-Caveat Lector-
Explosive book documents KGB exploits in the West
Copyright � 1999 Nando Media
Copyright � 1999 Christian Science Monitor Service
>From Time to Time: Nando's in-depth look at the 20th century
By JONATHAN S. LANDAY
(September 16, 1999 1:08 a.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) -
Thirty-one years after he walked into the Soviet Embassy in Washington
offering classified documents from America's most secret intelligence
agency, Robert Lipka's secrets caught up with him.
Arrested at his Pennsylvania home in 1996 by the FBI, the former
National Security Agency clerk pleaded guilty the following year to
spying for Moscow from 1965 to 1967. He was sentenced to 18 years in
jail. Because no trial was held, it was never disclosed how the FBI
tracked him down.
Until now, that is.
A new book reveals that a KGB official defected to Britain in 1992 with
six trunkloads of files, in the biggest single leak of top-secret
materials in the history of espionage.
One of those files, eventually provided to the FBI, documented the
exploits of Lipka, an agent the KGB code-named DAN.
The book reveals how the KGB penetrated the top levels of the Roosevelt,
Truman, and Eisenhower administrations, tried to discredit prominent
Americans, including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Sen. Edward
Kennedy, and former Secretaries of State Cyrus Vance and Henry
Kissinger, and planted secret weapons caches around the U.S. and Europe.
It also discloses that the defector, Vasili Mitrokhin, first went to the
CIA with his treasure trove, but was turned away. While details of KGB
operations against the United States are drawing attention in America
more for their historic significance than anything else, the book, "The
Sword and the Shield - The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of
the KGB" has ignited a political firestorm in Britain.
The scandal centers on Melita Norwood, who as a secretary at the British
Non-Ferrous Metals Association during World War II, leaked materials to
Moscow on Britain's nascent atomic bomb program. Outcry over the
government's failure to arrest her has forced Prime Minister Tony Blair
to demand greater accountability by the intelligence agency, MI5.
And it is clear that Norwood, a lifelong Communist and great-grandmother
dubbed "the Bolshevik from Bexleyheath" by the British tabloid press, is
only one player in a far, far bigger drama.
Christopher Andrew, the British academic who co-wrote the book with
Mitrokhin, says many former KGB agents are still at large. "Nobody who
spied for the Soviet Union until Mikhail Gorbachev took power can be
certain that their secrets will remain secure," he says.
According to Rupert Allason, a leading British espionage expert who
writes under the name Nigel West, intelligence agencies elsewhere in
Western Europe are now hunting for turncoats revealed by the book. A
former member of Parliament, Allason says the Federal German Security
Service, the BfV, is now cooperating closely with MI5 in some 50
investigations.
Andrew says the Mitrokhin archives are also being used to investigate
suspects in the United States. The FBI has already followed up on some
10,000 leads gleaned from the materials. "The information has been out
there since 1992, so a lot of things have been looked into and
investigated," says a U.S. official.
The book is based on handwritten notes taken by Mitrokhin while he
worked on the KGB's archives over a 12-year period. He smuggled the
notes in his shoes and pockets to his weekend cottage and buried them.
Disaffected by his years in the KGB and what he learned from the
archives, he decided to defect. "The value (of the book) is historical
in nature and allowed the United States government to confirm other
information it had from other sources over the years," says the U.S.
official, without elaborating.
Some experts say that there is so much material in the book, some of it
embarrassing revelations about KGB penetrations of the CIA and U.S.
military, that it will likely be years before all of the investigations
are complete. "I'm sure there are other cases they are working on," says
a former CIA field agent, who requested anonymity. "What we are seeing
here is just the tip of the iceberg."
Indeed, the book reveals the code names of dozens of KGB agents, but not
their identities, something the CIA, the FBI, and their counterparts in
other governments almost certainly want to confirm. These include
scientists and officials in leading defense firms and other companies,
and universities involved in projects with military and other
applications.
The book also reveals extensive KGB bugging operations against top U.S.
officials, including Kissinger. Other operations included:
--Attempts to implicate the CIA and wealthy right-wing Americans in the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy. As part of these efforts,
the book says the KGB in the 1970s forged a letter from Kennedy's
accused killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, to E. Howard Hunt, the former CIA
agent who was convicted in the Watergate break-in.
--Disinformation operations designed to foment racial unrest in the
United States, including efforts to portray King as an anti-Semite.
--KGB plans for sabotage operations in the United States and Europe,
including schemes to disrupt the power supply in New York state.
--The burying of arms and radio caches for KGB agents throughout the
West. The book says the caches were booby-trapped, and one was uncovered
in Switzerland in 1998.
Belgian officials this week said they had discovered three buried caches
of KGB radio transmitters.
The book also makes clear the extent of KGB incompetence, despite its
successes. Its reports to Soviet leaders were often wrong, incomplete or
colored by a stilted Stalinist view of the world. Many were also drafted
to conform with the Kremlin's analysis of events because disagreeing
with them could result in dismissal, jail, or even death.
Advance copies of the book were released last week, and it was featured
in reports on CBS's "60 Minutes" and on ABC's "Nightline"; in Britain it
is being serialized in The Times of London.
(c) Copyright 1999. The Christian Science Publishing Society
-
(but above dont be afraid of the KGB but be most afraid of that marauding
Haggis)
John
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