Major General (according to some reports, Lieutenant General) of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the USSR Ministry of Defense Dmitry Polyakov worked for the CIA for 25 years and actually paralyzed the work of Soviet intelligence in the American direction. Polyakov betrayed 19 illegal Soviet intelligence officers, more than 150 agents from among foreign citizens, revealed that about 1,500 current intelligence officers belonged to the GRU and the KGB. Former CIA chief James Woolsey admitted that "of all the US secret agents recruited during the Cold War, Polyakov was the jewel in the crown."
In May 1988, in Moscow, Mikhail Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan signed a treaty to eliminate intermediate and short-range missiles in Europe, which ended the nuclear standoff and ushered in a new era. The leaders of the two countries were in high spirits, and suddenly Reagan turned to Gorbachev with an unexpected proposal - to pardon or exchange former GRU general Dmitry Polyakov for one of the arrested Soviet agents. However, his request was somewhat late, by that time the traitor general had already been shot. Who was this person, the question of which was decided at the level of the leaders of the two great powers?
Front-line soldier, scout ... traitor
Dmitry Fedorovich Polyakov was born in 1921 in Ukraine in the family of a rural librarian. After leaving school, he entered the Kiev Artillery School. During the Great Patriotic War he commanded a platoon, was a battery commander, an artillery reconnaissance officer. He fought on the Western and Karelian fronts, was wounded. He was awarded the Orders of the Patriotic War and the Red Star. After the end of the war, Polyakov graduated from the intelligence faculty of the Academy. Frunze, courses of the General Staff and was sent to work in the GRU.
In the early fifties, Polyakov was sent to New York under the cover of a position as an employee of the Soviet UN mission. He was entrusted with a responsible task - undercover support of illegal intelligence officers. The work of an energetic officer was successful, but a tragic event occurred in his personal life. A severe flu gave a complication to the heart of his three-year-old son. A complex operation was performed, but the diplomatic mission did not have money for a second one, and the child died. Polyakov was in despair. Apparently, this event served as the basis for the FBI to show interest in him.
At that time, US intelligence agencies were conducting Operation Courtship - "Matchmaking", directed against Soviet citizens working in America. They created their own recruitment formula - MICE. Its name is formed by the first letters of the words Money, Ideology, Compromise, Ego, which in Russian sound like this: money, ideological considerations, compromising evidence, conceit. It was a sophisticated system, but recruiting Polyakov was no easy task. He did not drink, did not cheat on his wife, did not show much interest in money. It seemed impossible to find an approach to it. But in 1961, during his second trip to the United States, a completely unexpected event occurred - Polyakov himself offered his services to the FBI.
Then he was already a colonel and represented the USSR in the UN Chiefs of Staff Committee, being at the same time the deputy resident for illegal intelligence. The Americans staged a check on the initiator (as intelligence refers to people who go to recruitment without additional pressure). And he, in order to win the trust of the new owners, betrayed three employees of the Soviet military intelligence known to him who worked in the United States. The GRU had high hopes for the Sokolovs. They went through a lengthy process of legalization, but were arrested before they even got to work.
To divert suspicion from Polyakov, two Soviet employees of the UN Secretariat were arrested on charges of espionage. And then the FBI said that they had extradited the Sokolovs. And only after many years the truth triumphed. Polyakov played a fatal role in the life of intelligence agent Maria Dobrova. This beautiful, elegant woman ran a trendy beauty salon in New York. Her clients were the wives of many high-ranking officials, including sailors of the nuclear submarine fleet. Dobrova's merit in preventing (namely, this was the main task of military intelligence) a sudden nuclear strike on the Soviet Union is undeniable. When the FBI came to arrest her, Maria committed suicide by jumping out of the window of a high-rise building. After some time, Polyakov reported to the center that Dobrova had been recruited by the Americans, who had safely sheltered her. For many years, the brave scout was considered a defector.
The times of the Cold War are strikingly different from our days. This is the now exposed Russian intelligence agent Anna Chapman, who was operating in America along with nine other colleagues, was exchanged for four Russian citizens accused of espionage and became the heroine of glossy magazines and television programs. And then the fate of many scouts issued by Polyakov turned out to be tragic. Some of them died or received long prison terms, some were recruited.
Exceptionally valuable Soviet intelligence agents working in South Africa were the spouses Dieter Gerhardt and Ruth Johr (Dieter Felix Gerhardt, Ruth Johr), who were friends with the family of President Peter Botha (Pieter Willem Botha). Dieter, a naval officer in the South African Navy, was to be given the rank of Rear Admiral and had access to a top-secret NATO naval base that controlled Soviet ships and aircraft. When the CIA, on a tip from Polyakov, arrested Gerhardt and produced the details of his Moscow dossier, he confessed to espionage. The intelligence officer was sentenced to life imprisonment and was released only in 1992 at the personal request of Boris N. Yeltsin. Subsequently, being the head of the intelligence department of the Military Diplomatic Academy, Polyakov would hand over the lists of his students to the Americans. Already retired, "Bourbon" - this pseudonym was assigned to him by the CIA - remained working in the GRU as secretary of the party committee of the directorate. According to established practice, illegal scouts remained on the party record at the place of work. According to their registration cards, the general calculated the infiltrated intelligence officers. Did he feel regret betraying his former colleagues? It is unlikely that espionage and morality are incompatible things.
But we ran a little ahead, on the account of Polyakov there were still many "exploits".
General's epaulets and invaluable information for the CIA
In 1966, Polyakov was sent to Burma as head of the radio interception center in Rangoon. Upon his return to the USSR, he was appointed head of the Chinese department, and in 1970 he was sent to India as a military attaché and resident of the GRU. While abroad, he almost openly meets with Americans as candidates for recruitment. The volume of information transmitted by Polyakov was so great that the CIA created a special department for its processing. He gave out the names of four American officers recruited by Soviet intelligence, transmitted data on the personnel of the GRU in the countries of Southeast Asia and the methods of their training, information on the latest missile systems. Polyakov managed to make photocopies of documents showing the deep divergence of the positions of China and the USSR. This information allowed the US to improve relations with China in 1972.
Polyakov did everything possible to convince the leadership of the GRU of his exceptional abilities. To do this, the CIA regularly handed over some classified materials to Bourbon, and also framed two Americans whom he allegedly recruited. Polyakov was known as a good comrade, he distributed various trinkets brought from abroad to his colleagues, and presented a silver service to the head of the GRU personnel department, Lieutenant General Izotov. The personnel officer did not even suspect that this was a gift from American intelligence.
Polyakov's efforts were not in vain, in 1974 he received the rank of major general. His work for American intelligence becomes even more effective. "Bourbon" gives the American intelligence services a list of military technologies that were purchased or obtained in the West by intelligence, sends them more than a hundred issues of the military-theoretical magazine "Military Thought", reports information about the new weapons of the USSR, in particular about anti-tank missiles. This helped the Americans destroy the military equipment sold by the Soviet Union to Iraq during the Persian Gulf War. The information provided by Polyakov was priceless, and the damage done to the Soviet Union amounted to many billions of dollars.
