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June 2007

Practicing Psychiatry for Political Purposes. Folder 28. The Chekist Anthology.

According to Mitrokhin, psychiatry was used against people who promoted anti-socialist ideology. Mitrokhin provides the cases of Eugene Nikolaev and Vladimir Borisov who were forced to stay in psychiatric hospitals for their “incorrect political beliefs.” Nikolaev later wrote a book "The Betrayal of Hippocrates" where he described all of the methods used by doctors to change his views opposing the Soviet system.

Mitrokhin reports that in 1975 the KGB became aware of the negative stands of the West on dissidents’ psychiatric treatment in the Soviet Union. They stated that Soviet policies neglected human rights. In December of the same year, the KGB prepared a plan, a copy of which is provided by Mitrokhin in the note, to eliminate the anti-soviet campaign that discredited the practice of psychiatry for political purposes. The KGB’s goal was to create the illusion that psychiatry was only used for legitimate medical reasons. The KGB officials started intensively expanding relations between foreign and Soviet doctors, organized numerous conferences and symposiums, and created an exchange program for neurologists in order to reach their goal. “Professor,” a trusted agent of the KGB, was ordered to collect materials about the abuse of psychiatry in capitalistic countries.

June 2007

The KGB vs. Vatican City. Folder 29. The Chekist Anthology.

In this entry Mitrokhin describes the history of chilly diplomatic relations between the KGB and Vatican City from the 1960s through the mid 1980s.

June 2007

The Campaign against Soviet Economic Policy. Folder 31. The Chekist Anthology

Mitrokhin states that in 1978 the West attempted to gain influence over Soviet fiscal policy because the U.S.S.R. was in opposition to the Helsinki Accords. Soviet officials ensured the Soviet public that any attempts by the West to change the socialist system in the country would not affect domestic politics in any way. However, it would negatively affect the development of relations between the West and the East and would damage international economic and trade cooperation. According to Mitrokhin, the Soviet administration was especially concerned with Carter’s efforts to end any kind of collaboration with the Soviet Union. Mitrokhin provides a detailed plan prepared by Soviet officials to stop the anti-socialist campaign in the West that was led by the Carter administration.

June 2007

An Illegal Trainer (KGB history of agent "Halef"). Folder 60. The Chekist Anthology.

Describes training techniques used by the KGB in logistical preparation of their operatives for assignments abroad. This article focuses on the employment history of the KGB agent codenamed “Halef.” Between 1955 and 1967, Halef was stationed in Hong Kong and Tokyo. In 1967, due to his insignificant feedback and a weak performance as a field operative, Halef was transferred back as a trainer. As a trainer, Halef traveled extensively. While in the United States, the KGB developed a fictitious identity for Halef – a so-called legend-biography – in case his activity aroused suspicion and he were detained by authorities. In the United States, France and Mexico, Halef’s objectives included developing and testing means of communication with the KGB, which could be used to inform the KGB of an operative’s arrival to and departure from a country, request a meeting, or announce an emergency. In addition to assessing the existing signal language used among operatives, the KGB also instructed Halef to collect the data necessary to set up new surveillance locations in a number of countries. In 1977, Halef was performing assignments in Pakistan and Burma. In 1978, he and his wife were engaged in assignments throughout the USSR. From the USSR, they were relocated to the GDR and then to Bulgaria, where they boarded a cruise ship going from Varny to Suhumi to survey the ports of the Black Sea basin. Traveling through Odessa, Halef photographed military vessels and observed the procedures of the border patrol and customs officers.

June 2007

Coordination of Soviet and Czechoslovak Intelligence Operations. Folder 80. The Chekist Anthology.

This folder consists of a detailed operational plan for cooperation between the Czechoslovakian Ministry of Internal Affairs and the KGB for the years 1975-1978. Specific objectives include penetrating the military, political, and economic establishments of the United States, Britain, West Germany, France, and NATO, impeding the activities of the Czech Congress of National Development (KNR), collecting information on “Zionist intrigues,” gathering scientific/technical information on Western achievements in the fields of biological, chemical, and thermonuclear weapons, and using active measures to curtail the activities of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty in West Germany.

June 2007

National Alliance of Russian Solidarists. Folder 53. The Chekist Anthology

In this entry Vasili Mitrokhin expresses the KGB concerns regarding the National Alliance of Russian Solidarists’ (NTS) anti-socialist activities held in the Soviet Union and in the West. Mitrokhin states that the KGB had the task of taking control of NTS’ activities as well as destroing their reputation and connections with other anti-Soviet organizations. In order to paralyze the NTS, the KGB’s fundamental goal was to establish strong connections with the organization by sending undercover agents. Toward the end of 1963, the NTS became familiar with the presence of KGB agents among their members. KGB’s main goal was to create an illusion that the NTS was ruled by the KGB, which would help to make America and the West to distrust the organization. According to Mitrokhin, taking over the NTS’s publication “The Posev” was important as well. Mitrokhin provides a KGB plan to overturn the publication and he also attaches the list of all KGB agents who were involved in this undertaking, including their short biographies and codenames.

June 2007

The Cheka Emergence. Folder 96. The Chekist Anthology

In this entry Mitrokhin provides a history of the Cheka’s creation and its missions in Europe between 1918 and 1925.

June 2007

The Operational Situation as Reported in 1971, 1975, and 1981. Folder 35. The Chekist Anthology.

In folder 35 Mitrokhin discusses the KGB’s assertion of an increase in domestic dissent and unrest in the 1970s and early 1980s as well as the methods the KGB utilized to combat this threat. Soviet intelligence believed that this increase in domestic unrest was due primarily to an increased effort by the United States and its allies to promote internal instability within the USSR. In response, the KGB continued to screen foreigners, increased the harshness of penalties for distribution of anti-Soviet literature, and monitored the activities and temperament of nationalists, immigrants, church officials, and authors of unsigned literature within the Soviet Union. Mitrokhin’s note recounts the KGB’s assertion that foreign intelligence agencies were expanding their attempts to create domestic unrest within the USSR. These activities included the support and creation of dissidents within the Soviet Union, the facilitation of the theft Soviet property such as aircrafts, and the public espousal of a position against Soviet persecution of dissidents and Jews. Responding to public exposure of these activities, the KGB proclaimed its legality and trustworthiness while also beginning to assign some agents verbal assignments without written record.

June 2007

About the Middle East. Folder 81. The Chekist Anthology

Information on the situation in the Middle East prepared by KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov in April 1973, prior to a 7 May 1973 discussion in the Politburo.

Andropov stated that given the increase in anti-Israeli propaganda in Egypt and Syria, as well as the heightened state of readiness of their armies, it was possible that a coalition of Middle Eastern states could resume military operations against Israel before, or during the upcoming Nixon-Brezhnev summit.

To prevent this, the KGB initiated a series of active measures. Specifically, they dispatched KPSU Politburo Candidate Member K.G. Mazurov to speak with Egyptian President Sadat and Syrian President Assad on the USSR’s behalf; informed the United States government through unofficial channels that a resumption of hostilities in the Middle East was not in Moscow’s interests; delayed the delivery of new Soviet surface to surface missiles to Egypt; and dispatched a well known Soviet journalist specializing in Middle Eastern affairs to Cairo and Damascus to study the situation.

June 2007

The Case of Zinovyeva and Others, 1972. Folder 23. The Chekist Anthology

Mitrokhin describes KGB reports on slanderous and politically harmful material disseminated in Kaluga Oblast.

Pagination