Guardian, 31 Aug 2010: The Russian links of Liberal Democrat MP Mike Hancock are under the spotlight after questions were raised about the extent to which he has in effect acted as a lobbyist for the Kremlin in the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe.
Colleagues from the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly said they were so concerned about the MP’s pro-Russian views that they warned then Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy that the party might be plunged into scandal, although Hancock says that Kennedy dismissed the concerns.
Hancock, the MP for Portsmouth South, is the chairman of parliament’s all-party group on Russia. At the weekend the Sunday Times reported that officials at MI5 were investigating his Russian parliamentary assistant Katia Zatuliveter over her alleged links with Russian intelligence.
Zatuliveter, 25, was questioned three weeks ago at Gatwick having celebrated her birthday in Croatia, the paper suggested. Officials allegedly grilled her about her connections to Russia’s security service and appeared to know details of her love life, suggesting she was under surveillance, it reported. A spokesperson for the Home Office would not confirm or deny an official inquiry into Zatuliveter.
Mágyás Eörsi, the former chairman of the parliamentary assembly’s liberal group to which Nick Clegg’s Lib Dems belong, said he and his colleagues were frequently “stunned” by the pro-Kremlin stance taken by Hancock during parliamentary assembly debates and amendments.
“I wasn’t surprised by this story at all. I don’t say that Michael is a spy,” Eörsi said. “But I’m very sure that the Russians use Michael quite deliberately. He is the most pro-Russian MP from among all of the countries of western Europe. You just have to read his speeches.
“When it came to debates on Putin, freedom of the media or the war with Georgia, Michael always defended Russia. Among the liberal bloc in Strasbourg we were all stunned by his position. According to him, Russia really is a fully fledged democracy.” . . . .
A Cold-War Spy Story (Wall Street Journal, 5 July 2010) now available
. . . . Paul Browne thinks he has a pretty good idea. Long before he had ascended to his position as a deputy New York City police commissioner, Mr. Browne had firsthand experience being recruited by a Russian agent—a Soviet spy betting a relationship with a small-town newspaper reporter would one day bear fruit. . . . .
Gothamist, 6 July 2010: . . . . we’re not sure if they noticed this Wall Street Journal article about NYPD Deputy Commissioner and spokesman Paul Browne—he says a Russian spy tried to recruit him in the 1970s! In 1973, Browne was taking a journalism course taught at the United Nations (he was getting his master’s at Columbia during his leave from the Watertown Daily Times) when “he met and became friendly with Alex Yakovlev, a 32-year-old who broadcast U.N. news to Eastern Europe.” From the WSJ:
Mr. Yakovlev started wooing Mr. Browne over drinks and dinner. At one point, he offered Mr. Browne $30 to write a freelance article “on anything you wish.” At a subsequent dinner, Mr. Yakovlev questioned Mr. Browne about his teachers and asked if there were any foreign students in his class. He offered to pay Mr. Browne for notes he took in his class and for the names of any diplomats Mr. Browne quoted anonymously in stories he wrote for the course.
Mr. Yakovlev also asked Mr. Browne to pretend he didn’t know him if they saw each other in the U.N. building. In the future, Mr. Yakovlev said of their relationship, “when you work for a position at a big newspaper or a government position—maybe even your friends would use it against you.” That was enough for Mr. Browne. He called one of his teachers, who then called the dean, who recommended that the FBI get involved.
The FBI believed that Browne was being recruited to be an “agent of influence… They were investing in Mr. Browne in hopes they could use the association to blackmail him later if he achieved an influential position.” Like NYPD Deputy Commissioner? Or Treasury Department staffer?
To help the FBI, Browne continued to meet with Yakovlev, even giving him a freelance article about suburban New Yorkers’ reaction to Watergate, which the Russian happily accepted, paying him $30 (in tens, which Browne turned over to the FBI). But in 1975, Browne ended contact with Yakovlev (and the meetings with stale Cuban cigars!) ultimately writing about his experience in the Washington Post. Now he realizes, “In retrospect, the Russians were in it for the long haul. Had I been turned, it would have paid dividends for them years later.” . . . .
