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.

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.

Mitrokhin describes how the Novosibirsk KGB Directorate dissuaded a former Gulag inmate from completing a novel based on his prison experiences during 1949-54. Pereverzev had been sent away to a forced labor camp twice. Having completed his prison terms, he returned to Novosibirsk and decided to write his own account of the Soviet reality. According the KGB Directorate, such writings would be readily accepted by bourgeois publishers. They became intent on putting an end to Pereverzev’s literary pursuits The KGB Directorate in Novosibirsk discovered that Pereverzev corresponded with citizens from capitalistic countries, visited the GDR on two occasions, and attended the American exhibition in Novosibirsk entitled “Public education in the USA.” Pereverzev was taken under closer surveillance.

Agents “Gorin” and “Sorokin” obtained 1,100 typewritten pages of Pereverzev’s novel that depicted his imprisonment. Agent Sorokin, being a professional writer himself, judged the novel as a composition of high quality. Sorokin, however, was instructed to convince Pereverzev that the style and content of his writing were good-for-nothing. Sorokin pointed out flaws in the composition and advised Pereverzev to consult a publisher and ask for an official review from a respected local journal. The KGB Directorate arranged for both sources to give Pereverzev negative evaluation. Having received criticism from authoritative institutions, he began to despair of his abilities and gave up on finishing the novel.

Information on the results of an analysis of the activities of the KGB residency in Cairo, Egypt from 1972-1976, conducted by KGB Service R. Starting in January 1973, the KGB leadership prohibited the residency from using Egyptian citizens as agents; however the resident in Cairo initiated restrictions on penetration operations earlier, in 1967 and 1968. As a result, by 1977, the residency had no agents in the majority of its intelligence objectives.

In May 1971, after the defeat of the anti-Sadat opposition group “left Nasserists,” the KGB’s leadership role in the organization came to light. In response, President Sadat took steps to curtail the activities of Soviet intelligence in Egypt. The KGB resident in Cairo was forced to strengthen his efforts to obtain information on the intentions of the Egyptian leadership, while improving security for clandestine operations. In 1967, the Centre decided not to task the Cairo residency with collecting information on the United States or China, because its limited resources permitted it to focus only on Egypt’s internal politics, and its relations with the USSR, the United States, Israel, and other Arab states. The prohibition against using Egyptian citizens as agents meant that the residency often had to rely on operational-technical means of collection; however by June 1977, the KGB’s leaders instructed the Cairo resident to select and recruit a well-known Soviet-Arab for use in gathering political information, and active measures.

In this entry, Mitrokhin recounts how during the 1960s the leadership of the KGB had shown its Dzerzhinsky Central Club agents a 2-part French movie entitled “Who Are You, Doctor Zorge?” A Soviet spy, Zorge aroused much interest within the ranks of the KGB. Drawing upon KGB files, Mitrokhin states how Zakharov, the Deputy Director of the KGB, consequently issued an order to prepare a report on Zorge.

In this entry, Mitrokhin draws upon KGB sources to describe Yuri Velichkov Bagomil Stanimerov (b.1941), a Bulgarian citizen who graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 1968. Stanimerov was recruited by the Bulgarian branch of the KGB in 1970, and became a resident of Sweden in 1972. Mitrokhin’s summary of KGB documents indicates that in April 1974, CIA officer Huey Walter “Hearst” made Stanimerov an offer in the name of the National Security Council. While Stanimerov refused the offer, he told Hearst that he would continue collaborating with him. Stanimerov subsequently traveled to many foreign countries, but the Americans no longer expressed interest in him.

In 1975, Stanimerov was sent to work in the Bulgarian embassy in the United States. The Americans began to train Stanimerov as a spy and tried to ideologically convert him. The Mitrokhin account posits that the KGB gave Stanimerov instructions in case the latter succeeded in infiltrating the CIA. In 1978, the KGB received information regarding the fact that Stanimerov was being investigated by the FBI for his ties with the Bulgarian intelligence services

In this entry, Mitrokhin draws upon KGB files to describe Ivan Illarionovich Ortinskii-“Vernii” (b. 1922), a native of the Lvov region, Ukraine. A priest in a Greco-Catholic church, Vernii pursued his religious studies at the Vatican and lectured at a seminary in Rome in 1964. Beginning in 1973, Vernii lived in Ingolstadt, Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). According to the entry, the KGB established contact with Vernii when the latter visited his parents and kin in Lvov in 1968. In 1971, Vernii was recruited as an agent by the KGB branch of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Between 1971 and 1974, collaboration between Vernii and the KGB took place within the territory of the Ukrainian SSR. As an agent, Vernii provided the KGB with information regarding his church, and the leadership of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).

Mitrokhin’s summary of KGB documents indicates that Vernii transmitted information to the KGB through his sister, Ukrainian SSR agent “Chestnaya” (born Ortinskaya).
Mitrokhin concludes the entry by stating that in 1978, Vernii informed the KGB from Vienna that he would no longer work as an agent, since he had aroused much suspicion within the Greco-Catholic Church.

In this entry, Mitrokhin draws upon KGB files to describe “Kardinal” (formerly “Lord”)-Lothar Schwartz (b. 1928), a member of the Socialist Democratic Party of Germany, and a citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG).

Drawing upon KGB files, Mitrokhin presents a profile of Marcel Laufer “Ref,” a Uruguayan citizen of Jewish ancestry and a special agent of the KGB.