Spycraft - Melton [26]
The KGB set up a third observation post on the other side of the river in an apartment building facing Penkovsky’s apartment, at Naberezhanaya Maksima Gorkogo (Maksim Gorky Embankment) 36, Flat 59. From there, KGB cameras with telephoto lenses produced high-quality images of his photo sessions, even capturing Penkovsky at his desk as he monitored shortwave broadcasts and copied down the transmitted numbers.
After-action assessments following Penkovsky’s roll-up focused attention on the absence of effective spy gear, particularly in the area of agent communications. While in Moscow, his communication channels to his handlers were limited to dead drops and brief meetings. Silent phone calls were no more than prearranged emergency signals.
Technology did little to enhance either Penkovsky’s production or security. His remarkable success was achieved not because of technology, but despite the lack of it. His official position allowed him periodic travel outside the USSR and opportunities for extensive debriefings. Without these personal meetings, Penkovsky would not have been successful.
What became clear was that the CIA in the 1960s did not have the operational methodology, clandestine hardware, or personnel to run secure agent operations inside the USSR. The absence of a secure and clandestine means of communicating in Moscow forced both the agent and his handlers to take risks that eventually played into the hands of the KGB surveillance methods. The recruitment of agents inside the Soviet Union meant little if the KGB could quickly identify them or if they could not securely communicate the secrets to which they had access.
For agents to be handled clandestinely in-country, the CIA needed the means to detect and counter pervasive KGB surveillance before conducting an operation; to conduct secure impersonal communications; and to pass and receive materials securely from the agent. These were no small matters. In fact, a decade would pass before TSD and OTS engineers created the covert devices needed to conduct multiple sustained clandestine operations inside the USSR. Although neither side realized it at the time, Penkovsky’s capture marked the start of a fifteen-year span during which the technological advantage would swing decisively in favor of the CIA.
When Penkovsky volunteered to spy for the West, the CIA lacked the ability to handle him in Moscow. In contrast, the KGB and GRU packed Soviet embassies, consulates, trade organizations, trading companies, the United Nations, international organizations, and press offices around the world with intelligence officers and co-opted civilians, often to the annoyance of genuine diplomats.
For the few U.S. intelligence officers who could get into the Soviet Union, operational success was nearly impossible. While the Soviets could not accurately identify every U.S. intelligence officer, the KGB erred on the side of caution and assumed that all Americans worked for the CIA until proven otherwise.
The KGB’s Second Chief Directorate opened a file on each American and profiled each against age, gender, job description, personal activities, and possible intelligence roles.6
The KGB also charted “expected activity patterns” to go along with the profile that included predictable routes of travel to and from work each day. Even noted were the wives’ favorite place to shop or visit. Added to these were the necessary travel to sporting and cultural events, sightseeing, and social activities outside of work. They knew that activities outside the regular travel pattern could mask a more sinister purpose, such as an agent meeting, casing a site, or servicing a dead drop, and thus identify the suspect as an intelligence officer.
Americans also quickly learned that, contrary to spy novels and James Bond movies, obvious attempts to evade surveillance only proved counterproductive.