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01:29After the 1917 revolution, the Cheka began the brutal suppression of any and all opposition to the new communist regime.
01:38Transcription by CastingWords
02:08Throughout the 1930s and 40s, millions died in bloody purges at the hands of Stalin's secret police, now called the NKVD.
02:18The NKVD spread a deadly network of agents around the world.
02:28Assassins routinely murdered ideological opponents abroad.
02:32The most famous being Trotsky, who was assassinated in Mexico in 1940.
02:38The NKVD spies routinely gathered vital military secrets from friends and foes alike.
02:46They penetrated top-secret British and American nuclear facilities and provided Russian scientists with highly detailed information on America's development of the atom bomb.
02:58By the end of World War II, Soviet agents had infiltrated all the world's major military and political establishments, and many of the lesser ones.
03:16At the beginning of the 1950s, the NKVD got a new name, one that would instill terror in the Western world.
03:29At that time, Soviet intelligence was the most effective and the most powerful in the world.
03:43Many Western scientists and intellectuals were grateful to the Soviet Union, which had lost over 20 million lives in the war against Hitler.
03:51They believed that this country, regardless of its political structure, deserved equal military status with the West, and first of all, with the United States.
04:09This mentality gave us access to the all-important military and scientific secrets of the West.
04:15This situation helped the KGB recruit new agents.
04:23Joseph Stalin and the Soviet leadership wanted to use their victory in the Second World War to expand Soviet influence into Eastern Europe, and even farther, to the West.
04:37The United States prepared contingency plans of its own.
04:40One plan even provided for a nuclear attack on 20 major Soviet cities and industrial centers, including Moscow and Leningrad.
04:50The line was drawn, with the United States and Great Britain leading NATO countries on one side, and the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries on the other.
04:59For the KGB, the United States became enemy number one.
05:05The Cold War had begun.
05:10In order to counteract Soviet expansion, the U.S. set up a chain of military bases capable of delivering nuclear strikes into the heart of Russia.
05:25Bases were located in Great Britain, Italy, Turkey, and many other countries.
05:30In 1946, we started working against the American and British military's strategic bases, which had been set up to encircle the Soviet Union.
05:43We made plans to destroy them in case of war.
05:46We had selected and trained quite a number of agents, which we had handpicked from our prisoners of war.
05:52They were the ones who were to carry out these operations.
05:54Beginning in 1946, Stalin initiated an active campaign to thwart perceived American influence within the Soviet Union, including within the KGB itself.
06:09Stalin wanted to cut off the country from all Western influence.
06:18He instituted show trials against so-called Westernizers.
06:22Along with tightening the screw against foreign influence, Stalin also started a fierce campaign against Soviet Jews as a result of the failure of his Mideast policy.
06:33In 1948, Stalin had planned to use Israel as a key Soviet stronghold in the Middle East.
06:44He knew that many of the Israeli leaders, such as President Golda Meir, were former socialists, born or educated in Russia.
06:53He believed that world Jewry would be grateful to the Soviet Union for its major contribution to the defeat of the Nazis.
07:00On Stalin's orders, Soviet intelligence secretly supported the Jews in Palestine in their struggle against the British.
07:10And the Soviet Union was one of the first to vote in the United Nations for the creation of the Jewish state.
07:17But from its very birth, it was evident that Israel had no intention of building a socialist state on the Soviet model.
07:29On the contrary, Israel looked to the U.S. as its closest ally.
07:35Stalin felt betrayed and turned his wrath on the Jews in his own country, from the most humble to the most prominent.
07:43Stalin was the first to vote in the Soviet Union, from the Soviet Union, to the Soviet Union as an actor and theater director.
07:52He formed and chaired the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee.
07:57In 1943, Stalin sent Meir Hoyles on a war fundraising tour to the United States.
08:04Meir Hoyles fulfilled the mission and brought many American donations to Moscow.
08:08After the war, Stalin planned to use Meir Hoyles to collect $10 billion in donations from the West to help rebuild the Soviet Union.
08:19The failed Mideast policy changed everything.
08:22On January 13, 1948, Meir Hoyles had a so-called accident in Minsk.
08:28According to the official version, an unidentified truck hit and killed him.
08:35His body was brought to Moscow and buried in an official ceremony with honors.
08:41But soon afterward, Meir Hoyles was proclaimed an American spy.
08:46And his Anti-Fascist Committee was banned as a nest of American spies.
08:50Only later would the truth come out.
08:53On that January night, Meir Hoyles had been invited to the country house of the local minister of security.
09:01He was given a lethal injection and his body was thrown under a truck driven by a Secret Service officer.
09:07Suddenly, all Jews were at risk.
09:10In the Soviet Union, the word Jew became synonymous with traitor.
09:14In the Soviet Secret Service, the purge of these alleged subversives was almost total.
09:24Many feared this as a signal that an increasingly paranoid and delusional Stalin would soon plunge the Soviet Union into a repeat of the bloody purges of the 1930s.
