Christopher Andrew - The Sword and the Shield

From 1979 onward Smith was paid a 300-pound monthly retainer by the KGB. His file also records additional payments for documents supplied by him of 1,600 pounds, 750 pounds, 400 pounds and 2,000 pounds. Though Mitrokhin’s notes do not record the dates of these payments, they probably relate chiefly to Smith’s two years in Thorn—EMI Defense Electronics. 41The excitement of working for the KGB, copying highly classified documents, emptying DLBs and going to secret assignations with his case officers in foreign capitals seems to have rescued Smith from his earlier existence as a “total nerd.” A hint of the exotic began to enliven a previously drab lifestyle. In 1979 he got married, took up flamenco dancing, began experimenting with Spanish and Mexican cuisine, and gave dinner parties at which guests were served his homemade wine. 42

Smith was so taken with his life as a secret agent that he made strenuous efforts to recover the security clearance he had lost in 1978, even drafting a personal appeal two years later to Margaret Thatcher to intercede on his behalf. “There is a cloud over me which I cannot dispel,” he complained to the Prime Minister. “I have been wrongly suspected and have lost my position most unjustly.” Though Smith seems never to have posted his letter to Mrs. Thatcher, in June 1980 he succeeded in putting his case to an MI5 officer. Smith began by denying that he had ever been a Communist, was confronted with evidence that he had, then apologized for lying and said he had joined the Party only to find a girlfriend. 43Amazingly, Smith’s campaign to recover his security clearance survived even this setback. More amazingly still, a few years later it succeeded. 44

In 1980 7.5 percent of all Soviet scientific and technological intelligence came from British sources. 45As well as providing what it claimed was enormous assistance to Soviet research and development, especially in the military field, Directorate T also prided itself on obtaining commercial secrets which drove down the cost of contracts with Western companies. One British example of which it was particularly proud during the later 1970s was the negotiation of the contract for two large methane production plants with the companies Davy Power Gas and Klîckner INA Industrial Plants. 46The original price quoted by the British consortium was 248 million convertible roubles, as compared with the 206 million allocated for the project by the Soviet Council of Ministers. An operation conducted in the Peking Hotel, Moscow, on March 23, 1977 by Directorate T with the assistance of the Moscow KGB, probably based on a combination of eavesdropping and the secret photocopying of company documents, obtained commercial intelligence which—according to a report by the Ministry of Foreign Trade—made it possible to negotiate a reduction of 50.6 million roubles on the price of the contract. On October 24, 1977 Andropov formally commended fifteen KGB officers for their part in the operation. Ironically, the British prime minister, James Callaghan, subsequently wrote to his Soviet opposite number, Alexei Kosygin, to thank the Soviet government for awarding the contract to a British firm. 47

THE PR AND KR Lines at the London residency appear to have had less success during the 1970s than Line X. The only known Soviet agent within the British intelligence community, Geoffrey Prime of GCHQ, was run not by the residency but by Third Directorate controllers who met him outside Britain. 48The most highly placed Line PR agent active during the decade after operation FOOT identified in Mitrokhin’s notes was WILLIAM, a trade union official and former Communist. WILLIAM was recruited during a visit to the Soviet Union by Boris Vasilyevich Denisov, a KGB officer working under cover as a Soviet trade union (AUCCTU) official, and agreed to provide inside information on the TUC and the Labor Party. After a meeting with WILLIAM in London in December 1975, however, his case officer reported that he had become anxious about his role as a Soviet agent. Though reaffirming his desire to help his Soviet comrades, WILLIAM said that he was distrusted by less progressive trade union officials because of his Marxist views and worried that word of his Soviet connection would leak out and damage his chances of becoming leader of his union. 49Lacking any really important British agents, Line PR tended to exaggerate the significance of second-rate agents such as WILLIAM and its other sources of inside information on British politics and government policy.

The political contact of which Line PR was proudest was Harold Wilson (codenamed OLDING), who became president of the Great Britain—USSR Association after his resignation as prime minister in 1976. The first secretary at the Soviet embassy responsible for liaison with the association, Andrei Sergeyevich Parastayev, periodically called on Wilson, nominally to discuss its affairs with him. The fact that Parastayev was a KGB agent allowed the residency to claim that it had secured access to the former prime minister. Though not claiming that Wilson was a “confidential contact” (let alone an agent), the residency reported that he freely provided political information. 50Mitrokhin’s notes give no examples of what the information comprised, but if Wilson’s observations to Parastayev resembled his private comments to some of his British friends and acquaintances, they would certainly have attracted the attention of the Centre and probably have been passed to the Politburo. Roy Jenkins noted in 1978, for example, that Wilson “did not think there was much future for the [Callaghan] Government, or indeed the Labor Party.” 51

The Centre claimed that disinformation from Service A had been passed to Wilson, probably via Parastayev, with the intention that it should reach the Labor government. 52It is highly unlikely, however, that the disinformation had any significant influence on Wilson, let alone on the Callaghan government. In retirement, though remaining firmly anchored in the Labor Party, Wilson moved steadily to the right. According to his official biographer, Philip Ziegler, by 1977 his dislike of the far left equaled that of “the most conservative of capitalists.” 53Nor did Wilson show great sympathy for Soviet foreign policy. His KGB file reports that, after the invasion of Afghanistan, he canceled a visit to the USSR in his capacity as president of the Great Britain—USSR Association. 54

By the 1970s Line PR in London, as in other residencies, was supposed to spend 25 percent of its time on active measures 55and send annual statistics to the Centre on the number of its influence operations. These totaled 160 in 1976 and 190 in 1977. 56During 1977 Line PR officers reported that they had initiated 99 discussions which allegedly “influenced” politicians, journalists and other opinion-formers, and claimed to have successfully prompted 26 public announcements, 20 publications, the sending of more than 20 letters and telegrams, 9 questions in Parliament, 5 press conferences, 4 meetings and demonstrations and 3 television and radio broadcasts. In addition, it had distributed three brochures and one forged document produced by Service A, which was responsible for active measures at the Centre. 57

In order to gain credit from the Centre, residencies invariably tried to exaggerate the success of their active measures. While working at the Centre, Oleg Gordievsky was told that in 1977 or 1978 the London resident, Yakov Lukasevics, had been asked by Andropov whether his residency possessed the means to influence British policy. “Why yes, we can exert influence,” Lukasevics replied. “We have such channels.” “I do not think you can,” Andropov told him. “I think you are too hasty in answering that question.” 58The files noted by Mitrokhin confirm Andropov’s skepticism.

The KGB’s attempts to recruit agents of influence in the British media to use for active measures seems to have met with limited success by comparison with France and some other European countries. The journalist DAN, probably the London residency’s most reliable agent of influence during the 1960s, 59broke contact during the 1970s—probably after he was put on ice in the aftermath of operation FOOT. Several attempts by the residency to reactivate DAN failed and he was eventually written off some time in the early 1980s. 60