Over the almost thousand-year history of Moscow, much has been said and written about our wonderful city.

Moscow is white stone.
Moscow is golden-domed.
Moscow tavern.
And even Moscow is gangster.

But there is also another Moscow - the capital of all kinds of secrets and secrets, spy bookmarks and hiding places, as well as safe houses. Moscow is the field of an invisible battle between Russian special services and intelligence services that never stops for a minute. different countries peace, and in Lately– and with cells of numerous terrorist organizations. This is another Moscow - spy Moscow.

SPY GUIDE

Many will think that spy Moscow is relatively young, dating back to somewhere in the 20th century, or at least the 19th century. However, this is not the case. By and large, we can begin our spy guide from time immemorial, when networks of intrigues and conspiracies were woven within the walls and towers of the still wooden and later white stone Kremlin. Princely feuds, affairs of the oprichnina, the struggle with the steppe, warlike northwestern and southern neighbors - the entire history of the Russian state is implicated in secret diplomacy, secret missions and delicate assignments.

However, in this case, our spy excursion could last more than one day, and its prospectus amounted to more than a dozen volumes. Therefore, within the framework of this article, we will limit ourselves only to those places in our city that are associated with the most high-profile spy revelations that took place in the not so distant past.

And we will begin our story, of course, with Lubyanka. After all, it was here, in the beautiful mansion of the Rossiya insurance company, that the famous Cheka moved in 1920 - the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage (since August 1918 - the Cheka for Combating Counter-Revolution, Profiteering and Crimes). positions). The fight against counter-revolution, operations against the intelligence services of the countries of the former Entente, the war against banditry, overseas work, the repressive hard times of the 30s, identification and liquidation of Nazi agents, organization partisan movement during the Great Patriotic War, identifying traitors and punitive forces, decades of the Cold War, reconnaissance in the countries of the main enemy, countering the aspirations of foreign intelligence services - the center of all these events was the complex of buildings on Lubyanka Square.

These walls remember an abyss of secrets. Much information will forever remain a secret. For example, the death of the terrorist Boris Savinkov, who jumped out of a fifth-floor window on May 7, 1925 and was allegedly buried right there, in the courtyard of the internal prison of building No. 2. But the death of Raoul Wallenberg became public.

BOX WITH FLOWERS AND REMOTE CONTROL

Go ahead. Here are the capital hotels “Beijing” and “Ukraine”. It was here in 1961–1962 that meetings between the liaison officer took place British intelligence Greville Wynne with a particularly valuable agent Young - an employee of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the USSR Ministry of Defense Oleg Penkovsky.

To the sound of water from the tap in the bathroom of the hotel room, microfilms with secret footage, data on Soviet strategic nuclear missiles, and various documents on military-technical topics were handed over to the foreigner. And the traitor received new reconnaissance missions, secret writing tools, money, photography and radio equipment, instructions on communication methods and souvenirs from foreign friends.

But for holding secret meetings between Penkovsky and Anna Chisholm, the wife of a career intelligence officer of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), who worked under the roof of the second secretary of the British embassy in Moscow, Arbat lanes were chosen. The scheme for conducting contacts was simply banal. The agent entered the entrance of a pre-arranged house, where, after a thorough check, the messenger also came. Having exchanged packets, they dispersed one at a time with an interval of 30–50 seconds. And on Tsvetnoy Boulevard, Young gave Anna Chisholm’s child a box of sweets, where, interspersed with the sweets, were cassettes with microfilms wrapped in bright candy wrappers. But the safest places for exchanging spy materials were considered to be diplomatic receptions at the British and American embassies, where Penkovsky could visit due to the nature of his activities.

The former Maxim Gorky embankment, now Kosmodamianskaya. Young lived here at number 36. To document his espionage activities, a cable was specially laid along the bottom of the Moscow River to one of the apartments in the building opposite (on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment), through which control was carried out... of a box for flower seedlings on the balcony on the floor above in the high-rise building where the spy lived. As soon as Penkovsky laid out on his windowsill secret documents To reshoot, a box was pulled out from the neighbor's balcony, and a camera mounted in it, at the command of the surveillance scouts, photographed all the actions of the spy.

In the center of Moscow, on Lubyanka (then Dzerzhinsky Square), Young’s career ended, and for CIA employees, contacts with the traitor Penkovsky ended in the entrance of house No. 5/6 on Pushkinskaya Street, where the Americans wanted to conduct a secret operation with their agent.

Today this entrance is unrecognizable - it is tightly closed. And half a century ago, it was here, between a dilapidated wall and a steam heating radiator, that security officers hung a matchbox on a wire hook - a bait for employees of the US embassy station. During the seizure of this cache, which, as the Americans believed, contained information of national importance, embassy employee Jacob was detained. On the same day, Greville Wynne was arrested and taken to the USSR by Hungarian counterintelligence.