09:35And perhaps even provoke a nuclear war with the United States.
09:40Then, unexpectedly, in March 1953, the great dictator, Joseph Stalin, died.
09:55A new Soviet leader emerged, Nikita Khrushchev.
09:59And he would use the KGB agents as his front-line troops in the Cold War.
10:10In 1956, at a closed plenary session of the all-powerful Communist Party,
10:16Khrushchev exposed some of the horrors of Stalin's regime and of the Secret Service that had carried out his criminal dictates.
10:26Just the little he revealed caused a sensation.
10:30Many of those present cried.
10:32Some even fainted.
10:34For the KGB, it was a time of uncertainty.
10:37After the Congress of the Communist Party in 1956,
10:44there were investigations into the illegal methods used in the secret security services.
10:49Many officers were dismissed.
10:51Some of them were punished.
10:53A lot of new people came into the KGB from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
10:57the Institute for International Relations, and the Institute of Foreign Trade.
11:01In 1958, Khrushchev fired Ivan Serov, the thuggish head of the KGB.
11:11He had been heavily involved in Stalin's bloody purges.
11:15Then, Alexander Shalepin received a call from the Kremlin.
11:19Just on the eve of the new year, Khrushchev called me in for a meeting.
11:28He said he would recommend me for the position of the new head of KGB.
11:33He said, we need a new, energetic man to lead the fight against the old elements in KGB.
11:39To carry on the process of rehabilitation of the purge victims.
11:45I said, Nikita Serovich, I greatly respect you, but I cannot accept the position.
11:53I can't.
11:54I'm scared even to walk past the headquarters.
11:57I just can't.
11:58He said, you should not worry about it.
12:01Within the Soviet Union, Khrushchev's spring thaw was an attempt to lessen the consequences of Stalinism.
12:11He opened the notorious gulags, scenes of unspeakable atrocities.
12:17He released political prisoners and rehabilitated the reputations of thousands of victims of the purges.
12:24On the other hand, Khrushchev became a militant cold warrior, sending in troops to crush the Hungarian uprising of 1956.
12:34And pounding on his desk at the United Nations, shouting that he would bury the United States.
12:42Khrushchev didn't hesitate to use KGB operatives in his attempt to achieve that goal.
12:47The first victims of the KGB were Russian opponents in exile from the communist regime, or defectors to the West.
13:02They were traitors sentenced to death by our court.
13:05Traitors had to be executed.
13:08But the West was hiding them.
13:10Changing their appearance with plastic surgeries.
13:13Moving them from one place to another.
13:14One night there, another day here.
13:18Yes, we were hunting them.
13:20And we didn't always succeed in finding them, but sometimes we did.
13:25There were cases of fatal car accidents, or somebody would die in the street from alcohol poisoning.
13:31Others just kicked the bucket, with our help or without.
13:34It's difficult to tell for sure now.
13:37As for the political killings, well, those were exceptional cases.
13:44In 1957, while Moscow hosted a World Peace Festival for students, a KGB assassin killed Lev Rebbit, a vociferous anti-Soviet thinker in Germany.
13:57Two years later, Stefan Bandera, the leader of a Ukrainian nationalist organization abroad, was murdered in his home in Munich, Germany.
14:09Both Rebbit and Bandera were murdered by one of the KGB's most reliable and expert assassins, Bodan Stashinsky.
14:20His method was both ingenious and horrific.
14:28He sprayed his victims with a high dosage of cyanide mist.
14:33They inhaled the lethal cyanide and suffered immediate and fatal cardiac arrest.
14:43The KGB regarded killing people abroad, as well as in the Soviet Union, as a normal part of its operations.
14:51It stopped in the early 1960s, not because it had decided that it was wrong to kill people,
14:57but because there were several defectors in Germany.
15:01The Soviet Union subsequently decided that the risks of being found out in future were such that it wasn't prudent to continue.
15:10The most startling defector was the arch-assassin himself, Stashinsky.
15:15In August 1961, one day before construction began on the Berlin Wall,
15:23Stashinsky and his East German wife gave themselves up to American authorities in West Germany.
15:30Stashinsky admitted killing Rebbit and Bandera.
15:34He was tried and sentenced to eight years in prison.
15:38Later, he was secretly released and taken to the United States.
15:45In June 1957, FBI agents barged into the studio of a New York photographer who called himself Rudolf Abel.
15:55They had warrants to search the studio and arrest Abel.
16:00Throughout the arrest and search, Abel remained calm.
16:05At one point, he asked to go to the bathroom.
16:08There, Abel, in reality a KGB spy, destroyed most of the incriminating materials in his possession.
16:15Later, he won some respect from the FBI interrogators with his sharp intellect, the breadth of his knowledge, and the skill of his spycraft.
16:25Abel had entered the U.S. through Canada in 1948, using a false passport.
16:38Over the course of nine years, he sat up and ran from his New York studio,
16:43what was perhaps the most effective Soviet spy operation ever.
