana's manuscript was told by Isaac Don Levine,
he said that Svetlana mentioned this gentleman in her second book.
Mr. SOURWINE. Yes, he is supposed to have received her manu-
script, carried it out of the country and returned it to her possession.
Mr. KARLIN. That's what I know, and I don't know what his
position is now, where he is now, and what he's doing now. I don't
know anything about it.
Mr. SOURWINE. This is very easy to determine and we will put a
footnote in the record at this point showing his present position.*
Mr. KARLIN. OK, but in 1948 he was young, charming, very
handsome man.
Mr. SOURWINE. What was his position?
Mr. KARLIN. He was the First Secretary of the Embassy and
unofficially, that is Egorov told me, he was at the same time private
secretary of Pandit Nehru and I must admit I am sorry to say that
Egorov gave me a hint that he had an intimate relation with his lady
Ambassador.
Mr. SOURWINE. You have no other knowledge of this?
Mr. KARLIN. That's only what I have heard from Egorov, you
see, because Egorov, when he put me on this operation, told me first
of all the whole about the Embassy, what is the Embassy, how they
*The information referred to had not been received when this publication went to press.
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behave, you know, arid he told me that Indians don't like to wash
their hands, that they are eating and sitting on the floor, that the
Ambassador, even' beats her servants and so on.
She lived m the Embassy and Triloki lived in the Hotel Metropole
according to Egorov. He graduated from Oxford University, he left
his wife in India?I don't remember where, in some places, but in
that time he was a young diplomat.
Well, I don't think, I'm not sure, but I think he was little bit over
30 years.
Mr. SOURWINE. This was the early spring of 1948?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, and he Was a very, very charming and hand-
some man really.
Mr. SOURViTINE. All right.
Why were you told all of these things? Were you given a mission
with respect to him?
MT. KARLIN. Yes. KGB idea Was to find a way to introduce me
to him, and then to make with him a friendship, in quotation marks.
To see in which way it would be possible to use him. Firstly I had to
create a good relation with him and then to understand what sort of
a man he is, which would be the best way to catch him.
MT. SOURWINE. He was a desirable target?
Mr. KARLIN. Oh yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. !And at the beginning you were, as we would say,
playino? the buyer?
Mr. .'itARLIN. Correct, sir.
Mr. SOURWINE. You Were moving in to see what his weaknesses
were, what might be accomplished?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. All right.
Mr. KARLIN. KGB's knowledge was only general and biographical,
not psychological, based on the individuality.
Mr. SOURWINE. Well, were you successful?
Mr. KARLIN. Well, in some way.
Mr. SOURWINE. Tell us about it.
Mr. KARLIN. I Will tell you briefly all this story.
Mr. SOURWINE. All right.
Mr. KARLIN. At some party Raul was introduced to Micheev whom
I mentioned yesterday when I told you his story happened in Australia
where he was under the KGB and TASS duties. Micheev later became
the chief editor of the international department of the magazine
Communist, you know, the leading Soviet magazine. I was introduced
to Micheev by the KGB, then he invited to his place Kaul and me.
But Kaul came with another Indian, Bhatia, B-h-a-t-i-a, who
brought his wife.
We had a nice party, Micheev tried to do everything in a good way.
Mr. SOURWINE. Where was this party, at your place?
Mr. KARLIN. No, at his place, Micheev's, his flat in Moscow.
Now they call it the Peace Avenue, in the TASS Building, that was
the building for the TASS workers there.
We met there, and I became acquainted with Kaul well enough to
call him later without Micheev. So I called him, and we met and he
bought at that time his first car, private car because at that time a
foreign diplomat could buy a car only from another diplomat from
one embassy to another, and he bought his gray Ford. We went with
him, in the famous Russian bath.
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We went to the theaters. Well, that's all not so important. But,
still we had a long time relation, and then one day he mentioned
something what happened with him. I said, "What's that?" and
he said, "Well, I am in love." The next day he told me: "It's a real
love, great love, and a tragical love." Because he said, "She's married
and she's Russian," and at the first time he didn't tell me who she is.
Mr. SOURWINE. Now, this was after youlaad known him how long?
MT. KARLIN. Well, I don't really remember, but I think it could
be
Mr. SOURWINE. Weeks, months?
Mr. KARLIN. Give me a moment. There was the next summer, yes,
I think it was 3 or 4 months time, maybe 5, even.
Mr. SOURWINE. This is now the middle of the summer of 1948 that
you are talking about?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes. But the next winter she was arrested. That
means, yes, that was about half a year, 3, 4, 5 months. I don't remem-
ber exactly.
MI'. SOURWINE. But you had been quite successful in getting close
to him during this period of months?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, that's true. I had some. I would say I had almost
with all foreigners some risky additional things in my relations. Being
KGB co-opted man I talked to foreigners sometimes freely. Because
in it I tried to find a way to be little bit myself. Once I told Triloki
that still I had a dream to write something that I really thought, which
really happened in my life and he very craftily told me, "Well, why
not do that?" I said: "Well, that's rather complicated. There is
situation when it is the interest of millions which is more important
than my own," and so on, because I couldn't tell him openly every
thing.
That was again some funny game and so he said, "Well, if you will
come to this idea, if you will be able to write truth, if
you will be
brave enough to do that, I will be able to take it out, you see." I
remember one day we drove in his car and he told me that.
We have had very close relationship. Therefore, he decided to tell me,
rather intimate things, you see, but he didn't mention who she was.
I reported this to the KGB. When I met Egorov he smiled and said
that he knew who she was. She was a movie star, Tatiana Okunev-
skaya. That was her name, but she wasn't then young. I think she
was even a little bit older than Kaul, probably 32. That's a good age I
would say, and she was known as very Russian, I would say too
Russian, such a lady for whom the emotions was the first things.
She was very unobedient, it was difficult for her to keep herself under
the Soviet control and to live "normally" in the Soviet society. She
had many troubles.
She was married firstly by one movie director, I know him pretty
well, and her child is from him. Then she married another, again
very famous Soviet writer, Boris Gorbatov. He was a talented man
but he was a Communist party man and I would say an orthodox
man. She didn't like him but she wanted probably, you know, to try
to keep her family, to have a father for her daughter and she was
particularly in that time his wife.
How they, Kaul and Okunevskaya, met? They met at a diplomatic
reception, it seems to me one in Indian Embassy.
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I don't know exactly how many times they met, and what they did,
but they became lovers, and KGB wanted, that is what Egorov told
me to use her, but she didn't agree. She said to them?no, and she
did it roughly, strongly and of course the KGB was not so happy
because of it, and they tried to talk with her husband, and then they
again invited her, they threatened her and she said again no, no,
and no.
Now, how they know this I don't know, but she told Kaul something
against the Soviet system, and then
Mr. SOURWINE. She told who?
Mr. KARLIN. Kaul. I guess they had only one possibility to meet
one another, in the car, and they went outside of Moscow and they
tried to find some place there. The KGB followed them everywhere.
Well, they follow almost every foreign car, and that's like two and
two makes four, with very few exceptions. It's a very funny thing but
sometimes some foreigners told me that they weren't followed in
Moscow. Well, sometimes they follow them so skillfully that foreigners
couldn't see it.
Mr. SOURWINE. Also the KGB knows all about rough tales .and
smooth tales toot don't they?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. Now, do you know what I am talking about? I
mean if the occasion presents they will have the car followed by some-
one who is so clumsy that he is noticed and they escape him, and there
is another following who is never noticed.
Mr. KARLIN. Well, they are very capable people.
Mr. SOURWINE. Anything we can do they can do?
Mr. KARLIN. Even more.
Mr. SOURWINE. You add the word better.
Mr. KARLIN. You started to do that only from 1947 I guess. You
realized it was necessary to do that, but they realized it's important,
and see, they have had long experience, but you still I would say are
equipped better. Now, once I was told by Egorov that this happened
with Kaul and Okunevskaya: When they had been in the car the
police came and said go out of this place and wanted to check their
docianents. Kaul said that he is foreign diplomat. He said, "If you
try to check a document of the lady with whom 1 am with, 1'11 write
a letter personally to Stalin." What was a purpose to check her docu-
ments? They wanted simply to frighten them, to put them in an
uncomfortable position.
Mr. SOURWINE. How low, did this harassment go on after he told
you be was in love and that was the summer of 1949?
Mr. KARLIN. Later he asked me to find a place for him He said he
needed a dacha, a little cottage. It was clear that he needed it to meet
her there, to invite her because there was no place for him to invite
her because they couldn't go to the Metropole Hotel.
Mr. SOURWINE. Yes, this is clear.
Mr. KARLIN. That's clear, from, how we say the female position.
Therefore, I rented, by order of KGB, a little cottage outside of
Moscow close to dacha of Indian Ambassador, and the KGB decided
to rent another little cottage where they put me.
Kalil came to this place with his lady and her friend, Petrova, an
actress, she was an actress, and usually they came together, the three
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50
of them, and Petrova asked her permission to go to walk a little bit,
and they have been there, the two of them, you see, and that was the
only one way for them to be together.
But then under the personal order, I know that from what Egorov
told me, personal order of Stalin she was arrested, and that was the
crucial point for him.
Mr. SOURWINE. Now, this was when?
Mr. KARLIN. YOU know, it was a wintertime. Wait a minute, yes,
winter, 1949.
Mr. SOURWINE. Winter of 1948-49, I guess?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, that's true.
Mr. SOURWINE. This was 6 or 8 months after he first told you that
he was in love?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. lre11, it was 18 months after?
Mr. KARLIN. Oh, that was a lona story.
Mr. SOURWINE. After he first told you that he was in love?
Mr. KARLIN. HOW many?
Mr. SOURWINE. About 18?
Mr. KARLIN. No, I guess it was shorter. Well, dates--
Mr. SOURWINE. Well, we had established this, that you met him
near the beginning of 1948.
Mr. KARLIN. les.
Mr. SouawiNE. And that 4 or 5 months, maybe 6 months later,
which would be the middle of the summer, he told you that he was
in love.
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. And the KGB told you who it was?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. Then later lie asked you to get a dacha for him?
Mr. KARLIN. But it was a summer too.
Mr. SOURWINE. It must have been the summer of 1949?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes and in 1948, in the winter she was arrested.
Mr. SOURWINE. Yes,
so that was some months after you got the
dacha?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. All right.
Mr. KARLIN. And then we met and he said?help me.
Mr. SOIJRWINE. You had no other case all of this time?
Mr. KARLIN. No.
Mr. SOURWINE. Your assignment was Kaul?
Mr. KARLIN. Only he.
Mr. SOURWINE. All right.
Mr. KARLIN. And then he told me help me, I would do every-
thing to save this woman because I love her, because I feel myself
guilty a little bit, but first of all because that's the one love in my
life and I will do everything.
Mr. SOURWINE. Now, on what charges was she arrested or were
there any charges?
Mr. KARLIN. Well, officially?
Mr: SOURWINE. Yes.
Mr. KARLIN. Well, I don't know what they put, 58 or 58?A, you
know, but that's, of course, because she told him something against
Stalin.
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51
Mr. SOURWINE. The charge was that she told Kaul something
against the Government?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes,, that's right.
Mr. SOURWINE. All right.
Mr. KARLIN. But I am not sure she was given the particular charge.
He asked me: "Do you know anyone, top official?" Well, he was a
clever man, and at second visit he confirmed it. He mentioned a
lawyer or a counsel, how you call it here, attorney. He asked me
whether I know someone, the VIP. He said well, he needs someone
with whom he would be able to talk, and I would help him, if I'll find
such a person.
That was particularly what the KGB expected. I remember at
that time I Met firstly very talented man, his name is Fedor Shubnikov.
That's very interesting, because by nationality he was a gypsy, and
it is a rare thing.
Mr. SOURWINE. Shubnikov?
Mr. KARLIN. Fedor Shubnikov, and being in such a top position
with a gypsy background, that's a unique thing in the Soviet life.
Mr. SOURWINE. What was his position with the KGB?
Mr. KARLIN. He was, personally, in a close private relation with
Alakumov. Shubnikov's position was at that time, as far as I know,
he was the chief of the Middle European, no, English-speaking, but
without Americans. . . .
Mr. SOURWINE. Division?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes. Egorov, for example, was responsible, firstly for
the English Embassy, and then Pakistanian, and then Indians.
Shubnikov was responsible for the whole of them including the
Australians and maybe some others.
Mr. SOURWINE. Well, Shubnikov must have been at least the area
director, more than the area director?
Mr. fiARLIN. Pedovranov was the boss of the second chief directo-
rate of the KGB.
Mr. SOURWINE. HOW do you spell his name?
Mr. KARLIN. P-e-d-o-v-r-a-n-o-v.
Well, he is known. He was a very well known man and Shubnikov
was one of his assistants.
Mr. SouRwiNE. He was assistant director of the second--
Mr. KARLIN. Chief Directorate.
Mr. SOURWINE. Of the KGB?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. And in charge of all English-speaking countries
except the United States?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. All right.
Mr. KARLIN. At that time, Egorov told me that I must come to
the Hotel Moscow. I came and he was there alone and we talked and
suddenly the door opened and came a young man, he was at that
time young, and I would say thin. He had a sharp mind, sharp mood.
He was a clever man, and he wanted to know my opinion, whether
we would succeed, I mean the KGB would succeed to try to use this
Okunevskaya case to recruit Kaul.
I told them, if we would try to do it carefully, probably it would
work, because of a great love.
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I said that all this is delicate thing and it must be done very skill-
fully because the man is refined by his nature. He is not a man whom
you can press by gun or by money.
We discussed all situations and the decision was this: I had to tell
Kaul that I have a friend of mine with whom I studied in the school,
and then I lost him, and now I heard that he is in a very top position
in the Ministry of Jurisdiction, Ministry
Mr. SOURWINE. Juridical?
Mr. KARLIN. Juridical Ministry, yes, and that I can, help him to
meet this man, I will try to arrange this meeting. Shubnikov said that
this my school time friend would be Egorov. Egorov was a sharp man,
but he was I would say rather simple type, rather primitive type of
man.