The motives for Polyakov's betrayal could not be fully clarified. Money was not the main reason. During his work for the CIA, Bourbon received less than $ 100 thousand - a ridiculous amount for a super agent. The Americans believed that he was disillusioned with the Soviet regime. The blow for Polyakov was the debunking of the cult of Stalin, whom he idolized. Polyakov himself said the following about himself during the investigation: “At the heart of my betrayal lay both my desire to openly express my views and doubts somewhere, and the qualities of my character - the constant desire to work beyond the risk. And the greater the danger became, the more interesting my life became ... I used to walk on the edge of a knife and could not imagine another life.
No matter how much the rope twists ...
A natural question arises, how did Polyakov manage to work for the CIA for a quarter of a century and remain unexposed? Numerous failures of illegal immigrants abroad intensified the activities of the KGB counterintelligence. Colonel O. Penkovsky, Colonel P. Popov, who extradited Soviet illegal immigrants in Western European countries to the CIA, and GRU officer A. Filatov were arrested and then shot. Polyakov turned out to be smarter, he was thoroughly aware of the methods and techniques used by the KGB to identify enemy agents, and for a long time was beyond suspicion. In Moscow, to maintain contact with the Americans, he used only contactless methods - special containers made in the form of a piece of brick, which he left in predetermined places. To give a signal about laying the cache, Polyakov, driving a trolley bus past the US Embassy in Moscow, activated a miniature transmitter hidden in his pocket. This technical innovation, in the West it was called "Brest", in an instant threw out a huge amount of information that entered the American residency. The radio interception service of the KGB detected these radio signals, but it was not possible to decipher them.
Meanwhile, the circle of GRU officers suspected of betrayal gradually narrowed. The work of all intelligence officers and agents arrested by the Americans was subjected to the most thorough analysis. In the end, it became clear that only one person, Major General Polyakov, could know and betray them. It is possible that high-ranking CIA officer Aldridge Ames, who worked for the KGB, and Robert Hanssen, an analyst in the Soviet department of the FBI, played a role in exposing Polyakov. By the way, both were subsequently sentenced in the United States to life imprisonment.
At the end of 1986 Polyakov was arrested. During a search of his Moscow apartment, secret writing tools, cipher pads and other spy equipment were found. "Bourbon" did not unlock, he went to cooperate with the investigation, hoping for indulgence. Polyakov's wife and adult sons were witnesses, since they did not know and did not suspect about his espionage activities. In the GRU at that time, stars rained down from the shoulder straps of employees, whose negligence and talkativeness was skillfully used by Bourbon. Many have been fired or retired. In early 1988, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced Polyakov D.F. for treason and espionage to death with confiscation of property. The sentence was carried out on March 15, 1988. Thus ended the life of one of the biggest traitors in the history of Soviet intelligence.
March 29, 1988 Moscow. The official visit of US President Ronald Reagan to the country, which he had previously called the "Evil Empire", went perfectly well. The Russians demonstrated their fabulous hospitality on a grand scale, and at the negotiations they were malleable, like plasticine. Only one moment darkened Reagan's mood when, after another round of negotiations at the highest level, Gorbachev asked to be left alone with the American president - for a conversation "off the record."
Collage © L!FE Photo: © RIA Novosti / Yuri Abramochkin
Mr. President, I will have to disappoint you,” Gorbachev sighed when they were alone, except, of course, for the interpreter. - I made inquiries about the person you asked me about ... I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do - this person is already dead, the sentence has been carried out.
Too bad, Reagan echoed. - My guys really asked for it. In a sense, he is also your Russian hero.
Perhaps, - Gorbachev threw up his hands, - but he was convicted in full accordance with the law.
And Gorbachev stood up, signaling that the conversation was over.
Who was this man, whose fate was taken care of by the leaders of the two world superpowers?
CIA Director James Woolsey called the man "the jewel in the crown" and the most useful agent recruited during the Cold War. We are talking about GRU General Dmitry Polyakov, who worked for the US CIA for more than 25 years, supplying Washington with the most valuable information about the political, economic and military plans of the Kremlin. He was the same "sleeper agent" who at one time was protected from counterintelligence by the KGB chief Yuri Andropov himself.
Career "serviceaholic"
Dmitry Fedorovich Polyakov was born on July 6, 1921 in the town of Starobelsk, which stands in the very center of the Luhansk region. His father worked as an accountant at a local enterprise, his mother was an employee.
In 1939, after graduating from high school, Polyakov went to study at the Kiev Command Artillery School. He met the Great Patriotic War already in the position of commander of an artillery platoon. In the most difficult battles near Yelnya he was wounded. For military exploits he was awarded two military orders - the Patriotic War and the Red Star, many medals. The archives preserved the award list of Captain Polyakov, the battery commander from the 76th separate artillery battalion, who then fought in Karelia: "Being at the turn of the Kestenga direction, he destroyed one anti-tank gun with the calculation of 4 people with the fire of his battery, suppressed three artillery batteries, dispersed and partially destroyed a group of enemy soldiers and officers with a total number of 60 people, thereby ensuring the exit of the 3OSB reconnaissance group without losses ... "
In 1943, Captain Polyakov himself transferred to artillery reconnaissance, then to military reconnaissance. After the war, he was sent to study at the intelligence department of the Frunze Military Academy, then he was transferred to work in the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the General Staff.
They immediately took Polyakov seriously and began to slowly teach all the secret tricks of the skill of the cloak and dagger - how to recruit the right person, how to lay a hiding place and get rid of surveillance, how to receive coded messages from the Center and prepare your own escape route.
In the service, Polyakov showed himself to be a real "service-holic" - he studied and worked from morning to night, even spent the night in office rooms. The authorities only shrugged their shoulders in surprise: how, with such a busy life schedule, Polyakov could marry the beautiful Nina and get two sons - Igor and Pavlik.
In 1951, the leaders of the GRU decided to send Polyakov - as the best of the best - on his first business trip to the United States. He went under the guise of an employee of the Soviet mission at the UN Military Staff Committee.
He served as a "roof officer" - this is how simple agents who ensured the activities of Soviet illegal agents were called in operational slang.
They were a kind of intelligence worker ants who blindly followed the orders of the GRU resident: in one place one container, disguised as an ordinary cobblestone, should be taken from the cache, and another "stone" should be put in its place, a prearranged signal should be fixed in another place, and left in the third car and quietly leave for half a day. The work, although simple, is dangerous: at that time, the era of "McCarthyism" had already begun in the United States, and every Soviet diplomat was literally under the hood of the FBI. Sometimes Polyakov had to spend days circling around the cache left by an unknown agent in order to confuse surveillance. And again, he proved himself the best agent - for five years of "watch" in New York, not a single failure!
