Circle of Treason (9 page)

On a more practical level, Polyakov wanted to guarantee a future for his sons in the Soviet system, but to accomplish this he had to curry favor from the powerful within his organization. The Americans were the means by which he could succeed in this ambition, providing him with gifts that allowed him to buy influence. As he rose within the GRU organization, doors opened for his sons and they were afforded the benefits of higher education and employment opportunities commensurate with their father's rank and position.

Polyakov never championed our causes of freedom, justice, and democracy. Quite the contrary; these were lofty ideals that did not matter to him and his daily life. On the few occasions when we raised the possibility of defection to the West, he quietly but forcefully ended the conversation. Polyakov was born a Russian and would die a Russian.

Christmas came early and often for everyone involved in the Polyakov operation during the New Delhi phase, and we waited anxiously for the highlights cable from Paul D after each meeting. What was Polyakov sending us this time? Over the years we had come to expect everything on GRU operations and personnel to which he had access, but it was his positive intelligence that had consumers in the U.S. government talking. Was it the “secret” version of
Military Thought
, a monthly publication of the Soviet general staff on military doctrine and strategy? While dry prose to many of us in operations, analysts throughout the intelligence community found it invaluable to understanding the Soviet military
threat and came to expect the monthly disseminations as if they were a subscription to a favorite magazine. Was it the top secret Soviet embassy annual report that was a comprehensive statement of Soviet embassy relations with its host country and included contributions from the GRU and KGB chiefs? Was it the famous “Top Secret of Special Importance” Kapitsa document detailed earlier in
Chapter 4
? Was it the hundreds of pages of the top secret Military Industrial Commission's collection requirements on Western military technology, staggering in their reflection of Soviet knowledge of highly classified U.S. military plans and programs, and a bombshell according to many in the intelligence community? (The Military Industrial Commission [VPK] of the USSR Council of Ministers coordinated and controlled all research, design, development, testing, and production of Soviet military equipment and systems. An integral part of the VPK's responsibility was the issuance of collection requirements on military matters for all Soviet government agencies from the KGB and GRU to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Trade.)

The gifts and other remuneration we furnished Polyakov were trinkets compared to those he provided us. Of greater significance, most items he requested were not for his personal use. They were earmarked for his superiors whose influence he courted or others in the GRU whose daily support he needed—for example his desk and personnel officers. Accordingly, our shopping sprees always took place one or two months before Polyakov's return to Moscow on vacation or on permanent assignment. These handouts ranged from wristwatches and crystal glassware to inexpensive ballpoint pens, depending on the rank or position of the intended recipient.

Oddly, during one period Polyakov began to ask for large numbers of these pens, which brought quizzical looks and out-loud questioning in the CIA as to his need for such quantities. Much to our embarrassment, we found the answer in a safe containing his production and the answer was doubly embarrassing. Polyakov had earlier given us a copy of a GRU headquarters collection requirement that tasked its residencies quarterly to acquire a specific brand of ballpoint pen for use as GRU concealment devices. Seeing an easy way to fulfill his headquarters request, Polyakov enlisted our support, thinking we were aware of its genesis because he had given us a copy of the requirement. The CIA was now providing concealment devices for potential use by GRU agents worldwide. However,
once we sheepishly and belatedly understood what the pens were to be used for, we disseminated the GRU collection requirement to the appropriate agencies in the intelligence community.

Throughout the years of our contact with Polyakov, he asked for and we paid him the paltry sum of less than one thousand dollars a year. The items he requested for personal use were, for the most part, inexpensive things he could not purchase in Moscow and were related to his passion for hunting, fishing, and woodworking. They included fishhooks, sinkers, fly rods, shotguns, ammunition, bow and arrows, wading boots, hand warmers, drills, and sandpaper. The only luxury item he ever wanted was a strand of pearls for his wife, Nina, which we later had to replace as he had given the original to a high-ranking Soviet official visiting his embassy.

While the Polyakov operation was running smoothly in the field, a mini-revolution was about to begin at headquarters that would have a lasting and profound effect on the case and on the handling of future generations of sensitive sources. The man at the center of the upheaval was Richard (Dick) Stolz, a career Soviet operations officer and newly appointed deputy chief of SE Division. A kind, thoughtful man with impeccable operational skills, Stolz was the model for the adage that good men can and do succeed in bureaucracies. He had become intimately involved in the Polyakov operation in the early 1970s, when he was chief of the division's Counterintelligence Group. Accordingly he was well aware of our June 1972 one-on-one contact with Polyakov in Moscow and our subsequent realization that we had severely limited options to communicate with him during his scheduled assignment to Hanoi. To Stolz this was unacceptable and, as the consummate professional, he quietly vowed that if he ever found himself in a position to rectify this shortcoming he would take on the challenge. That opportunity presented itself several years later when he returned to the division following his tour of duty as chief in Belgrade.

Stolz's request to the technical support component responsible for supporting agent operations was specific. Provide our source with a short-range, high-speed, two-way communications device that encrypted the transmitted information, was small in size to allow for concealment, was portable, and would function for years. Stolz's explanation as to the importance of his request was equally direct. We were currently handling the highest ranking Soviet intelligence officer in the history of the U.S.
government and he would be returning to Moscow in about two years from what could be his last overseas assignment. Time-critical intelligence would be available to this source and we were obligated to provide him with the most secure, current, and reliable means possible to report that information. It would be a dereliction of duty if we were forced to rely only on a cumbersome and dangerous series of dead drops and signal sites to communicate with a source of such stature and access.