Mr. SOURWINE. -You mean no finesse:
Mr. KARLIN. Well, it's funny to say about this because I myself
am too Russian primitive in a way, but manners, you see, you must
impress a man, if you talk to a man, but he wasn't all right to be,
like that, and I remembered then that we discussed that it is neces-
sary for him to create an image of a top man, even his appearance
must be changed, you see, and the KGB gave him some money to
buy the new dress, the hat, and that was very important, because that
was wintertime, and he bought a very expensive hat. So, I told Kalil
about such a possibility and he said, "Oh, please do that," and I
arranged their meeting which happened in my flat, in my own room,
one room, 11 meters, with 21 neighbors.
Mr. SOURWINE. Was Kaul fooled?
Mr. KARLIN. Was he what?
Mr. SOURWINE. Was he fooled, was he taken in?
Mr. KARLIN. Egorov came to me with his, not his, but KGB's
special car and I introduced him to Kaul and I tried as much as I
could to make impression that he, Egorov, is a top man and we
talked, and very often Egorov interrupted and said, "I'm sorry,
must make a call." He went to the corridor and there was a telephone,
and I left the door opened for Kaul to hear a conversation, not the
conversation but how he talks, in such a boss's tone. He did every-
thing to make an impression that something depends on him.
We started to talk but in 10 minutes time, the light was cut.
I don't know until now whether the KGB decided to do it themselves,
but I prepared some food and we 'Waited a little land there was no
electricity.
Then this Rumynzev, he had introduced himself as Rumynzev,
said: "Let's go to a restaurant and have food and talk." We went to
a restaurant Moscow and we started to talk about the business, and
I would say that there were real tears in Kaul's eyes, he cried.
Mr. SOTJRWINE. In Kaul's eyes? ?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, yes. He said, "I will do everything," and they
exchanged the telephones and then my knowledge of their relation, was
very limited, because Egorov used me only for?continuing my
relationship I asked Kaul what's going on, but Egorov and Shubnikov
wanted to know what he is telling me, you know, after their meetings.
They used me as a double--
Mr. SOURWINE. Double check?
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Mr. KARLIN. Yes. One day I remember Egorov, was totally angry
and he called Kaul a stupid Indian. Kaul brought him some docu-
ments, one was from the Canadian Embassy and after checking that
precisely KGB came to the idea that it was absolutely not important,
and not a secret one.
Mr. SOTJRWINE. From a Canadian Embassy?
MT. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. What kind of a document?
Mr. KARLIN. I don't know, some bulletin.
Mr. SOURWINE. Bulletin?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, but Egorov said that they checked it and it
was absolutely not important and lie said: "This stupid Indian wants
to play with us a game, and we won't do that." I think they later ended
their relationship because when he came as an ambassador he said:
"We had at that time great fighting," and he asked me where this
Rumynzev is now.
And then one day he called me and he said he would like me to come
to his hotel because he is leaving the U.S.S.R.
Mr. SouRwiNE. Well now, We have gotten clown to the point where
he had come to you again, is that right?
Mr. KARLIN. He asked me to come to the hotel, to tell me bye-
bye and he told me he would leave the country and I telephoned
Egorov and he said yes, he is leaving the country, and I can buy
something to give him, a present, you see, and I guess I bought him
a Ukrainian shirt.
When I came to his place he was in his tears and he told me: "Look,
as a gentleman to gentleman, if you would have anywhere, any time
the chance to see this woman, Okunevskay, please tell her that I
loved her, really, and that I never would love anyone else." I realized
that he was totally in love and in a rather Indian way with a sentiment.
Well, I don't think that was a show, I think that was real, what
happened with him. But, he didn't betray his country, you see,
and I think he was a strong man and what happened later only
confirmed it.
There are other cases with other people when they were not strong
enough, but in this particular case Kaul was strong enough and what
I know later was interesting I think, because I met Egorov many,
many years after that when he went to the first directorate. I met
him when he came from Austria, I guess, accidentally and we had
a dinner together and he told me: "Do you know how close to death
you both were at that time?"
He said, "You know, the assistant, of Shubnikov, Meclvedev said
that these two men are enemies, one is a spy and another is traitor."
Me the traitor, and Kaul, a spy.
Kaul went to his country, and the operation was ended, but only
for 15 years time because in 1962 when he came as Extraordinary
and Plenipotentiary Ambassador to Moscow the head of the second
chief?Directorate General Gribanov, that's my boss, asked me to
start again to relate with Kaul, to try to do something, but that
would be?I guess we will come to this later, because there was after
the French case.
Mr. SOURWINE. Well, let's go right ahead now that we are talking
about Kaul.
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Mr. KARLIN. All right.
Mr. SOURWINE. Let's jump for 15 years. For 15 years you had no
contact. with him?
Mr. KARLIN. Now let me account, that was 1949, 1959, 10, no, not
15, 13 years.
Mr. SOURWINE. All right, no contact?
Mr. KARLIN. No, no contact.
Mr. SOURWINE. You didn't write?
Mr. KARLIN. Nothing.
Mr. SOURWINE. He didn't write to you?
Mr. KARLIN. No.
Mr. SOURWINE. All right.
Mr. KARLIN. Only I had his greeting from Wilfred Peter Burchette.
Again this Burchette is everywhere, and knew everyone.
Mr. SOURWINE. Burehette brought you greetings from Kaul?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. When?
Mr. KARLIN. When he Came to Moscow.
Mr. SOURWINE. Every time he came to Moscow?
Mr. KARLIN. No, no, that was the first time when it happened, .
when he came firstly he told me that he met Kaul in China.
Mr. SOURWINE. When was this?
Mr. KARLIN. When he came to Moscow.
Mr. SOURWINE. When did he come to Moscow?
Mr. KARLIN. Burchette?
Mr. SOURWINE. Yes.
Mr. KARLIN. First time he came to Moscow in 1956, but that was
only the first visit, then he came three or four times, and then I had a
relation with him again.
Mr. SOURWINE. Well then it was 8 years then?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes,
Mr. SOURWINE. For 8 years you heard nothing from him?
Mr. KARLIN. Nothing.
Mr. SOURWINE. Theti Wilfred Burchette came to Moscow and
brought you greetings from Kaul?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes. He said he met him in China, but I am not sure
that that was so. I did not know it was right at that time, you see,
because Burchette came from Vietnam to Moscow, but he was in
China before.
Mr. SOURWINE. Now, had you and Burchette and Kaul ever had
anything in common back in 1949?
Mr. KARLIN. No. I heard, I heard I guess from Micheev, you
know, this man who introduced me to him, that Kaul is in China, in
the Indian Embassy.
Mr. SOURWINE. But in 1949 when Kaul was there, just before he
left--
Mr. KARLIN. Yes?
Mr. SOURWINE. Did you and he and Burchette have anything in
common?
Mr. KARLIN. NO.
Mr. SOURWINE. Now, you had taken Burchette and two other
newspapermen to Peenemunde?
Mr. KARLIN. That's correct.
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Mr. SOURWINE. That was the last you had to do with Burchette,
wasn't it?
Mr. KARLIN. No, I wouldn't say the last. All during my stay in
Germany I met him many times, but the operational interest ended
very soon.
Mr. SOURWINE. Yes, but the friendship continued?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. Well, we will get to Burchette's story later, but at
the moment I am trying to see how he fits into this Kaul story. You
have continued your contact with Burchette and in 1947, as we shall
hear more fully later, he told you he was a Communist?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. But you and he and Kaul had nothing in common?
Mr. KARLIN. No, sir.
Mr. SOURWINE. Why would Kaul pick him to send greetings to
you?
Mr. KARLIN. Well---
Mr. SOURWINE. Kalil didn't even know you knew him.
Mr. KARLIN. The answer is this: When Burchette was in China he
met him, he became in a good relation with him, and they discussed
their Russian friends, you see, and occasionally they came to the
idea that they knew one person.
Mr. SOURWINE. I see.
Mr. KARLIN. Me, and then when Burchette went to Moscow
through Vietnam, I guess, even he Could compose this greeting, you
see, only to make me pleased, and to show that well, r am rather
known in China, Red China,.
But, later when I see Kaul as Ambassador I asked him and he
said yes, I met Burchette there. You know, and from the KGB I
knew that Kaul, I knew that when he came as Ambassador that
Emil had a rather similar love story in China too.
Mr. SOURWINE. All right. So you had one messap from Kaul in
13 years and that was a greeting brought to you by Wilfred Burchette?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, sir.
Mr. SOURWINE. Then Kaul came back as Ambassador?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. And what did you do, did you go up and knock
on his door and say I hear you have been away?
Mr. KARLIN. General Gribanov decided firstly to wait whether
Kaul would try to find me, but he didn't, and I think 2 or 3 weeks
passed. But, of course, you know, after such a great success with the
French case, Gribanov thought, why not to recruit the Indian Ambas-
sador, too, because at that time it was very important, there was a
war between India and China and it was crucial situation.
Mr. SOURWINE. This was in 1962, now?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, and in that time, of course, well, to have some-
body like an Ambassador convenient in the Indian Embassy, would
be great.
Mr. SOURWINE. You told us you had been instructed by the KGB
to resume your relationship?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. Now, how did you go about resuming your relation-
ship after all of these years?
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56
Mr. KARLIN. How I have done it?
Mr. SOURWINE. Here is a man, Kaul, whom you have not seen
in 13 years.
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. Your instructions are to resume your relationship
with him.
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SounwINE. How did you do it, how did you go about resuming
your relationship?
Mr. KARLIN. Well, the first thing, I repeat, KGB thought that he
would have to find me, but he didn't do that.
Mr. SOURWINE. Who tried to do what?
Mr. KARLIN. KG-B wanted first to wait until he probably would
do that, to find me in Moscow.
MT. SOURWINE. Oh, yes.
Mr. KARLIN. But he didn't do that, and then--
Mr. SouRwnin. How long did they wait for him?
Mr. KARLIN. I guess about 3 weeks.
Mr. SOURWINE. Yes.
Mr. KARLIN. Not so long.
Mr. SouRwnin. They were a little impatient?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, that's true, and then I was invited to some
top-level flat, that was Gribanov's flat, not his private flat, his office
fiat, and his assistant, Andreev introduced to me another KGB
man. I know only his name, his first and second. I don't know his
real name, it was Evgeniy Mihalovich, and I guess he was one of the
assistants of Gribanov. You know, I would like to point out here
that the whole period of my relationship with the KGB, I had very
close relations with some of the officers personally, and that's a very
important thing, because in the French case what I knew, I knew
because of my personal relationship with the KGB officials'.
Evgeniy Mihalovich told me that he wants me to call the Indian
Embassy and that it's possible to call upon only the Secretary to the
Ambassador and to name myself and to tell as little as possible, with-
out many details, that I would like to talk to the Ambassador because
I knew him in his past being in Moscow, and to wait to see what
would be the reaction of the Secretary because the idea was to say as
little as possible. Why? Because Evgeniy Mihalovich told me that
by their knowledge there is a very strong secret service man in the
Indian Embassy.
I don't know how they could know it. He told me then that Mr.
Nehru, before he sent Kaul to Moscow, told him: "Look, you must
understand that anything like happened to you in the Soviet Union
last time couldn't be again. You must remember that you have done
the same thing in China, and therefore, that someon.e will look for
you." How do they know that?
How could they know what Nehru told Kaul?
Well, I telephoned to the Secretary and he was inquisitive.
Then in a couple of minutes' time there was a pause and Kaul
came to the telephone and said, "Oh, hello. Well, I am thinking about
where to find you," and so on. He was very gentle and he said: "Well
I would like to see you." Then we met once and I came to his Embassy,
there was a party and no, not a party, wed-lad a lunch, only two of us,
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and, of course, he remembered what happened years ago, and about
the lady and in a rather sad way he said yes, that was a sad story.
By the way, she was released, and I am not sure bow many years
she spent in prison, but then she came back to Moscow, but she
became totally drunkard, and rather abnormal in a sexual way, and
her husband died, and she married?another man.
Mr. SOURWINTE. Off the record.
Senator THURMOND. Off the record.
(Discussion off the record.)
Senator THURMOND. We will close up for today. The committee will
stand in recess until tomorrow.
(Whereupon, at 4:05 p.m., the hearing was recessed to re-
convene at 1 p.m., the following (hay, November 5, 1969.)
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TESTIMONY OF GEORGE KARLIN
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1969
U.S. SENATE,
SUBCOMMITTEE To INVESTIGATE THE
ADMINISTRATION OF THE INTERNAL SECURITY ACT,
AND OTHER INTERNAL SECURITY LAWS OF THE
COMMITTEE ON TIIE JUDICIARY, .
Washington, D .0 .
The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 1 :05 p.m. in room
154, Old Senate Office Building, Senator Strom Thurmond presiding.
Also present : J. G. Sourwine, chief counsel.
Senator THURMOND. I will remind the witness that he is still under
oath.
Mr. SOURWINE. Yesterday we were talking about a project involving
Mr. Kati of India, whom you referred to as Triloki Kaul.
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. Who is, I think, Mr. T. N. Kaul; is that correct?
Mr. KARLIN. What do you mean by T. N.?
Mr. SOURWINE, Initials T. N.
Mr. KARLIN. I guess so. But it was 'Tiki Kaul whom I knew,
Mr. SOURWINE. The present Foreign Secretary of India is T. N. Kaul.
Is this the same man?
Mr. KARLIN. I do not know anything about this. He is now the
Secretary of Foreign Affairs of India?
Mr. SOURWINE. They call it Foreign Secretary.
Mr. KARLIN. It is the same thing. I did not know he is such a big
man.
Mr. SOURWINE. He Was at one time Ambassador to the Soviet Union.
Mr. KARLIN. That is the same. And before he was the First Secre-
tary in the Embassy (1948) .
Mr. SOURWINE. Now, you had just reached the point when I asked
about Mr. Kaul having returned to the Soviet Union in, I think you
said, 1962 or 1963.
Mr. KARLIN. 1962.
Mr. SOURWINE. 1962. All right.
Mr. KARLIN. That was particularly when the Cuban crisis happened.
That was 1962.
Mr. SOURWINE. After an absence of 13 years?
Mr. KARLIN. That is true.
Mr. SOURWINE. Did you meet him when he returned?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. Tell us about your meeting.
Mr. KARLIN. I mentioned yesterday that I called him. And then he
invited me first of all to visit him in his part of the Embassy. It was a
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two-floor house. And there was some complication which I could not
explain to myself. The Soviet policeman who guarded the entrance did
not want to let me enter this house. He asked me who I am, and he
wanted to check my documents. With the help of some Indian who was
passing in the -yard, I explained that I was invited to see the Ambassa-
dor. With the help of that gentleman, I entered.
