For fifty years the FBI and the KGB each had unsolved cases dating back to the FBI-KGB War period. In the end, the solution was exactly the same for both.
1943
In 1943, the Federal Bureau of Investigation received an astonishing letter, one addressed personally to Director J. Edgar Hoover. The envelope was postmarked August 7, 1943, Washington D.C., but the letter itself was undated and unsigned. The contents of the letter dealt with the Soviet intelligence apparatus in North America. It identified virtually the entire KGB leadership in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Of particular significance, the letter named Vasili Zarubin as KGB resident in America; moreover, it accused him and his wife (also a KGB officer) of being double agents for Germany and Japan. Other intelligence officers and agents identified in the letter were: Pavel Klarin, Gregory Kheifetz, Leonid Kvasnikov, Andrey Savchenko, Semyon Semyonov, Sergei Lukianov, Vasili Pavlov, Lev Vasilevsky (Lev Tarasov), Vasili Dolgov, Vasili Mironov and Boris Morros.
The question of authenticity notwithstanding, the FBI moved aggressively. Special Case squads were established in major cities such as Washington, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. (“Special Case” in deference to a wartime ally; later, Russian or R squads, reflecting the cold war reality.) Within the Bureau, the letter became known as the Anonymous Letter and was classified Top Secret. It was the basis for the Bureau’s COMRAP (Communist Apparatus) investigation and, as such, it received the investigative term of art "the original source" or TOS. Most significant for Hoover's FBI was the fact that the Anonymous Letter, in its particulars on Zarubin and Kheifetz, dovetailed with the San Francisco Field Office’s investigation of Communist infiltration at the UC Berkeley Radiation Lab. At the heart of the CINRAD case were Steve Nelson, two Soviet intelligence officers attached to the Soviet Consulate, and the U.S. Army’s super-secret Manhattan Project.
For the FBI, the only tangible results from COMRAP seemed to be the Boris Morros double agent operation (MOCASE). The identity of the anonymous writer was never discovered, hence the exact reliability and importance of TOS remained questionable.
1944
In 1944, it was Joseph Stalin's turn to be astounded. He received a devastating letter from KGB Lieutenant Colonel Vasili Dimitrovich Markov. At the time, Markov, under the name Vasili Dimitrovich Mironov, was serving as Second Secretary in the Soviet Embassy, Washington, D.C. Markov’s letter to Stalin denounced Rezident Vasili Zarubin and his wife Elizabeth as double agents working for the FBI. Markov wrote that he had followed Zarubin to some of his clandestine meetings and, giving the dates and times of these contacts, alleged that they were with American FBI agents. Although virtually unthinkable, the problem for Moscow Center was that Markov's letter coincided with the knowledge that many of their agents in America had come under close FBI surveillance. [1]
As a consequence of the Markov letter to Stalin, the Zarubins, Gregori Kheifetz, Semyon Semyonov, Pavel Klarin, Lev Vasilevsky, Andrei Shevchenko and Markov himself were recalled home in August and September 1944. Another precaution taken by the Center was a complete change of agent covernames in September and October 1944. Once all of the principals connected to Markov’s allegations were in Moscow, an extensive investigation was conducted. Vasili Markov was found to be schizophrenic and his charges baseless. The Zarubins, et al, were fully exonerated. It is not reported whether Markov was suspected of being the cause of the KGB’s compromised agents in America. If so, his schizophrenia precluded certainty on the matter. Notwithstanding the disposition of the Markov case, the Center still had an extremely serious problem in America. The broad and intensified FBI surveillance had the hallmark of the ultimate intelligence nightmare, a mole/double agent operation. Accordingly, all intelligence officers in America, as well as their agents, had to remain under constant review and evaluation.[2]
Thus, for both the FBI and the KGB, a state of ignorance existed for over 50 years: The FBI was unable to fully exploit a walk-in source of information; the KGB did not penetrate to the truth of their operational failures in America. For each agency, however, the Markov-Mironov affair would be deceptively providential, producing something of a stalemate, although this could not be fully understood until 1996.
1994
The KGB
In 1994, retired KGB General Pavel Sudoplatov published his autobiography, Special Tasks. This memoir contained the first public record of Markov's letter to Stalin. It made no mention of a possible Markov letter to Hoover. After a six-month investigation of Markov’s charges, all of the Zarubins’ contacts were proven to be legitimate and valuable. The Center was then left to speculate on how in 1944 the FBI “had managed to penetrate our agent network in America." From Sudoplatov in Special Tasks:
"The FBI claims that Gouzenko’s revelations and the breaking of coded intercepted cables was how they finally traced Harry Gold and Klaus Fuchs. I do not think that American codebreakers played the decisive role in unmasking our espionage effort. .... The FBI has never publicly discussed its sources and methods. However, former FBI agent Robert Lamphere, in Chapter Six of his book, The FBI-KGB War, presents a complicated story of how the FBI re-created our codebooks by using the old one as a starting point. That may be true. I cannot absolutely exclude that codebreaking might have played a role in exposing our agents in the United States and Canada. But we have reason to believe that the FBI wanting to hide its agent source of information, invented the story of codebreaking." [3]
FBI Special Agent Robert Lamphere was liaison to the Army Security Agency (ASA) for what is now known as the Venona Program, the top-secret project to decrypt thousands of Soviet wartime messages. Although begun during the war on diplomatic traffic, there were no significant decryptions of KGB messages until after the war. It was in August 1949 when the ASA provided the Bureau with a significant quantity of decrypts, among which were those that led to the identification of Klaus Fuchs and Harry Gold.
