The State We're In, 3 July 2010. This week, against the backdrop of the US identifying a group of Russian spies operating in America, we talk to two spies, one from the former Soviet Union, the other from the UK. They talk about their experiences working on opposite sides of the Cold War.
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KGB cool
Oleg Kalugin was the youngest KGB general of his generation and was at the forefront of the spying game against the US. For him, it was exhilarating: “When you win over someone who was an enemy just a month ago and you turn him into your friend and colleague, it makes you feel excited and happy.” It also turned him into a big Doris Day fan!
Russian trainspotting
Leslie Woodhead was sent to a ‘spying school’ to learn Russian as a member of Britain’s intelligence network. His expertise was used to listen in on Russian pilot conversations. He says it was boring, like trainspotting. Fifty years later, Leslie realises that it wasn’t such a waste of time after all – and that he played a small but significant role in helping the world avert nuclear self-destruction.
The new truth
What sort of spying takes place now and between whom? And how has it changed? The Cold War may (allegedly) be over, but countries are spending as much as ever on intelligence. We speak with Professor Anthony Glees, Director of the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies at The University of Buckingham in England.
!["Spymaster" by Oleg Kalugin<br>© Photo: RNW - http://www.rnw.nl/english](http://cdn.radionetherlands.nl/data/files/imagecache/rnw_slideshow/images/spymaster-wider.jpg ""Spymaster" by Oleg Kalugin")
!["My Life as a Spy" by Leslie Woodhead<br>© Photo: RNW - http://www.rnw.nl/english](http://cdn.radionetherlands.nl/data/files/imagecache/rnw_slideshow/images/leslie-woodhead-wider.jpg ""My Life as a Spy" by Leslie Woodhead")
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well i found the show really enjoyable since it had many sides told to it. I especially liked Oleg's part since I was born in Ukraine and had heard about him a few times, he seems like a really nice guy. I always end up staying up too late, and that gives me a channel to watch the show. I think it's great! Actually I'm probably going to Holland soon so maybe I wont have to stay up until 4 AM eh?
Hello,Mr.Kelly!First of all,I am going to answer your direct question.I have NEVER in my life had any connection to spying,espionage,counterespionage,being informant etc.,that's to secret services,military,police,private security services etc.I have been just a victim of the persecution on the part of the political police,secret services etc. since 1992.
Radio Netherlands World Wide in its programs,including The State We're In, puts focus on the problems of human and civil rights.It was a surprise for me to listen to a program making a publicity of the spying profession here,because that profession is closely related to violation of human&civil rights,semi-criminal and criminal methods,not to mention immorality.None of the partecipants of the program,including the journalist,made any allusion on these aspects of the secret services activities.Their conversation looked like talking between 4 (with Mr.Groober) former secret servicemen sharing their memories.Take into account,Mr.Kelly,I never said that J.Groober IS a secret service informant or a spy,I just said,I SUSPECT him.
I don't doubt the expertise of the english "professor" in spying matters.But what he said,was quite superficial.I guess,he knows much more of espionnage,counterespionnage and of superpower of secret services in the contemporary world,their total domination over society.But he didn't want to tell that to the general public.An expert in secret services who is himself from secret services is just like a member of the parliamentary commission supervising secret services activities who is himself a former secret serviceman.
My knowledge of spying activities of the japanese embassy officials in Moscow is a result of my having attended the japanese language courses by the japanese embassy in Moscow for 2,5 years and socializing with officials of the japanese embassy in Moscow and japanese students and post-graduate students at the Moscow State University.I also socialized a lot with chinese students and post-graduate students and came to the same comclusions.The fact is that I have been surrounded by KGB-FSB agents and informants for a long time and I know their psychology and methods quite well.As Oleg Kalugin said in this program,KGB agents were more sophisticated than others.So it was not difficult for me to understand "who is who" in case of japanese,chinese etc. spies and informants.Those asian spies and informants were wrong to think that they are more clever than Russians.
Hi Andrei: I'd be interested in learning more of your story of being persecuted by the secret police, among others, if you're willing to discuss these experiences. Please let me know at greg.kelly@rnw.nl Cheers,
Greg
I guess,Mr.Kelly,my story wouldn't seem interesting to the general public.It begun with my being a post-graduate student in contemporary italian history at the Institute for World History of the Russian Accademy of Sciences.I was not admitted to the post-graduate studies at the Moscow State University,where I had studied,because that post-graduate position was reserved to an offspring of the secret serviceman despite my having higher marks over the 5 years of studies.But if it had been for example the daughter of the KGB general Oleg Kalugin,the result would have been the same for me,for as I said in the previous post those people had and still have all sorts of privileges over ordinary citizens.I read the book "Good by,Lubyanka" by Oleg Kalugin and frankly speaking I didn't quite understand why he became a "dissident".Moreover,I doubt that he had ever spied for any western intelligence.