Later when I told the KGB people what happened, they said, "Oh,
you know, that was some misunderstanding, because we called someone
so that the police would not stop you, but they forgot."
I do not know really whether they forgot or whether they wanted to
create such impression so that the Indians would see that the policeman
did not want to give me an access. Because the majority of diplomats
in Moscow know that practically it is impossible to enter any closed
embassy.
There are open embassies in Moscow and there are closed embassies
in Moscow. And at that time the Indian Embassy was among the closed
embassies.
Mr. SOLMWINE. What is the basis for the distinction between open
embassies and closed embassies?
J\ Ir. KARLIN, I would say generally that the open embassies are those
of the satellite embassies, and the closed embassies those of the cap-
italistic countries. And I know- for example when I had some relation
with the member of the Mexican Embassy, it was an open embassy.
That means that there is not such a great attention paid to who comes
in, but still there is some control. And-that is a political matter here.
Let me repeat, that capitalistic embassies are closed. But there could be
some special idea in putting one embassy in the circle of closed and other
opened.
Mr. SOUR WINE. So you got into the closed embassy?
Mr. KARLIN-. Yes. And the Ambassador was not there at that time,
but his secretary was. And he was very pleasant. And he tried to talk
with me a little bit.
Ile said, "The master is now in the Kremlin, and he called and asked
for you to wait, and said that he would come in 10 minutes or 20 min-
utes time."
Well, I waited there. And Iliad a drink.
And in 15 minutes he came. He was older than I remembered him
before, 13 years ago. And he told me that he just left the Kremlin
where he talked to Marshal Malinoskiy. That was the Minister of De-
fense of the U.S.S.R. at that time?about the help or supply for
Indian troops.
Well, our meeting was "nice." We even kissed one another, I
remember.
And then we had a lunch. I think Kaul realized?that is what I
thought and that is what I think now?about my initiative. And he
told me many things about the political situation. Inwardly he wanted
me to write a report which someone in KGB would read. He talked
about politics, about the relation between China and India and the
position of the Soviet Union. He mentioned favorably the position of
Khrushchey. He praised Khrushchev greatly.
Kalil said he is a man who could understand the situation, and he
would be on the Indian side. He paid many compliments to Khrush-
chev, whom he met before.
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That was a political talk with Kaul's idea that all that would be
reported by me to the Soviet top men through the KGB.
Mr. SOURWINE. Is it your impression that Ambassador Kaul knew
you were working for the KGB?
Mr. KARLIN. IIe was a very clever man. Don't forget, what happened
with him in 1948-49?and now he came to the 'U.S.S.R. as an Ambassa-
dor?well, it would be absolutely stupid. I would say, if any Soviet
person in my position, script Writer, or whatever he is, would call
himself by his own impulse to the Plenipotentiary and Extraordinary
Ambassador from India, without guarantee that what he is doing is
correct. Because if someone would do anything like that otherwise, he
would be arrested. I do not think it would be necessary for him to have
some special documentary confirmation that I came from the KGB.
Mr. SOURWINE. I did not ask you about special doeumentary con-
firmation. I asked you if in your opinion in 1962 when he returned,
Ambassador Kaul knew that you were working for the KGB?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes. That is my opinion.
Mr. SOURWINE. Do you think he knew this when he was associated
with you or, as you put it, you were related with him in 1948?
Mr. KARLIN. I guess even then he thought about it. Well, I do not
know whether he was sure from the beginning. But later when I in-
troduced him to Rumynzev, I guess he was, and later, as the Ambassa-
dor, he told me what sort of relation there was between Rumynzev and
him
Mr. SOURWINE. What did he say that relationship was?
Mr. KARLIN. He asked me, where is that Rumynzev ?
I told him?and I was told by KGB what to say?it was not my
pri vote, initiative to say all that?I lost him, and I do not know really
where he is now because, well, we had a friendly relation a long time
ago, and then after time passed I forgot about him, and therefore
I do not know what happened with him.
Kaul told me that Rumynzev was not from judicial ministry, that
he was from MGB.
Senator THURMOND. Off the record.
(Discussion off the record.)
Senator THURMOND. Back on the record.
Mr. SounwiNn. We are talking about the discussion that you had
with Ambassador Kaul in 1962. We are talking about something that
he, Kalil, told you about Rumynzev?
Mr. KART,mt. Correct.
Mr. SOURWINE. And he told you, Kaul told you, that Rumynzev was
to his knowledge MOB?
MT. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SoutzwiNE. And that Rumynzev had introduced him, Kaul, to
certain KGB people, high officials?
Mr. KARLIN. Correct
Mr. SOURWINE. NOW, go On from there.
Mr. KARLIN. And that they met all together in the restaurant Aragvi,
which is well-known restaurant, one of the most famous in Moscow
with separate rooms on the first floor.
When we went to this restaurant together with the Ambassador
Kaul he said, well, I guess I have been in this particular room with
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Rumynzev and his bosses. And he said that they pressed him and?
well, there was a rather difficult game between them. But he said it
with irony, with the note of humor. I can explain it in two ways.
From one point of view it could be explained as his attempt to tell
me that, well, they were bad men, they were KGB, and you are still
not so bad, you are intellectual, you are a writer, and therefore I under-
stand how all that happened.
He was, I repeat, a clever man, with an oriental brain. He often
said nothing in such a_direct and precise way, he used often hints.
For me it was clear I want to underline this?after his being first
time in the U.S.S.R., after his personal tragedy, he represented the best
example of the, foreign diplomat who realized how complicated and
unique many things are in the U.S.S.R.
Probably, as I said, he understood my position, that I am at the same
time under the order of KGB, but at the same time I am a human
being who can sometimes tell him what is not necessary, with regard
to my own writer's tragedy.
Mr. SOURWINE. Was that the extent of your discussion with Kaul
in 1962?
Mr. KARLIN. We had many discussions when we went to Peredelkino.
It is place where Pasternak had his dacha and died. We went to his
grave. Kaul took a dinner in my room in the house of creative workers
of the Union of Soviet Writers, where I lived.
He remembered what happened with Okunevskay. But when he
talked 'about her, he tried to explain all that in a rather new different
way. He wanted to underline that their relation was more friendly,
than a love relation, that he wanted to help her because he thought
that she was arrested because of him.
Now, I want to tell you something which happened later.
In one press conference which Ambassador Kalil organized, he ex-
plained to the Soviet newspapermen the situation in the war between
India and China, he talked directly to these correspondents about the
Stalin purge in 1937, in a very strong and accusatory way. The Soviets
were even offended.
I want again to underline that Kalil was among diplomats whom I
have seen in my life a most clever and sharp man.
An idea of the KGB was at that time, firstly, to try to rebuild, renew,
my relation with Kaul in a generally friendly basis?to meet him, to
talk about this or that without any rush in the, beginning.
I met, him, I guess four, or five, or even six times. We went twice to a
restaurant, and after that another time I have been in his Embassy.
Then he organized that press conference, and he consulted with me to
whom to invite to that press conference, whether it was all right for
him now to do this because he wanted the Soviet newspapermen to
understand the real situation at the war theater.
Now I was told by the gentleman whom I mentioned yesterday,
Evgeniy Mihalovich, that it would be all right if I would say in my
conversation with Kaul that I want to show him my movies, that I
want to invite him to the movie committee's private place to show the
movies which were produced by my scripts and to organize for him a
little party inviting my friends too.
It is particularly what was done before in another operation. And
this KGB man even asked me to give him approximate list of names of
movie persons, men, and particularly women, whom it would be possi-
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ble to invite, with an idea that among the women would probably be
one who would try to infatuate Mr. Kaul.
Again, he did not tell me directly what the purpose was, but I had
done something very same before, and I could come to the conclusion
myself.
From my point of view, I again must underline that from my point
of view that was KGB's target, they wanted to recruit Kaul with a
help of woman.
Mr. ,SOURWINE. You have gone back now in talking about the time
when you were first assigned to Mr. Kau].
Mr. KARLIN. First what?
Mr. SOURWINE. First assigned, first instructed to relate with Kaul.
MT. KARLIN. On the second visit.
Mr. SOURWINE. On the second visit?
MT. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. When you talk about being asked to bring in a list
of names, was that the second visit you had with Kaul?
MT. KARLIN. Yes, sure.
Mr. SouawINE. Had the same thing happened the -first time?
Mr. KARLIN. No. The same thing happened in another operation.
Mr. SOURWINE. But it did not happen with Kaul?
MT. KARLIN. No.
I mentioned the previous operation which was organized against
the French Ambassador. That was done in the same way.
Mr. SOURWINE. I now understand. But the operation with the French
Ambassador was the same as the second time with Kaul?
Mr. KARLIN. The idea was the same. And they wanted to start it, but
still it was only beginning.
Mr. SouRwiNE. Was not the idea the same when you were first told
to relate with Kaul?
Mr. KARLIN. Oh, no. In that time I told you yesterday, the idea was
to have a friendly relation with him. And then his love affair with this
Okunevskay came itself.
Mr. SOURWINE. Did you have anything to do with bringing them
together?
Mr. KARLIN. No, that happened without me.
I mentioned yesterday that he met her at a party in the Embassy.
And then later he told me that, well, he is in love. And therefore that
happened itself. That was not my job.
Mr. SOURWINE. Now, let me go off the record a minute.
(Off the record.)
Mr. SOURWINE. Let's go back on the record.
Then it is clear, you state that you had nothing to do with bringing
Kaul together with this girl with whom he fell in love?
Mr. KARLIN. I had nothing to do with it.
Mr. SOURWINE. Did he want to marry the girl?
Mr. KARLIN. He told that, he said he was even ready to marry her,
and even ready to change his citizenship and become a Soviet citizen.
And I remember we talked about this with Shubnikov, and he said no,
we do not need him to become a Soviet citizen yet, we would like him to
be a foreigner, because in that case he would be useful, but if he would
change his citizenship that would not be so profitable.
Mr. SOURWINE. Was that after the girl had been imprisoned?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
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Mr. SOURWINE. Was her imprisonment because Kalil was in love
with her and they wanted to use her?
Mr. KARLIN. Well, you know the point is that I cannot answer that
precisely, because there was a very, very strong_ rumor in Moscow that
she. had a love relation before Kaul with the Yugoslavian diplomat,
Popovich. And this gentleman went?again I am telling you the
rumors?to China. And then he became, fguess, the Minister of For-
eign Affairs in Yugoslavia.
And as far as I remember, we discussed this matter with Kaul when
he, came the second time. He: remembered that. And be said that he met
this Popovich in China.. "But of course," he said, "we could not talk
about her." And that means that he knew about this too.
Mr. SOITRWINE. Did Kaul know in 1962 that you knew about his
offer to give up his diplomatic post and his Indian citizenship and
accept citizenship in the Soviet Union if the girl would be free and she
would be allowed to marry him?
Mr. KARLIN. He told me that.
Mr. SOURWINE. In 1962?
Mr. KARLIN. In 1945. When he asked me to help him, he said he
would do everything for her, he would even change his citizenship, and
he was ready to be a Soviet citizen.
Mr. SOURWINE. That offer was made to you?
Mr. KARLIN. I would not call it an offer. He said he was ready to do
that, he was in such a condition that he was ready to do everything to
save her, to release her.
Mr. SOURWINE. That was before an effort was made to recruit him?
Mr. KARLIN. Firstly he talked with me a little bit about her. But
when she was arrested he opened all his story, and he mentioned many
things. And he said, "I want to help her, and I would do everything
for her."
Mr. SorntwiNE. And then you passed this on to your superiors, and
Shubnikov decided they did not want hum to defect, they preferred him
to remain in the diplomatic service as an Indian?
),Ir. KARLIN. Yes, sir, that is what he mentioned.
Mr. SOURWINE. And then an effort was made to recruit him. And I
think you told us he brought one paper.
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. And he was recruited in a sense?
Mr. KARLIN. I told you yesterday that I do not know exactly bow
they recruited him and how they talked to him because I only orga-
nized the meeting between Kalil and Rumynzev. And then they ex- .
ehanged their telephone numbers.
7trr. SOURWINE. They did not tell you, and Kaul did not tell you what
Ilannened after that?
Mr. KARLIN. Well, I have heard something from both sides, but not
part icular and exact things. I could only judge by some hints because,
you see,_ the KGB still not so often talked to me absolutely openly.
Mr. So-crirwINE. I understood you to say?maybe I am wrong?that
an effort had been made to recruit him, that he had promised to supply
material, that he had supplied one paper, at least one paper.
Mr. KARLIN. From Canadian Embassy.
Mr. :SCYCIRWINE. And that was from Canada. It was a bulletin of some
sort?
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Mr, KARLIN. I don't know what sort of bulletin it was.
Mr. SOURWINE. And it had been determined that that paper was of
no value?
Mr. KARLIN. Correct, sir.
Mr. SOURWINE. But at about that time Mr. Kaul had been recalled,
and that Shubnikov had decided that he was not going to blow the
whistle on him he was going to let him go back to India, because
maybe he would come back next time in higher rank.
MT. KARLIN. It could be.
Mr. Sourwine. Did you not tell us all that?
Mr. KARLIN. Except the last words that Kaul was recalled to India.
He told me: "I must leave your country." That's all what I knew.
Mr. SOURWINE. Nobody ever told you that General Gribanov had
decided it was better not to do anything about Kaul at the time because
he was only a first secretary, and if they would let him go he might
come back as ambassador?
Mr. KARLIN. No it was not in Gribanov's time, at that time the boss
of the second Chief Directorate was Pe,dovranov, that was during his
time.
Now I understand, sir. What you mentioned now happened in French
case. That is particularly what Gribanov wanted. Major Andreev once
said to me: "We need him here as Ambassador, but he would be more
important when he would go home." Something shifted when we dis-
cussed all that in London, because what you are talking about has a
regard to the French Ambassador.
At that time Shubnikov couldn't think that Kaul would probably
come back as ambassador. It was absolutely impossible to predict it. At
that time he was a young diplomat, first secretary only. But he had
pretty close relationship with Mrs. Pandit, according to the KGB.
Mr. SOURWINE. How was it that you had heard the fact that Kaul
had agreed to supply material and had supplied one paper?
Mr. KARLIN. That I have heard from Rumynzev. Once when I met
him, and I asked him what his relation to Kaul was, he said; "He
is a tricker, he wants to play the game with us, because he brought
one paper from the Canadian Embassy and it is not secret one, not
valuable."
I want to underline again, because it is important for my further tes-
timony this: There are many things which I have known because of
my private relations with some KGB officers. Sometimes for Rumyn-
zev, as well as for other KGB officers, that was not a reason to tell me
some KGB stories. He, as well as many others, was a human being too,
he was not a machine. Here in Kaul case it is not so important, but in
the French case, there were many things which I knew in the same
private way, and which were pretty important.
ME. SOURWINE. Now, getting back to the occasion of Kaul's second
visit to the Soviet Union, was lie still there when you left the U.S.S.R.?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, he was there.
Mr. SOURWINE. All the time you were in the U.S.S.R., from the time
he arrived in 1962 until you left in 1963, you maintained a good, cor-
dial relationship with him?
Mr. KARLIN. Not exactly.
Later, I was ordered by KGB not to call him any more, and not to
see him any more. The point is this: For KGB it was necessary, I think,
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to understand what sort of man Kaul is now, with what sort of mission
he came now to Moscow, and what could be done now, because 13 years
still passed, and they knew his past story. But they wanted to under-
stand what is going on now?in which way Kaul wanted to relate now,
if he wanted it.
I remember that this man from KGB?Evgeniy Mihalovich?told
me that I must try in any possible way to tell Kaul that for the
Soviet Union, for Khruschev, that is important to have good friendly
relations with two sides, with India and China. In a contrary of
course Kaul tried every time to tell me that the Soviet Union must be
on the Indian side and against China.
But at that time,
1962, that was a situation when still Soviet Gov-
ernment wanted to have some balance between these two powers. And
they wanted to know whether he would relate with Soviet officials with
the real sympathy, and through him probably they would understand
what is going on in India. The KGB wanted to check Kaul from
every side, including his opinions, his ideas. . .
But then when this press conference particularly happened, when
I wrote reports about my talks with him?and he was, I would say,
very tough when we discussed all that, I would even say that he did
not try to show himself as too pro-Soviet, or show too much Soviet
sympathy. He was rather independent in his position, and very Indian,
the Indian interest was the first of all for him. And he underlined that
many times in our discussion.
And then again he showed in every way that he came to the U.S.S.R.
not as the young man who did not know anything. He underlined that,
"I know your country, and I know the reality in this country."
I think the KGB people and Gribanov particularly came to the idea
that the game had become too dangerous. Because on such a. top level,
and during the war, with the 'friendship" between Nehru and
Khrushchev, to try to play the game with the Indian Ambassador was,
of course, dangerous. He could use all that against Soviets. They were
rather afraid of it.
Mr. SOURWINE. This is your judgment?
MT. KARLIN. This is my judgment.
Mr. SouirwiNE. Did they tell you this?
Mr. KARLIN. No.
Mr. SotniwiNE. Was any effort made by the KGB to use Kaul's
former offer to give up his job and his diplomatic post and even his
citizenship as blackmail basis against him?
Mr. KARLIN. No. I do know about this nothing, and they did not do
it through me. It could be done differently, but in my relation, what I
knew, there was nothing of this sort.
Mr. SOURWINE. It would have been a tremendous blackmail tool,
would it not?
Mr. KARLIN. I think it would be too dangerous, particularly in this
moment. Because you know how great an explosion it would be if Kaul
would open this. He was a strong man, and they realized it. Gribanov
realized that Ambassador Kaul wasn't like the French Ambassador.
From my relation with Kaul, I understood that he could use all that
for his benefit, if they would remember all that story.
Mr. SOURWINE. He did not say anything to you about this, did he?
Mr. KARLIN. About what?
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Mr. SOURWINE. About the possibility of blackmail, or his using it?
MT. KARLIN No.
Mr. SOURWINE. You and he never discussed his former offer to give
up everything for the woman?
Mr. KARLIN. We discussed that many times with Evgeniy Mihalo-
vich, but I told you before, Kaul put it all, after 13 years, in a rather
different way.
Mr. SOURWINE. After 13 years?
Mr. KARLIN. Thirteen years, after his first visit. He wanted to put it
differently. Then he did not tell me that he brought the paper from the
Canadian Embassy. I knew it from Rumynzev. But he told me that
he had a relation with KGB, he was in a restaurant with them and they
pressed him
Mr. SOURWINE. He told you that he gave them nothing?
Mr. KARLIN. He did not mention that he gave them something.
Mr. SOURWINE. He did not tell you whether he gave it to them or
not?
Mr. KARLIN. That is true.
Mr. SouRwINE. That was kind of unusual for him to tell you about
being in a restaurant and being pressed by them, but not saying
whether he gave in to them or not.
Mr. KARLIN. I repeat that now, in 1962, he wanted to remember all
that story in rather different?his way, from his angle.
Mr. SouRwINE. I do not suppose that what you think about it or
what I think about it is of any particular importance. But it does seem
reasonable that in the case of a career diplomat, if you could show that
at any point in his career he had offered voluntarily to give up, not
merely his post, but his citizenship, and defect to another country for
the sake of a woman, that it would ruin him as a diplomat, and there-
fore might very well be considered a blackmail weapon.
Mr. KARLIN If I can tell you my opinion.
Mr. SouRwINE. Please, that is why we are discussing it.
Mr. KARLIN. The point is that I personally think that in his first
visit, when all this story happened, I think what he did, that was
again a mixture between real love and the diplomatic game. And I
think personally what he did and what he said was reported too. Be-
cause, as I told you before, he had a very close relationship with
Mrs. Pandit.
Mr. SOURWINE. You mean it was reported to his superior?
Mr KARLIN. Yes, to the Ambassador, and maybe to the Indian Se-
curity Service. Because you know if he did not do that, he would be in
a very uncomfortable position. And he is a clever man and he would
not accept the nomination of the Ambassador in Moscow, because to
come to Moscow with such an awful background would be really un-
pleasant for him.
And therefore, I personally think that the Indians knew all of that.
Mr. SOURWINE. I think your opinion is of value here. You spent 17
years, after all, helping the KGB create blackmail weapons against
diplomats.
Mr. KARLIN. Unfortunately, sir.
Mr. SouRwiNE. But you are a very highly intelligent man. If you
had not learned a good deal about the business in 17 years, you would
not be the man you are.
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Mr. KARLIN. But I would be perhaps some different one and still
maybe valuable one, in opposite direction.
ME. SOURWINE. Off the record.
Senator Thurmond. Off the record.
(Discussion off the record.)
Senator TitunmoNn. Back on the record.
Mr. SOURWINE. Now, during the remainder of the time from 1962
when you met Kaul again until you left the U.S.S.R. in 1963, did you
have any dealings with him that you would consider of importance?
MT. KARLIN. Yes, sir.
Mr. SOURWINE. Tell us about them?
Mr. KARLIN. The point is that there are some foreigners who some-
times, without special idea, could destroy the Soviet men. And Kaul
in his first visit, by the way, said to Egorov, that I said to him some-
thing about my being in the West Ukraine and something about
activity of Bendera Stepan.
Mr. SOURWINE. IIe was the leader of what we would call the Ukrain-
ian Freedom Fighters, right
Mr. KARLIN. Right. I don't want him to say this to Egorov.
And the second time this sort of thing happened with this very
clever man, with Kaul.
What happened? When we were with him in the restaurant Aragvi,
where there could be microphones in walls, of course.
Mr. SOURWINE. As a matter of fact, there are microphones in the
wall, yes?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, I think so, but I am not sure that they are switched
on every time.
Mr. SOURWINE. They may not be switched on, but they are there if
they want to use them, you know that.
Mr. KARLIN. That is what I want to tell.
Mr. SOURWINE. All right, go ahead.
Mr. KARLIN. I was afraid that they were switched on these micro-
phones even when I was with him. Well, after many years being with
the KGB, I thought maybe they would trust me and would not use
their energy, electric energy, and maybe they would try to save their
money. But still I could not at that time control myself totally.
Each time when I met with the foreigners, there was some risk like
that, some little thing. I do not know whether they knew that in KGB,
or whether they thought, still all right, whether we have this big part,
this little part is not so important. But I remember in this conversation
I told Kaul something, when be asked me about the situation in the
Soviet literature and art?and that was an interesting moment, because
that was a critical period, and there were some hopes among writers?
we called it the thaw period. At the time that it happened, I have
heard it from many people, top people, that the Minister of Culture,
Furtzeva, made an attempt to commit suicide, because she was a mem-
ber of the Presidium, but during the new election, in quotation marks,
she was not elected to the Presidium. And for her that was a crucial
moment in her career. And she went to her dacha outside of Moscow,
and she lay in the bath, and she cut her veins. But the guard and some
people had seen it, and they saved her.
Mr. SOURWINE. Are you telling this as something you know, or only
as a story you heard?
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Mr. KARLIN. I was not there, sir ? I am _sorry, but I heard it from
many top people, and therefore I think that something like that
happened. Maybe she did not lay in the bath, maybe she lay in the bed.
It coul.d have been different.
And I told Kaul this story.
Mr. SOURWINE. You told Kaul?
Mr. KARLIN, Among other stories.
And when I met next, or 2 days later, Evgeniy Mihalovich, who was
responsible for this operation, and when I gave him the report about
our conversation?I guess that was later, 3 or 4 or maybe 5 days later?
he told me, "We have in the Indian Embassy some ears."
And he said, "Kaul told someone about your meeting, and about
Furtzeva . . . and we do not like it."
That was another little fact which Gribanov did not like: Kaul
publicized our relations. Why Gribanov did not like it? Because in a
game between the KGB and the Indian Ambassador where J was a
representative of KGB for -Gribanov it was necessary to keep all in
secrecy, especially because there was a strong secret resident in the
Indian Embassy at that time, according to the KGB. And Evgeniy
Mihalovich told me that Kaul told someone about my meeting with
him and that I mentioned Furtseva, the Minister of Culture.
W3-hen he told me that I felt my heart become cold, because I thought,
well, if he behaves like that he could do something worse, because that
was really stupid. And I felt that my relation with him became pretty
dangerous for me.
And therefore I tried to use an opportunity to go out of this game.
I said "Listen, if he is like that?if he is a provocator I do not want to
relate with him, I am afraid of such man." I told him that, because
I felt that the KGB are on the way to end this relation. In the last
period they did not force it.
In my mind I thought they decided to be careful with him and
then decided to stop this operation. When I felt the smell, I used it as
an opportunity to get out alive. I was going to England, and I wanted
to defect. And I thought this story would destroy all my plans, because
if the KGB became suspicious after 17 years of my cooperation with
them, that would be terrible.
What I mentioned was coincidence. KGB wanted to leave him alone.
And I came to this idea too because of my private interest. And there-
fore they told me later that it is better not to call him, and wait to
see if he would call me. And he did not. And that was a very close?I
guess this was in 1963?I guess in 3 or 1 months' time I left the
Soviet Union.
Mr. SOURWINE. Now, does that conclude everything you know of
importance you know with regard to Kaul?
Mr. KARLIN. Probably I will add this: I mentioned yesterday that
the KGB is pretty strong, and probably a little bit bigger than CIA,
but I would say that KGB had made a lot of mistakes, a lot of idiotic
mistakes. And one of those, I guess, was an attempt to use me to do
something against Kaul.
Still the Diplomatic Corps in Moscow is not so big. And foreigners,
have the same place to go: to parties, to restaurants, to theaters.
What I mean is this: I was in a very -close relation with the French
Ambassador, his wife, and his staff. And if I would meet some of them
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being with Kaul, it would be confusion for both sides. Of course,
KGB told me that for this period when I related with Kaul I must
totally be out of any relation with French people, and to avoid any
such place where there could be accidental meeting.
" Well, everything was OK. But such meetings could happen every-
where.
Mr. SOURWINE. You cannot control where they 0-o, and therefore, no
matter where you go it is possible they would go there?
Mr. KARLIN Yes:And particularly?well, the KGB of course knew
where they would go, but sometimes that could be something 'that they
i
would be unable to control because, well, the Ambassador s still an
Ambassador, and he could say, I will go tomorrow there, and he could
change his mind, and it could happen in a half an hour's time.
It happened that I met the French Ambassador once without
expectation.
Mr. SOITRWINE. Now, you mentioned that when you saw Kaul first
on the occasion of his return to the Soviet Union in 1962 you had
kissed?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. Is this a Russian habit or an Indian habit?
Mr. KARLIN. I guess it is a Russian habit. I do not know anything
about the Indian habits. But I would say that it was not a natural kiss,
it was a thing that?one can write a short story about such a kiss.
I repeat, I am sure that Kaul thought that if I was not a KGB officer
during his first visit, that I was, you know, sort of co-opted, still I was
under the control of KGB. He knew that, of course. And I guess?
that is my guess?when he came to Moscow he waited when the KGB
would send me. And they did it.
When we met, well, we both played the game. And at the same time,
I want to underline it. I told you that before during his first visit
when he was the First Secretary we had a rather human relation too.
He knew that I tried to be a writer in a pretty difficult situation
of the Soviet life. And therefore it was humanly interesting for me
and I guess for him, too, to meet. I do not think sometimes about my
KGB mission. It was a tiny part of the natural human relations.
In such a combination the kiss would be something absolutely
extraordinary. And that was rather extraordinary, because we hesi-
tated little bit, to kiss or not. How to meet for such two people after
13 years, passed.
Mr. SOURIVINE. Now, the same two people 13 years before had had
a relationship. Was that a relationship in which you customarily kissed
when you met?
Mr. KARLIN. I am sorry, I did not follow you.
Mr. SounwINE. Thirteen years before, was your relationship such
that you kissed when you met?
Mr. KARLIN. No. But all depends on what you mean by kiss. If it is
something honest, something natural, I would not call ours the real
kiss.
Mr. SOTJRWINE. Well, this is your word, "kiss". You used it first. I
will use it in the same sense in which you used it.
Mr. KARLIN. Physically we kissed.
Mr. Soul-m-1NR. Did you do so as a custom in 1948?
Mr. KARLIN. In 1948?
No, we never kissed in 1918.
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Mr. SouRwiNE. When did you first meet him?
Mr. KARLIN. In 1948.
Mr. SOURWINE. And then after 13 years suddenly you kissed?
Mr. KARLIN It was not suddenly, sir. I do not know the Indians, but
in Russian.
Mr. SotrawINE. What was the significance of it? That is what I am
trying to get at. Did you expect it to have a particular meaning to him,
or did it have some particular meaning to you?
Mr. KARLIN. No, that is like shaking hands, embrace people.
Mr. SOURWINE. You misunderstand. I am stupid about Russian cus-
toms, I do not understand, that is why I am asking you, so that there
will be no misunderstanding on the record.
Mr. 'CARLIN. I understand that was a combination between the
Russian custom and?Still I have traveled a lot, and I know, for
example, in Spain when I left my friend, he was a Bulgarian, when
I came next year he said, hello and we kissed. And therefore?let's put
it as a Russian custom. And hello,
knew it. And he came to me and I
came to him, and we shook hands. There was a little confusion and then
we embraced, but not so naturally.
Mr. SOURWINE. Did your relationship continue on a kissing basis
during the remainder of the time from 1962 until you left?
Mr. KARLIN. No, I do not think so.
Mr. SOURWINE. It was just this one occasion?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOITRWINE. Now, have we concluded? Can you think of anything
of any significance with regard to Mr. Kaul ?
Mr. KARLIN. I think everything of significance was said. There are
many details, but the most important were said.
Mr. SOITRWINE. Now, let's get to the case of the French Ambassador
that you mentioned. You have given us the name as Maurice Dejean.
Mr. KARLIN. Correct.
Mr. SOURWINE. D-e-j-e-a-n.
Now, tell us the story. When did you meet him, and how did you
meet him, and what happened?
Mr. KARLIN That was in 1956. In the summertime. I was called by
the KGB boss. His name was Kunavin. At that time he was a lieu-
tenant colonel, and he became very soon a colonel.
Before the French case, I have many others, where Kunavin ap-
peared. At that time he invited me to the Moscow Hotel. And he
told me that now he is responsible for the department which controls
the French Embassy, and he said, the KGB got an order from the top
level?he mentioned the name of Khrushchev and Bulganin, together?
he said that he is now looking for?to do something with the French
Ambassador?that he wants to start with his wife, Mary Kler, M-a-r-y
K-1-e-r.
Mr. SOURWINE. If you will pardon me, she was French?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes, she was.
Mr. So uRwINE. And her name is spelled M-a-r-i-e C-1-a-i-r-e ?
Mr. KARLIN. Correct.
Mr. SOURWINE. And her maiden name was Gairy, G-a-i-r-y.
Marie Claire de Gairy ?
Mr. KARLIN. Kunavin told me that he recommended me to General
Gribanov, who was at that time the Chief of the Second Directorate
of the KGB, and that he confirmed my part in this big operation.
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Kunavin wanted to create the impression that that is one of the biggest,
and that I must be happy over this.
He wanted me to realize how important and how big this operation
is.
Well, on the next meeting he was not alone, he was with lieutenant?
the next rank after lieutenant.
Mr. SOURWINE. In our Army it is second lieutenant, first lieutenant,
captain. I do not know what the ranks are in the Soviet Army. Perhaps
you can tell us.
Mr. KARLIN. That is like that, the lieutenant, and then the first- class
lieutenant, and the higher lieutenant., and then captain and major. And
at that time he was, not a lieutenant, but a first class lieutenant. That
was his position in the KGB.
Mr. SOTTRWINE. I think the Germans would call it 'oberst.
Mr. KARLIN. No, oberlieutenant.
His name was Boris Cherkaschin. Kunavin introduced me to him.
And Kunavin said to me, "Now, you must listen to what this guy will
tell you."
Cherkaschin told me this:
He himself, and a very well-known Soviet singer in Moscow Oper-
etta, Michail Orlov, they were friends, in quotation marks, and Niko-
lay, the three of them, as "playboys," went to Crimea, to Yalta, they
went in a special car, a car with a very strong engine, a Pobeda car, to
Yalta. The fable was this:
Cherkaschin, under the name Karelin, identified himself as the
young Soviet diplomat, with rather rich parents who works some-
where in East Germany, and came to the U.S.S.R. on his vacation.
He wanted to spend his time in Crimea with his friends?with the
singer, and Nikolay, the KGB officer, in his real position, one of the
best driver of KGB. By fable, he was an automobile engineer. And
the three of them, as Soviet playboys, went to Crimea.
Why they did it was because, on the day before the just-mentioned
wife of the. French Ambassador, Marie Claire, with the First Secretary
of the Embassy, Nuavil?it is again the French spelling, I do not know
bow to put it. . . .
Mr. SOURWINE. I cannot give you the answer.
Mr. KARLIN. I will put it in my way.
N-u-a-v-i-l. Nuavil with his wife. That means three of them, the
wife of the Ambassador, the First Secretary with his wife, and the
Russian driver, Soviet driver, in the Embassy car, a "Zim," went to
the same place, to Yalta?it was known to the KGB?for a vacation.
I am not sure for how long, maybe a week.
Whenever I drove a long time ago, it was a terrible highway, but at
that time it was a good highway to Yalta. And the idea was for the
playboys to find the opportunity, the good natural place to make ac-
quaintance with this French company, particularly with the Ambassa-
dor's wife.
And they did it. They did it in the automobile station called Zeleny
Gay, and they gave, some greetings French travelers, passing their car.
And in another station they greeted them again, and they started to
talk. Boris Cherkaschin had good French. Orlov did not talk French or
other languages, only Russian.
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And they became a little bit acquainted and asked "Where are you
going ?"
French said: "Well, we are going to Yalta"?and "suddenly" Rus-
sians realized that they would'' i
be n the same intourist hotel. French
people mentioned the hotel Intourist.
The Soviets said, "We have a reservation at the same place."
When they came they had one room after another, And they joined
all together, they went to some places, coast, shore. And then they
went to the very famous place where?I do not know how you call it,
sort of wine factory. They all tasted different wines there and drank
a lot.
According to what I heard from Cherkaschin, Orlov tried to make
love with the Ambassador's wife. But he failed.
Now that was known by KGB. It was mentioned by Cherkaschin
and by Kunavin that her room was prepared before, and there was a
microphone in the wall, and Orlov in the nighttime?probably not
very late, but still was nighttime?he entered Mrs. Dejean's room?
through the window, maybe, or something like that, and he tried to
kiss her, to embrace her. According to Cherkaschin and Kunavin she
said, "Oh, please, we will do that later, but not now." And she pushed
him out of the door.
Mr. SOUTZWINE. Who was that that pushed him out, Marie 'Claire
Dej can ?
Mr. KARLIN-. Yes, Marie Claire Dejean.
They said that Orlov failed, that he could not do it. Cherkaschin's
explanation was that Orlov was not her type. He was too muizhik. But
he was a very handsome man. Next day I met him, 'he was very hand-
some with a strong, beautiful voice, and the Soviet girls were crazy
about him.
Of course, Marie Claire was different, she was from a high aristo-
cratic family, a very refined woman. And maybe it was correct, that
Orlov was not her type.
Kunavin told me that probably I would be her type. And they
started to talk about all that. Kunavin told me: "Now we want to in-
clude you in this team, in this story. You must try to become as close
as possible to Marie Claire."
Kunavin mentioned that Cherkaschin firstly worked in the 1st Chief
Directorate of KGB. He graduated the Moscow Institute of Interna-
tional Relations. Then he was sent abroad, where he worked for the
First Chief Directorate. He was sent to France and Belgium. He had
some relation with some French girl abroad.
It so happened that one French girl then came to work in Moscow
Embassy. Therefore, it was forbidden for Cherkaschin to enter the
French Embassy.
Now about Jeannette Gibeau. Kunavin told me that this lady, the
wife of the Military Attach?Colonel Gibeau?at that time he was a
colonel, and later he became even a general?that his wife had a
custom very often to take the embasy car and to go in the vicinity of
Moscow, which called Serebriny Bor. And there is the Moscow River
there. There is a sort of beach.
? She usually took some isolated part of this beach. And she took off
her dress, remained only in her swimming suit. She read a book there.
And she did it regularly.
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Therefore the KGB decided to start the operation from that place.
Kunavin wanted me and Orlov to come to that place and to become
acquainted with this lady. Orlov knew her because, despite the fact
that there was one French girl forbidden for Cherkaschm to meet in
the French Embassy, still after they came back from Yalta they both
went to the embassy for the first time, being invited by the Ambassa-
dor's wife. Orlov met there Jeanette Gibeau. Therefore he knew her.
I do not think it is necessary to tell you all these details how the
operation was done.
Mr. SOURWINE. I think it might be a good idea, except that there
is some conflict between what you are telling us now and what my
notes indicate you told me.
Mr. KARLIN. What do you mean?
Mr. SotrawiNE. As I understood you, when we discussed this case
first, the initial operation was against Colonel Gibeau's wife., Jeannette.
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SormwINE. And he was military attache at the French Em-
bassy in Moscow in 1957.
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. Souawirtu. The KGB man involved an effort to seduce her, to
get evidence against her.
Mr. KARLIN Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. The plan involved Orlov and Cherkaschin, whose
name I got at the time from you as T-s-c-h-e-r-k-a.
Mr. KARLIN. That is Russian. That is Cherkaschin, I guess it could
be C-h.
The point is?let me explain to you, because that is correct what you
mentioned; yes?but the point is that they wanted Orlov after he
failed with the wife of the Ambassador to try now to work with Jean-
nette Gibeau, to seduce her.
Mr. SOURWINE. It was the other way around when I first got the
story.
Mr. KARLIN. It was together, for me to come closer to Marie Claire,
and for Orlov to use any possibility to seduce Jeannette.
Mr. SOURWINE. Let me tell you what my notes show, and you can
correct them at the point where they go wrong.
The notes show that Orlov was selected to make this effort to seduce
Jeannette Gibeau, that he and certain male associates whom you have
named, Chericaschin and the other gentleman' were sent to this beach
on the Moscow River where she was known to go, that they played
ball
Mr. KARLIN. Cherkaschin went to Yalta, to Crimea.
Mr. SOURWINE. This was you and Orlov?
Mr. KARLIN Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. And you played ball?
Mr. KARLIN That is correct.
Mr. SOURWINE. Tossed the ball.?
Mr. KARLIN. That is correct.
Mr. SOUR-WINE. So that it struck Madame Gibeau?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. And you attempted to use that as the basis for strik-
ing up an acquaintance?
Mr. KARLIN. With whom?
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Mr. SOURWINE. Madame Gibeau?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. It did not work out quite so satisfactorily. So the
KGB?and I am telling you what I had?the KGB changed plans and
arranged to have Madame Gibeau and Orlov invited to a party at a
resort outside of Moscow.
Mr. KARLIN. To a party?
Mr. SouRwINE. That on this occasion her oar was surveilled, and
another car containing Orlov, Cherkaschin and a, civilian engineer who
was the driver, drove to the scene of the party by the same route she
did and sort of played tag with her car on the way.
Mr. KARLIN. I cannot remember which car.
Mr. SOURWINE. This was a car in which Madam Gibeau was riding.
Mr. KARLIN. Let's clarify all that.
Mr. SOURWINE. Please do.
Mr. KARLIN. When they went after Marie Claire to Yalta?and of
course she at that time was their target, 'Orlov's order was to try to?
let's use this word?to seduce the ambassador's wife. He failed.
Then the KGB's idea was to make me acquainted with Marie Claire,
and then probably to succeed in seduction. But at the same time, that is
correct, they tried?that is very important probably?the KGB tried
to find any possible way to compromise or to recruit any possible
French people. They dia. not do that separately. They did it all to-
gether. Therefore they wanted still to use Orlov specially because he
was known by the wipe of the ambassador. And therefore it was natu-
ral that he would try, if he would meet another French woman, he
would try to follow her, because he is this type of man.
Mr. SOURWINE. I understood originally from you that in point of
time the move against Madame Gibeau preceded the move against
Marie 'Claire Dejean.
Mr. KARLIN. I wouldn't say so.
Mr. SOURWINE. That the operation in which Orlov sought to seduce
Madame Gibeau, and was unsuccessful, and got a reprimand from
General
Mr. KARLIN. That happened later.
Mr. SorritwiNE. That was later?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. That was much later?
Mr. KARLIN. Oh, yes.
Mr. SOURIVINE. Tell it as it happened, then.
I understood that after that happened, then you were brought in to
the picture.
Mr. KARLIN. Sorry. That happened
Mr. SouRwINE. That when the emphasis was put on Madame Dejean,
then you were moved over to that, and Orlov took over again with
Madame Gibeau.
Mr. KARLIN. Sir, you know that was a very wide, big operation with
similar movements at the same time. Later I realized for example that
in this period Griba.nov himself started his play with the Ambassador,
and therefore that was everything done altogether. But still there is
some chronology in my mind.
The first was the KGB attempt to use a trip to Crimea.
Mr. SOTJRWINE. Trip by Madame Marie Claire Dejean ?
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Mr. KARLIN. Yes; and she was there without Madame Gibeau. She
was with the Nativil. That time the target was the wife of the
Ambassador.
Then when Orlov failed, I repeat, idea was to make me acquainted
with her. KGB wanted me and Orlov to go to the embassy, but without
Cherkaschin. They realized that it was dangerous for him to be there.
They wanted us to be invited to the Embassy reception, by Gibeau,
or to be invited to her place.
So, first of all, to use Gibeau for being invited to the embassy, and
with her help to be introduced to the Ambassador's wife, and second,
that could be the beginning of a new love affair between Orlov and
Jeannette Gibe-au. That was a case in the beginning.
When we discussed it with you, Mr. Sourwine, in London, I tried,
to explain you my whole story about my KGB activities in 2 days.
We did it not so precisely.
Mr. SOURWINE. Just so that this record is clear.
Mr. KARLIN. Now, I and Orlov went to the beach, and we played
ball.
Mr. SOURWENTE. Who was this you were playing ball with?
Mr. KARLIN. We both, I and Orlov, when we went to Serebriny Bor
on the beach, where we had seen Madame Gibeau, we played closer and
closer to her and we threw the ball in a way that was one meter from
her. And we said, "Sorry" in Russian. And her Russian was awful, she
had only started to learn Russian. She did not talk English too. There-
fore that was very funny how we talked.
But still we did. Then we had gone with her and then her ear came
with the Russian driver and waited about 50 meters from this place.
She went there. And we expected that she would invite us. But she did
not.
- Then we went to the forest?there was a small forest there?there
were KGB men who observed all operation. They were disappointed.
General Gribanov after that decided to act in a different way. Tie
ordered Cherkaschin to call Marie Claire, because she gave him her
telephone number, and to tell her that he wants to organize a little
trip outside of Moscow, using a boat with the powerful engine?the
motorboat. IIe telephoned and said to her that he would be with his
friends there.
She said "yes." and added: "I would not be alone, I would be with
Jeannette Gibeau, and with someone else."
The date was fixed. All preparations were done. We came to the
Embassy and waited in KGB's Pobeda car that which was used, when
three "playboys" went to Yalta, which was, according to the fable,
Cherkaschm's. French ladies came in an official Embassy car, three of
them. Third was, T knew that later, Therese. She was the daughter of
a French general, I do not remember his name, lie was the top military
attache, because Gibeau was, as far as I remember, the Military Air
Attache.
We went to a picnic. Well, everything was nice, enjoyable. We had
good food, wines, and so on. Naturally after this trip Marie Claire in-
vited us to come to the big reception. That was 14th of June, I guess.
French people call it Day of Bastille. It was a colossal reception
where, by the way, I met Jack Raymond, and another Englishman
John Rettie, the Reuters correspondent.
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Well, there was Khrushchev, there was Bulganin, Malenkov, and
other Soviet bosses. I and Orlov were introduced?that is the first
time?by Marie Claire to the Ambassador, to Maurice Dejoan.
We met there of course, Therese, Jeannette. And we were introduced
to Monika. She was the Ambassador's private secretary, and at the
same time the niece of the Ambassador. She was a clever girl. It seems
to me she tried to make my picture and Orlov's.
We were two?Marie Claire invited three of us, of course, it is
understandable. But we said that?we came only two, because I think
we said that Boris Cherkaschin went urgently to Berlin.
Well, in this reception nothing especially happened, because the idea
was for us only to feel ourselves "at home" there. And we later came
to this feeling.
But in the first visit there was only the little talk with Ambassador.
And we were introduced first there to Colonel Gibeau, who, later com-
mitted suicide.
I guess we were introduced to De Granvil. He was counselor, second
man after the Ambassador.
Mr. SounwiNE. Or first secretary?
Mr. KARLIN. No, higher than first secretary, counselor. Then we
invited Marie Claire to have another trip with us. We said that Boris
went to Berlin, and he left me his car, and therefore we would be able
to make the trip?we mentioned the place, 'which is very known in
Moscow, Nikolina Gora.
She said, "Yes, OK, of course, we will do that."
But she said, "Probably you will call a little bit later, in 3, 4, or 5
days, I think."
And we -invited, of course, Jeannette Gibean too. Plan was at that
time to have only two of them.
When I called her next time she said, "Yes, all right, let's fix time."
And she said there would be another person with us, "that would be
my husband's daughter. Her name is Schantal."
We fixed time, and we prepared all that was necessary. I wouldn't
mention all the details. We went outside of Moscow with two ladies
and one very charming girl. At that time she was about 12 years old.
We found a nice place in the forest. So happened that later little in-
cident took part there. Actually we went to the place from which we
could not come back because of mud. All these women helped us to
push the car. The skirt of Jeannette Giberin was broken, and she used
it like mini-skirt.
Kunavin told me when this report was read by General Gribanov,
he laughed and was very happy that her skirt was broken.
When we came back to Moscow the car was rather dirty. Marie
Claire invited us to clean this car in the Embassy's garage. We entered
its yard. Of course when she told us about it we wanted to show her
that it is not so easy to enter a foreign embassy for Soviet people?
well, not so difficult, but still not easy.
Still we entered the yard. There was Boris the Ambassador's per-
sonal driver. Later I was told that this Boris, ;he chauffeur, was under
KGB control. The Ambassador's wife asked Boris, "Please clean this
car." But he ignored her, he said "I am busy with the Ambasador's
cars." She was absolutely furious. She took thi3 this long tube
MT. SOTJRWINE. Hose?
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Mr. KARLIN. Yes. She took it from him and she tried to clean our car
herself.
Of course, Orlov and I took it from her.
When I reported all that, and Orlov too, to Kunavin, he smiled, and
said, "He did correctly. He is not a slave of hers."
At that time I realized that there can be some special thing when a
driver of a husband's ear couldn't be the driver for his wife. KGB put
Boris to be the driver of only the Ambassador.
In some other situation it could happen that a wife would tell this
to her husband, and next day the husband would fire the driver. Noth-
ing like that happened in Ambassador's family. That's why I thought
there was some special relation between the husband and the wife.
Of course, I forgot to tell you that during our first meeting he told
me many, many details
Mr. SOURWINE. Who is the he?
Mr. KARLIN. Kunavin.
Mr. SOURWINE. All right, Colonel Kunavin.
Mr. KARLIN. At that time he was a lieutenant colonel.
He told me many details about the ambassador's biography, his
career, and his relation with his wife, about his family life. Well, it
didn't surprise me, because I knew that KGB has many possibilities to
know all that.
I would say that was a very good information which they had about
the ambassador. I was told that his marriage, his relation with his
second wife was sort of calculation, it was not real love, it was a mar-
riage which was done by calculation by both sides, it was comfortable
marriage for them, it happened in Japan.
Mr. .SOURWINE. What the French might call a manage de con-
venance, a marriage of convenience?
Mr. KARLIN. A marriage of convenience for both sides, because she
was an aristocrat, a very rich lady, and she wanted to be in the high
government society. He was from a petite bourgeois family but had
a diplomatic career. It's very simplified, but it's very close to the truth,
from my point of view.
Now we went to the vicinity of Moscow. And we came back. And
then it happened the episode with the car in the Embassy's garage.
I was the driver of this car. And .i had a special KGB license with a
note, that no one can control me on the driving any place in Moscow.
That means that no one could stop me with this car.
So we came all together to the Embassy. But Jeannette Gibeau lived
separately, not in the Embassy. The Ambassador and his wife had
their apartment there. But she lived in the Street 4 Tverskay Yamskay,
I guess, No. 24. That was not her own place, it was a house for foreign-
ers, one of the houses in Moscow, there are about five special buildings,
under the KGB control, of course.
And it so happened that we told her that we will give her a lift. And
she immediately agreed.
First, she went to the Ambassador's wife's place to get another skirt,
to look better.
Mr. SOURWINE. To whom are you referring?
Mr. KARLIN. I mean Jeannette Gibeau.
Mr. SOTJRWINE. OK.
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M r. KARLIN. And we went through Kolugskiy Square. It happened
by chance, accidentally, when I made a turn to the right, someone
jumped to my car. Well, I was sure I did not knock anyone or crush
anyone. One moment I thought to stop, but I didn't. I thought, there
is Jeannette behind, and I have this operative document, all right, I
will drive. And I continued my driving.
On the end of Krimsky bridge another car overtook me, and stopped
me. It was police. The policeman acted as if I was a criminal. He took
the key from the ignition. It was 'a furious 'gesture. What happened? I
did not do anything wrong really.
When I .went out, I said; "Listen, come here," and I took him aside
and showed him my document, so that Jeanntte would not pay any
attention to this. He said: "Come on, we will go to my superior."
At that time Orlov went out of the car. He said, "What do I do?"
I said, "Take Jeannette to her place in a taxi."
There was a very good opportunity and later he told me, he tried to
kiss her there in the taxi.
When we came to the superior, he looked at my document and let
me go. A "complaint" was drunkard, who jumped over the car.
It was probably important, because after that story Jeannette was
rather frightened and she told all to Marie Claire, the Ambassador's
wife. From that time they never entered to "our cars," they usually
used their own cars. They decided that is more reliable.
And after that usually if we went somewhere the Ambassador's wife
said, "I will be in my car, with my driver."
I think she told all these to her husband.
Later we had some other meetings. We went to the skating rink
once. Once we waited about 20 minutes, and Marie Claire ad not
come. Next time only Jeannette came.
'Then we visited restaurants. You see, we visited many times the em-
bassies on many, many occasions. At that period there were many
parties there.
Many delegations visited Moscow, among them movie writers and
movie actors. I met in French Embassy famouse actor?what is his
name?the French star Jean More . . . I guess he is a homosexual.
But that is not important.
I will come to the more important part of my story. One day I was
introduced by Kunavin to the KGB lady Major Vera Andreev. When
we conversed with her she told me that if Marie Claire would ask me
whether I know any interpreter, translator, from the Ministry of 'Cul-
ture named Gorbunova Vera Ivanovna, I must say, yes, I have heard
about her.
Then she told me?now, what I will tell you is not what I knew
directly from her, I knew it all together, because it wouldn't be pos-
sible to hold the absolute chronology here. The situation was like that:
General Gribanov, whom I mentioned before as the boss of the sec-
ond Chief Directorate of the KGB, decided to enter this operation
against the French Ambassador himself.
How he did it? Major Andreev mentioned that I must know that
she, under the name Gorbunova, was in friendly relation with a very
famous Soviet poet, who has many decorations, the author of the So-
viet hymn, Sergey Michalkov, and his wife, Konchalouskay, the grand-
daughter of one of the greatest in the history of Russian art, artist
Surikov.
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Once this Michalkov and his wife, among other Russian officials
were invited to the. one of - the French receptions. Well, particularly
at time of "thaw" I repeat, there were many, many receptions. And
iMichalkov, being a pretty important person, presented there nat-
urally. Then I realized that fie was the co-opted worker of the KGB
as I was. I cannot tell you exactly even now whether his wife was a
co-opted worker, whether she. put her signature on KGB's paper.
He was introduced to the French Ambassador, and he had a good
relation with him. Later he invited the Ambassador to his place. And
then he introduced to the Ambassador General Gribanov under the
name of Gorbunov and his wife.
Major Andreev was his "wife"?she was not really Ids wife, but
for this "game" she introduced herself as an interpreter or translator
in the Ministry of Culture, and at the same time the wife of a very
important Soviet official from the Council of Ministers, Gorbunov. ?
It was General Gribanov's parallel operation. I do not know exactly
when they started it, but I think that was probably at the same time
when my "friendship" with Marie Claire went on. Probably because I
visited the French Embassy so often., Gribanov wanted to coordinate
these two lines?and therefore I was introduced to Major Andreev?
and then in one reception Marie Claire. introduced me to her. She said :
"It is my good friend Gorbunova."
Actually, before this, Marie Claire asked me whether I knew such
lady. I said, "Yes; I have heard about her in the Ministry of Culture
'Kingdom.'"
Mr. SOURWINE. If she had asked you, did you know her, and you said
you did, why did she subsequently introduce you to her?
Mr. KARLIN. On the reception I was introduced by Marie Claire to
this Andivev.
Mr. SOURWINE. Posing as Gorbunova ?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes. Before it she asked me did I know this lady. I said,
"Yes; I have heard about her." It doesn't mean I was personally ac-
quainted .with her. Then I realized, actually, that there are two paral-
lel operations.
- Now, I have again to come back to my part..
Kimrivin pushed me to be more active and to do something with the
Ambassador's wife.
I would like here to mention some psychological sexual arguments.
Well, with some regret I would need to mention that I had a very, very
long relation with this bloody organization?KGB. But it so happened
that I never have done anything bad at the sexual area myself.
MT. SOURWINE. You never did?
Mr. KARLIN. No. That is strange, I know that. But that so happened.
And I would say even, that I would not be able to do that. I realized
that. Particularly when that happened with Marie Claire. She was a
very attractive lady. And she was interesting humanly, it was nice to
talk to her. She was very elegant, with the best manners if I can judge.
Probably that is what really saved her and me. Because by char-
acter she was a rather cold woman, with the idea that the most valuable
in life is spirit.
Mr. SOURWINE. Did not the KGB plan to put you in place of Orlov
after he failed with .Gibeau ?
Mr. KARLIN. That is exactly what they wanted to do.
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Mr. SOTJRWINE. That was to be the first time that you had ever been
used in such a manner?
Mr. KARLIN. No, ,that was not the first time. We jumped from case
to case. And that with the French people happened in 1956. Before
there were many other operations. And there were some of them, again,
I would
SOURWINE. I mean operations involving sex?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOTJRWINE. Where you were supposed to seduce women?
Mr. KAMAN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. I thought I misunderstood you. I thought you said
you were only used in such a way just once.
Mr. KARLIN. I mean that I could not do that. I was used, but I could
not do it. That is what I said.
Mr. SOURWI-NE. You were used, but you could not do it?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. ID other words, you were unsuccess-ful?
Mr. KARLIN. No, I would not say?I tried to avoid this, because I
thought even when I worked for KGB ?
Mr. SOURWINE. When you say you could not do it, you do not mean it
was impossible, you mean you did not like it, you did not want to?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. It was against your nature?
Mr. KARLIN. That is right.
Mr. SOURWINE. You did it because you had to?
MT. KARLIN. Yes.
Mr. SOURWINE. And we have only a language difficulty here, not a
problem about what the facts are?
Mr. KARLIN. Correct.
When I met firstly Marie Claire, I guess we had such a silent agree-
ment between us. We did not say anything one to another. And that
was a psychological agreement, that we would not make love. And I
was happy because of this. We became immediately (rood friends,
very close friends, and she often told me. "You are my best Russian
friend," and that is correct. I was her best friend.
Until now I think I was very guilty upon her, because she was a
really brilliant woman and really thought that I was normal Russian
friend.
I repeat, she was inwardly cold. She liked all sorts of intellectual
life, without strong emotional priority. So I delayed my sexual at-
tempt as much as possible.
I could not tell directly to the KGB, that I cannot do that, because,
well
Mr. SourtwiNE. Not after all those years you could not?
Mr. KARLIN. You know, if you cooperate with them, still you must
show that you are doing it for some important reason, that you are a
patriot, that you are'fightino. against the imperialists and the spies and
the intelligence services. And after so long cooperation with KGB of
course one must do it by any possible way.
MT. SOTTRWINE. Let's go off the record just a minute.
Senator TEIHRMOND. Off the record.
(Discussion off the record.)
Senator THURMOND. Back on the record.
45-15S-70?pt. 1-7
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Mr. KARLIN. I want to say now that once we organized a trip to
Moscow suburb. Kunavin told me that / must tell Marie Claire that
I am in love with her. We went to ski, the whole company, Marie
Claire, Jeannette Gibeau, Orlov, me, and Cherkaschin, because there
was another show organized by the KGB.
Cherkaschin "came" from Berlin. He wanted to "marry." And there
was another girl, his fiancee, actually the KGB girl. We told French
women this fable: Her parents?her father was a very important and
very rich scientist, who had a good dacha that was actually KGB
house outside of Moscow. Cherkaschin called Marie Claire. He said
to her, that he wants to organize a little party for his French friends.
He invited her and Gibeau.
We went there with two cars. But still I could not tell Marie Claire
about my "love"?and when I came back to Moscow I said to Kunavin
that she was?she was so eager, so strong in her skiing, that we went
on such a long distance and my heart was awful . . . They knew that
my heart at that time was no good. From my childhood my heart
was not so good.
And I said, to Kunavin that I was totally upset, and I could not
say to her about love. Then I said to Kunavin that its all so difficult for
me, that I'm not her type and that I can't do something which would
not be successful. I said that KGB needs a different man for this job.
From that time I was used by Kunavin as the conductor of the
whole our company without specific task to seduce the ambassador's
wife, as a "friend" who can call her any time and offer her different
suggestions.
KGB agreed because in the whole company I was the most favorable
in the eyes of Marie Dejean at that time.
Now, I am coming to the French Ambassador. General Gribanov,
used one of the best government dacha, that is, Maschkino?Kurkino?
I knew it by accident. I have been at that dacha when it belonged to
Dekanozov in Stalin's time, one of the closest associates of Beria. And
he was the ambassador in Germany until 1941. Before it was Litvinov's
dacha at the time when he was the Minister of the Foreign Affairs of
the U.S.S.R. And later it was the dacha of General Serov, the Chair-
man of the KGB. For the most important cases Serov borrowed this
dacha to Gribanov, because it was a really beautiful one. Gribanov
invited many times the ambassador to "his" dacha, with his wife of
course. There was Gribanov's "wife" too.
My task at that time was to try to take Marie Claire away from the
Ambassador for hours, if it is possible, for days. It was the similar
task of Andreev. Marie Claire went on long-distance trips with her, to
Leningrad, to 'Crimea, and then they had a trip along Volga River.
Gribanov wanted the Ambassador to be alone with him.
Mr. SOU-WINE. He wanted the Ambassador to be free of his wife.
Mr. KAirtniN. That is correct, sir; Gribanov organized many parties
at that dacha. There were presented Michalkov, whom I mentioned,
and Sumzov. Captain Sumzov, the captain of KGB, a very handsome
man. He worked abroad, I guess. I met him two or three times, he
was a favorite of General Gribanov. And there were other people
whom I didn't meet. I myself had never been at that dacha, at that
time.
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Now, Kunavin once told me that he needs for the job at the very top
level and he disclosed it a bit?some girls, high-class girls, to intro-
duce them to the French Ambassador.
Well, in all my life?I mean, in my KGB life, I have done it.
Kunavin was very "thirsty" for girls, he and other KGB bosses, they
needed girls, girls, girls, beautiful, with some knowledge of English,
or other languages.
We called them swallows. KGB needed swallows. It is slang.
Mr. SOURWINE. I do not know, it is the same kind of slang. The
British called them birds.
Mr. KARLIN Yes. But it is a particular bird, not eagles, swallows,
they are more "gentle" and "soft.
Among other girls I gave him there was a girl named Prokoffiev,
Rita. Her agent's name was Zoiy. I recommended her because I knew
her friend?it is a long story, how I met her, but she was all right for
KGB job, and she was ready to do everything. And she knew English
language.
At that time the French Ambassador by the way talked a little bit
Russian language too.
I gave all her details to Kunavin and I guess in 2 or .3 weeks they met,
and she was recruited.
How do I know all that? One day this Zoiy, or Prokofiev came to
my place. And of course she knew that I recommended her. Why?
Because Kunavin asked me to prepare her a little bit for this sort of
work, and to understand whether she would accept it without any
pressure.
The swallows are clever girls, they want all sorts of jobs with for-
eigners, they dream about them, even if it is risky, because they hope,
maybemaybe they would marry them, maybe they would go abroad?Zoiy
was a
,
of the Institute of Foreign Languages.
She realized that I was a "trusted" man.
Mr. SOURWINE. Off the record just a minute.
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. SOURWINE. On the record.
Mr. KARLIN. And she came to my place.
Well, let me make a brief portrait of this girl?she was absolutely
beautiful Russian type with blue eyes, blond. At the same time she was
rather simple and primitive, that is why failed. She was not so mov-
able, rather lazy, I would say. One day, I repeat she came to me, and
said, "I must write the report for KGB and I cannot do that, please do
that for me, write it, and I will rewrite. I do not know how to compose,
what to say."
She told me her story, which I wrote for her. And then she rewrote
it and put her Zoiy name.
That is how I know what happened in this dacha, that is from her
words.
Mr. So unwINE. You say her official report, in other words?
Mr. KARLIN. I have done this report for her. And she then rewrote
it, because all reports for the KGB must be written by hand, only
these which I showed you were typed. But I wrote them first, and then
I typed them for myself.
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She told me this: She was invited to a. dacha?she. mentioned Seroy's
dacha (I recognized it) . . . she was taken there by a car. There she
met General Gribanov. And she told me, he was a big boss, whose ap-
pearance was?I am sure it was Gribanov. And there were other
girls?and she mentioned a really famous one?the movie star. Prob-
ably you have heard about the War and Peace movie which was
directed by a very known Russian director, Bolularchuk. His wife
Skopzeya, took part in this movie. And she also was presented at the
dacha. Zoiy mentioned Alexei Vassileyich Suinzov.
Then I recognized the French Ambassador, how she described him.
He was there without his wife.
There was a good table. They drank much. They danced, and so on.
And then she said?there was such a detail in my memory?because
I remember there was a beautiful billiard table, a. very good one, and a
very expensive one?Zoiy told ine, she. danced, being half-naked, at
this table, and the Ambassador cried, "I love you" in Russian words,
and tried to?kiss her, running around billiard table.
Mr. SOURWINE. Speaking of what ambassador?
Mr. KARLIN. The French Ambassador.
Mr. SoinzwiNE. Dejean ?
Mr. KARLIN. Dejeall.
He- was drunk according to Zoiy, but still he behaved nicely.
Then she said he went out without. anything, nothing happened be-
tween them, only he touched her a little bit.
Then she told me that Gribanov was very much drunk and asked
her to go with him to the bedroom, and to help him to undress.
Then, she said, he did not do anything with her, he was so drunk,
that he wanted to do something, but he collapsed.
Sumzov took her to Moscow. He was handsome, and Zoiy said,
"Well I liked him." He took her to one of KGB agent's flat and he
spent a night with her there.
MT. SOURWINE. Who is the "him" here?
Mr. KARLIN. That is Alexei Vassilevich Sumzov, the favorite of
Gribanov who was at this party.
Mr. SOURWINE. SUIlltsov, S-u-m-t-s-o-v ?
Mr. KARLIN. You can spell this way too. She told me; "Well, it is a
pity that he is married with children, and that it, is impossible to
continue our love relation. It was one of the occasions when Gribanov
wanted to give the ambassador a. girl.
Later Zoiy was out of action in the realm of the French Ambassador,
Later they used her against a French codeman.
Mr. SOTTRWINE. This same girl Prokoliev was also used against
the Canadian man?
Mr. KARLIN. Yes. Let me tell you th is. I had rather private relation
with Kunavin, lie asked me to give him sometimes privately money,
and I think even when I left my country he debted 3,000 rubles to me?
I have seen his family?I would put it in the quotation marks "we
were, friends." Therefore he told me many things that was not neces-
sary for him to tell me.
That's how I know many things about KGB which otherwise I
would not be able to know. He told me. that firs:tly a girl named Vidiy
was introduced to Dejean?I didn't know her, I never met her. She was
introduced to the Ambassador by Gribanov. Kunavin told me that the
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Ambassador even slept with her. But then when Gribanov came to the
idea to act, he realized that?that was one of Gribanov's mistakes, it
would be another later?that she was not all right-for this job, and
Kunavin told me why. She was vulgar, like a prostitute.
Next was Rita-Zoiy. Again, later on Gribanov came to the idea that
she is too simple, too lazy, and rather primitive -for the thing which he
wanted to do. The idea was to involve the Ambassador in sexual affair
deeply and strongly. For this, of course one needs a special kind of
woman. And what later happened confirmed that.
That was the second woman whom I knew.
I wanted to underline that I just mentioned that among these people
there was a famous movie star Skopzeva. I never had heard about any
love relation between the Ambassador and her. But what was the
purpose for her being there ?
You know a dish is at a plate and around it must be garnish. If you
are around a table you need beautiful ladies to talk to them. I think
KGB used this Skopzeva for this purpose. And there could be two ways
to use her. She could be officially co-opted, or was a friend?I am not
sure of that of Michalkov, and he told her, let's go to one of the top
official places where would be even French Ambassador. It could be
such an agreement too, you see.
I repeat, I cannot tell you whether Skopzeva was co-opted or not.
Then the third lady came on the horizon. That was Lidiy Kehovan-
skiy. I will say a little bit about her.
She was about 32 years, an attractive lady, but slightly different in
type, rather aggressive, very clever, experienced. She talked French,
because she was a wife of?I never met him, I do not know him, but
be was in a good position, a diplomat?Kchovaiiskiy, who worked in
Paris. And they both spent there a couple of years, or maybe more.
When they came back to Moscow, they separated. And they had two
daughters, I think one about 17 years old, and another about 12. It is
approximately. She lived in the new block, in the now flat, well deco-
rated and furnished. She brought everything from France. She lived
there without husband.
Mr. .SOURWINE. Pardon me. But did you say she was 32 years old?
Mr. KARLIN. Thirty-five maybe, something like that.
Mr. SOURWINE. Thirty-two to 35 years old?
Mr. KARLIN. She was mature.
Mr. SOURWINE. She would have had to have had her daughter at the
age of 15 to 18 years.
Mr. KARLIN. Maybe she was a little older.
Later one of her daughters, the older, became the wife of the son of
Podzerof, well-known Soviet diplomat. He was the assistant of
Molotov in past.
Kchovanskiy worked as an interpreter somewhere in?how do you
cull it?the cooperative organization, consumers cooperative the So-
viet office.. Hence I was invited again to the Hotel_ Moscow by Kunavm.
Ire introduced me to her. Ile wanted me to organize a mooting where to
introduce her to the Ambassador. It is very interesting, because at that
time the government officially was involved in that operation?an idea
was to organize a meeting, cultural meeting between Soviet represent-
atives, movie writers, 'actors, directors; famous people, and the French
Embassy staff, with the Ambassador and his wife.
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The idea was this: during this meeting to show French people a
movie, which was brilliant?it was Gisnle?a ballet, shot beauti-
fully?and some funny cartoons.
Kunavin told me that General Gribanov consulted with some Central
Party Committee bosses. The assistant to Gribanov called directly to
the chief of the movie committee, whom I knew pretty well, Fedorov.
He called him, and he explained that it has to be the government
operation.
Kunavin told me this too?at that time Michalkov was the Minister
of Culture of the U.S.S.R. And he knew about all that. It was pretty
interesting combination between the government official reception and
the place to make the KGB operation.
What was the operation?
I myself firstly prepared the list of the Soviet persons who would
be invited to this party. Kunavin asked me who would be better, who
would be more reliable, polite, and so on. And I gave them the list. He
told me that it will be all right to include in the list some beautiful
movie stars.
KGB wanted me at that reception to introduce Kchovanskiy to the
Ambassador, but at the same time to introduce to him other ladies. Who
knows, maybe?that was correct?maybe Kchovanskiy would not be
all right, but maybe another would be all right.
Kunavin asked me to put in the list women whom I thought would
be OK for this job. And I put in this list two of them.
All together there were three of them, including Kchovanskiy?and
here we have names of well-known movie stars. One was the heroine of
all this story later. Tier real name is Kromberg Lorisa. But she had her
artistic name Sobolevskay.
The second one was Nagegda Cherednichenko a very beautiful lady.
There were on this list movie director Bondarclink, movie actor Boris
Chirkov, and dramatist Mdivany.
Some ballet dancers from Bolshoi Theater were invited to that party
too. Among them there was a famous ballerina Plesezkaiy.
I think altogether there were about 20 or 25 persons. And my task
there was to find the occasion to introduce to the ambassador and his
wife, Lidiy Kchovanskiy.
The ambassador, his wife and some of his staff came to the movie
committee?of course Marie Claire was first?and when she saw me,
she said, "Uri"?she called me in the Russian way. We even kissed in
a more natural way than with Kau]. We were very friendly. Actually
it was my second real meeting with the Ambassador. I had seen him in
the receptions but not so closely.
From the moment people realized that I am in such a friendly rela-
tion with the Ambassador's wife, 1 became the conductor of that party.
When the movie started, Fedorov told me whisperingly, "I did not
know that you are a supergenius."
To make a long story shorter, I would say Kchovanskiy by chance
or she decided to do that?came a little bit later, even when the movie
started. At the center was the ambassador, on his left was his wife,
and on the right was one chair which I reserved for her.
In corridors there were many people. Among them was Kunavin
himself and his KGB boys. They looked for everything, being worn in
plain suits.
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When it was dark she came and said "I'm late, sorry." I took her and
put her next on the right to the ambassador, I sat beside her. I said,
"Mr. Ambassador, that is a friend of mine, she would be able to make
some translation if you need."
I explained to the ambassador briefly how I knew her and why she
is here' and all that. At that time I signed a contract to write the movie
script, for the coproduction with French "Prima-Film" to produce the
movie from the novel of Pushkin Dubrovsky.
KGB's fable was this: in working; on that script I needed someone to
collect materials for me, someone with knowledge of French language.
I "remembered" about Kchovanskiy. She was a good interpreter and
we became in a business-like relation.
So, when I "thought" about this reception, I decided to invite her
too, because I knew her French was all right.
That was the explanation which I set later, but that was not so im-
portant for French people, because the ambassador immediately ac-
cepted her in the best way. She was very gregarious, you see.
I remember from the first moment she whispered, being very close
to the ambassador and there was an odor of her beautiful perfume.
She knew her womanability and possibilities.
Another two girls whom I mentioned, were there too. But they
were only introduced to the ambassador, and that is all.
