From the public’s standpoint it was straight out of
a Hollywood B Film. The bad guys of Russia’s foreign intelligence
organization, SVR, had sneaked into the United States but were all
captured by the hardworking FBI. There even was the sexy glamour
gal to spice up the story. The trouble was that Hollywood stopped
making those films decades ago. Somebody on the other side
obviously needed some coaching by Steven
Spielberg.
The Kremlin gave its stars a hero’s welcome when they were
quickly exchanged for four Russians convicted of working for
Western intelligence. Not a bad deal, Moscow congratulated itself
in the media — eleven for four. The old days were back, implied
the ex-KGB’er, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, as he sung with the
released officers something akin to an old Soviet intelligence
fight song. (Who knew they have songs?) Everything was done to
cover up one of the worst run operations in the history of Russian
foreign intelligence. .
From the beginning the entire concept was flawed.
Infiltrating in a scatter shot manner ten (or more?) SVR “illegals”
under various covers as U.S. citizens or legal immigrants spread
around the Northeast and Middle Atlantic is just not operationally
sound. Theoretically they were to develop political contacts with
an aim ultimately to influence U.S. policy and/or gather classified
information on such. Aside from Vicky Palaez, the El
Diario columnist who was a well- known left-wing TV reporter
in her native Peru, and her husband, Juan Lazaro, raised as a
Soviet citizen though passing as a Uruguayan, the other
intelligence personnel had no unusual background or technical
strength that could aid in penetration of the American
government/political scene.
The operational concept of introducing intelligence
officers with assumed identities and little in personal
qualifications other than knowledge of English and reasonable
intellect into the American environment was unprofessional. To
expect that over many years they would gain important access into
the American official and political system indicates the U.S.
operations division of SVR had a warped understanding of the
American scene.
Normal tradecraft dictates infiltrated “sleeper agents”
with no particular scientific or technical expertise generally are
limited to support roles for communication, finance, and supply.
Only in novels and films do they take on serious
information-gathering assignments. Peer recruiting of indigenous
agents among existing government bureaucrats, scientists, the
media, and even political personalities has a far better chance of
success. History has proved this and the KGB First Chief
Directorate had known it for years. Russia’s lineal descendant to
this directorate, SVR, ignored is own lessons.
In spite of the winning face placed on their expensive,
completely blown ten-year development operation, the Kremlin has
been deeply embarrassed by the incompetent nature of the SVR
activity. The old-fashioned public area dead drops and other
WW2-era methods of contact is not the issue. The SVR well knows and
has used burst transmissions and electronic ciphers. Sometimes the
very old ways are safer — if slower. In this case it was just
plain inadequate.
To have one senior deep cover officer act as the principal
support and liaison contact for all ten in-place agents and
regularly travel to the U.S. from Canada was another operational
vulnerability. In the end the young glamour girl, Anna Chapman,
telephoned her father (an ex-intelligence official) to ask what to
do when she suspected she had been targeted by an American
counter-espionage agent. Speaking “in the clear” over international
phone lines, daddy told her to break off the contact immediately.
He must have been appalled.
Apparently President Medvedev shares Anna’s father’s
(Vassily Kushchenko) revulsion at the unprofessional aspect of this
operation. The SVR director reports directly to the Russian
president. Immediately the president’s office started shaking up
the self-satisfied staff chiefs of SVR’s Sections S and PR who
administered this totally unproductive long- term operation. Out of
nowhere an explanation was offered by a major Moscow newspaper,
Kommersant, that a certain “Colonel Shcherbakov” had
fallen prey to the CIA and had been cooperating with it for many
years. This otherwise unknown top Russian intelligence supervisor
(safely now in the U.S. with his family) is pointed to as the
reason why the project collapsed. Of course, except for the work of
Vicky Palaez as a spotter and agent of influence in the Hispanic
community, the rest of the project had been effectively without
operational result other than development of its own
cover.
The argument is now made in Moscow that a reunification of
domestic and foreign intelligence as it was until 1991 under the
old KGB is a necessary reformation to prevent such organizational
and security ineptitude as has been proven to exist in SVR. Neither
of the heads of the security committees of the lower and upper
houses of parliament is as yet willing to support such a drastic
move. No matter what happens, SVR will undergo a serious revamping.
It is unimaginable to think Putin, still carrying a sense of
personal responsibility for his alma mater, would allow
anything less.
Maybe it’s time to bring back some of the old Cold
Warriors. This new crowd in SVR needs to go back to spy school —
or at least stop reading those foreign intrigue novels. But who’s
complaining!