Resident error
After working a five-year "watch" in New York, Polyakov returned to Moscow - for retraining and promotion. He returned to the United States in 1959 - already in the rank of colonel and as deputy resident of the GRU for illegal work in the United States.
And in the same year, a tragedy occurred in the Polyakov family, which crossed out his whole life. The eldest son Igor in the United States fell ill with the flu, which gave a complication - cerebral edema.
The boy could be saved, but this required putting him in an American clinic. And pay for treatment - Soviet intelligence officers and diplomats did not have American medical insurance at that time.
Polyakov rushed to the resident lieutenant general Boris Ivanov:
Boris Semenovich, help! Allow me to use the funds of the special fund to encourage agents. I'll give it all later, you know me, - asked Polyakov.
I can not! - cut off Ivanov, who served in the NKVD since the time of the Great Terror. - You know, I can allocate this money only by order from the Center!
So ask the Center! Please! - begged Polyakov.
Boris Semyonovich Ivanov and Ivan Alexandrovich Serov.Collage © L!FE Photo: © Wikipedia.org Creative Commons
General Ivanov made a request to the Center, but the head of the GRU, General of the Army Ivan Serov, imposed a resolution: "Refuse to misuse the funds of the special fund. If an operation is needed, let them take them to Moscow!"
While the boy was being prepared for the flight, the irreparable happened: Igor died.
The death of his son left a black burn in the soul of Colonel Polyakov. Moreover, the resident Ivanov soon left for Moscow - to be promoted. The authorities love well-trained performers.
And then Colonel Polyakov decided to take revenge. And to his bosses, and to the whole soulless system that doomed his child to death because of the rules of accountability.
Recruitment
On November 16, 1961, during a secular reception organized in the house of the head of the American military mission at the UN Military Staff Committee, General O'Neily, Colonel Polyakov himself turned to the owner of the house with a request:
Could you arrange a secret meeting for me - one on one - with any of the representatives of American intelligence?
What for? - General O "Neally looked into the eyes of a Soviet intelligence officer, about whom there were rumors in the American mission that he was the most inveterate Stalinist.
To transmit important military-political information, he snapped.
They will come to you in an hour,” the admiral replied. - Have some champagne.
CIA agent Sandy Grimes, who worked with Polyakov, recalls that he always emphasized that he himself volunteered to work for the Americans, and not for money, but purely for ideological reasons.
Of course, he received fees from us, but these were very meager amounts - about a tenth of the money that we usually paid agents of a much lower level. But Polyakov emphasized that he did not need money. I think he believed that the US was not strong enough to fight the Soviet system, that we would not have a chance if he did not participate on our side, Grimes recalled.
Collage © L!FE Photo: © Wikipedia.org Creative Commons, flickr Creative Commons
According to American estimates, for 25 years of work for the American special services, Polyakov received only 94 thousand dollars - though not counting expensive gifts and souvenirs. Being a passionate hunter, he adored expensive guns, which he managed to take out to Moscow by diplomatic mail, not paying any attention to the sidelong glances of his colleagues. Polyakov also liked to make furniture with his own hands, he often ordered American scouts to bring him either expensive American tools or bronze nails for upholstery of sofas. For his wife, he ordered jewelry, but not too expensive.
In the service of the FBI
But no matter how humanly understandable Polyakov’s motives, nevertheless, betrayal remains a betrayal, because the decision to go to the service of the enemy affected not only Polyakov himself and his family, but also colleagues, comrades and subordinates of the deputy resident who risked their lives for the sake of their country.
It was the lives of colleagues that the defector sacrificed. Of course, high political motives are good, his new masters reasoned, but it would be best to immediately bind a traitor defector with the blood of his colleagues.
And at the very first meeting, representatives of the FBI demanded that Polyakov name six surnames of the embassy cryptographers - this is the most important secret of any residency, which counterintelligence is constantly hunting for.
Polyakov called. Then the Americans set a date for a second meeting - at a hotel with the intriguing name The Trotsky.
At this meeting, at the request of the head of the Soviet department of the FBI, Bill Branigan, Polyakov dictated a text on a tape recorder with Soviet military intelligence officers known to him working in New York. Then he gave a subscription to agree to cooperate with the FBI.
Later, Bill Branigan recalled that at first the FBI, where Polyakov was given the nickname Tophat, that is, "hat-cylinder hat", did not really trust the Soviet "defector". The Americans believed that Polyakov deliberately portrayed himself as a traitor in order to reveal the existing scheme of work of counterintelligence units in the US intelligence services.
Therefore, the FBI agents who spoke with Polyakov demanded more and more secret information from him about American agents recruited by Soviet intelligence, expecting that sooner or later he would give himself away.
Polyakov's first victim was a highly valued GRU agent, David Dunlap, a staff sergeant at the National Security Agency (NSA). Feeling that he was being followed, Dunlap realized that he had been betrayed. And at the very moment when the capture team broke into his apartment, the sergeant committed suicide.
Following Polyakov handed over Frank Bossard, a high-ranking official of the British Air Ministry, whose information went to the very top. Bossard was recruited as early as 1951 while serving in the Scientific and Technical Intelligence Unit of the British intelligence service MI6. He worked in Bonn, where he interviewed scientists who fled from the GDR and the USSR. For a long time, Frank supplied Soviet intelligence officers with important information about the state of the British Air Force, transmitted drawings of the latest aircraft and plans for individual combat operations. As a result, Bossard was caught red-handed - while photographing secret documents. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison.
The traitor's third victim is Staff Sergeant Cornelius Drummond, the first black soldier to rise to the position of assistant chief of the secret part of the US Navy headquarters. He himself went to Soviet intelligence and for five years, in fact, handed over to the GRU all the more or less significant documents from the chief’s desk for free. According to American experts, Staff Sergeant Drummond caused such material damage that the United States had to spend several hundred million dollars to restore the necessary state of secrecy.
It is interesting that the leaders of the FBI deliberately arranged the arrest of Drummond for the arrival in the United States of the then Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Gromyko. One can only imagine how Gromyko felt when, after his speech at the UN General Assembly, he was bombarded with questions about the arrests of Soviet spies. As a result, Drummond was sentenced to life imprisonment without the right to appeal.
Polyakov also betrayed Air Force Sergeant Herbert Bockenhaupt, who worked in the secret part of the headquarters of the US Strategic Air Command and transmitted to the GRU all information about ciphers, codes, and cryptographic systems of the US Air Force. As a result, Bockenhaupt was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
The price of betrayal
Following Polyakov began to hand over Soviet intelligence officers. The FBI was the first to arrest agents Cornelius Dramont's liaison agents, GRU officers Yevgeny Prokhorov and Ivan Vyrodov. Despite the status of diplomats, the FBI beat the Soviet agents to a pulp and brought them to a secret prison. When the Americans saw that it was impossible to get anything from the GRU officers by torture and intimidation, they were thrown out half-dead near the Soviet embassy. On the same day they were declared "persona non grata" and given 48 hours to pack.
Polyakov also betrayed a married couple of illegal intelligence officers known as the Sokolovs, who had just gone through the difficult process of legalization. After that, the FBI even gained confidence in the traitor and did so in order to avert possible suspicions from Polyakov - literally on the eve of the arrest of illegal immigrants, FBI agents arrested a married couple - Ivan and Alexandra Yegorov, Soviet employees of the UN Secretariat, who did not have diplomatic immunity. The Yegorovs went through the interrogation conveyor without breaking down. Nevertheless, in the press, everything was presented exactly as if they were the ones who betrayed the illegal immigrants. As a result, the Yegorovs served several years in prison, their career was broken.
The fate of illegal Karl Tuomi, who was also extradited by Polyakov, turned out differently. Tuomi was the son of American communists who arrived in the Soviet Union in 1933 and became employees of the Foreign Department of the NKVD. Karl also became an employee of the USSR Ministry of State Security, and in 1957 he was transferred to help the GRU on a responsible assignment in the United States. He legalized in 1958 as Robert White, a successful Chicago businessman with an interest in the latest developments in aviation and electronics. In 1963, he was arrested on a tip from Polyakov and, threatened with the electric chair, agreed to become a "double agent." However, the GRU suspected something and summoned Tuomi to Moscow. But he categorically refused to return, leaving his wife and children in the Soviet Union.
Vital Miss Macy
But the biggest blow for the GRU was the betrayal of the legendary Soviet intelligence officer Macy - Maria Dobrova. She was born in 1907 in a working-class family in Petrograd, received a good education - in 1927 she graduated from a musical college in vocal and piano classes, as well as the Higher Foreign Language Courses at the Academy of Sciences. Soon she married a border guard officer Boris Dobrov, gave birth to a son, Dmitry. But in 1937, the well-established life seemed to have fallen into turmoil. First, my husband died - in battles with the Japanese in the Far East, where he was sent on a business trip. In the same year, his son Dmitry also died of diphtheria.
In order to somehow get away from grief, she went to the draft board and asked to volunteer for the civil war in Spain.
In battles with the Nazis, Franco Maria Dobrova spent more than a year, earning the Order of the Red Star. Returning, she entered the Leningrad University, where she found the Great Patriotic War and the blockade. And Maria got a job as a nurse in a hospital, where she worked until the very Victory. Then a sharp turn takes place in her fate: she goes to work at the USSR Foreign Ministry and, as a translator, leaves to work at the Soviet embassy in Colombia. Returning home after 4 years, she becomes a full-time employee of the GRU, or rather illegal military intelligence.
In the USA, she legalized herself as Miss Macy - or rather, as Glen Marrero Podzeski, the owner of her own beauty salon in New York.
Soon, her salon became a real "women's club" for ladies from the New York establishment and artistic bohemia. Wives of congressmen, generals, famous journalists and businessmen shared the secrets with her. Moreover, most often the information received by "Miss Macy" in women's conversations was more complete than all other data obtained through other channels. For example, "Miss Macy's" friend was Marilyn Monroe, who, as if by chance, spoke with President Kennedy about the limits of the concessions that the White House could make in the course of negotiations with Moscow. The very next day, a printout of this conversation lay on Nikita Khrushchev's desk.
Having received a tip from Polyakov, American counterintelligence established surveillance of the beauty salon, but Maria Dobrova somehow sensed the danger. Having warned the residency, she decided to hide from the country. And she would have succeeded, but the route of her evacuation was made by Colonel Polyakov himself.
In Chicago, where she stayed in one of the respectable hotels, FBI agents tried to detain her.
When an uninvited "maid" knocked on her room, she understood everything.
Wait, I'm not ready yet, - Maria answered calmly, stepping back to the window. Below were cars with flashing lights and armed agents, all exits from the hotel were blocked.
Open immediately, this is the FBI, - the door cracked from the powerful blows of the battering ram. - Quickly open!
But no sooner had the door collapsed than Maria threw herself down from the window.
Many years later, the KGB officers who interrogated General Polyakov asked if he felt sorry for Maria Dobrova and other illegal immigrants devoted to them, whom he ruined their lives. Polyakov pulled his head in as if from a blow, and then calmly said:
This was our work. Can I have another cup of coffee?
With a stone in the bosom
In 1962, Colonel Polyakov was recalled to Moscow and appointed to a new position in the central apparatus of the GRU of the General Staff. And the FBI agents handed him over to American intelligence officers from the CIA, who assigned the colonel a new operational pseudonym - Bourbon.
Also, CIA agents gave him a special spy microcamera and taught him how to use his special containers for transferring microfilm.
The first laying of the cache took place in October 1962 - on the instructions of the Americans, Polyakov, right in his office, re-shot the secret telephone directory of the General Staff. He put the film in an iron container, which he covered on all sides with orange plasticine, and then rolled it in brick chips - as a result, he got an ordinary piece of brick, completely indistinguishable from thousands of others. He laid the container under a bench in the conditional place of the Gorky Central Park of Culture and Leisure - as it turned out, in a very crowded place, but, apparently, the Americans simply did not know about the existence of other parks in Moscow.
Having laid the hiding place, he - literally in front of the police squad - left a symbol on the pole - an ink stain, as if accidentally splashed out of a broken fountain pen.
Central Park of Culture and Leisure named after M. Gorky. Photo: © RIA Novosti / L. Bergoltsev
The Americans asked to leave the next hiding place in an old telephone booth near the house on Lesteva Street - directly opposite the hostel for cadets of the Higher School of the KGB. F. E. Dzerzhinsky. It was here that the cadets ran to call home, but the American agent did not know this - there was no sign on the building.
Calling agents to a meeting, he announced that from now on he himself would develop a plan for laying caches and prearranged signals for the CIA. Moreover, he himself will manage his espionage work, determining the schedule of his activity. And most importantly - no more personal meetings! Communication only through hiding places and the New York Times, which Polyakov read in his official duties. If Polyakov himself wanted to send a message to the Americans, he would write an article in the magazine "Hunting and hunting economy", of which he was a regular contributor.
The Americans agreed to the new rules of the game - just the day before, GRU Colonel Oleg Penkovsky, who also worked for the CIA, was arrested in Moscow. As it turned out later, Penkovsky was accidentally handed over by the Americans themselves, who held secret meetings with him once a week in the most crowded places.
Polyakov took into account all the mistakes of Penkovsky, and this allowed him to remain beyond suspicion for a long time - especially when purges began in the GRU and the search for Penkovsky's accomplices began. The counterintelligence officers then literally filtered hundreds of personal files of officers under a microscope, but the GRU could not even imagine that the traitor himself would coordinate the search for the "mole".