SPY GENERAL

The spy life of American agent Dmitry Polyakov turned out to be longer. Having risen to major general military intelligence, he supplied the CIA with classified information for more than 20 years. During this time, the traitor handed over to the Americans almost two dozen Soviet illegal intelligence officers, more than one and a half hundred foreign agents and more than a thousand GRU and KGB officers. And among his “gifts” were strategic materials of a military-political nature concerning the prospects of a global nuclear war, information from military-technical intelligence, and much more that was of keen interest to foreign intelligence services. Some CIA experts considered Polyakov an even more important source of information than Penkovsky.

What tricks did the Americans resort to in order to preserve this source of extremely valuable information? For example, a portable pulse transmitter was created especially for him, which transmitted a significant amount of encrypted information to a receiving device at the American Embassy in less than three seconds.

The crowded Vanda store and the Central House of Tourist hotel in the southwest of Moscow are just two points on the map of the capital from where instant radio broadcasts were made. The spy arsenal also included hiding places in book covers; sheets of secretly written carbon paper, indistinguishable from ordinary paper, a fishing bag with a double bottom and many other tricks. All of them together provided the traitor with a long operational life. Long, but still not endless.

Although sometimes it seemed that the spy was simply mocking our counterintelligence. For example, the location for the hiding operation was chosen at the intersection of the Moscow streets Khavskaya and Lesteva, not far from one of the buildings High school KGB of the USSR. Here, next to house No. 12, a hiding place for American intelligence was laid in a telephone booth. After picking up the phone and dialing any number, the spy would quietly “glue” a magnetic container to the underside of the telephone table. A few minutes later, an American intelligence officer confiscated him in exactly the same way.

Polyakov was arrested at the end of 1986, and on March 15, 1988, he was shot by the verdict of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR for treason and espionage.

Time passed. They removed the bulky telephone booths, as if they were specially designed for secret operations, and replaced them with elegant square caps on stands. However, reconnaissance equipment did not stand still either.

TRAITOR-INITIATIVE

Many spy tricks are familiar to the high-rise building on Vosstaniya Square. The leading designer of the Phazotron Radioelectronics Research Institute, the American agent-initiator Adolf Tolkachev, lived here. For more than a year - from January 1977 to February 1978 - he hunted for the cars of the US Embassy and twice tried to plant notes offering cooperation. However, intelligence officers at the CIA embassy station ignored the intrusive espionage services, reasonably suspecting that the initiative was a setup by Soviet counterintelligence.

Ultimately, Tolkachev prepared several pages of material with information about the developments of his research institute related to the creation of on-board radar stations for military aircraft, which indicated some specifications these radars, and also stipulated the method of communication with it.

The Americans could no longer refuse such an offer. And a few days later in Tolkachev’s house there was a sound phone call- an unfamiliar voice with a slight accent told him the address of the hiding place: Trekhgorny Lane, on Krasnaya Presnya, a shoe store, a telephone booth... and a dirty mitten lying behind it.

Having established covert counter-surveillance, CIA officers recorded how a middle-aged man approached the appointed place and, looking around, raised his mitten.

Already at home, Tolkachev became familiar with the contents of the cache: a questionnaire on topics of interest to American intelligence, code tables, two postal envelopes with recipient addresses and letters to English with a conventional text, sheets of sympathetic carbon paper and instructions for preparing a secret written text, its encryption and methods of communication. The spy-initiator was especially pleased with the money - half a thousand rubles, which was almost three months' salary for a research institute employee who decided to betray his homeland.

After just a few meetings, the CIA equipped its sponsored radio tape recorder with an encoder built into the body. Having loaded it with secret information about advanced Soviet military technologies, Adolf Tolkachev drove a bus to the American embassy and, standing at the bus stop, within a second “shot” a huge amount of information from the radio tape recorder onto the embassy receiving antenna.

“Your information is priceless,” the Americans encouraged their agent. “Her loss will set the Soviet Union back many years.” And during 19 personal meetings and with the help of secret operations, photocopies of materials about fifty modern developments of electronic equipment created for the needs of Soviet military aviation were transferred to the CIA.

The operational scheme for organizing and conducting secret meetings was also simple and trouble-free. The window of a traitor’s apartment, covered with a curtain or with an open window, meant that the cache was hidden. Driving through the square in a car, an American intelligence officer “filmed” this prearranged signal and, after hanging around Moscow for several hours, went to excavate the cache. And there were also calls to the traitor’s home phone with conventional phrases that meant the next meeting, and the same answer, incomprehensible to an outside listener - consent to attend or an offer to reschedule it for another time.

The CIA did not skimp on spy fees either - the salary of the Soviet traitor was equivalent to the then salary of the President of the United States. The agent received part of the money in rubles, but the main funds were deposited in Tolkachev’s personal foreign currency account, opened in one of the US banks. During the secret cooperation, as many as two million such “fees” accumulated. There were also antique jewelry, expensive medicines, various spy equipment and even... audio cassettes with rock music - the scarcest thing in the country at that time.

Domestic intelligence services are still keeping secret information about how the valuable American agent was exposed. Either he was betrayed by one of the secret sources working in the CIA for Soviet intelligence, or Tolkachev’s exposure was the result of a set of counterintelligence measures implemented by the KGB. But the fact remains: the initiative spy was detained while returning to Moscow from his summer cottage.

