The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB

57. Some of the KGB documents obtained by Gordievsky, all covering the period 1974 to 1985, were later published in Andrew and Gordievsky (eds.), Instructions from the Centre and More Instructions from the Centre.

58. Unattributable information. Since Mitrokhin had retired six years before the publication of the history by Andrew and Gordievsky, he had no access to KGB files on it.

59. Order of the Chairman of the KGB, no. 107/OV, September 5, 1990.

60. Costello later told Andrew and Gordievsky that he received the first order of KGB material shortly after the press conference to launch their book, at which he made an engagingly boisterous appearance to denounce their identification of John Cairncross as the Fifth Man as a plot by British intelligence. He subsequently changed his mind after seeing material from Cairncross’s KGB file which confirmed that identification.

61. Costello, Ten Days to Destiny.

62. Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions, pp. vi-vii. Costello’s untimely death in 1996 has been variously attributed by conspiracy theorists to the machinations of British or Russian intelligence. While Costello was somewhat naive in his attitude to the SVR, there is no suggestion that either he or any of the other Western authors (some of them distinguished scholars) of the collaborative histories authorized by the SVR have been Russian agents.

63. The collaborative volumes so far published are, in order of publication: Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions; Murphy, Kondrashev and Bailey, Battleground Berlin; Fursenko and Naftali, “One Hell of a Gamble”; West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels; and Weinstein and Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood. Further publication details are given in the bibliography.

64. Extracts from the Philby file appear in Costello, Ten Days to Destiny; Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions; Borovik, The Philby Files; West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels.

65. See below, chapter 9.

66. Murphy, Kondrashev and Bailey, Battleground Berlin, p. 248. The authors rightly describe the SVR’s claim that it has no file on Kopatzky/Orlov as “obviously disingenuous.” The SVR’s selection of documents for the most recent of the collaborative histories (on espionage in the USA in the Stalin era) shows some similar signs of archival amnesia on embarrassing episodes. It claims, for example, that “available records” do not indicate the fate of Vasili Mironov, a senior officer in the New York residency recalled to Moscow in 1944 (Weinstein and Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood, p. 275). In reality, his fate is precisely recorded in SVR files. After his recall, Mironov was first sent to labor camp, then shot after attempting to smuggle details of the NKVD massacre of Polish officers to the US embassy in Moscow.

67. See below, chapter 9.

68. Samolis (ed.), Veterany Vneshnei Razvedki Rossii. The editor, Tatyana Samolis, is spokeswoman for the SVR. One striking example of this volume’s reverential attitude towards the pious myths created by the KGB is its highly sanitized account of the frequently unsavory career of Hero of the Soviet Union Stanislav Alekseyevich Vaupshashov.

69. Primakov et al., Ocherki Istorii Rossiyskoi Vneshnei Razvedki. Three volumes were published between 1995 and 1997. They are based, in part, on formerly classified articles in the KGB in-house journal KGB Sbornik, some of which were noted by Mitrokhin.

70. Though the former head of the SVR, Yevgeni Primakov (who in 1998 became Russian prime minister), was given the honorary title of “editor-in-chief” of Ocherki Istorii Rossiyskoi Vneshnei Razvedki, his role can scarcely have been much more than nominal. As “literary editor,” Zamoysky is likely to have played a much more significant role. During the 1980s he regularly expounded his belief in a global Masonic-Zionist plot during briefing trips to foreign residencies. Oleg Gordievsky heard him deliver a lecture on this subject during his visit to the London residency in January 1985; Zamoysky was then deputy head of the FCD Directorate of Intelligence Information. Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, p. 42.

71. “Freemasons,” Zamoysky claimed, “have always controlled the upper echelons of government in Western countries… Masonry in fact runs, ‘remotely controls’ bourgeois society… The true center of the world Masonic movement is to be found in the most ‘Masonic’ country of all, the United States… Ronald Reagan has been characterized as an ‘outstanding’ Mason.” Zamoysky’s explanation of the Cold War was startling in its simplicity: