Humpback: a nightmare for the CIA. How the defector Golitsyn ruined the work of the counterintelligence services of the USA, England, Canada and France

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

55 years ago, in December 1961, an emergency occurred in the capital of Finland: on the doorstep of the house of a local resident of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States Frank Freiberga defector appeared - attaché of the Soviet embassy in Helsinki, major of the KGB Anatoly Golitsyn.

In the photo: the head of counterintelligence operations (1954-1975) James Angleton

He fled with his family - his wife and daughter. Faced with Freiberg, he introduced himself, said that he had very valuable information for the American secret service, and asked for political asylum …

First of all - illegal immigrants

The dumbfounded Freiberg was thinking convulsively … A provocation? Luck? Checking colleagues? However, it soon became clear that this was indeed the same Golitsyn, the development of which the CIA began in 1954 in the Austrian capital Vienna, where a KGB officer served on the counterintelligence line at the Soviet embassy. But then they simply did not have time to carry out a recruiting approach to him - Golitsyn was very quickly recalled to Moscow. And so he himself came, ready to serve his new masters. Moreover, he said that he was very afraid of his former colleagues, who had already started hunting him. The deserter's concern was transmitted to both the resident and very soon a traitor with a family under an assumed name Stoneexported in a roundabout way, through Stockholm and Frankfurt, to the United States.

Finding himself out of the reach of the KGB, John Stone (the Americans gave him such a new name - Ivan Kamen), Golitsyn first of all turned in his former colleagues - the names of all employees who were undercover and without one in Finland. And then the incredible happened - he managed to convince the CIA officers that the illegal KGB had infiltrated all spheres of the European establishment. Further - more: Golitsyn in all seriousness argued that the entire political elite of the United States was mired in ties with Soviet intelligence. Almost all representatives of the ruling circles of America are allegedly KGB agents.

And all these "revelations" laid down on the fertile soil of anti-Soviet hysteria: just a year ago, the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court sentenced an American pilot Powers, whose reconnaissance plane was shot down over Sverdlovsk, to 10 years in prison. Yes, and Kennedyrelationship with Khrushchev, as you know, did not work out. But the main thing was how Golitsyn behaved with new employers. In conversations with the CIA officers, the full feeling was created that Golitsyn is a super important agent who possesses a huge amount of information. He blamed everyone and everything. And, in the end, he asked for 15 million dollars for his own counterintelligence service to fight the "KGB moles." And for myself personally - more money, and a good pension in the future. He himself pestered the American side with constant claims, offended that he was not taken seriously - and after all, he, they say, risked his life …

Patronage of the CIA "mad dog"

Of course, they didn’t give him such a lot of money, but a meeting with the president’s brother Robert Kennedy, at that time the Minister of Justice, as well as the Director of the CIA John McCowanorganized. And Golitsyn was so able to confuse the heads of high-ranking officials that they remained fully confident that John Stone was indeed the most valuable source. But the real green light was given to him after Golitsyn managed to "fool" the "mad dog" of the CIA - the head of counterintelligence operations of this organization James Angleton.

And he did it with the help of an ordinary bluff, arguing that not only the entire top of England and the United States is bought by the KGB, but also the intelligence services of these countries are working for the USSR. And Angleton did not need anything else, because he suspected absolutely all of his colleagues of treason. And the more empty accusations Golitsyn gave out on the mountain, the less he was of interest to the "Soviet" department of the CIA, which was at its disposal. And while the FBI and the Pentagon gave up on the overly chatty agent, Angleton grabbed onto his new "valuable informant" with both hands. An orgy of suspicion began, real paranoia: interrogations of CIA officers, explanatory notes, dismissals of everyone who did not agree with this state of affairs …

In such a situation, any contact of American intelligence officers with their sources, the slightest recruiting approach to Soviet citizens or KGB officers aroused the closest attention and almost always a negative reaction from the "mad dog". Ultimately, the pressure on American intelligence officers from the main counterintelligence reached such a level that it simply disorganized the entire work of the Soviet department - a global "purge" of the "Slavs", as they were jokingly called in the CIA, began. The department, once a powerful operational service, eked out a miserable existence.

At this time, the fame of the "great agent" flew to Foggy Albion. And Golitsyn was invited to MI5 (counterintelligence) in order to help expose the "moles" entrenched in the British special services.

By that time, the Cambridge Five had already collapsed, and Kim Philbyfrom January 1963 he was in the USSR. And in the spring of the same year, Golitsyn gratefully accepted the British invitation. And upon arriving on the islands, the first thing he did was to blame the British for all the troubles … Harold Wilson, leader of the Labor Party. Allegedly, it was this politician who weaved a whole spy network of KGB agents in London. And despite the fact that Wilson was nevertheless elected Prime Minister of Great Britain, Golitsyn, in the end, arranged such a hunt for him that after being elected for a second term, the politician was forced to resign due to the pressure exerted on him Media and detractors. The same "super agent" John Stone played a huge role in this.