During a search of Tolkachev’s apartment, they found several cameras, including some disguised as key rings, a cryptography kit, a transmitter with a built-in spy headset, money, gold, antique jewelry and an ampoule with a large dose of potassium cyanide embedded in a fountain pen. The traitor did not have time to use this poison.

And a few days later, on June 13, 1985, an employee of the CIA station in Moscow, Paul Stombauch, working under the guise of being the second secretary of the US Embassy, ​​went on another espionage campaign. Starting from lunch, I meandered for a long time in the car along the Moscow streets, identifying possible surveillance, then a long trip on the subway, and then a forced march to the southwest to the treasured point on the map of Moscow, located near the intersection of Kastanaevskaya and Pivchenkova streets. Here, at about eight o'clock in the evening, he was caught red-handed by employees of the State Security Committee. During the arrest, the American was confiscated from secret instructions for Tolkachev, prepared on small sheets of instant paper, operational photographic equipment, as well as a diagram of the area where the espionage operation was carried out and a large sum of Soviet money.

Having documented the criminal activities of the “second secretary,” Stombaukh was released as a diplomat, declared persona non grata and expelled from Soviet Union. But the traitor Adolf Tolkachev was shot on September 24, 1986 - according to the verdict of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR.

I HAD TO STAY AWAY

However, spy stories of a different kind also happened in Moscow. One of them was told to me by Major General of the state security agencies Alexander Mikhailov. The next Tsar "diplomat" who arrived in Moscow got into the habit of regularly escaping our outdoor surveillance (External Surveillance Service) on his "gelding", using the arch of house No. 30 in Skatertny Lane to break away. The place there was open, there were few cars, so the security officers had nowhere to hide. The diplomat dives into the arch and disappears. It was simply impossible for the operatives to pursue him without the risk of decryption.

In the end, the Soviet counterintelligence officers got tired of all this and decided to restore order on their land. To begin with, they hung a “brick” at the entrance to the arch. But the foreigner did not understand the fatherly warning and, as if nothing had happened, continued to drive under the prohibitory sign. He probably hoped for his diplomatic passport.

If this is the case, our counterintelligence had to move on to the next stage of the operation. At the exit from the arch, they dug the road exactly in the middle, and so that local motorists would not disrupt the operational plan, they also concreted a low but powerful pillar.

One evening, the diplomat-spy left for another meeting with a secret agent and again decided to use his favorite technique to break away from the outside. Having wandered around the city, he again headed towards Skatertny Lane and turned into a familiar arch. I also added gas. How the American intelligence officer remained alive after a cordial meeting with the security post - only God knows. The hood of his Mercedes literally hugged, and very tightly, the ill-fated obstacle.

Carefully, with all caution, they scraped the unlucky spy from the driver's seat into the trash of a mangled car, and put him in an ambulance, which “accidentally ended up nearby in the bushes.” Soon, one of the best teams of Moscow surgeons restored the poor fellow. But his “gelding” was not subject to resuscitation.

Since then, the American has become a very disciplined driver, even paying a fine for driving through a prohibitory sign. And he didn’t cause any more trouble for our outdoors.

Another spy attraction in Moscow is the Krasnoluzhsky Bridge. It was here that American intelligence chose a place for a secret operation. The recipient this time was the second secretary of the Foreign Ministry Planning Directorate, Alexander Ogorodnik, who was recruited by the American Knights of Cloak and Dagger in early 1974 during his business trip to Colombia. One of Ogorodnik’s recruiters was the Spaniard Pilar Suarez Barcala. Constantly meeting with the young diplomat, she thoroughly studied the strengths and weaknesses of the young embassy employee. After the agent returned to Moscow, the Frankfurt intelligence center opened a new communication line on the air especially for Ogorodnik. And in Victory Park and other secluded places in our capital, the spy regularly picked up either cobblestones or pine sticks, which were actually specially made containers in which instructions from intelligence centers, spy equipment, poisons and money were stored.

Moreover, in case the spy package unexpectedly fell into the wrong hands, American intelligence officers left notes like this in it: “Comrade! You accidentally penetrated someone else's secret, picking up someone else's package and things that were not intended for you. Keep the money and gold with you, but do not touch other things in the bag so that you don’t find out too much and endanger your life and the lives of your loved ones. Take the things that are valuable to you, and throw the rest of the contents and the package into the river and forget about everything... otherwise you will expose yourself and your loved ones to big troubles. You have been warned!!! ››

But the skill of our counterintelligence agents turned out to be higher than the caution of the American intelligence services. The spy was detained on June 22, 1977 at his apartment in house No. 2/1 on Krasnopresnenskaya embankment and immediately admitted collaborating with the CIA. Already at two o'clock in the morning, having written the first sentence of the letter of repentance, Ogorodnik suddenly clenched his fountain pen between his teeth. Profuse foam came out of his mouth. He fell from his chair and lost consciousness. Two hours later, without regaining consciousness, the spy died at the Sklifosovsky Institute. “The dying clinic does not fit into the clinical picture of poisoning by any of the known poisonous and toxic substances,” was the doctors’ conclusion at the time. Upon careful examination of the pen, a small hole was found in it, in which the poison was placed.