16:47Colonel Rudolf Abel was probably the best spy that the Soviets ever had in the United States.
16:56He was more a spymaster than a spy.
16:58In other words, he ran an organization.
17:02He was trained in the Soviet Union, fluent in several languages.
17:07He ran a network out of New York.
17:10People would report to him, and he would handle their reports.
17:15I believe, to this day, the extent of his activities is not known.
17:24Rudolf Abel's agents passed him information on nuclear weapons,
17:28the newest strategic and technological developments in the American military,
17:33as well as highly confidential political secrets.
17:36Abel was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
17:44The Russians, however, wanted their valuable spy back.
17:48Their chance came in 1961.
17:52On May 1st, Soviet missiles shot down an American spy plane, the U-2, over Soviet territory.
18:00The pilot, Francis Gary Powers, was captured.
18:03The Soviets offered to exchange powers for Abel.
18:09By an official letter, President Kennedy agreed to the exchange of the two top spies.
18:21On February 10th, 1962, the two spies stood on opposite sides of this bridge,
18:27which separated West Berlin from the east.
18:30Boris Nalivayko was part of the KGB contingent.
18:39First of all, we identified Abel as they identified Powers.
18:45Then Powers and Abel started walking toward each other, staring,
18:50as if consuming each other with their eyes.
18:53After they passed each other, Abel stopped and turned his head to look once more at Powers.
19:01And Powers, though free now to go to his side,
19:05turned his head to get another look at Abel.
19:09It was a transcendent moment.
19:11We get Francis Gary Power, and the Soviets get Abel back.
19:17And all of the secrets that Abel may have had go with him,
19:21and he becomes, as far as people know, one of the big training officers in the Soviet spy schools.
19:29The FBI had put a stop to Abel, but not to Soviet spying in the U.S.
19:36Ten months after the historic exchange of Abel for Powers,
19:40a sergeant of the American Army was informed that he had been promoted to major in the Soviet Army.
19:48With the promotion came Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's personal congratulations.
19:53For 11 years, Sergeant Robert Lee Johnson, a U.S. Army soldier,
20:06had been on the payroll of the Soviet Union.
20:09As a security officer at U.S. missile bases in California,
20:13he passed along invaluable military information,
20:17including at one time a sample of missile fuel to the Russians.
20:23But he filed his most damaging reports after he was transferred to security
20:27at the U.S. Armed Forces Courier Center at Paris' Orly Airport.
20:34The Courier Center was a key communications transit center
20:38for materials and code systems being sent from the States to NATO headquarters,
20:44as well as to American forces in Europe and the U.S. Sixth Fleet.
20:48In February 1961, Johnson walked out of the Courier Center
20:56with a small briefcase stuffed with secret documents.
20:59KGB officer Vitaly Ozhumov was Johnson's handler in France.
21:12We had two tag teams working on the case.
21:15The first team took the documents from Johnson
21:18and brought them back to the city, where they handed it over to a second team.
21:22The second team smuggled the materials into the Soviet embassy.
21:28There, our specialists opened the envelopes,
21:32photocopied the papers, put everything back,
21:35resealed the envelopes,
21:36and returned them to the first team to return to Johnson.
21:42This operation was repeated 17 times.
21:45For Moscow, it was an incredible windfall.
21:50The Soviets got unprecedented access
21:52to vital American military secrets,
21:54including U.S. and NATO defense plans in Europe,
21:58the quantity and location of nuclear missiles in Europe,
22:02and most importantly, descriptions of American coding systems.
22:09The operation was slick and extremely professional.
22:13It might have gone on for years,
22:16but for the unexpected.
22:19In 1964, a KGB officer, Yuri Nozinko,
22:23defected to the West.
22:26He exposed Robert Johnson,
22:29who was subsequently arrested,
22:30tried, and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
22:35Johnson's arrest was a great loss for the KGB,
22:38but not a fatal one.
22:39KGB operatives were masters at compromising
22:43and recruiting new spies.
22:46If the KGB gets some material,
22:48compromising material, on a person,
22:51merely it is connected either with sexual
22:54or with homosexual affairs or something,
22:58they usually show the material.
23:00If a person rejects the offer,
23:03they send this material to his superiors
23:06or to the relatives.
23:08But the most popular approach
23:10when you recruit a person
23:12is gradual approach,
23:15on an ideological basis.
23:17You see, common ideology,
23:19or you're a left-winger,
23:20I'm a left-winger.
23:22George Blake was recruited
23:23because of his ideology.
23:25During the Korean War,
23:28he worked as a British intelligence officer.
23:32But Blake was captured by the North Koreans
23:34and in 1951, recruited by the KGB.
23:39In 1953, he was released
23:41from a prisoner of war camp
23:43and returned to Britain.
23:45He resumed work in anti-Soviet intelligence.
23:48No one suspected that George Blake
23:51had become a double agent.
23:53As Blake himself later admitted,
23:56he betrayed almost 400 Western agents
23:59working against the Soviet Union
24:01and the Eastern Bloc.