The engineers' response to Stolz's request was equally straightforward. Sorry, but it could not be accomplished. We have neither the funds nor the expertise and we do not believe the latter exists elsewhere. Not to be deterred, Stolz broadened his efforts, taking his problem to an Agency group that did not routinely support DO efforts but that researched and developed cutting-edge technologies, on occasion in concert with private industry. Perhaps eager to enter the world of clandestine operations or perhaps simply to be part of a new and exciting scientific adventure, they offered to broker contact with an external company they believed could develop and deliver the requested equipment within the required time frame.

The Division eagerly accepted the offer with one proviso. A division case officer had to be directly and intimately involved in the project from the beginning. Accepted by the specialized Agency group, Dick C, a division officer with Moscow experience, met with the contractor's engineers and designers and, among other things, negotiated the system requirements and designs, and developed the testing and operational scenarios.

Two years later and just before Polyakov's reassignment to Moscow in 1976, the cooperation between a private contractor and SE Division resulted in the completion of Polyakov's handheld, two-way, encrypted communications device. Appropriately code-named Unique, but known as Buster in the CIA's technical support group, it was the first of its kind in U.S. spy equipment annals. Although built only for Polyakov on an accelerated basis, many of the lessons learned from its development were incorporated in successor systems.

Unique was a two-way system that was agent-initiated and consisted of three primary components: two portable base stations and one agent unit. The base station received Polyakov's message and then transmitted acknowledgment of receipt to Polyakov's agent unit along with any other required brief message. The cryptography in the equipment was
revolutionary in that it synchronized automatically between the base station and the agent unit. Plans called for one of the base stations to be located in the CIA premises inside the U.S. embassy in Moscow and one to be taken to a CIA officer's apartment or used on the street for prescheduled opportunities, thus affording Polyakov additional transmission sites. Before a scheduled exchange Polyakov typed his comments on a small keyboard built into his agent unit, placed it in his pocket, and boarded public transportation that took him past the U.S. embassy. Approaching the embassy he activated the unit, which transmitted the information to the base station in a 2.6-second burst. Polyakov's tram continued on its way and he read our message in the privacy of his apartment.

In early 1976 the Polyakov operation was running on autopilot, with a satisfied asset and satisfied intelligence community customers who received his production. Difficulty and impending tragedy then struck. A cable arrived from New Delhi with the news that Paul was sick—potentially very sick. He eventually was evacuated to Georgetown University Hospital, where he was diagnosed with a rare and terminal lung disease. Within the corridors of headquarters our first concern was for Paul's well-being and that of his family. Nevertheless, we also had to focus on our friend in the field. We had meetings to conduct, intelligence to process, and, of critical importance, an asset to ready for internal handling on untested state-of-the-art communications equipment.

The last meeting between Paul and Polyakov was bittersweet. Business as always came first and then it was time for the final good-bye. Neither discussed the future difficulties each might face, although each understood that Paul's had more clarity than Polyakov's. The atmosphere and banter was simply that of two old friends relaxing and enjoying one another's company. As a token of the personal and secret bond they had forged, Polyakov presented Paul with a bottle of his Ukrainian homeland's Three Stars cognac, the first gift he had given to one of his CIA handlers. The meeting ended with a handshake and this chapter in the operation was closed. Paul would lose his personal battle after a four-year struggle.

THE POLYAKOV CASE—THE END

T
HE SENIOR
CIA
OFFICER KNOWN
for this book's purposes as “Mr. K” assumed the role of Polyakov's case officer following Paul's departure from India. By design, his participation in the operation had always been important. Now his role was crucial. In the past he appeared for debriefing sessions infrequently; however, now his travel and meetings with Polyakov became more recurrent and lengthy. Moreover, he assumed complete responsibility for the successful implementation of an internal communications plan with equipment that neither he nor Polyakov had seen. Those at headquarters in charge of assembling the required volume of material and equipment were mindful that Mr. K knew the intelligence business far better than they and that he would not tolerate mistakes or omissions. Accordingly, frantic days were the rule during July and early August of 1976, as we anxiously awaited the arrival of the final components of the system from the contractor as well as the completion of the concealment device Stolz had requested from the DO engineers. We met our deadline for transmittal to the field with only a few days to spare. It was time to cross our fingers and pray that everything would work and that the two principals would be pleased.

Polyakov was stunned by Unique. Always a harsh critic of CIA spy equipment, he had not expected a system that was so technically advanced, tested perfectly, and was agent-friendly. Needless to say, Mr. K did not tell Polyakov that the CIA had not developed Unique, and
remained silent when Polyakov complimented “the boys from the center” for their success. This was a phrase he previously had used only when irritated with our handling of a particular matter, noting that any shortcoming in the operation was never the fault of field personnel but always those at the center. Over the years we had made minor mistakes such as selecting the incorrect size of fishhook or other miscellaneous hunting accessories he had requested. However, he was right and we gladly accepted such observations as “Can't they tell the difference between a brook trout and a sturgeon?”