Nixon's personal agent
But even the most thorough instructions of Polyakov could not protect him from the initiative of the Americans. Wanting to help Bourbon, they published an article in American newspapers about the beginning of the trial of the Yegorovs, in which the name of Polyakov was also mentioned - they say, some traitor betrayed him. After this article, Polyakov was removed from the American line and transferred to the GRU, which was engaged in intelligence in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Not wanting to incur even more suspicion, he announced to the CIA handlers that he was going into "sleep" mode.
Soon Polyakov passed all the checks and even went for a promotion - he was sent to the Soviet Embassy in Burma as a GRU resident. After working in this country for 4 years, he moves to a department related to illegal intelligence in China. During all this time, he only once violated the "sleep" mode, when he handed over to the CIA a report on the contradictions in relations between the USSR and the PRC, just on the eve of President Nixon's visit to Beijing, which became a brilliant diplomatic success for the Americans and a turning point in the Cold War.
After that, the attitude of the CIA towards Bourbon changed in the most radical way: from a source of secret information, Polyakov turned into a figure of influence and a particularly valuable agent. And the Americans began to help him make a career. So, when Polyakov served as a GRU resident in India, American curators began to let him down to recruit Americans. For example, one of the first recruits was Sergeant Robert Martsinovsky from the American attache's office. Following, in the interests of the cause, the CIA "donated" several more military men - later they were all sentenced to death for espionage in favor of the USSR.
Thanks to the help of the Americans, Polyakov soon gained fame as almost the most successful intelligence officer in the entire GRU system. His career grew by leaps and bounds - he soon received the rank of major general, a new position - in the Military Diplomatic Academy, while remaining in the elite personnel reserve of the GRU.
The Americans also appreciated it. For example, Bourbon was given an experimental model of a pulse radio transmitter - this device, a little larger than a matchbox, made it possible to transmit a packet of encrypted information to a special receiver in a second. Having received this device, Polyakov simply began to ride a trolley bus past the American embassy, "shooting" information at the right time. He was not afraid of the direction finding of the radio technical service of the KGB - how to guess where exactly the agent was "shooting" from?
Camera "MINOX". Wikipedia.org Creative Commons
Polyakov was so convinced of his safety that he even began to use confiscated spy equipment from the GRU warehouses. For example, when the Minox camera sent from the USA suddenly broke down, Polyakov simply took exactly the same camera from the GRU archive and calmly re-photographed the documents. But soon the American masters showed that such work was not enough for them.
Under the hood
The year 1979 began with the Islamic Revolution in Iran, when power in the country passed to Islamic fanatics - the Revolutionary Council, headed by Ayatollah Khomeini. Diplomatic relations between the United States and Iran were terminated, the countries were actively preparing for war. And US President Jimmy Carter ordered the CIA to use all Soviet agents to find out details about the relationship between Moscow and Tehran.
Demonstration in Iran during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Wikipedia.org Creative Commons
But just at that moment, Polyakov was preparing for a new foreign trip to India. He considered an urgent contact with the CIA resident a suicidal risk. Therefore, the signal about the meeting was ignored.
It was then that the Americans used the whip, wanting to teach a lesson about who really is the boss here. One of the American magazines published a chapter from John Barron's forthcoming book "KGB", dedicated to Carl Twomey. In the entire text, the name of Polyakov was not mentioned even once, although everyone knew that it was Polyakov who was Tuomi's immediate superior. But the magazine publication was illustrated with a photograph that could not possibly have been in the United States - a photograph from Tuomi's personal file in military uniform. That is, the authors seemed to be hinting that someone in Moscow stole this photo from a secret file and handed it over to the Americans.
But the Americans overdid it. The publication was also noticed in Moscow. Soon, after going through all the candidates, the Chekists came to the conclusion that the only one who could inform the Americans about the agent Tuomi was General Polyakov.
But Polyakov politely stopped her - apparently, he was not sure that the Americans, who had actually betrayed him, really wanted to save his life, and not organize a high-profile murder, which, of course, would be blamed on the KGB.
Thank you, but I will never go to the United States, - Polyakov sighed. - I was born in Russia and I want to die in Russia, even if it is an unmarked mass grave.
However, at that time, Polyakov escaped with only a slight fright - Andropov forbade him to touch without clear evidence of guilt.
If you now start planting generals without evidence, then who will work ?! he said.
In addition, Andropov was already preparing for the upcoming battle for the throne and did not want to quarrel with the army clans ahead of time.
As a result, Polyakov was simply dismissed, having read out the order of dismissal from the service. Say, a new, younger candidate for the resident position has been prepared.
Arrest and execution
The Iranian crisis ended badly for Jimmy Carter, and soon the new US President Ronald Reagan ordered the intelligence officers to forget about Iran and return to the fight against "world communism" represented by the USSR. And Polyakov was "woken up" again, although he, being a pensioner, could no longer hand over secret documents. But the White House appreciated his political reviews.
It is difficult to say how much more Polyakov would have worked for the Americans, but in the spring of 1985, Aldrich Hazen Ames himself, the former head of the Soviet department of the CIA’s foreign counterintelligence department, was recruited by one of the leaders of the Soviet residency in Washington. Ames, who gave out huge sums to encourage Soviet defectors, also wanted to swim in money, have a luxurious house and a Jaguar sports car. And then he decided to get money in Moscow, offering the KGB to buy a list of 25 names of "sleeping" agents in the leadership of the Soviet special services. And the first number on the list was General Polyakov.
Polyakov was arrested on July 7, 1986, the day after the celebration of his 65th birthday. When Polyakov was celebrating his anniversary in a restaurant, an unofficial search took place at his house - in a dozen hiding places, operatives found American spy equipment, microfilms, and CIA service instructions.
After the end of the banquet, they tied him up - and so carefully that the Americans simply did not know what happened to him for several years. Agent Bourbon seemed to have disappeared into the Moscow hustle and bustle, cutting off all contacts behind him.
Only after negotiations with Gorbachev did it become known that the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court in February 1987 sentenced Polyakov to death by firing squad. On March 15, 1987, the sentence was carried out.
The place of burial of his body is unknown.
Of General Dmitry Polyakov, CIA Director James Woolen said that of all the agents recruited by the US, he was the jewel in the crown. For 25 years, Polyakov supplied Washington with the most valuable information, and this practically paralyzed the work of the Soviet special services.
He transferred secret staff documents, scientific developments, weapons data, strategic plans of the USSR, and even Military Thought magazines to the United States. Through his efforts, two dozen Soviet intelligence officers and more than 140 recruited agents were arrested in the United States.
The FBI recruited Dmitry Polyakov in the fall of 1961, subsequently the bureau transferred him to the CIA department, where he was listed until 1987.
Biography
The future traitor was born in Ukraine, fought as a volunteer at the front and was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War and the Red Star. In 1943 he transferred to military intelligence. After the war, he graduated from the Frunze Academy and was sent to serve in the GRU.
Polyakov was taller than average, a strong and stern man. He was distinguished by calmness and restraint. An important feature of his character was secrecy, which manifested itself both in work and private life. The general was fond of hunting and carpentry. He built a dacha with his own hands and made furniture for it, in which he arranged many hiding places.