Traitor or double agent?

And what about the real spies? Never mind. After going through a lot of top-secret files from the MI-5 archive (and these are thousands of volumes), Golitsyn did not say anything intelligible and did not firmly point out any of the names of British counterintelligence officers who could be involved in cooperation with the KGB. But again, just as in the United States, he sowed seeds of mistrust and suspicion in the ranks of the valiant counterintelligence, disorganizing all of its work. Moreover, Golitsyn registered as spies … the director of MI5, his deputy and another hundred and fifty employees of the British "office". And at the same time he regularly received up to 30,000 pounds sterling every month for his "exposing" work. "Humpbacked", as Golitsyn was called by his colleagues in the KGB for the fact that he could not do anything professionally, in the West he felt like a real king.

But a few months later, James Angleton, missing his "faithful informant", returned the "valuable" employee under his wing in a rather original way - by inspiring a publication in the British media about a certain Dalnitsky- a defector from the USSR. Golitsyn, fearful of revenge from his former colleagues, without a moment's hesitation, flew to the United States. And together with Angleton they brought down another deeply entrenched "spy" - this time in Canada. The "mole" was himself the head of the Canadian counterintelligence service CSIS Leslie Bennett … Some of his closest employees also fell under suspicion. This, quite predictably, led to a deterioration in relations between the North American partners.

And soon the turn came to France, whose counterintelligence officers Golitsyn accused of inaction, and the ruling elite - of "leaking" NATO strategic secrets to the Russians, concerning, among other things, the location of American military bases, but most importantly (oh, horror!) leaked information about the American nuclear program from the French government. It is clear that such an accusation could not be ignored. The leadership of the special services of the Fifth Republic was seized by panic. An entire delegation of the French counterintelligence service CDESE was urgently sent to the United States, which for several months pumped Golitsyn with information from the personal files of French diplomats, government members, deputies, military personnel, politicians, police officials, Syurte employees, counterintelligence officers …

The members of the CDESE asked to indicate those who are connected with the KGB. As a result, Golitsyn pointed out … the leaders of the SDESE itself, except for hundreds of other defendants, whom he casually recorded as "spies". Mass reshuffles and layoffs began. It got to the point of mutual claims, suspicions and grievances between the special services and politicians of the two countries. It is not known if this somehow influenced the decision Charles de Gaulle, but in 1966 France withdrew from NATO.

Who are you, Mr. Stone?

It would be naive to think that only fools serve in the CIA. Sober heads have long expressed the idea that Golitsyn is another KGB joker specially sent to the United States to disrupt the work of the American special services. But whenever it came to such conversations, Angleton, the "mad dog" of the CIA, rushed to protect his protégé. However, everything comes to an end: at the very end of 1975, the chief counterintelligence officer was forced to resign. And with him Golitsyn quietly left, switching to literary activity.

But over time, some interesting details came to light. For example, upon the arrival of a defector in America, he was examined by the chief psychologist of the CIA and diagnosed with a paranoid personality with pathological manifestations. But the "mad dog" did everything so that no one knew about it, otherwise all Golitsyn's statements would be worthless. He himself believed him unconditionally. And this belief played a bad trick on the CIA. After all, the traitor, apparently feeling that his age as an informant might be short-lived, assured Angleton that everyone who after him fled the USSR and asked for political asylum in the United States would be provocateurs and special agents of the KGB.

As a result, a KGB officer who fled to America two years after Golitsin Yuri Nosenko instead of a fee for betrayal, he received four years in prison, during which they tried to get him to confess that he was a provocateur and disinformer sent by Moscow. So it didn't work out of him as a traitor.

So who is Anatoly Golitsyn: a defector or a well-concealed KGB agent who has paralyzed the work of counterintelligence services in several countries? A paranoid or a security officer who skillfully suppressed an attempt at betrayal by Nosenko? Is this an oversight of our intelligence or a well-planned multi-move? The latter version is supported by the fact that who fled to the west in the same year Peter Deryabin advised the CIA officers to pay attention to his former colleague - Golitsyn. And then, as ordered, after a while John Stone himself appears in front of the tsareushniki. Is this a coincidence? And how to combine his desire to help the CIA (in words) with the real damage that Golitsyn inflicted on the special services of the West? I'm afraid we will never know.

And although in the USSR Golitsyn was sentenced to death in absentia, many former KGB officers are confident that he did so much for the intelligence and counterintelligence of his country that it is just right for him to erect a monument. However, it is not known about the monument. But that in the most secret archival folders a dossier on the top-secret agent Anatoly Golitsyn may still be stored - it may well be.