24:04George Blake was informed
24:05of one of the most ambitious
24:06Western intelligence operations
24:08against the Soviets in the 1950s.
24:12It was Operation Gold Stopwatch,
24:15a joint British-CIA operation
24:17to dig a tunnel
24:19from West Berlin into East Berlin
24:21to access and tap into
24:23key East German and Soviet
24:25communication lines.
24:27A delegation of senior CIA officers
24:31came to London
24:33to discuss with the British side
24:35the details of such an operation.
24:40I was the secretary
24:40who kept the notes of the meeting,
24:43so I was fully informed
24:45of what was going on.
24:46The information concerning the operation
24:49you could get on a small piece of paper
24:52because all that was needed really
24:54was to know where which cables
24:58were going to be attacked,
25:00where the tunnel ran.
25:01At my next meeting with my Soviet contact,
25:04I was able to pass this information.
25:07The Russians seizing on the value
25:10of keeping their knowledge
25:11of the tunnel secret
25:12let it exist for two years,
25:14spreading a great deal
25:16of misinformation
25:16over the tapped lines.
25:19Finally, in 1956,
25:21Soviet technicians
25:22accidentally discovered the tunnel
25:24while making cable repairs.
25:27Nobody suspected George Blake.
25:29He was revealed only after a defector,
25:33the deputy head of Polish intelligence,
25:35Mikhail Golonewski, exposed him.
25:39On April 12th, 1961,
25:41the same day that Yuri Gagarin
25:43became the world's first man in space,
25:47a British newspaper revealed
25:48that Blake had been arrested
25:50on espionage charges.
25:52Blake received an unprecedented prison sentence,
25:5642 years.
25:56Later, he would say
25:59that Gagarin's spaceflight
26:01and the triumph of the Soviet space program
26:03was a major source of moral comfort.
26:08It confirmed for him
26:09that he had been right
26:10to help the world's
26:12most socially progressive country
26:14build a better future for humankind.
26:18In 1966,
26:20with the help of an Irish Republican Army member,
26:24Blake managed to escape.
26:26He spent 24 hours
26:28in a hidden compartment of a minivan
26:30that brought him
26:31to the border of West and East Germany.
26:34His arrival in the East
26:35was as awkward as it was unbelievable
26:37to the guard who greeted him.
26:42There was an East German frontier guard
26:45and I went up to him
26:46and I said,
26:47I wanted to talk to the Soviet officer
26:50and then after about half an hour
26:52a young man came
26:54and I said who I was
26:56and would he please report to Moscow
26:59to say that I had arrived.
27:02He said, well, it was late.
27:03It was by that time
27:04two o'clock in the morning
27:05and there was very little
27:07he could do at that time
27:09but he would make arrangements
27:12for me to spend the night
27:14at the frontier post
27:15and the next morning
27:16about eight o'clock
27:17the door opened
27:18and in stepped
27:20one of the comrades
27:23from the Soviet intelligence service
27:26with whom I had worked
27:27for several years in London
27:29and who knew me personally
27:31and when he saw me
27:33he said, that's him.
27:36In Moscow, George Blake
27:38was rewarded with a large flat
27:40and a country house.
27:41He married a Russian woman
27:43and worked as a translator
27:44for more than 30 years
27:46until his death in Moscow
27:47in 1996.
27:51His counterpart,
27:52a high-ranking Russian
27:53military intelligence officer
27:55was not so lucky.
28:01In the spring of 1961,
28:05Soviet Army Colonel
28:06Oleg Penkovsky
28:07offered his services
28:09to American
28:10and British intelligence.
28:13Penkovsky was a remarkable catch.
28:16He'd received Russia's
28:17highest military awards
28:18for bravery in World War II.
28:21He'd mingled with the leading
28:22members of Soviet society
28:23and his friends and patrons
28:25were highly positioned
28:26military officers.
28:27But Oleg Penkovsky
28:32had developed a vehement hatred
28:34for the Soviet regime.
28:37The American and British agents
28:39who worked with him
28:40were taken aback
28:41by his intensity.
28:44He went so far
28:45as to seriously suggest
28:47planting small nuclear devices
28:49near key strategic installations
28:51in Moscow,
28:53such as the headquarters
28:55of the KGB,
28:55the general headquarters
28:58of the military
28:59and the Communist Party headquarters.
29:05He even urged the Americans
29:08to make a preventive nuclear strike
29:10and annihilate the city of Moscow
29:12in order to decapitate
29:13the Soviet monster.
29:17Penkovsky began spying
29:18for the Americans
29:19at a time when U.S.-Soviet relations
29:21were rapidly deteriorating.
29:23In an attempt
29:27to alleviate tensions,
29:29President Kennedy
29:30met with Soviet Premier
29:31Nikita Khrushchev
29:32in Vienna
29:33in June 1961.
29:37The meeting ended
29:39in a stalemate.