Meanwhile, the Americans, not knowing about the arrest of their confidant, were carefully preparing for a new secret operation for Ogorodnik. Late in the evening of July 15, 1977, CIA officer Martha Peterson walked to the Krasnoluzhsky Bridge. Approaching the granite support of the bridge, she checked again, opened her purse and with her left hand took out a container - a piece of coal - to put it in the “loophoal” - a small rectangular opening in the bridge support. But before she had time, the capture began. However, one can only envy the courage of this lady. Realizing that she had failed, she fought professionally, toughly and prudently. Even her hysterical screams - a mixture of English and Russian obscenities - and sudden movements of her head, as it turned out, had their own meaning. By shouting, she wanted to warn the agent about her failure, who, by prior agreement, was already supposed to approach the bridge to dig out the cache, and shaking her head, she tried to shake out of her ear the clip with which she listened to the air on the frequencies of our transmitters (however, the employees of the capture group turned out to be more cunning - the air was empty). And if the heart-rending screams were of no use, since Agent Ogorodnik had been exposed and had been dead for three weeks, then the clip fell out in the evening twilight, unnoticed by anyone, and for a long time our counterintelligence officers could not understand how the portable electronic device discovered on it operated broadcast control.

Half an hour later, in the reception room of the USSR KGB on Kuznetsky Most, building No. 22, in the presence of the Consul of the United States Embassy Gross, a container was opened - that same piece of coal. It turned out to be an ordinary spy kit. The next day, Martha Peterson was declared persona non grata and flew to Vienna.

A few years later, the entire span of the Krasnoluzhsky Bridge migrated towards the Kievsky Station and became pedestrian, but the supports with “loopholes”, one of which contained a spy container, remained in the same place.

Domestic viewers, in a slightly modified version, can regularly watch these events on their television screens during the demonstration of the TV series “TASS is Authorized to Declare,” where Agent Trianon operates—that’s what the American owners called the traitor diplomat Alexander Ogorodnik.

MYSTERIOUS STONE

Another point on the map of Moscow where yet another American intelligence operation failed was a power line support in a vacant lot not far from Serebryakov Passage, near the Severyanin platform. It was there that career CIA officer Paul Zalaki placed a container disguised as an ordinary cobblestone for his confidant. However, to his misfortune, the cache was tracked by the KGB External Surveillance Service, after which they became interested in its contents, which were an ordinary spy kit: instructions for an agent and a very large sum of money for those times - 25 thousand rubles. (in those years you could buy as many as four cars with this money).

It was decided to establish covert surveillance of the hiding place.

A day passes, two, three, a week... No one comes for the container. The security officers already began to think that the Americans had identified a secret post and warned their secret agent about the danger.

Another week passed, and suddenly on Saturday a man appeared at a power pole. Soon the pre-installed alarm went off, indicating that the “stone” had been taken from its place. Jumping out of cover, the capture group grabbed the stranger, but... there was no cobblestone with him. Even greater amazement befell the outdoor surveillance officers after it turned out that in front of them was... intelligence officer of the First Main Directorate of the KGB of the USSR Leonid Poleshchuk.

He explained his appearance at the support by saying that he was looking for some kind of stone to put under the wheel of his car. However, he did not have to lock himself in for long. During a search of the suspect's car, instructions and a diagram of the location of the cache were found, compiled according to a directory published in the USA (the street where the cache was left turned out to be marked with the old name, and the point where the stone was laid was marked with a cross).

But why then did Poleshchuk have neither stone nor money?

The traitor answered this question already during interrogation at Lubyanka. It turns out that he acted according to CIA instructions: he picked up a stone (at that moment the alarm went off), but after a few seconds he threw it near the place where he picked it up and walked away. This had to be done so that in case of capture he would not be caught red-handed, that is, with a spy container in his hands.

And so it happened. And if not for the instructions and scheme, very unprofessionally worked out by the Americans, it would have been quite problematic to prove the involvement of the Soviet intelligence officer in the CIA secret agency. This example once again proved that there are no trifles in the work of intelligence services.

Already during the investigation, the werewolf intelligence officer admitted his guilt and said that he was recruited by CIA officers in the early 1970s during his long-term intelligence mission in Nepal and for some time provided the Americans with secret information about the composition and activities of the Soviet intelligence station in this country. After returning to Moscow, contact with him was temporarily suspended and resumed only in 1984, when he went on another business trip to Nigeria. He was supposed to seize the cache with the fee for betrayal during his visit to Moscow on his next vacation. In the summer of 1986, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced Leonid Poleshchuk to capital punishment - execution.