Top NYPD Cop Paul Browne Was Once Recruited By KGB (New York Daily News, 6 July 2010)
There were 1,249 recruits sworn as the NYPD police academy’s newest class, but it was another not-quite recruit for the KGB who was the talk of today’s press conference . . . . Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said he indeed knew that his Deputy Commissioner for Public Information, Paul Browne, had once been approached to spy for the Soviet Union — an very interesting aside, considering the blanket coverage of the Anya Chapman spy case. “I’m very happy that he chose the right side,” Kelly quipped.
Browne later tried to downplay the news, saying, “There were few cloaks and no daggers,” but he offered this account to reporters:
“When I was in graduate school, I met somebody who turned out to be a Soviet KGB agent and, according to the FBI, he saw me as someone who would potentially go on into government and possibly journalism and be in position later on to be of use for the Soviets. He probably didn’t realize that the Soviet Union would collapse in the interim, but there you go. The Russians were in it for the long haul. They thought I had potential as somebody they could either turn ideaologically or blackmail by photographing me taking money.”
Asked for his memories of his interactions, Browne said: “Well, the FBI provided documents, things that had looked like I was cooperating with them for a time to keep the arrangement going, and he introduced me to at least one other KGB agent and some principals in the UN who were, obviously, he was in contact with, some ranking member in the Soviets so I suppose it was useful in that way to the FBI to get a sense of how deep the penetration in the UN was, which was significant. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one approached. I was one of many, I’m sure.” . . . .
How KGB Tried to Recruit NYPD Spokesman Paul Browne (WNYC, 6 July 2010)
. . . . Browne was just a 24-year-old journalism student when he first met Alexander Yakovlev in the early 1970s. He was taking a class at the United Nations and sitting alone in the cafeteria when three men approached his table.
“As they approached, I said, ‘Hey, I’ll get up,’” Browne says. “I volunteered, ‘I’ll go to the bar, you guys can have my table,’ and Yokovlev said, ‘No, no, sit down.’ I don’t know if he said, ‘Comrade,’ but he asked me if they could join me.”
Yakovlev told Browne he was a broadcast journalist from Moscow, and Browne said he was looking for a career in journalism or government. That seemed to intrigue Yakovlev, Browne says. Within days, the two were meeting twice a week.
Yakovlev asked Browne for names of any teachers or classmates who were foreigners, suggested Browne attend Jewish Defense League meetings and talked about sending Browne to the Soviet Union for advanced graduate studies. By the third meeting, Browne says he was pretty sure this guy was no TV reporter. He told a faculty member, who got the FBI involved. And they told Browne that Yakovlev was in fact a KGB agent who appeared to be cultivating him.
“The notion of investing that much time in anybody was baffling to me at the time,” says Browne. “In retrospect, after I read more about the Soviet espionage apparatus, that wasn’t surprising.”. . . .
From the book KGB Lexicon: The Soviet Intelligence Officer’s Handbook
Nelegal – an Illegal
A specially trained individual (an intelligence officer or agent) who lives under instructions from intelligence, and with the help of Intelligence, in a specified country with identity documents containing new assumed identifying particulars, generally in order to conceal from the authorities and the people around him his national and state affiliation, his true surname, and biographic particulars, thereby creating the conditions for conducting intelligence from illegal positions.
Razvedchik-nelegal – Illegal Intelligence Officer
A staff member of an intelligence service located on the territory of a target country and carrying out intelligence activity from illegal positions, under a false name, using forged identity documents relating to a citizen of the target country, a third country, or his own country, or concealing his actual presence in the country.
Agent-Nelegal – Illegal Agent
A specially selected and trained agent supplied by Intelligence with foreign identity documents with particulars selected from him, or obtaining such documents under instruction on his own and settling on the basis of these documents in a target country or a third country, in order to carry out intelligence assignments.
[CI CENTRE NOTE: In other words, Officers are staff employees of an intelligence agency; Agents are NOT employees of an intelligence agency but rather are recruited to spy for the agency by these officers. Agents can recruit other agents.]
Nelegalnaya Rezidentura – an Illegal Residency (station)
An intelligence residency in a foreign country whose leadership and operational staff consists of illegal intelligence officers, illegal agents and special agents.
Nelegalnaya Rezidentura Svyazi – an Illegal Communication Residency
An illegal residency whose main task is to prepare and maintain the operation of lines of clandestine communication with the Centre from a target country and third countries.
Nelegalnoye Polozheniye – Illegal Situation
An individual’s legal sojourn in a country while using altered identifying particulars and related identity documents, in order to hide from the local authorities the real facts about himself and in order to create favourable conditions for intelligence activity.
Nelegalnyye Perebroski – Illegal Cross-Border Deployments
The complex of agent-operational measures taken by Intelligence to organize the illegal deployment of its officers, agents or other individuals, across the land, sea or air border of a particular country.
Nelegalnyye Pozitsii – Illegal Positions
Positions to enable intelligence officers and agents to carry out intelligence work in their country of deployment, where they live on an illegal basis as local citizens, foreigners or stateless persons.
Nelegalnyy Apparat – The Illegal Apparatus
The totality of illegal intelligence units, illegal intelligence officers and agents abroad and the agents which they use in the course of intelligence work.
Razvedka s Nelegalnykh Pozitsiy – Intelligence from Illegal Positions
A form of organized intelligence activity based on the use of positions acquired illegally in a target country: through the recruitment of agents amongst the local population and by sending in agents and illegal intelligence officers from outside. The conduct of illegally based intelligence activity is linked to the conduct of intelligence from legal positions. Intelligence officers operating from legal positions are able to keep in contact with agents acting from illegal positions, direct them, take part in recruitment activity, etc.
Agent-Navodchik – Talent-Spotting Agent
Intelligence service agent used to identify individuals in a target country who may be of interest as potential candidates for recruitments, to carry out an initial assessment and to create suitable conditions for an intelligence officer to make contact with them. Talent-spotting agents are recruited from people whose job or social position gives them the opportunity to have contact with the kinds of people in whom the intelligence service is interested.
Verbovka Pod Chuzhim Flagom – Recruitment Under False Flag
A form of recruitment in which Intelligence induces a specially selected and studied individual to carry out its assignments on behalf of and supposedly for the benefit of another intelligence or counterintelligence service, another country, another company, another political organization or another individual.
Verbovka v Forme Postepnnogo Vovlecheniya – Recruitment by means of gradual involvement
A method of drawing a specially selected individual, who has been thoroughly studied by clandestine means, into secret cooperation with Intelligence as an agent (under true or false flag) through the establishment of confidential relations between him and an intelligence officer or an intelligence agent (a recruiter), exerting political, psychological, material or other influence on him and systematically giving him increasingly complicated intelligence assignments.
Agent Vliyaniya – Agent of Influence
An agent operating under intelligence instructions who uses his official or public position, and other means, to exert influence on policy, public opinion, the course of particular events, the activity of political organisations and state agencies in target countries.
Aktivnyye Meropriyatiya – Active Measures
Agent-operations measures aimed at exerting useful influence on aspects of the political life of a target country which are of interest, its foreign policy, the solution of international problems, misleading the adversary, undermining and weakening his positions, the disruption of his hostile plans, and the achievement of other aims.
Ispolzovaniye Vtyomnuyu – Unconscious Exploitation (Unwitting Agent)
a) A method of intelligence work in which Intelligence secretly, and without disclosing its intentions, uses an intelligence officer, an agent or other appropriate means to prompt a target individual, organisation, state agency, government or other institution to take measures or to follow a course of action which helps Intelligence to achieve its aims.
b) A process whereby an intelligence officer or agent obtains the required information from a well-informed individual while not disclosing his membership in the intelligence service and his true interest in the information acquired.