29:41But Penkovsky
29:42was able to give the CIA
29:44a classified Russian report
29:45on the meeting,
29:48detailing how the Russians
29:49intended to respond
29:50to the Americans.
29:51Two months later,
29:55Khrushchev ordered
29:55the construction
29:56of the Berlin Wall.
29:59In the resultant crisis,
30:01American tanks
30:02faced off
30:02against Russian tanks.
30:06Only 50 yards
30:07and barbed wire
30:08separated the two superpowers.
30:13Penkovsky's espionage reports
30:15helped to form
30:16the measured American response
30:18to the crisis.
30:19Then,
30:20in the autumn of 1962,
30:22an American U-2 spy plane
30:23provided definitive evidence
30:25of the presence
30:26of Soviet nuclear missiles
30:27in Cuba,
30:28a mere 90 miles
30:29from Florida.
30:34Top-secret Soviet missile manuals
30:37stolen by Penkovsky
30:38gave the Americans
30:39critical information
30:40on missile assembly procedures,
30:43launch times,
30:43and trajectories.
30:44These missiles
30:46were capable
30:47of striking
30:47major military bases
30:49in urban centers
30:50in the continental
30:51United States.
30:59Kennedy demanded
31:00that Khrushchev remove
31:01the missiles.
31:03Khrushchev stonewalled.
31:06The world teetered
31:08on the brink of war.
31:09But Kennedy had an ace
31:14in the hole.
31:16Oleg Penkovsky.
31:18His secret reports
31:19detailed the Soviet Union's
31:21strategic plans
31:22in the event of war
31:23and provided
31:24a complete description
31:26of Soviet strategic
31:27nuclear missile forces,
31:29including the number
31:30of nuclear warheads
31:31and their capacity.
31:32Pankovsky's information
31:39revealed that
31:40the Soviet Union
31:41was decisively lagging
31:42behind the West
31:43in the nuclear arms race
31:45by a ratio
31:46of 17 to 1.
31:54Another player
31:55suddenly became important
31:56in this tense showdown.
31:59He was a KGB agent
32:01based in the Soviet embassy
32:02in Washington.
32:04The CIA knew him
32:06as Fomin.
32:07His real name
32:08was Alexander Feklisov.
32:10At the height of the crisis,
32:12Alexander Feklisov
32:13and American journalist
32:15John Scali
32:16met in a Washington restaurant.
32:21Feklisov knew
32:22that Scali
32:23was close to the Kennedys.
32:25Scali was aware
32:26of the nature
32:26of Feklisov's
32:27real activities.
32:28On Friday,
32:37October 26th,
32:38we met at the
32:39Occidental Grill restaurant.
32:44The situation
32:44was increasingly aggravating.
32:48Scali said,
32:49it's a hard time
32:50for Kennedy,
32:51you know.
32:54The army is pushing
32:55for a military solution.
33:00They want to go in
33:01and bomb
33:02all the Soviet installations
33:03on Cuba
33:04and then invade Cuba
33:07and depose Fidel Castro.
33:12I answered,
33:13if you invade Cuba,
33:15then Khrushchev
33:16will retaliate,
33:17most likely
33:18in West Berlin.
33:18Feklisov reported
33:25the conversation
33:26to the Soviet ambassador.
33:29Scali briefed
33:30President Kennedy.
33:34That same evening,
33:36Scali and Feklisov
33:37met again.
33:37Scali told me
33:43at the very beginning
33:44of our meeting
33:44that he was authorized
33:46to come
33:46by the U.S. administration.
33:51He took out
33:51a piece of paper
33:52to read.
33:56He said,
33:58the Soviet Union
33:58must dismantle
33:59all missile launch sites
34:00on Cuba
34:01and remove them
34:02from Cuba
34:03under the supervision
34:04of the United Nations.
34:05then the United States
34:09will take a public pledge
34:10not to invade Cuba.
34:17Feklisov drafted a cable
34:19about this extremely
34:20important meeting
34:21with Kennedy's representative
34:23to be forwarded
34:24to Moscow
34:25with the U.S. proposal.
34:29When Feklisov
34:30came to the Soviet ambassador
34:32in the U.S.
34:33to ask him
34:33to send the cable
34:34about the meeting
34:35with Scali,
34:36the ambassador refused.
34:38He did not dare.
34:40Then Feklisov
34:41sent the cable
34:41directly to the KGB
34:43addressed to me personally.
34:46I had the cable
34:46put on Khrushchev's desk.
34:51Time was running out.
34:54Then suddenly,
34:55Moscow broadcast
34:56the news
34:57that Khrushchev
34:58would remove
34:58the missiles
34:59from Cuba.
34:59The world
35:03stepped back
35:04from the brink
35:05of nuclear destruction.
35:08In this Washington restaurant,
35:10there's a small commemorative plaque
35:11on top of one of the tables.