Today we have only slightly lifted the veil of secrecy covering the uncompromising struggle waged by our intelligence services with various foreign intelligence services and their spies. And Moscow's spy stories don't end there. Moreover, they continue even now, when you hold this number in your hands. However, we will be able to talk about this in detail only...eleven years later. And even later. If we can do it at all: the world of intelligence and counterintelligence loves silence and does not welcome openness. Well, perhaps for the good of the cause - as part of the next operation to capture a diplomat-spy or a deeply buried “mole”.

Alexander VITKOVSKY

Not without a hint from the US CIA, it publishes the so-called circumstances of Ogorodnik’s recruitment by American intelligence services.

Looking ahead a little, it should be noted that the CIA’s desire to cover up its valuable agent, who played a significant role in studying Ogorodnik and implementing a recruiting approach towards him, is quite understandable. But why lie so shamelessly and primitively? Moreover, not excluding the fact that P. Early’s book will be read not only in the USA, but also in Russia.

Even without a sufficient sense of humor, it is difficult not to laugh when reading these “revelations”, which, so that everyone can see for themselves what they are, I quote verbatim:

"- I am pregnant! - came the voice of a woman screaming in Spanish from the magnetic tape.

“I’ll take care of you, don’t worry,” the man answered her in bad Spanish with a strong Russian accent.

Such conversations are not usually of interest to officers of the Colombian intelligence agency, known by its acronym DASS, but when this short telephone conversation was recorded, they decided to investigate. The woman called from Madrid and spoke with someone from the staff of the Soviet embassy in Bogota. He said that he could not talk freely on the phone at the embassy and suggested that she call him at the pay phone number closest to the embassy.

Later, DASS agents saw Alexander Dmitrievich Ogorodnik carefully approach the machine from which calls were being made. The conversation confirmed their assumption. The gardener was in an intimate relationship with Pilar Sanchez (not her real name. - Note Pete Earley) Colombian, visiting relatives in Spain. Shortly after Sanchez returned home, two DASS agents demanded that she introduce them to Ogorodnik. If she and the Russian refuse to cooperate, information about their relationship will be disclosed, Sanchez will be humiliated, and Ogorodnik will be recalled to Moscow. Sanchez agreed to cooperate, but Ogorodnik balked. He said he would only deal with the CIA. Two weeks later, Ogorodnik and a CIA case officer met in a bar in downtown Bogota.

The Russian agreed to spy for the department. In response, the CIA promised to pay Sanchez's maternity expenses, place her in Spain with her newborn, and provide enough money to open a child care center. (Pilar and her daughter still run the center. - Note Pete Earley)".

This opus does not stand up to criticism. First of all, it’s hard to imagine a woman the age of Pilar Suarez, Barcala (that’s Sanchez’s real name. - I.P.), for whom Ogorodnik was perhaps only the first Russian man, who had enough life experience to throw a real hysteria about pregnancy and take such a rash step - to call her lover at the Soviet embassy, ​​almost certainly knowing that this could become public knowledge and interest Soviet intelligence services. Secondly, Pilar was not Colombian, but Spanish, and the daughter of wealthy parents living in Spain, so she, counting on their support, might not have panicked in this situation. Thirdly, are the actions of Pilar, who is actually an intelligent and educated woman, logical, to endanger the person she loved, from whom she expected help? According to eyewitnesses - after all, many employees of the Soviet embassy and their wives knew her quite well - this is not at all similar to Pilar Suarez Barkala.

“This point of view quickly changed when the Information and Analytical Directorate read what the agent conveyed. The Soviet embassy in Bogota was hardly a diplomatic hotspot, but the ambassador was constantly exposed to a stream of cables from Moscow that explained the Kremlin's positions on Latin America and issues being discussed at the United Nations.

The material was explosive... Seven months after being recruited, the agent announced that he was being recalled to Moscow to work in the General Administration international problems Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This was one of the most important and well-guarded units of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Each Soviet ambassador was required to submit an annual report to the ministry analyzing the situation in the host country, assessing what the embassy was doing to achieve the goals of communism. Through Ogorodnik, the CIA could see the world exactly as the Soviet leadership saw it.

The gardener was given special code pads with an individual code. Only a person with an identical notepad could decipher the message. The CIA also provided him with a T-100 spy camera, disguised as an ordinary tube of lipstick, but capable of taking 100 pictures... The gardener was given the pseudonym Trigon... Very soon he had to solve an unexpected problem... Trigon asked to give him a pill with deadly poison, to swallow if he was captured in Moscow... The CIA was involved in the manufacture of "L" (lethal) pills... On rare occasions during World War II, they were issued to officers who were sent behind the front lines... Trigon stubbornly insisted on his own, so the technical division of the CIA hid the pill in a lighter and sent it to the agent. A few months later, Trigon made it known that he needed another pill of the same kind because he had lost his lighter. The department sent him another one, hidden in an expensive fountain pen.