Oleg Kalugin can confirm that all historians,especially specialized in modern and contemporary history,were considered to be "militants of the ideological front",rather than true research workers, and were strictly controlled by the political police,many of them,if not all,being its agents and informants.Moreover,most of them were of non-russian or partly non-russian origin,which set them against me,an ethnic Russian.After all,they drove me out of the Institute for World History not allowing me to defend my PHD thesis.That was the end of my studies and of all intellectual activities for almost 15 years.But those non-russian rascals,mainly of jewish and armenian origin,did still worse.They recommended their friends or fellow-tribesmen from the political police,that's KGB-FSB, to get me to work for secret services as an agent or an informant in order to humiliate me as an ethnic Russian dissident.And in the following years the political police hunted for me to make an agent-slave out of me and force me to keep silence on ethnic problems in Russia and later on secret services superpower.They sent "friends" to me to cheat me,sent agents-prostitites to seduce me with the same purpose to recruit me etc.
But you know,Mr.Kelly,all these things can't be proved.It was all secret activities,may be even on a verbal order.They can question all my assertions.
I call myself "a civil society defender".I know by my personal life experience,what a terrible danger all those organisations - secret services,police etc.- represent for civil society in general and individuals in particular,how they can discriminate and persecute people during all their lives.Moreover,just like criminals secret services of different countries may come in collusion and help each other to dominate the society.For example,it's well-known the case when the military intelligence of one of the most free and democratic country,Norway,on the request of the USA secret services recruited Norwegian politicians (!) for the American intelligence.It was a surprise for me when I visited the American Center by the American Embassy in Moscow 8 times to see FBI and FSB agents sitting together and mocking at me.To give another example,the italian secret services from the italian embassy in Moscow in collusion with KGB-FSB didn't let me go in their country in the 90-ies.
Secret services ruin millions of lives and many of their victims don't even suspect who ruined their lives in fact.Who gave them that right?It's not written in any constitutions .Secret services became absolutely impudent and the societies,no matter Russian or Western ones,should take measures to protect themselves from their vile activities.
This program seemed to me rather a publicity of spy profession.I was not surprised suspecting who J.Groober is in fact.
We,russians,say:"If a bed-bug knew,how it smells,it would die from sorrow".This is true for all kinds of secret servicemen.
Talking about "romanticism" of espionnage was quite stupid.Who is romantic?That dirty and vile FBI prostitute who entered into sexual relationship with Oleg Kalugin,as he confessed himself?Such things can seem "romantic" just to completely immoral individuals.A spy is just like a prostitute.A prostitute who is used to prostitute her body,will not hesitate to prostitute her soul.
Oleg Kalugin as a KGB officer benefitted from all sorts of privileges over ordinary citizens in soviet times.His family did too.He liked his "profession".He and all other participants of the program,including that pseudo-professor of spying,who must have been a secret serviceman himself,liked to deceive people,to black-mail them,to violate human rights,to force people to work for their criminal organizations and last but not least to kill them.
Oleg Kalugin talking about superpower of the KGB in soviet times (and I would add:that of KGB-FSB in present-day Russia) and KGB informants everywhere,forgot to tell you about secret services and informants in the so-called "free and democratic" countries.The truth about the West is that the power of secret services and police in "free and democratic" countries is also enormous.They really decide people's destinies like KGB did in soviet times,they enmeshed the western societies with a terrible network of their agents and informants.In fact,in the Western countries citizens are deprived of their freedoms by secret services,which are the true masters of western societies and all social life in them.If in the USSR the number of KGB informants was approximately 5-10% of the population,many of whom being forced to be sneaks,in the Western countries that percentage must be at least not lesser,many of secret services and police informants working of their own free will,which is more shameful than being forced to by the repressive KGB.
The english "professor" of spying also talked about professional spies working under the 'cover" of embassies.I can just confirm his assertions on the example of the japanese embassy in Moscow,which I knew personally.In the japanese embassies there is no difference between "clean' and "uclean" officials,that's between those who work for secret services and those who don't.Such a diffrence existed even in soviet embassies abroad.All officials at the japanese embassy,including the most "innocent" cultural department,are engaged in spy activities.Moreover,all japanese students and post-graduate students for example at the Moscow State University,all japanese working in japanese companies etc. are either professional spies or secret services informants.Not for nothing,japan is on the 2-d place as regards industrial and economic espionnage,the 1-st place being held by chinese.There are thousands of chinese students and post-graduate students for example in the Moscow State University.Many of them are professional spies,the rest of them being just informants of the chinese secret services.The same is with the chinese businessmen in Russia.Thus,Russia is invaded by asian spies.
Andrei: I'm not sure what you're trying to say in your first sentence. The program was anything but a publicity vehicle for the spying profession. And Jonathan Groubert has nothing whatsoever to do with the profession. You doubt the expertise of one of our guests, yet you offer nothing in the way of backing up your implication that he isn't credible. You claim that you have personal knowledge of spies within Japan's embassy in Moscow, so let me ask you a direct question: what exactly is your own connection to spying, espionage and counter-espionage? Greg Kelly, Editor TSWI
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