Idea was after that reception to call to : Marie 'Claire, and to tell her
this: "Marie Claire, you know, well, now I am working for the copro-
duction with French studio, and I would like to make our relation
even wider," and so on. So, I would like to invite you and your hus-
band of course, and your cultural attache?it was Maurice Jerar--
Mr. SOURIVINE. Is he important?
Mr. KARLIN-. He was rather important, because he was later at the
party and then he was involved into some operation too.
Then he visited the exhibition after whiCh all that happened. So I
invited the ambassador and his wife, and Jerar and his wife to the
private party, which I said I would have in the Restaurant Prague,
which is one of the best in Moscow. I said, from my side I would invite
two?three my friends too.
"Well," she said, "I must consult with my husband." And she did it
at that time. She left a telephone for couple minutes, then said, "All
right, this date would be Or."
I said, "I will meet you at the entrance of the restaurant, and then
we will go to the special room under the name Rotounda?a very
famous room."
At this party the KGB brought Kchovanskiy of course, then Krom-
ber-Sobolevskaiy, later heroine, man whom I recommended to the
KGB, well-known Soviet dramatist, Gorgiy Mdivany and 'Cheredni-
chenko. The dramatist came with his wife, Taissa Savva.
I know that before this party ICunavin himself invited the drama-
tist to the Hotel Moscow and talked to him?well, I would say that
was enough. He was recruited. He was a very jolly person.
At the party were the Ambassador and his wife, the cultural attache
and his wife, and the three ladies, me, and the dramatist with his wife.
I would say it was very complicated preparation, because it was neces-
sary to put the radio there, and to prepare the dancing place, and a
special guard was around this place, and Kunavin was in the corridor
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too. The idea of that party was to make "our" relation closer, deeper,
and still to show the Ambassador what we have in our window shop;
Kchovanskiy and another two ladies, three of them.
Well, I would say that the Ambassador was a pretty witty man.
Around the table he was very nice, because he was a good joker, talking
to people, very gregariously. By the way he liked to tell improper
anecdotes?obscene--i remember one, for example. That is very typical,
and very French.
He told this anecdote to all our company. An anecdote is this:. The
girl, such a French peasant girl, she slept. at the meadow, and sud-
denly when she opened the eyes . . . there was a cow crossed her and
stopped. And she saw the udders. She said: "Oh, not all of you at
once gentlemen !"
Mr. SouRwiNE. Off the record.
Senator 'THURMOND. Off the record.
( 1)iscussi on off the record.)
Senator THURIAIOND. On the record.
Mr. KARLIN. I repeat, the idea was only to be closer, friendly. The
result was, which could be expected, that when we ended that party,
the Ambassador with his wife, whispered a little bit, officially invited
all of us, our company, to a private dinner in the French Embassy. That
means all who were present?three ladies, the dramatist with his wife,
and me.
The time was fixed.
I guess we can stop here.
Mr. SOURWINE. It is perfectly all right.
Senator Ti unimoNn. We will be in recess until tomorrow morning
at. 10 o'clock in room 154.
(Whereupon, at 4 :15 p.m., the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene
at 10 a.m., Friday, November 6, 1969.)
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INDEX
(NoTE.-The Senate Internal Security Subcommittee attaches no significance
to the mere fact of the appearance of the name of an individual or organization
in this index.)
A
Page
Abakumov (Minister of KGB)
35
Academy of Art
12, 13
Academy of Science of the U.S.S.R
31
Ala,kumov
51
Ali Baba Club
39
Aliluyeva, Svetlana
31, 46
America (U.S. A.)
25, 42
American Military Government in Berlin
40
Andreev, Major Vera
36,
37,
39,
65,
79, 80, 82
Anglo-American Department
Aragvi (restaurant)
61, 68
Associated Press
28
Atlee, Clement
43
Australia
16, 42
Babin, Mr
8
Baku
21
Barron, John
25
Barviha, Kremlin Hospital
8
BBC
28
Belgium
73
Belinkov
14
Beria, Lavrenti P
11,
16,
19,
20,
22, 30, 82
Berlin 19, 35, 38, 39,
40,
41,
42,
44,
45,
46, 77, 82
Berlin, British Sector
39
Berlin, Soviet Sector
41
Bespalov, Colonel
36, 37, 43
Bhatia
47
Bolshoi Theater
86
Bondarchuk
84
Bourne, Eric
38
Britikov
8
British Home Office
2
British Embassy
32, 51
Bulganin
77
Bulmer
32-35
Burchette, Wilfred Peter
37,
38,
39, 54, 55
Canada
17, 25, 64
Canadian Embassy
25,
53,
64, 65, 67
"Captain of the First Rank" (movie)
4, 6
Central Committee, Communist Party, Soviet Union
8, 16
Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA)
69
Central Party Committee
86
Chekov
7
Cherednichenko, Nagegda_
86, 87
Cherednichenko, Taissa Savva
87
Cherkaschin, Boris
72,
74-77, 82
(1)
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Page
Chikovany, Grigol _ 4
China
54, 56, 60, 62,
64
Chirkov, Boris
86
Chou En-lai
36
Churchill, Lady Clementine
10, 22,
23
Churchill, Winston
23
Clay, General
41
Comintern (Communist International Organization)
36
Committee of Art
4
Committee of Slavonic Nations
5
Committee of Soviet Youth
5
Crimea
22, 74, 75,
82
Culture of Life (newspaper)
4
Czechoslovakia
23,
24
D
Daily Express (newspaper)
38,
39
De Gairy, Marie Claire
71
De Granvil
77
Dejean, Marie Claire
71-77, 79-82, 86,
87
Dejean, Maurice
71, 77,
84
Dekanosov
16, 22,
82
Deykarhanov, Irina
33
Deykarhanov
32,
33
Dresden
19
Dubrovsky, Pushkin
87
Dutton, E. P., and Co., Inc
25
East
5
East Germany
18, 23,
72
Egorov, Major 10, 27,
29, 31-37, 42-44, 46-53,
68
Embassy of the United States, London
25
England
69
English Zone
44
Erevan, Armenia
32,
33
Estonia
17
France
73
French Ambassador
63, 65, 66, 69, 70-72, 80,
84
French Embassy
24, 73, 74, 79, 80, 85,
88
"Fox" (play)
28
Futzeva, Mrs. (Minister of Culture)
7, 68,
69
Georgia, State of, U.S.S.R 1,
6, 8, 9, 11, 13, 21, 22, 29,
30
Germany 10, 17,
18, 20, 22-24, 34, 35, 44,
82
Germany, Western Zones
43
Gibeau, Colonel
73, 74, 76,
77
Gibeau, Jeannette
73-80,
82
Gibeau, Schantal
77
Gibeau, Therese
76,
77
Gorbatov, Boris
48
Gorky Studios
8
Gory
14
Gray, Robert
40, 41, 42, 43,
44
Great Britain (England)
2, 8, 24,
42
Greenwald Press Club
39
Gribanov, General 53, 55, 56, 65, 66,
71, 75-77, 79, 80, 82, 84-86
Grinberg
39
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Hanka (cafe)
Heinemann, William, Ltd
Hellman, Lillian
CIA-RDP73600296R000500140004-8
Page
39
25
28
Henry (no other name)
41, 42, 44
Hitler, Adolf
40
Hotel Moscow
32, 43, 71, 85, 87
India
23,
24, 42, 47, 60, 62, 65
Indian Embassy
46,
48, 54, 55, 56, 60, 69
Indian Security Service
67
Institute of Experimental Physiology
31
Institute of Foreign Languages
83
Island Helgoland
44
Ivanovna, Gorbunova Vera
79
J
Japan
23, 24, 77
Jerar, Maurice
87
"John, Soldier of Peace" (play)
3, 23
Johnson, Miss
22
Johnson Publications, Ltd
25
Kanerny Theater
3
Karagizyn
33
Karelin
72
Karlin, George (Yuri Visilevich Krotkov)
1-88
Kaseva Evgenia
37
Kaul, a;riloki N
46-56, 59-70, 86
Kazan
21
Kchovanskiy, Lidiy
85-88
KGB (MGB) Ministry of Security
6-88
Khaklov, Mr
19
Khmelev
22
Khrushehev, Nikita
7, 60, 66, 71, 77
Kiev
9
Kolby, Major
39, 40
Kovalchuk, General
36
Krasniy Station
9
Kremlin
60
Kromber-Sobolevskaiy
87
Kunavin, Colonel
71-74, 77-79, 82-87
Kurkino
82
Kutaissy, Georgia, U.S.S.R
1
Kuznetsov
10, 14
Lededey
4
Leipsig
19
Lenin, Vladimir
29
Leningrad
82
"Letter to Mr. Smith" (paper)
40
Leva, Karagiz'yn
32
Levine, Isaac Don
46
Lie, Trygvie
23
Literary Fund of the U.S.S.R
2
Literaturnaiy Gasetta (newspaper)
5
Litvinov
82
Livanov, Boris
6
London
24, 28, 33, 39, 65, 76
Lorisa, Kromberg
86
Lubianka
9
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Page
Macmillan & Co., Ltd
25
Magidov, Robert
28
Maklarsky
20
Malenkov
16,77
Malinoskiy, Marshal
60
Manchester Guardian (newspaper)
38
Maroz, Grigoriy (Marozov)
31
Maschkino
82
Mdivany, Gorgiy
86,87
Medvedev
53
Merkulov
29-31
Metropole Hotel
28,
47, 49
Mexican Embassy
60
Mexico
7
M GB (KGB) Ministry of Security
6-88
Michalkov, Sergey
79,
82, 86
Michalkov, Konchalouskay
79
Micheev, Mr
16, 54
Mihalovich, Evgeniy
56,
62,
66, 67
Military Intelligence, Soviet
37
Minister of Foreign Staff
16
Ministry of Culture
80
Mnushkin, Alexander
7
Molotov, V. M
22
More, Jean
77
Moscow
4,
7-9, 11. 13, 16, 19, 20, 21, 24,
61, 64, 66-68, 70, 75-78, 82, 85,
28,
87
31, 33-36,
42,
43,
52,
55-57, 60,
Moscow Art Theater
6, 22
Moscow Dramatists Committee
3
Moscow Institute of International Relations
73
Moscow Operetta
6, 72
Moscow Radio
5,
8, 10, 15, 18, 22, 23,
28,
31,
32, 45
Movie Institute
18
Mykuschkov, Mr
8, 9
N
Nazvanov, Mr
4
Nehru, Pandit
46,
56, 66
Nemlicher, Berta
9, 10
New Times (magazine)
43
New York Times, the (newspaper)
38
New Zealand
42
Nikolina Corn
77
NKVD
16,
19, 22
Novoe Vreme (magazine)
5
Nuavil
72, 76
0
Odessa
22, 23
Ogonek (magazine)
5
Okunevskaya, Tatiana
48,
49,
51,
53,
62, 63
"Operation Atlee"
43
Orlov, Michail
6,
72,
74
80, 82
Ostrovsky, Nicholai
4
Oxford University
47
P
Pachenham, Lord
44
Pakistan
42, 47
Palgunov
16
Pall Mall Press, Ltd
25
Pandit, Mrs
46,
65, 67
Panton
32, 39
Paris
85
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Approved For Release 2005/11/3r1 :
Pasternak, Boris
Pavlovsky, Lt. Col. Semen
Peace Committee
CIA-RDP73600296R000500140004-8
Page
6, 62
35-37, 42, 43
5
Pedovranov, General
43,
51, 65
Peekskill
3
Pecnemunde
38, 39,
43, 54
Petrova, Miss _
49, 50
Philippines
23, 24
Plesezkaiy
86
Podzerof
85
Poland
23,
31, 32
Polgunov, Mr
16
Popovich
64
Presidium
68
Priboy, Novikov
4
"Prima-Film"
87
Prokofiev, Rita (Zoiy)
83,
84, 85
Pushkin Dramatic Theater
3, 4
R
Rachuk
8
Raymond, Gertrude
38
Raymond, Jack
38, 76
Reader's Digest
25, 26
Red Cross, British
22
Red Cross, Soviet
22
Reimann, Max
44
Restaurant Prague
87
Rettie, John
76
Reuters
38, 76
Robertson, John
8
Robeson, Paul
3, 8
Robeson, Paul, Jr
8
Romanzov, Ivan
38
"Rose of Castellanos, The" (script)
7
Rumynzev, Sergey Ivanovich
10,
27,
29,
52,
53,
61,
62, 64,
65, 67
Russian Theatrical Society
2
Saxony
19, 20
Schtern, Mr
31
Schumacher, Kurt
44
Secret Service, American
41
Servo, General
82, 84
Severn, Jerry
7
Shubnikov, Peter
51-53,
63, 65
Siberia
37, 39
Skopzeva
85
Sobolevskay
86
Solomonovna, Lina
31
Sourwine, J. G
1-88
Soviet Commendature
36
Soviet Council
37
Soviet Culture (newspaper)
5
Soviet Foreign Ministry
22
Soviet Informational Bureau
5,
15,
23,
31,
32,
36,
38, 39,
41, 42
Soviet Military Administration
37
Soviet Military Government in Germany
36
Soviet Zone
18,
38, 43
Spain
17
Stalin, Joseph 3, 4,
11,
14,
19,
21,
22,
30,
31,
40, 50,
62, 82
Stalingrad
22
Sudoplatov, Sergey
19
Sumzov, Alexei Vassilevich
82, 84
Surikov
79
Sydney, General
36, 39
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VI
Page
Tbilisi
1,4,
9,
11,
12,
14, 16, 17, 21, 22
Tbilisi University
12, 14
Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS)
15,
16, 22, 23, 37, 47
"They Were Borne By Hurricanes" (film)
4
"Threshold of Your Future" (script)
4
Thurmond, Senator Strom
1-88
Tokyo
23
Trud (newspaper)
5
Tschaikovsky
7
Tutaev, David
28
U
Ukraine
31, 32
Ukraine, West
68
Ukranian Freedom Fighters
68
"Uncle Jijy" (movie)
5
Union of Soviet Writers
2, 12, 21, 62
United Nations
23
United States
6, 8, 17
V
Vanin, Mr
4
Vietnam
54, 55
Virta
4
Volga River
82
Volkov
38
Volody
9, 10, 27, 29
W
War and Peace (movie)
84
West
5, 42, 43, 46
Western Zone
44
Wewar, Dennis
38, 43
Women's Committee
5
Yalta
22, 23, 73-76
Yugoslavia
64
Zaharia Company
7
Zinschenko
23
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