In Moscow, Trigon began photographing hundreds of Soviet diplomatic cables, including secret dispatches written by the Soviet ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Dobrynin, and Oleg Troyanovsky, the Soviet representative to the United Nations in New York. Trigon's material was so important that the CIA instituted a separate distribution system for it. The diplomatic messages that Trigon photographed were translated and printed verbatim on blue-bordered pages. They became known as "blueband reports" and were delivered by courier to The White house, State Department and National Security Council. Henry Kissinger was known to have studied them closely."

Analyzing this excerpt from Pete Earley’s book, it should be said that Ogorodnik’s grandfather was actually listed in CIA materials as Trianon (“thrice unknown”), and not Trigon, as the author claims. We will, of course, forgive the author for the inaccuracy in the name of the Directorate for Planning Foreign Policy Activities of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in which the American agent Trianon actually worked.

The CIA officers in this particular case were not so naive as to provide their agent with attributes that could put him on the brink of failure even when crossing the border upon returning to his homeland, although some of them were appropriately disguised. In addition, they took into account such an important psychological factor as the calmness of the newly recruited agent. Trianon received everything he needed for subsequent work, except for the Panasonic radio receiver transferred in New York, in Moscow after getting a job at the Foreign Ministry while conducting covert operations with CIA station officers at the American Embassy.

At the same time, after receiving important and secret documentary information from him, the issue of significantly increasing his material remuneration not only in US dollars, but also in Soviet rubles was decided.

A passport was also issued to him in the name of a US citizen in case there was a threat of failure and he needed to urgently leave the country, accompanied by Americans, across the Soviet-Finnish border near the city of Vyborg.

P. Earley’s assertion that the T-100 camera was disguised as a tube of lipstick also raises doubts. The question arises: why would a man carry a tube with a purely feminine accessory - lipstick - in his pocket, especially since it could attract the attention of his wife. Another thing is that in some cases Trianon used lipstick to set signals, but at the same time it was not at all necessary for him to constantly keep it with him. Such a tube was found in his apartment during his arrest. It retains traces of misuse in the form of small particles of sand and cement.

Spy stories Tereshchenko Anatoly Stepanovich

"Trianon" turned out to be "Agronomist"

The end of the seventies for the USSR state security agencies was marked by the exposure of several major US CIA agents. One of them was Alexander Ogorodnik, a Soviet diplomat and American intelligence agent under the nickname “Trianon”. In the early 70s - second secretary of the USSR Embassy in Colombia. In the capital of this country, Bogota, he was compromised in a CIA “honey trap” under the threat of publishing piquant photographic materials and recruited under the pseudonym “Trianon”.

The setup for the Soviet Don Juan was an employee of the Colombian University, Pilar Suarez, also an unofficial source of the CIA. Although their sexual contacts were short-lived, she told Alexander that she was expecting a child from him. A few days later, the Yankees showed him bed photographs with Pilar. Pressed against the wall with shameful compromising evidence for Soviet man, and even more so a diplomat, he agreed to cooperate.

The KGB received primary data on Ogorodnik during his stay in Bogota from the former illegal intelligence officer of Czechoslovakia and the USSR “Rino”, who later became a CIA employee, Karel Koecher. Thus, information was obtained that American intelligence had recruited a Soviet diplomat in Bogota. His rank was not reported. By means of exclusion, a dozen diplomatic workers were found to be beyond the scope of suspicion; the main suspicion fell on Ogorodnik.

By the way, in 1976, Koecher secretly visited Prague, where he met with KGB General Oleg Kalugin, who asked his opinion about Ogorodnik. There is a suspicion that Kalugin “surrendered” “Rino” to the Americans in the mid-80s. In December 1984, Karel Koecher was arrested by the FBI on charges of spying for the USSR. He and his wife Gana spent 14 months in prison. On February 11, 1986, he was released, deprived of American citizenship and exchanged in Berlin on the Glienicke Bridge for the Soviet dissident Anatoly Shcheransky. After which he returned to Prague and worked as a researcher at the Institute of Forecasting of the Academy of Sciences of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, retiring in 1990.

What about Ogorodnik?

In 1974, he returned to Moscow and was assigned to the Americas Department of the Foreign Policy Planning Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For several years, he actively worked off the “pieces of silver” allocated to him by the US CIA station, working from legal positions in Moscow.

One of Ogorodnik’s fiancées, Olga S., began to suspect him of involvement in espionage. He “calmed down” the lady of his heart, first stated that he was a special agent of the State Security Service and was carrying out an important task, and then poisoned her with the poison allocated to him for self-destruction in case of exposure.

He did not stay single for long, but soon he had a new passion in the person of the daughter of one of the high party officials - Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Konstantin Rusakov.

Counterintelligence received verified data from several scenes of “cache operations” involving Ogorodnik and employees of the US Embassy in Victory Park, as well as unexplained contacts with members of the American delegation during his stay in Nakhodka in 1976 at a symposium on problems of cooperation between the countries of the Pacific Rim.

After returning to the Union, he was checked first by signal, then by operational verification, and with the receipt of serious materials, the case grew into a development called “Agronomist”. This is how the developed Ogorodnik was dubbed, probably because of the professional similarity with the surname.