When Sudoplatov was writing his memoir, the Venona program was still a U.S. government secret. It was declassified and made public in July 1995, a year after Special Tasks came out. Had Sudoplatov been privy to the declassified Venona information before he published, he would certainly have realized that the Fuchs-Gold case did in fact stem from codebraking. On the other hand, Sudoplatov’s notion about their blown agents in 1944 was correct. Indeed, the FBI did have a superlative agent source of information, a mole of sorts: his name was the figurative, “TOS.” Running true to form, however, the old Spymaster did not disclose the "reason" why “we” were unconvinced that codebreaking was the answer. This remains an intriguing question. [4]
The FBI
In 1949 the FBI established a special counter-espionage unit within its Espionage Section. Its mission was to investigate the information in the WWII Soviet messages, the Venona messages, being decrypted by the ASA. The classified name of this ad hoc FBI unit was Soviet Message (SOVME) Unit. Robert Lamphere would become its administrative head in summer 1950.
Almost forty-five years later, on April 18, 1994, Special Tasks arrived in bookstores in the United States. The following month a number of Sudoplatov's old "competitors," Lamphere and company from the SOVME Unit, began a mail correspondence about the book's revelations. Notwithstanding the incredulous commentary of the literati, these retired Special Agents did not think Sudoplatov was lying or exaggerating when it came to KGB operations in America, particularly those against the Manhattan Project. To the contrary, it made a lot of sense and answered many old questions. One of the correspondents, Ernest Van Loon, wrote a 5-page memo to the group summarizing his memory of the COMRAP case. Van Loon's letter, dated May 13, 1994, is among Robert Lamphere's papers archived at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. [5]
In his letter Van Loon refreshed his associates on the origin of COMRAP. He referred to the beginning of that case only as “TOS”, The Original Source, an FBI term of art. At the time of writing, as far as Van Loon was aware, the existence and nature of TOS was still classified. But in using the TOS acronym he knew that his former partners would immediately understand that he was referring to the Anonymous Letter. Van Loon's letter provides historical insight. Especially interesting was his assessment of Sudoplatov's revelation about Markov’s letter to Stalin. Van Loon summarized the matter to his associates as follows:
"I feel satisfied that the identity of TOS can now be deduced with practical certainty. From the beginning it always seemed clear that it was someone close to Zarubin's network, if not someone actually in it. In the latter case it would make sense to include his own name in the disclosure because - should it go awry - it's absense would point the finger directly at himself. When listing Dolgov as Z's assistant in Washington D.C., TOS mentioned NKVD colonel Mironov (true name Markov) at the embassy without itemizing him as an assistant of Zarubin, as he had done with others. He said that Mironov was envious of Zarubin. It will be remembered that Zarubin arrived in Washington 7/43, the month previous to TOS' contact with us.
"At pages 197-8 Sudoplatov relates that the Zarubins did not stay long in Washington though this was not due to their fault or the prowess of the FBI. He reveals that one of Zarubin's subordinates at the embassy in Washington, Lt. Col. Mironov, wrote a letter to Stalin denouncing the Zarubins as double agents for the FBI. Zarubin was therefore recalled (He left 8/27/44) and after a six-month investigation of the Zarubins they were exonerated.
"I can think of no reason why Sudoplatov would explain Zarubin's departure from Washington as he did, if that were not the case. So which is the greater likelihood:
1. That Mironov, a schizophrenic who denounced the Zarubins to Stalin as double agents in 8/44 is the person who reported the Zarubins as double agents to the FBI in 8/43, or,
2. That in 8/43 in Washington DC, during Mironov's tenure there, there was some other individual with knowledge of the network who reported the Zarubins as double agents to the FBI.
My personal conclusion is that Mironov/Markov is the original source." [6]
1996
On October 3, 1996, the NSA and CIA held a final Venona declassification conference. The Anonymous Letter was first made public at this time. It generated quite a bit of discussion as well as guessing about the identity of the author. The Special Agents of the SOVME Unit were pleased to learn of the declassification of TOS. They could now freely talk about what they had concluded 2 years previous when Special Tasks first came out: Vasili Markov, aka Mironov, had written the letter to Hoover, he was TOS. What about Pavel Sudoplatov, did he ever have the satisfaction of knowing what really caused his service's problems in 1944? General Sudoplatov died on October 7, 1996, just four days after the final Venona conference. It has not been reported that he had learned of Markov’s letter to Hoover.