35:15It reads,
35:16At this table,
35:17during the tense moments
35:18of the Cuban crisis
35:19in October 1962,
35:22a Russian offer
35:23to withdraw missiles
35:24from Cuba
35:24was passed
35:25by the mysterious
35:26Mr. X
35:27to ABC TV correspondent
35:29John Scali.
35:34On the basis
35:35of this meeting,
35:36the threat
35:36of a possible nuclear war
35:38was avoided.
35:45Khrushchev's erratic policies,
35:47both abroad
35:48and at home,
35:48had made him
35:49powerful enemies
35:50within the Soviet hierarchy.
35:52Some experts suggest
35:55that Oleg Penkovsky
35:57may have been used
35:58by them
35:58to get at Khrushchev.
36:04Penkovsky was an officer
36:05with limited clearances.
36:08He had no authorization
36:09to know the secrets
36:10of the Soviet general headquarters,
36:12such as how many
36:14strategic missiles we had,
36:16what kind they were,
36:16how they were armed.
36:18But somehow,
36:20Penkovsky found out
36:21somebody had to give him
36:23access to these documents.
36:28Oleg Penkovsky's
36:29secret informants
36:30are a mystery to this day,
36:32but it is known
36:33that the army's
36:34top echelons
36:35were increasingly
36:36dissatisfied with Khrushchev
36:37and his nuclear brinksmanship.
36:40It may be that
36:41by channeling information
36:42through Penkovsky,
36:43the army's top echelons
36:45were trying to undermine
36:47Khrushchev.
36:47By now,
36:50time was running out
36:51for Penkovsky.
36:53The KGB was hot
36:54on his trail.
36:57We followed him
37:00for a long time,
37:02twice on various pretexts.
37:05We prevented him
37:06from going abroad.
37:08We wanted to trace
37:09all his handlers
37:10and communication links.
37:16This is the apartment
37:18building in Moscow
37:19where Oleg Penkovsky lived.
37:22On November 2nd, 1962,
37:25a few days after
37:26the peaceful outcome
37:27of the Cuban Missile Crisis,
37:29Penkovsky was arrested.
37:31KGB counterintelligence
37:32had been effective.
37:35Penkovsky managed
37:36to work for the West
37:37for only a year and a half.
37:39In a highly unusual move,
37:43Penkovsky was put
37:44on public trial.
37:49No spy has ever been
37:50tried like that
37:51in the Soviet Union,
37:52neither before nor since.
37:55It's a shame
37:56for the country.
37:57We caught a military
37:58intelligence colonel
37:59spying red-handed,
38:00so let's kill him,
38:01kick him till he's dead,
38:03burn him alive
38:03in a furnace,
38:04do whatever you want.
38:05But why expose him
38:07to the whole world?
38:09My explanation
38:10is that it was necessary
38:11to show the world
38:12that he was alone,
38:13acting on his own
38:14with no collaborators.
38:16It was a show trial
38:17to prove that there
38:18was no conspiracy.
38:20But I think that there
38:21was a group of highly
38:22placed people
38:23acting through him.
38:26Penkovsky was sentenced
38:27to death
38:27and executed.
38:34But by then,
38:36Khrushchev's grip
38:37on power was slipping.
38:40His deputy,
38:42Leonid Brezhnev,
38:43wanted him out of the way.
38:46Brezhnev met secretly
38:47with Vladimir Semichostny,
38:50head of the KGB.
38:50He said we should find a way
38:56to physically remove Khrushchev,
38:58maybe poison him
38:59or just shoot him.
39:01I told him,
39:02it's impossible
39:03because I personally
39:04cannot do it alone.
39:06I must get men
39:07from his security service
39:08to do that.
39:10I must give them details.
39:12Then Brezhnev asked
39:13if we could arrest him.
39:15I said,
39:15Leonid Ilyich,
39:17if you want the KGB
39:18to take part in this,
39:19only the plenary session
39:21of the Central Committee
39:22can give such an order.
39:24I won't do it otherwise.
39:27In 1964,
39:29Khrushchev was deposed.
39:32Leonid Brezhnev
39:33became Russia's new premier.
39:38Like his predecessor,
39:39Brezhnev strongly supported
39:41the KGB
39:42as a secret weapon
39:43of the Cold War.
39:44Soon he would land
39:45a valuable American traitor.
39:49In 1968,
39:54Czech premier
39:55Alexander Dubček,
39:56riding a wave
39:57of popularity,
39:59moved to make
39:59his country
40:00more democratic.
40:02Leonid Brezhnev
40:03crushed the Prague Spring
40:04with tanks.
40:07The KGB
40:08was among the first
40:09to feel the backlash
40:10of the brutal suppression
40:12of the democratic movement
40:13in Czechoslovakia.
40:171968 was a black year
40:19for the KGB.
40:20After the events
40:21in Czechoslovakia,
40:23some of our foreign agents
40:24working for ideological reasons
40:26refused to cooperate
40:27with us.
40:30The Soviets felt
40:31the reverberations
40:32for years.
