Spycraft - Melton [27]
The KGB penalized its surveillance officers for carelessness, which included losing a person under close observation. So taunting, antagonizing, or making the surveillance teams’ job more difficult could result in dog feces being rubbed on car door handles or a smashed windshield. Particularly unnerving for most American drivers was a technique called bumper lock, in which the surveillance car remained literally inches from one’s rear bumper.
Provocations were commonly employed. Soviets posing as disaffected or greedy officials volunteered information in an effort to engage the CIA. These individuals, aptly called “dangles,” made it both difficult and essential to verify the authenticity of potential agents. Fortunately for the West, some of the most significant agents proved remarkably persistent in attempts to establish contact after their initial efforts were rebuffed.
If such caution toward volunteers was understandable, it could also lead to disaster. In 1963 a former officer in the KGB’s Second Chief Directorate,7 Aleksandr Cherepanov, handed a package to a pair of American tourists visiting the Soviet Union. Agency opinion differed on whether the material was genuine or part of a provocation. At the time, there was simply no way to tell.
The contents of the package, which provided details on KGB surveillance methods, were photographed and eventually handed back to the Soviets through diplomatic channels. Cherepanov, learning of the betrayal, fled Moscow. Eventually captured, he was tried in secret and executed in 1964.8
“It is not possible to determine why the Americans betrayed Cherepanov,” a KGB assessment observed. “Either they suspected that his action was a KGB provocation or they wanted to burden the KGB with a lengthy search for the person who had sent the package to the embassy.”9
Americans were closely observed even inside their own Tchaikovsky Street embassy. A ten-story structure erected in the 1950s as an apartment complex in a Russian version of beaux-arts style, it was typical of Soviet Union architectural design. The interior represented Soviet construction of the day, featuring a claustrophobic maze of narrow halls and small rooms.
American diplomats had been in the building since 1952, when Stalin ordered a move from Mokhaya Street near the Kremlin and the National Hotel to the more remote location. Had the Americans stalled, as the British managed to do, the move might have been unnecessary, as Stalin died a short time later.
Extensive renovation by the American occupants produced only limited improvements. American construction crews discovered that the walls and floors were insulated with sawdust, ash, and other debris from the original construction. Seemingly installed as an afterthought, the electrical wiring would have been state-of-the-art in the 1920s, but was inadequate for the power requirements of modern appliances.
Soviet citizens employed as workers by the U.S. Embassy had access to all but the most sensitive areas of the building. Working in low-level administrative, maintenance, or service positions, they reported on personal habits, personality types, and office gossip to the KGB. During the 1960s and 1970s, Russian nationals equaled or outnumbered American citizens working in the Moscow embassy.10 Conversely, the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not employ a single American citizen.
The presence of so many Soviet citizens, a large percentage of them no doubt co-optees or informers, was not without its amusing moments. For two decades, a vivacious woman known as Valentina ran the barbershop and beauty salon in the embassy’s basement. No one doubted she reported to the KGB, but the situation became untenable when information regarding a KGB operation was traced back to her. Valentina was swiftly fired but returned to the embassy one last time when a group of her American customers hosted a going-away party for her.11