Vasili Markov sent two letters, one to J. Edgar Hoover and one to Iosif Stalin. The letter to Hoover was distinct good fortune for the FBI; conversely, it was bad luck for the KGB. However, Markov evened the stakes when he sent a similar letter to Stalin. Ostensibly of disastrous import and effect, Markov’s Stalin letter turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the KGB, and bad luck for the FBI. The reason: Markov’s letter to Stalin caused the recall of the KGB’s top cadre in America, persons identified in the Anonymous Letter whom the FBI had under close surveillance (human, electronic and other methods). If Markov had not denounced the Zarubins to Stalin, these intelligence officers in all probability would have continued in America, thereby remaining under FBI investigation. Chief among them, in terms of risk to operations and assets, was Semyon Markovich Semyonov (TVEN in Venona). Semyonov, who did not enjoy diplomatic immunity, had already been spotted. Up until the summer of 1944 Semyonov had been the case officer of Harry Gold, Julius Rosenberg, FOGEL-PERS (Venona-unidentified) and, most importantly, Lona Cohen. It is certainly possible, if not probable, that increasingly intense surveillance on Semyonov would have led to one or more of these spies. Thus, counterintuitively, Markov’s letter to Stalin should be considered a piece of good luck for the KGB. [7]
Epilogue
Sudoplatov was correct when he indicated that it was not American codebreaking that exposed their agents. Interestingly, he used the royal 'we' ("we have reason to believe") in asserting there was basis for this—a reason he chose not to reveal. This suggests that Sudoplatov was privy to contemporary (1990's) KGB opinion about the case. If so, what could be the basis for the KGB’s determination that codebreaking was not involved? The answer might lie in recent U.S. history. The Anonymous Letter was used as a case study in FBI counterespionage training. Robert Hanssen almost certainly had knowledge of this famous, but still classified, relic of FBI-KGB history. Revealing this old, but now inconsequential secret would have been a perfect way for Hanssen to establish his bona fides with his new patron.
Katyn Forest
The FBI, in 1943, undoubtedly had no idea what to make of the last paragraph of The Anonymous Letter, a distinct departure in style and substance. It read:
“A person who occupies a most special position, ranks next after ZUBILIN [Zarubin] in the NKVD, is a 2nd secretary in the USSR Embassy here - MIRONOV, his real name is MARKOV (ZUBILIN is a general in the NKVD, MIRONOV - a Colonel). Both hate each other over their positions. In the NKVD line they directed the occupation of Poland. ZUBILIN interrogated and shot Poles in Kozielsk, MIRONOV in Starobielsk. All the Poles who were spared know these butchers by sight. 10,000 Poles shot near Molensk was the work of both of them. If you prove to Mironov that Z. is working for the Germans and Japanese, he will immediately shoot him without a trial as he too holds a very high post in the NKVD. He has some high level agent in the office of the White House.”
Markov’s schizophrenia is certainly evident in the above. There is real life poetic justice in the Markov episode: Stalin ordered the mass murder of Poles. Executions were carried out by Markov and Zarubin. The enterprise so unhinged Markov as to induce schizophrenia. Thus deranged, he sent destructive letters to Hoover and Stalin. The letter to Hoover resulted in the Bureau's omnibus COMRAP investigation; the letter to Stalin impelled an internal security investigation which tangentially resulted in Igor Gouzenko's recall to Moscow; Gouzenko's orders back to Russia precipitated his defection and the ensuing Canadian investigation which uncovered the atomic espionage of British physicist Alan Nunn May. The chain of causation stemming from the Katyn Forest massacre would have led to the early exposure of Klaus Fuchs in 1946, had it not been for the adroit actions of British MI6 in the person of Kim Philby. (Essays Mil'shtein and Hiss and The FUCASE refer.)
Notes, Sources, References
1. Special Tasks, Pavel and Analtoli Sudoplatov with Jerrold L. and Leona P. Schecter, 1994; Updated Edition, 1995. Page 197.
2. Venona messages: No. 1251, NY to Moscow, 2 September 1944; No. 1403, NY to Moscow, 5 October 1944
3. Special Tasks, Pavel and Analtoli Sudoplatov with Jerrold L. and Leona P. Schecter, 1994; Updated Edition, 1995.
4. Ibid., page 218
5. The Updated Edition (paperback, 1995) of Special Tasks contains no mention of Venona. The Schecters addendum to the 1994 Introduction is dated February 1995. Ostensibly then, the Updated Edition of Special Tasks was also published before the declassification and public disclosure of Venona.
6. Georgetown University Archives. Box: 1 Fold: 25 Van Loon, E.J., 5/13/1994; DESCRIPTION: 1 Typed Memo Signed dated 5/13/1994 from E.J. Van Loon to Robert J. Lamphere, regarding the book "Special Tasks" by Pavel Sudoplatov.
7. The FBI had Semyonov in their sights: “TOS” gained more credibility when, in 1944, Special Agents who were following Grigory Kheifetz in San Francisco, observed Semyonov and Kheifetz have dinner together in public. FBI-KGB War, Lamphere, 1986, p.171; The Man Behind the Rosenbergs, A. Feklisov, 2001, p.105-6.