Ogorodnik’s frequent visits to Victory Park did not go unnoticed by the security officers. This is how one of his trips went. He left his Volga in a prominent location on the traditional travel route for American diplomats. All these actions of the person being developed resembled a signal, but what exactly “Agronom” was signaling about was not yet given to the counterintelligence officers to know. And yet, his visit to the park influenced the activity of American diplomats in Moscow. These enemy actions were clearly recorded by the operatives and further strengthened the confidence that they were on the right track.

Usually “Agronomist” came to Victory Park in the evening and walked for a long time along the paths and paths along which American diplomats used to pass. He behaved suspiciously, often checked himself, trying to identify the “tail” behind him.

After operational sound and visual control technology was installed in his apartment, it became clear that Ogorodnik was afraid of something. Returning from the trip, he immediately began checking the order of objects in his room. Then he went to the shelf, took out two books, which contained several sheets of paper and envelopes, and carefully examined them. Then he took the flashlight, unscrewed the back cover and carried out several manipulations of one of the batteries over blank slate paper. This intrigued the security officers.

On his next business trip, operatives again entered his apartment and found in a cache on film the Russian text of CIA instructional letters, a communication plan with the Trianon agent, a schedule of undercover transmissions, diagrams of hiding places and signal installations.

We also found excerpts from messages to agent Trianon:

“Thank you for your package in May. Yours summary document “A” was very valuable and was immediately shown at the highest level of our government..."

“...Your work continues to be extremely important in our understanding of Soviet policy and shaping our approaches. Thank you for the excellent selection of materials, especially materials about China and the USA...”

“At personal risk, you have done a lot for us and in favor of our common cause... We inform you that the highest authorities were touched by your support for their position and expressed sincere gratitude to you...”

“...This package contains 2,000 rubles, 1,000 for June and July...remuneration from January to June 1977, 10,000 per month - 60,000 US dollars. The grand total is $319,928.91.”

This was direct evidence that “Agronomist” was working for American intelligence. Executive Secretary from the Far Eastern Branch of the Academy of Sciences, Viktor Fersht, recalled:

“We met Ogorodnik in Nakhodka, where he came through the Committee of Youth Organizations to participate in annual seminars for young researchers from countries Pacific Ocean. Vladivostok was then a city closed to foreigners, and Nakhodka, located three hours away, became a convenient base for the indoctrination of young scientists from different Asian countries...

The gardener came to Nakhodka, as he said, to relax, drink champagne and have fun with pretty Far Eastern girls. Yes, he loved women very much, preferred to drink only champagne, loved to talk about any topic, while boasting about his successes and services to the country...

Ogorodnik really did not like Gennady Yanaev, who was then the Chairman of the Committee of Youth Organizations of the Komsomol Central Committee, and then became vice-president of the USSR and headed the State Emergency Committee. Once again they collided in Nakhodka. After the banquet on the occasion of the opening of the seminar, Ogorodnik and I and other participants went to his room to drink champagne. At two o'clock in the morning some drunken voices were heard from the street. The gardener looked out the window and immediately, under some pretext, disappeared from the room. I also went to the window. An absolutely drunk Yanaev stood near the porch of the hotel and tried to explain something to two teenagers I didn’t know, apparently from the locals. Finally, Ogorodnik appeared and, without any preamble, hit Yanaev hard in the eye. He fell, the teenagers ran away in horror, Ogorodnik immediately disappeared into the hotel.

In the morning, Yanaev, who did not remember anything, scolded the police and the entire leadership of the seminar for poor organization of their own security. There was a fresh bruise under his eye. At that time, the gardener smiled sarcastically and spoke angry speeches about rampant hooliganism on the streets of Nakhodka.

Alexander Ogorodnik became an American spy due to his emotional predisposition to risk and adventure. He did not want and did not know how to force his consciousness to work, preferring to satisfy his emotions. He could never work in intelligence..."

But as it turned out, Viktor Fersht was wrong. The gardener, working for American intelligence as a spy against his homeland, has proven himself according to the assessment of the same experts covert operations extremely positive.

After a second secret search was carried out in Ogorodnik’s apartment, during which the previously discovered evidence and materials were in place - instructions, containers with photographic films, cover letters, secret writing tools and a radio receiver convenient for receiving one-way radio transmissions from the Center to the agent. Taking into account the fact that the agent could cause additional harm to the security of the country, the leadership of the USSR KGB decided to immediately detain the traitor. The plan to suppress the espionage activities of Trianon provided for his arrest after work at his place of residence. The capture group, without weapons, secretly moved to the spy's place of residence.

On June 22, 1977, Ogorodnik was quietly detained at the entrance to his own apartment in house No. 2/1 on Krasnopresnenskaya embankment. They just announced to him that he was arrested on charges of treason in the form of espionage for the United States.

The spy was so stunned that in a matter of moments the pallor on his face gave way to crimson. Cold sweat treacherously washed over the forehead, temples, neck, and then treacherously cooled the scruff of the neck.

"This is all. The end of everything I had planned. But there were still so many years to live for pleasure. Where and how did I screw up?..."