Vyvedyvaniye - Pumping
One of the means of obtaining information unconsciously, in which the intelligence officer or agent, in the course of conversation with a well-informed individual, prompts him discreetly to talk about facts, events or information of interest to Intelligence.
Doveritelnyye Svyazi – Confidential Contacts
Individuals of foreign nationality who, without being agents, communicate to intelligence officers information of interest to them and carry out confidential requests, which in substance are of an intelligence nature, on the basis of ideological and political affinity, material interest, friendly or other relations which they have established with the intelligence officers. Confidential contacts do not have any obligation towards the intelligence officer (or the intelligence service).
Doveritelnyye Svyazi Vliyaniya – Confidential Contacts of Influence
Confidential contacts of intelligence officers (and intelligence agents) in government and political circles, who are used clandestinely by Intelligence to carry out active measures designed to exert the required influence on government agencies and on the public and political life of a target country.
AIM, 17 May 2010: The late CBS Evening News anchorman Walter Cronkite is named in a just-released FBI document from 1986 as being targeted in a Soviet “active measures” campaign against President Reagan’s anti-communist foreign policy. Cronkite is named as a possible member of a U.S. delegation that would sign a pro-Soviet “People’s Peace Treaty.”
Cronkite, once known as “the most trusted man in television news” because of his influence during the time when three network news programs dominated the national dissemination of news and information, bears a great deal of responsibility for the American military defeat in Vietnam and the communist conquest of that Southeast Asian country.
The term “active measures” in the FBI document carries special significance, since it designates Soviet intelligence operations to damage the United States and further the interest of Soviet foreign policy. The most common were political influence operations in which high-profile U.S. and Western political and public figures were used to promote Soviet objectives.
Released to this journalist through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Cronkite documents include an FBI cover letter, dated June 25, 1986, which designates an attached internal memorandum from the “Campaign for a People’s Peace Treaty” as part of a “Soviet active measures” campaign. The document is addressed to the FBI director and the attention of the bureau’s intelligence division.
While many questions remain about the nature of this secret influence operation and its ultimate success, the documents provide absolute confirmation that the Soviets were targeting major figures in the U.S. media. Other targets were talk-show host Phil Donahue, Harrison Salisbury of the New York Times, David Brinkley of ABC News and Bill Moyers of CBS News and later with public television.
The “Campaign for a People’s Peace Treaty” was a project of the Soviet front National Council of American-Soviet Friendship and was designed to create public and international pressure to undermine Reagan’s U.S. conventional and nuclear arms buildup.
Assistant Director for Intelligence of the FBI Edward J. O’Malley testified before Congress in 1982 that the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship was founded in 1943 by the Communist Party USA and served Soviet interests. . . .
. . . In the March-April 2010 issue of Military Review, in an article titled, “Lessons Learned from Vietnam,” Dr. William L. Stearman revisits the controversial period of 1968-1969, which was critical for the Vietnamese Communists because, despite Cronkite’s claims, they had actually been militarily defeated by U.S. and South Vietnamese troops during their Tet Offensive. Stearman notes that Cronkite’s hasty and faulty verdict on the war came after “a quick trip” to Vietnam in late February 1968.
The Tet Offensive “was a major North Vietnamese blunder,” notes Uwe Siemon-Netto, an international journalist who covered the war. At Tet, he writes, Hanoi lost 45,000 men and its entire infrastructure in the south. “Yet major United States media outlets portrayed Tet as a defeat for their own side,” he said, referring to Cronkite and others. “Following Tet, [President] Johnson announced that he would not stand for re-election. Though a military victory for the United States and its allies, Tet ultimately marked the beginning of their defeat.”
Stearman concluded, “…thanks to U.S. media, the enemy won the war where it most counted — in the United States.” . . . [read the rest]
♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 205–National Security Policy and Counterintelligence Implications of Denial and Deception Practices