Dmitry Polyakov has been a resident in the US, India and Burma. After receiving the rank of major general, he was sent to Moscow, where he headed the intelligence department of the Military Diplomatic Academy, and later the faculty of the Military Academy of the Soviet Army. After retiring, he worked in the personnel department of the GRU and had direct access to the personal files of employees.
Motives for betrayal and Polyakov's recruitment
Under interrogation, Polyakov said that he agreed to cooperate with a potential enemy because of the desire to help democracy stop the onslaught of Khrushchev's military doctrine. The actual push was Khrushchev's speech in France and the US, in which he said that the Soviet people were making rockets like sausages on a conveyor belt and were ready to "bury America."
However, the researchers are sure that the real reason was the death of the newborn son of Dmitry Fedorovich.
During Polyakov's service in the United States, his three-month-old son fell ill with an intractable illness. The treatment required 400 thousand dollars, which the Soviet citizen did not have. A request to the Center for help went unanswered, and the child died. The motherland turned out to be deaf to those who sacrifice their lives for her, and Polyakov decided that he owed her nothing more.
During the second trip to the United States, through his channels in the American military mission, Polyakov contacted General O'Neily, who brought him into contact with FBI agents.
Sly fox in the service of the CIA
The FBI and CIA gave their spy many nicknames - Bourbon, Tophat, Donald, Specter, but the most appropriate name for him would be Sly Fox.
Dexterity, intelligence, professional flair, photographic memory helped Polyakov to be beyond suspicion for many years. The Americans were especially struck by the strong restraint of the spy; one could not read the excitement on his face. The same was noted by Soviet investigators. Polyakov himself destroyed the evidence and established the places of Moscow caches.
The Americans supplied their best spy with equipment no worse than the cinematic James Bond. A miniature Brest device was used to transmit information.
Secret data was loaded onto the device, and after its activation, in just 2.6 seconds, information was transmitted to the nearest receiver. The operation was carried out by Polyakov during his trolleybus ride past the US Embassy. Once the transmission was spotted by Soviet radio operators, but they could not figure out where the signal came from.
Samples of secret texts, addresses in the US, ciphers, postal communications were kept in the handle of a spinning rod, presented to the spy by the First Secretary of the US Embassy. When Polyakov was in the States, encrypted messages in the New York Times were used to communicate with him. Small camouflaged cameras were used to photograph documents.
The Americans themselves treated their spy with deep respect and considered him a teacher. The agents listened to the recommendations of Polyakov, who believed that the CIA and FBI often act in a stereotyped manner, and therefore predictable for Soviet specialists.
Arrest and investigation in the case of a traitor
It was possible to get on the trail of Polyakov thanks to a leak from the United States. Information about the "diamond in the crown" was obtained by KGB spies Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen. After collecting evidence, the counterintelligence officers went to the "mole" and were amazed at who he turned out to be. At this time, the honored general retired due to age and became a real legend of the GRU.
Polyakov's professional instinct did not let him down, and he went to the bottom, making contacts with the Americans. The Chekists managed to provoke the traitor through fake information, and he gave himself away by contacting the FBI.
On July 7, 1986, Dmitry Polyakov was arrested at a meeting of veteran intelligence officers. The spy actively cooperated with the investigation and expected to be exchanged, but the court sentenced the traitor to death.
In May of the same year, at a meeting between the presidents of the USSR and the United States, Ronald Reagan asked Gorbachev to pardon Polyakov. Mikhail Sergeevich wanted to respect his overseas colleague and expectedly agreed, but it was too late. On March 15, 1988, GRU General Dmitry Polyakov and an American intelligence officer were shot.
Polyakov Dmitry Fedorovich - the legendary intelligence officer of the GRU of the Soviet Union. He went from an artilleryman to an experienced staff officer. At the age of 65, being retired, he was arrested and sentenced to death for twenty-five years of cooperation with the American government.
Carier start
Little is known about this man's childhood. He is a native of Ukraine. His father was an accountant. After graduating from school, Dmitry Polyakov entered the First Artillery School. In 1941 he went to the front. He served as a platoon commander in the Western and for two years of the war he became a battery commander. In 1943 he received the rank of officer. For successful military operations and excellent service, he was awarded a large number of medals and orders. In 1945, he decided to enter the intelligence faculty of the Frunze Academy. Then he graduated from the General Staff Courses and was enrolled in the GRU staff.
Work in the USA
Almost immediately after completing his studies and compiling the necessary legend, Dmitry Polyakov was sent to New York as an employee of the Soviet UN mission. His true occupation was the cover and placement of illegal immigrants (agents) of the GRU in the United States. The first mission of the resident was successful, and already in 1959 he was again sent to the United States as an employee of the UN military headquarters. In the second mission, military intelligence assigned Polyakov the duties of a deputy resident. The Soviet agent did his job perfectly, clearly followed the instructions, obtained the required data, and coordinated his intelligence agent.
In November 1961, Dmitry Polyakov continued to work in the New York GRU agency. At this time, the flu was raging in the States. His youngest son caught the virus, the disease gave a heart complication. An expensive operation was required to save the child. An experienced staff officer asked the leadership for financial assistance, he was denied money, and the child died.
Cooperation with the FBI and CIA
After interrogation of witnesses, American colleagues of the spy and his inner circle, it became clear that Polyakov came to the betrayal deliberately. After the debunking of the cult of Stalin and the beginning of the "Khrushchev" thaw, the intelligence officer became disillusioned with the new leadership, believed that Stalin's ideals, those for which he fought on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, were completely lost. The Moscow elite is mired in corruption and political games. Polyakov Dmitry felt that he had lost faith in the political orientation of his country and its leaders. The death of his son was the catalyst that accelerated events. An embittered and defeated Soviet agent contacted a high-ranking American officer and offered his services.
The leadership of the FBI perceived the betrayal of such an experienced intelligence officer from the USSR as a gift of fate, and did not lose. Polyakov Dmitry has established contact with an FBI recruiter who establishes contacts with traitors from the GRU and the KGB. The Soviet agent received the pseudonym Topkhet.
In 1962, the head of the CIA turned to President Kennedy with a request to transfer his most valuable "mole" to the disposal of his department. Polyakov began working for the CIA and received the call sign Bourbon. The central administration considered him their "brilliant".
In almost 25 years of cooperation with foreign intelligence services, the Soviet traitor managed to send 25 boxes of documents and photo reports to the United States. This number was counted by the American "colleagues" of the spy after his exposure. Dmitry Polyakov caused hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to his country. He passed on information regarding the development of secret weapons in the Union, thanks to him Reagan began to more closely control the sale of his military technologies, which the USSR bought and improved. On his tip, 19 Soviet residents, 7 contractors and more than 1,500 ordinary GRU staff officers who worked abroad were destroyed.
