Christopher Andrew - The Sword and the Shield

9. See above, chapter 2.

10. As with many other inter-war operations, the record of Bystroletov’s foreign intelligence missions is incomplete. The main documents seen by Mitrokhin were a post-war memoir written by Bystroletov, some contemporary correspondence on his operations exchanged between the Center and residencies, and the 26-volume file on one of his leading agents, Ernest Holloway Oldham (ARNO). Though Bystroletov’s memoir is colorfully written, some—but not all—of the main events recorded in it can be corroborated from other sources. The SVR has given partial access to its records on Bystroletov for the writing of two books co-authored by the former KGB officer Oleg Tsarev (now an SVR consultant) and Western historians: Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions; and West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels.

11. Samolis (ed.), Veterany Vneshnei Razvedki Rossii, pp. 19-21. The account of Bystroletov’s career in the 1997 SVR official history also omits much that is of importance about it, including the identities of his main British agents. Primakov et al., Ocherki Istorii Rossiyskoi Vneshnei Razvedki, ch. 22.

12. vol. 7, ch. 9, para. 16. The file noted by Mitrokhin identifies LAROCHE, in Cyrillic transliteration, as Eliana Aucouturier, born 1898. Samolis (ed.), Veterany Vneshnei Razvedki Rossii, says simply that Bystroletov “successfully cultivated a secretary at the French embassy who had access to secret correspondence and ciphers of the French foreign ministry” (p. 19), but does not give the secretary’s name or codename, or refer to her seduction.

13. vol. 7, ch. 9.

14. The accounts of Bystroletov’s career published by the SVR in 1995 and 1997, as well as the material supplied by the SVR for two books co-authored by the former KGB officer Oleg Tsarev and Western historians, do not mention that Bystroletov was not an OGPU/NKVD officer. Mitrokhin discovered, on examining Bystroletov’s records, that he was simply an agent (vol. 7, ch. 9, para. 38). Even when fully rehabilitated in 1956, after spending sixteen years in prison from 1938 to 1954 as an innocent victim of the Stalinist terror, Bystroletov was denied a KGB pension on the grounds that he had never held officer rank. Since the SVR now portrays him as one of the main pre-war heroes of Soviet foreign intelligence, it is evidently embarrassed to admit his lowly status.

15. Though based in Berlin, Bazarov’s residency operated against a number of countries, including—from 1929—Britain. Other illegals in the residency included Teodor Maly and D. A. Poslendy, vol. 7, ch. 1.

16. vol. 7, ch. 9, paras. 24-30. De Ry later also came to the attention of the French Deuxième Bureau as “ un trafiquant de codes ” with access to Italian ciphers (Paillole, Notre espion chez Hitler, p. 223).

17. vol. 7, ch. 9, para. 26. Though not present at this first encounter with ROSSI, Bystroletov was given details of it by the Paris residency in order to help track him down.

18. In Bystroletov’s account (vol. 7, ch. 9, para. 26), the official who spoke to the walk-in at the Paris embassy is identified only as “a senior comrade.” Other fragmentary accounts of the same episode indicate that the comrade was Vladimir Voynovich, aka Yanovich and Volovich: Bessedovsky, Revelations of a Soviet Diplomat, pp. 247-8; Corson and Crowley, The New KGB, pp. 433-5; Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions, p. 198.

19. vol. 7, ch. 9, para. 27. The photographer of the ciphers was identified as Voynovich’s wife by the defector Grigori Besedovsky, then a senior diplomat in the Soviet embassy. Bessedovsky, Revelations, p. 247.

20. vol. 7, ch. 9. Corson and Crowley, The New KGB, pp. 140ff confuses the de Ry and Oldham cases, and claims that Oldham too was successfully defrauded. The authors, who had no access to KGB files, do not identify de Ry by name or codename and refer to Oldham as “Scott.” Andrew and Gordievsky, ( KGB, pp. 195-6) identify Oldham but follow Corson and Crowley in suggesting that he was defrauded by Voynovich. Surprisingly, Costello and Tsarev, despite their access to KGB documents, make no mention of de Ry and claim inaccurately in their paragraph on Oldham that he “was thrown out on his ear” by Voynovich, who “evidently suspected a British provocation plot” ( Deadly Illusions, p. 198).

21. Besedovsky’s memoirs, Na Putiakh k Termidoru, were published in Russian, French and German in 1930; an abridged English translation (in which the author’s name is transliterated as “Bessedovslay”) appeared in 1931. His insulting references to Stalin make the hypothesis that he was a bogus defector planted on the West untenable. There is, however, some indication that in the course of a sometimes bizarre life in exile, Besedovsky did co-operate to some degree with Soviet intelligence after the Second World War.

22. vol. 7, ch. 9.

23. The corrupt Italian diplomat was successively codenamed PATRON, CARTRIDGE and PATTERN by Soviet intelligence; vol. 7, ch. 9.

24. vol. 7, ch. 9.

25. vol. 7, ch. 9.

26. The only real post with which the non-existent position of head of intelligence at the Foreign Office might conceivably have been confused was that of head of political intelligence in SIS and liaison officer with the Foreign Office. The holder of that post from 1921 to early in the Second World War, however, was Major Malcolm Woollcombe.

27. vol. 7, ch. 9.

28. Mitrokhin found no note in the file querying the story.

29. vol. 7, ch. 9.

30. vol. 7, ch. 9, paras. 30-1. French intelligence records provide corroboration of both Lemoine’s friendship with de Ry and their common interest in obtaining foreign diplomatic ciphers; Paillole, Notre espion chez Hitler, p. 223.

31. On Lemoine’s career with the Deuxième Bureau and recruitment of Schmidt, see Paillole, Notre espion chez Hitler, p. 223.

32. French cryptanalysts were unable to exploit the intelligence on Enigma provided by Schmidt. The first steps in the breaking of Enigma were made by Polish military cryptanalysts with whom the Deuxième Bureau shared Schmidt’s cipher material. The results achieved by the Poles were passed on to the British on the eve of the Second World War, Garlinski, Intercept, chs. 2, 3; Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 628-32.

33. vol. 7, ch. 9, para. 30. Neither Lemoine’s name nor his codename, JOSEPH, appears in Bystroletov’s 1995 SVR hagiography, which, however, confirms that “In the period between 1930 and 1936, whilst working with another agent, Bystroletov… established operational contact with a member of French military intelligence. He received from him Austrian cipher material and later Italian and Turkish cipher material and even secret documents from Hitler’s Germany.” (Samolis (ed.), Veterany Vneshnei Razvedki Rossii, p. 20.) It is clear from this censored account that Bystroletov’s fellow illegal Ignace Reiss (alias Ignace Poretsky), with whom he shared the running of JOSEPH, remains an unperson in SVR historiography because of his later defection; he is referred to only as “another agent.” There is no mention of JOSEPH in the account of Bystroletov’s career in West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels.

34. The file noted by Mitrokhin identifies OREL only as Lemoine’s boss in the Deuxième Bureau; the Center may not have known his real identity (vol. 7, ch. 9, para. 30). Reiss was known to Lemoine and Bertrand as “Walter Scott.” A Deuxième Bureau photograph, almost certainly taken without Reiss’s knowledge, shows him at a meeting with Lemoine and Bertrand at Rotterdam in 1935 (Paillole, Notre espion chez Hitler, illustration facing p. 161).