40:34In 1971,
40:37in an unprecedented move,
40:39the British government
40:40expelled 105 Soviets
40:42suspected of espionage activities.
40:46Similar expulsions
40:47followed in other
40:47European countries.
40:49It was an unanticipated
40:51and serious blow
40:53to the KGB.
40:53It became harder
40:57to place our agents.
40:58The Americans and British
40:59started doing
41:00what we had been doing
41:01since the October Revolution.
41:03They infiltrated
41:04our service even more.
41:06At times,
41:06they created an impression
41:08that we had a big success.
41:09And years later,
41:10we found out
41:11that we had been taken in
41:12by a double agent.
41:13We became cautious,
41:15afraid to make a move.
41:17They achieved their goal.
41:21But even in its decline,
41:23the KGB remained
41:24a force to be reckoned with
41:26as the Americans
41:27were to discover
41:28to their great cost.
41:31One of the KGB's
41:32most valuable recruits
41:34in the late 1960s
41:35was an American naval officer
41:37named John Walker.
41:40About 1967,
41:43and the records vary
41:44whether it was 67, 68,
41:47Walker literally walked
41:48into the Russian embassy
41:49and offered to spy for them.
41:51He gave them copies
41:53of classified communications.
41:56He gave them access
41:57to key cards
41:59which could read
42:00our crypto machines.
42:03These were the family jewels
42:04of American intelligence.
42:08John Walker passed
42:10so many code keys
42:11to his KGB handlers
42:13that the Russians
42:14were able to decode
42:15over a million secret
42:17U.S. military messages.
42:19Among the many casualties
42:20of John Walker's betrayals
42:22were a series
42:23of American bombing missions
42:25during the Vietnam War.
42:27Too often,
42:28the CIA and Pentagon
42:29got the impression
42:30that impossible as it seemed,
42:33the North Vietnamese
42:34seemed fully aware
42:35of American bombing runs,
42:37targets, timing,
42:39and payload.
42:39Before the planes
42:43were even airborne,
42:44the North Vietnamese
42:45were ready,
42:47thanks to John Walker.
42:49Walker was a new type
42:50of agent,
42:51completely uninterested
42:52in ideology,
42:53passionately interested
42:54in power and money.
42:57For 17 years,
42:58Walker evaded notice
42:59and suspicion.
43:02Finally,
43:03a KGB defector
43:04named him
43:04as a long-time Soviet mole.
43:06Walker was arrested
43:09and sentenced
43:10to life in prison.
43:14Under Brezhnev,
43:14the stagnation
43:15of Soviet society
43:16accelerated
43:17and KGB repressions
43:19escalated
43:19to levels unseen
43:21in previous years.
43:23The so-called establishment
43:24didn't blame itself.
43:26Instead,
43:26it laid the blame
43:27for a country's ills
43:28on the dissident movement.
43:31Soviet dissidents
43:32had been mounting
43:33a campaign
43:34to expose
43:35the corruption
43:36of the Soviet state
43:37and the cruelty
43:38of the KGB.
43:41The head of the KGB
43:42from 1967
43:44to 1981
43:45and shortly thereafter
43:48leader of the Soviet Union
43:50for two years,
43:51Andropov,
43:52was obsessed
43:54by what he called
43:55ideological subversion,
43:57ideological sabotage.
43:59And he believed
44:00that from the moment
44:01that a dissident
44:03like Andrei Sakharov,
44:05for example,
44:05was free to put his views,
44:08to call for the introduction
44:09of democratic values
44:10and the destruction
44:12of the one-party state,
44:13the whole system
44:14might begin to crumble.
44:17Nobel laureate physicist
44:18Andrei Sakharov
44:20was the father
44:20of the Russian hydrogen bomb.
44:22He became the most outspoken
44:29and fearless leader
44:30of the Soviet dissident movement.
44:34The Soviet authorities
44:36retaliated by sending him
44:38into indefinite exile
44:40in the town of Gorky.
44:42With the help of doctors,
44:44the KGB did everything possible
44:46to drive the scientist insane.
44:48They watched him 24 hours a day.
44:53But Sakharov was still lucky.
44:58Thousands of other
44:59lesser-known dissidents
45:01were forced to serve
45:02their terms
45:02in mental institutions
45:04and prisons.
45:04All the way through
45:11the Cold War,
45:13the KGB is obsessed
45:15with dealing
45:16with its ideological opponents.
45:18It's not simply
45:20an intelligence-gathering organization.
45:22In the last years
45:25of the great Soviet Empire,
45:27the ever-growing number
45:28of KGB defectors
45:29to the West
45:30marked the decline
45:31of the once-mighty
45:32communist state.
45:35More Secret Service officers
45:37fled to the West
45:38in the last 15 years
45:40of the Cold War
45:41than in all the previous years
45:43of the Soviet Union's existence.
45:46In 1974,
45:49British intelligence
45:50recruited
45:51a high-flyer
45:52in Soviet intelligence
45:54in the KGB,
45:55Olyuk Gordievsky.