His thoughts were interrupted by the tenacious hands of hefty operatives.

He was taken to the apartment along with witnesses, where a search was carried out. We found all the spy equipment. Since the evidence was irrefutable, Ogorodnik did not deny his guilt.

In addition, he indicated the location of the cache in the garage, which contained a container with an attached note in Russian:

"Attention!

Comrade! You accidentally penetrated someone else's secret, picking up someone else's package and things that were not intended for you. Keep the money and gold with you, but do not touch other things in the bag so that you don’t find out too much and endanger your life and the lives of your loved ones. Take the things that are valuable to you, and throw the rest of the contents and the package into the river, into any deep place, and forget about everything. Don't tell anyone about your find, otherwise you will only expose yourself and your loved ones to more trouble.

You have been warned!!!"

Then Ogorodnik wished to write a testimony in his own hand about his espionage activities. He slowly sat down at the desk, took the paper and the pen lying next to him.

During the initial interrogation, he felt “sick.” An ambulance was called, but they could not save him. According to some official data, he poisoned himself by using a capsule with the strongest poison curare, hidden in the button for extending the refill of a fountain pen.

In this regard, an interesting entry was discovered made by “Agronomist” in his diary on April 13, 1977:

“...I have the character of a fighter, strong will, honesty, devotion to the ideals of freedom, courage. Finally, extraordinary professional training and a life rare in its richness in the most difficult events... I have never worried as much as I did yesterday, since now I am a person who long ago decided for myself that I would not die decrepit in bed... I suddenly began to be more afraid, what is necessary, dangers..."

According to other estimates of some “KGB veterans”: the living “Trianon” could easily compromise not only the secretary of the party Central Committee K. Rusakov, his failed father-in-law, but also member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee A. Gromyko, head of the USSR Foreign Ministry. And the Czech-Soviet illegal intelligence officer infiltrated into the CIA, Karel Koecher, was of the same opinion.

Here are his words:

“Ogorodnik did not commit suicide. It was murder. Ogordnik had a weak heart. I have doctors’ certificates and a medical examination after the autopsy of Ogorodnik’s body. During his arrest, Ogorodnik became ill and suffered a heart attack. Kalugin’s people told the arriving doctors that Ogorodnik allegedly drank poison. Therefore, the doctors did whatever they wanted with him, but did not deal with the main thing - his heart. There was no poison, there was no suicide, none of this happened..."

So, in the case of Ogorodnik’s death there is still a lot of uncertainty. One of the participants in the operation to develop a CIA agent

Ogorodnik Major General V.K. Boyarov recalled:

“He (Ogorodnik.- Auth. ) was overly ambitious. Poseur. Very greedy and petty - many friends noted this. But, at the same time, women liked him - he had a naval bearing, interesting appearance, youth - he was about 30. It is not surprising that he managed to start a relationship with no less than ... with the daughter of the Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Konstantin Viktorovich Rusakov - Olga Konstantinovna Rusakova ...

Can you imagine what would happen if a CIA agent became the secretary's son-in-law and head of the Central Committee department? And events there developed rapidly. By the time he was exposed, Ogorodnik had already made an offer and seemed to have received consent. The Americans grabbed this unprecedented opportunity with all their hands and feet. In the radiograms that we were able to decipher, they regularly inquired about a possible spouse and emphasized in every possible way the importance of this moment.”

The fact that American intelligence was not aware of the death of its agent allowed the KGB counterintelligence to carry out Operation Setun in the middle of the night on July 15, during which Marta, an employee of the US Embassy in Moscow, was detained on the Krasnoluzhsky Bridge while laying a cache now for the deceased Trianon Peterson.

When she was captured, random people could hear screeching and screaming, so she most likely wanted to warn her spy companion. Martha could assume that the Trianon came for the recess and was somewhere nearby. She calmed down somewhat only in the car with the operatives, rapidly rushing through night Moscow towards Lubyanka. In the Reception Room of the KGB of the USSR, she began to play again - she fainted, but the doctor quickly brought her out of her stupor. Soon, the American consul in Moscow, Gross, specially invited through the USSR Foreign Ministry, arrived.

Mr. Gross, do you confirm Ms. Martha Peterson's involvement in diplomatic work at the US Embassy in Moscow, asked the senior operations chief.

“Yes,” the consul agreed sadly. - She is a diplomatic worker.

Then how to explain this? - The security officer pointed to the spy attachment lying on the table.

After which, the captured container was opened in the presence of Gross. It contained microfiche with instructions, miniature cameras for retaking documents, sheets of secret writing paper, money, gold jewelry and a small pencil case with a new portion of poison.

After signing the detention protocol, the consul took the intelligence officer who had failed the intelligence operation to the embassy in order to send her to the United States a day later at the request of the Soviet authorities, who declared her persona non grata.

A protest was declared to the US Embassy, ​​and the captured spy equipment served as a visual aid for operatives in improving their fight against enemy intelligence.

Smyslov Oleg Sergeevich

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