During the years of service, Polyakov managed to work in the USA, Burma, India and Moscow. Since 1961, he has been constantly collaborating with the CIA and the FBI. Having retired, the traitor did not stop his activities: he worked as a secretary of the party committee, had access to the personal files of illegal immigrants in the United States and willingly "shared" this information.
exposure
In 1974, a Soviet intelligence officer was promoted. Since that time, General Polyakov Dmitry Fedorovich had full access to secret materials, diplomatic relations, developments and plans of his government.
Surprisingly, the first suspicions fell on Polyakov back in 1978, but his crystal clear reputation, excellent track record and patron in the person of General Izotov played a role - they did not conduct investigations. The experienced Bourbon sank for a long time, but, finally settling in Moscow, he again declared to his Western colleagues that he was ready to cooperate.
In 1985, Polyakov Dmitry was discovered by the American "mole" Aldridge Ames. The entire military intelligence of the Union was in a state of shock: such a high-ranking spy had not yet been exposed. In 1986, a talented resident was arrested and sentenced to deprivation of rank and execution. In 1988, the sentence was carried out.
Dmitry Fedorovich Polyakov was born in 1921 in the family of an accountant in Ukraine. In September 1939, after graduating from school, he entered the Kiev Artillery School, and as a platoon commander entered the Great Patriotic War. He fought on the Western and Karelian fronts, was a battery commander, and in 1943 was appointed an artillery intelligence officer. During the war years, he was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War and the Red Star, as well as many medals. After the end of the war, Polyakov graduated from the intelligence faculty of the Academy. Frunze, courses of the General Staff and was sent to work in the GRU.
In the early 1950s, Polyakov was sent to New York under the guise of being an employee of the Soviet UN mission. His task was to provide undercover agents for the GRU illegals. Polyakov's work on the first trip was recognized as successful, and at the end of the 1950s he was again sent to the United States to the post of deputy resident under the guise of a Soviet employee of the UN military staff committee.
In November 1961, Polyakov, on his own initiative, came into contact with FBI counterintelligence agents, who gave him the pseudonym "Tophat". The Americans believed that the reason for his betrayal was disappointment in the Soviet regime. CIA officer Paul Dillon, who was Polyakov's cameraman in Delhi, says the following about this:
"I think the motivation for his actions goes back to the Second World War. He juxtaposed the horrors, the carnage, the cause he fought for, with the duplicity and corruption that he thought was rampant in Moscow."
Polyakov's former colleagues do not completely deny this version, although they insist that his "ideological and political rebirth" took place "against the background of painful pride." For example, the former first deputy head of the GRU, Colonel-General A.G. Pavlov, says:
"Polyakov at the trial declared his political rebirth, his hostile attitude towards our country, he did not hide his personal self-interest."
Polyakov himself said the following during the investigation:
"At the heart of my betrayal lay both my desire to openly express my views and doubts somewhere, and the qualities of my character - the constant desire to work beyond the risk. And the more the danger became, the more interesting my life became ... I used to walk on the edge of a knife and could not imagine another life.
Best of the day
However, to say that this decision was easy for him would be wrong. After his arrest, he also said the following words:
“Almost from the very beginning of cooperation with the CIA, I understood that I had committed a fatal mistake, a grave crime. with my wife, children, grandchildren, and the fear of shame, stopped me, and I continued the criminal connection, or silence, in order to somehow delay the hour of reckoning.
All of his operators noted that he received little money, no more than $3,000 a year, which was given to him mainly in the form of Black and Decker electromechanical tools, a pair of overalls, fishing tackle and guns. (The fact is that in his spare time, Polyakov loved carpentry and also collected expensive guns.) In addition, unlike most other Soviet officers recruited by the FBI and CIA, Polyakov did not smoke, almost did not drink, and did not cheat on his wife. So the amount he received from the Americans for 24 years of work can be called small: according to a rough estimate of the investigation, it amounted to about 94 thousand rubles at the rate of 1985.
One way or another, but from November 1961, Polyakov began to transmit information to the Americans about the activities and agents of the GRU in the United States and other Western countries. And he began to do this already from the second meeting with the FBI agents. Here it is worth quoting again the protocol of his interrogation:
“This meeting again was mainly devoted to the question of why I nevertheless decided to cooperate with them, and also whether I was a set-up. In order to double-check me, and at the same time consolidate my relationship with them, Michael finally suggested that I name the employees of the Soviet military intelligence in New York. I did not hesitate to list all the persons known to me who worked under the guise of the USSR Representative Office. "
It is believed that already at the very beginning of his work for the FBI, Polyakov betrayed D. Dunlap, a staff sergeant in the NSA, and F. Bossard, an employee of the British Air Ministry. However, this is unlikely. Dunlap, recruited in 1960, was guided by a cameraman from the Washington GRU station, and his connection to Soviet intelligence was discovered by accident when his garage was searched after he committed suicide in July 1963. As for Bossard, the FBI's intelligence department actually misled MI5 by attributing the information to "Tophat". This was done in order to protect another GRU source in New York, who had the alias "Niknek".
But it was Polyakov who betrayed Captain Maria Dobrova, an illegal GRU in the United States. Dobrova, who fought in Spain as a translator, after returning to Moscow, began working in the GRU, and after appropriate training was sent to the United States. In America, she acted under the cover of the owner of a beauty salon, which was visited by representatives of high-ranking military, political and business circles. After Polyakov betrayed Dobrova, the FBI tried to recruit her, but she chose to commit suicide.
In total, during his work for the Americans, Polyakov gave them 19 illegal Soviet intelligence officers, more than 150 agents from among foreign citizens, revealed that about 1,500 active intelligence officers belonged to the GRU and the KGB.
In the summer of 1962, Polyakov returned to Moscow, provided with instructions, communication conditions, and a schedule of hiding operations (one per quarter). Places for caches were selected mainly along the route of his journey to work and back: in the areas of Bolshaya Ordynka and Bolshaya Polyanka, near the Dobryninskaya metro station and at the Ploshchad Vosstaniya trolleybus stop. Most likely, it was this circumstance, as well as the lack of personal contacts with CIA representatives in Moscow, that helped Polyakov avoid failure after another CIA agent, Colonel O. Penkovsky, was arrested in October 1962.
In 1966, Polyakov was sent to Burma as head of the radio interception center in Rangoon. Upon his return to the USSR, he was appointed head of the Chinese department, and in 1970 he was sent to India as a military attaché and resident of the GRU. At this time, the volume of information transmitted by Polyakov to the CIA increased dramatically. He gave out the names of four American officers recruited by the GRU, handed over photographic films of documents testifying to the deep divergence of the positions of China and the USSR. Thanks to these documents, CIA analysts concluded that the Sino-Soviet differences were of a long-term nature. These findings were used by US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to help him and Nixon mend relations with China in 1972.
In light of this, it seems at least naive that L.V. Shebarshin, then deputy resident of the KGB in Delhi, claims that the KGB had certain suspicions about him while Polyakov was working in India. “Polyakov showed his complete disposition towards the Chekists,” writes Shebarshin, “but it was known from his friends from among the military that he did not miss the slightest opportunity to turn them against the KGB and surreptitiously pursued those who were friends with our comrades. Not a single spy can to avoid miscalculations. But, as is often the case in our case, it took another year for the suspicions to be confirmed." Most likely, behind this statement there is a desire to show off one's own foresight and unwillingness to admit the unsatisfactory work of the KGB military counterintelligence in this case.
It should be said that Polyakov was very serious about the fact that the leadership of the GRU formed an opinion about him as a thoughtful, promising worker. To do this, the CIA regularly provided him with some classified material, and also framed two Americans whom he presented as recruited by him. With the same goal, Polyakov sought to ensure that his two sons received higher education and had a prestigious profession. He gave many trinkets, such as lighters and ballpoint pens, to his employees in the GRU, giving the impression of himself as a pleasant person and a good comrade. One of Polyakov's patrons was Lieutenant-General Sergei Izotov, head of the GRU personnel department, who had worked for 15 years in the apparatus of the CPSU Central Committee before this appointment. In the Polyakov case, expensive gifts made by him to Izotov appear. And for the rank of general, Polyakov presented Izotov with a silver service, bought specifically for this purpose by the CIA.
The rank of Major General Polyakov received in 1974. This provided him with access to materials that were outside the scope of his direct duties. For example, to the list of military technologies that were purchased or obtained through intelligence in the West. Reagan Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle said he was breathless when he learned about the existence of 5,000 Soviet programs that used Western technology to build military capabilities. The list provided by Polyakov helped Perl persuade President Reagan to secure tighter controls on the sale of military technology.
Polyakov's work as a CIA agent was distinguished by audacity and fantastic luck. In Moscow, he stole a special self-illuminating film "Mikrat 93 Shield" from the GRU warehouse, which he used to photograph secret documents. To pass on information, he stole fake hollow stones, which he left in certain places where they were picked up by CIA operatives. To give a signal about laying the hiding place, Polyakov, driving by public transport past the US Embassy in Moscow, activated a miniature transmitter hidden in his pocket. While abroad, Polyakov preferred to pass information from hand to hand. After 1970, the CIA, in an effort to ensure Polyakov's security as fully as possible, provided him with a specially designed portable pulse transmitter, with which information could be printed, then encrypted and transmitted to the receiving device in the American embassy in 2.6 seconds. Polyakov broadcast such programs from various places in Moscow: from the Enguri cafe, the Vanda store, the Krasnopresnensky baths, the Central Tourist House, from Tchaikovsky Street, etc.
By the end of the 1970s, the CIA, they said, already treated Polyakov more as a teacher than as an agent and informant. They left it up to him to choose the place and time of meetings and to lay hiding places. However, they had no other choice, since Polyakov did not forgive them for their mistakes. So, in 1972, without the consent of Polyakov, the Americans invited him to an official reception at the US Embassy in Moscow, which actually put him in danger of failure. The GRU leadership gave permission, and Polyakov had to go there. During the reception, he was secretly given a note, which he destroyed without reading. Moreover, he cut off all contacts with the CIA for a long time, until he was convinced that he did not fall under the suspicion of the KGB counterintelligence.
In the late 1970s, Polyakov was again sent to India as a resident of the GRU. He stayed there until June 1980, when he was recalled to Moscow. However, this early return was not associated with possible suspicions against him. Just another medical commission forbade him to work in countries with a hot climate. However, the Americans got worried and offered Polyakov to go to the USA. But he refused. According to a CIA officer in Delhi, in response to a wish to come to America in case of danger, where he is welcomed with open arms, Polyakov replied: “Don’t wait for me. I will never come to the USA. I am not doing this for you. I am doing this for my country. I was born a Russian and I will die a Russian." And to the question of what awaits him in case of exposure, he replied: "Common grave."
Polyakov looked into the water. His fantastic luck and career as a CIA agent came to an end in 1985, when Aldrich Ames, a CIA career officer, came to the KGB residency in Washington and offered his services. Among the KGB and GRU officers named by Ames who worked for the CIA was Polyakov.
Polyakov was arrested at the end of 1986. During a search carried out at his apartment, at his dacha and at his mother's house, material evidence of his espionage activities was found. Among them: sheets of cryptographic carbon paper made by typography and embedded in envelopes for phonograph records, cipher pads camouflaged in the cover of a travel bag, two attachments for a small-sized Tessina camera for vertical and horizontal shooting, several rolls of Kodak film, designed for special development , a ballpoint pen, the clip head of which was intended for writing cryptographic text, as well as negatives with the conditions of communication with CIA officers in Moscow and instructions for contacts with them abroad.
The investigation into Polyakov's case was led by KGB investigator Colonel AS Dukhanin, who later became famous for the so-called "Kremlin case" of Gdlyan and Ivanov. Polyakov's wife and adult sons were witnesses, since they did not know and did not suspect about his espionage activities. After the end of the investigation, many generals and officers of the GRU, whose negligence and talkativeness Polyakov often took advantage of, were brought to administrative responsibility by the command and dismissed or retired. In early 1988, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced Polyakov D.F. for treason and espionage to be shot with confiscation of property. The sentence was carried out on March 15, 1988. And officially, the execution of D.F. Polyakov was reported in Pravda only in 1990.
In 1994, after the arrest and exposure of Ames, the CIA admitted that Polyakov was collaborating with him. It has been stated that he was the most important of Ames's victims, far surpassing all others in importance. The information he gave and photocopies of classified documents make up 25 boxes in the CIA file. Many experts familiar with the Polyakov case say that he made a much more important contribution than the more famous defector from the GRU, Colonel O. Penkovsky. This point of view is shared by another traitor from the GRU, Nikolai Chernov, who said: "Polyakov is a star. And Penkovsky is so-so ...". According to CIA Director James Woolsey, of all the Soviet agents recruited during the Cold War, Polyakov "was a real gem."
Indeed, in addition to the list of scientific and technical intelligence interests given in China, Polyakov reported information about the new weapons of the Soviet Army, in particular anti-tank missiles, which helped the Americans destroy these weapons when they were used by Iraq during the Persian Gulf War in 1991 . He also sent over 100 issues of the secret periodical "Military Thought" published by the General Staff to the West. According to Robert Geis, director of the CIA under President Bush, the documents stolen by Polyakov provided insight into the use of the military in the event of war, and helped draw the firm conclusion that Soviet military leaders did not consider it possible to win a nuclear war and sought to avoid it. According to Geis, familiarization with these documents prevented the US leadership from erroneous conclusions, which may have helped to avoid a "hot" war.
Of course, Geis knows better what helped to avoid a "hot" war and what Polyakov's merit is in this. But even if it is as great as the Americans are trying to assure everyone, this does not in the least justify his betrayal.