45:57And by the time
45:58that he was discovered
46:00in 1985,
46:02he was actually
46:02the head of Soviet intelligence
46:04operations in Britain.
46:06He made one
46:07of the great escapes
46:08in the history
46:10of intelligence.
46:12He became
46:13the first
46:13and only KGB officer
46:16in the history
46:17of the Soviet Union
46:17to manage to escape
46:19from the Soviet Union
46:20while he was
46:21under surveillance.
46:25I worked for Great Britain
46:26in total for 11 years.
46:28From the very start,
46:29I knew I could be arrested
46:30and executed
46:31at any moment.
46:32Then the KGB caught me.
46:34I was taken from London
46:35to Moscow,
46:35and the KGB drugged
46:37and interrogated me.
46:38Even under drugs,
46:40Oleg Gordievsky revealed nothing.
46:42But he knew his time
46:43was running out.
46:44My apartment was completely bugged.
46:49KGB agents followed me
46:50in the street
46:51wherever I went.
46:52How did I feel?
46:53I was terribly scared.
46:56I felt like a rabbit
46:57followed by a pack of pythons.
46:59I knew they could kill me
47:00any day.
47:01It was a terrible feeling.
47:03There was a moment
47:05during the days
47:05of the Moscow
47:06International Youth Festival
47:07when they eased up
47:08their grip on me
47:09and I decided
47:11I must flee.
47:14One morning,
47:15Gordievsky donned
47:16his jogging outfit
47:17and left his Moscow apartment
47:19for his morning jog.
47:20first he followed
47:23his usual route.
47:25Then he simply disappeared.
47:29According to the plan
47:30of escape,
47:31Gordievsky was to get
47:32to Leningrad.
47:34He did so by frequently
47:36changing his mode
47:37of transport
47:38from car to train
47:39and back again
47:40to shake off
47:41any KGB tail.
47:50Near Leningrad,
47:52he climbed into a car
47:53sent especially
47:54for the rescue operation
47:56by British intelligence.
48:00A few hours later,
48:02Oleg Gordievsky
48:03successfully crossed
48:04the Finnish border
48:05in the trunk of the car.
48:14By the mid-80s,
48:15the game was winding
48:16to a close.
48:18In 1985,
48:19the new Soviet leader
48:20Mikhail Gorbachev
48:22declared a radical shift
48:23in Soviet policy.
48:27It was called
48:29Perestroika.
48:31The old guard,
48:33like the head
48:34of the KGB,
48:35Vladimir Khrushkov,
48:36felt that a catastrophe
48:37was brewing
48:38and that Gorbachev
48:40was doing nothing about it.
48:44They saw everything
48:45they had cherished
48:46and believed in
48:47disintegrating.
48:48They were convinced
48:49something had to be done.
48:50Vladimir Khrushkov
48:53was the head
48:54of the KGB
48:55and he came
48:56to the conclusion
48:57that Gorbachev
48:58had to go.
49:03At the end
49:04of August 1991,
49:05Khrushkov and his
49:06co-conspirators
49:08announced on Soviet
49:09television
49:09that Gorbachev
49:11was sick
49:11and declared
49:12and declared
49:12martial law
49:13to safeguard the country.
49:16I read several
49:18government reports
49:18on this,
49:20classified information.
49:22I got an impression
49:23that the KGB
49:23was,
49:24not surprisingly,
49:25at the center
49:26of the coup
49:27against Gorbachev.
49:30But Russia
49:32had gone too far
49:33down the road
49:34of reform.
49:35The people of Moscow
49:36rose in protest.
49:37After two days
49:39of a dramatic
49:39standoff,
49:40the coup leaders
49:41lost their nerve
49:42and retreated.
49:44They were arrested.
49:48The head of the KGB,
49:50Vladimir Khrushkov,
49:51was interrogated
49:52in Moscow.
49:54But Gorbachev's own
49:56poor performance
49:57during the coup
49:58cost him the support
49:59of the country.
50:00The new hero
50:01was Russian president
50:02Boris Yeltsin.
50:04Addressing a crowd
50:05of thousands
50:06gathered in front
50:07of KGB headquarters
50:08in downtown Moscow,
50:10Yeltsin promised
50:11Russians
50:12that the old KGB
50:13would be reformed.
50:16That promise
50:17is what spurred
50:17a cheering crowd
50:18to remove the symbol
50:20of the old
50:20communist regime.
50:23The monument
50:24to the founder
50:24of Soviet secret
50:25intelligence,
50:26Felix Sterzynski.
50:28By the end
50:30of 1991,
50:31the old KGB
50:32ceased to exist
50:34along with
50:34the Soviet Union
50:35itself.
50:37A long story
50:38full of sound
50:39and fury,
50:40of deceits
50:40and betrayals,
50:42of death
50:42and torture,
50:44and at times
50:44of great bravery,
50:46daring,
50:46and ingenuity
50:47had come to an end.
51:01of the country's
51:13over the country.