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

18. In Bystroletov’s account (vol. 7, ch. 9, para. 26), the official who spoke to the walk-in at the Paris embassy is identified only as “a senior comrade.” Other fragmentary accounts of the same episode indicate that the comrade was Vladimir Voynovich, aka Yanovich and Volovich: Bessedovsky, Revelations of a Soviet Diplomat, pp. 247-8; Corson and Crowley, The New KGB, pp. 433-5; Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions, p. 198.

19. vol. 7, ch. 9, para. 27. The photographer of the ciphers was identified as Voynovich’s wife by the defector Grigori Besedovsky, then a senior diplomat in the Soviet embassy. Bessedovsky, Revelations, p. 247.

20. vol. 7, ch. 9. Corson and Crowley, The New KGB, pp. 140ff confuses the de Ry and Oldham cases, and claims that Oldham too was successfully defrauded. The authors, who had no access to KGB files, do not identify de Ry by name or codename and refer to Oldham as “Scott.” Andrew and Gordievsky, (KGB, pp. 195-6) identify Oldham but follow Corson and Crowley in suggesting that he was defrauded by Voynovich. Surprisingly, Costello and Tsarev, despite their access to KGB documents, make no mention of de Ry and claim inaccurately in their paragraph on Oldham that he “was thrown out on his ear” by Voynovich, who “evidently suspected a British provocation plot” (Deadly Illusions, p. 198).

21. Besedovsky’s memoirs, Na Putiakh k Termidoru, were published in Russian, French and German in 1930; an abridged English translation (in which the author’s name is transliterated as “Bessedovslay”) appeared in 1931. His insulting references to Stalin make the hypothesis that he was a bogus defector planted on the West untenable. There is, however, some indication that in the course of a sometimes bizarre life in exile, Besedovsky did co-operate to some degree with Soviet intelligence after the Second World War.

22. vol. 7, ch. 9.

23. The corrupt Italian diplomat was successively codenamed PATRON, CARTRIDGE and PATTERN by Soviet intelligence; vol. 7, ch. 9.

24. vol. 7, ch. 9.

25. vol. 7, ch. 9.

26. The only real post with which the non-existent position of head of intelligence at the Foreign Office might conceivably have been confused was that of head of political intelligence in SIS and liaison officer with the Foreign Office. The holder of that post from 1921 to early in the Second World War, however, was Major Malcolm Woollcombe.

27. vol. 7, ch. 9.

28. Mitrokhin found no note in the file querying the story.

29. vol. 7, ch. 9.

30. vol. 7, ch. 9, paras. 30-1. French intelligence records provide corroboration of both Lemoine’s friendship with de Ry and their common interest in obtaining foreign diplomatic ciphers; Paillole, Notre espion chez Hitler, p. 223.

31. On Lemoine’s career with the Deuxième Bureau and recruitment of Schmidt, see Paillole, Notre espion chez Hitler, p. 223.

32. French cryptanalysts were unable to exploit the intelligence on Enigma provided by Schmidt. The first steps in the breaking of Enigma were made by Polish military cryptanalysts with whom the Deuxième Bureau shared Schmidt’s cipher material. The results achieved by the Poles were passed on to the British on the eve of the Second World War, Garlinski, Intercept, chs. 2, 3; Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 628-32.

33. vol. 7, ch. 9, para. 30. Neither Lemoine’s name nor his codename, JOSEPH, appears in Bystroletov’s 1995 SVR hagiography, which, however, confirms that “In the period between 1930 and 1936, whilst working with another agent, Bystroletov… established operational contact with a member of French military intelligence. He received from him Austrian cipher material and later Italian and Turkish cipher material and even secret documents from Hitler’s Germany.” (Samolis (ed.), Veterany Vneshnei Razvedki Rossii, p. 20.) It is clear from this censored account that Bystroletov’s fellow illegal Ignace Reiss (alias Ignace Poretsky), with whom he shared the running of JOSEPH, remains an unperson in SVR historiography because of his later defection; he is referred to only as “another agent.” There is no mention of JOSEPH in the account of Bystroletov’s career in West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels.

34. The file noted by Mitrokhin identifies OREL only as Lemoine’s boss in the Deuxième Bureau; the Center may not have known his real identity (vol. 7, ch. 9, para. 30). Reiss was known to Lemoine and Bertrand as “Walter Scott.” A Deuxième Bureau photograph, almost certainly taken without Reiss’s knowledge, shows him at a meeting with Lemoine and Bertrand at Rotterdam in 1935 (Paillole, Notre espion chez Hitler, illustration facing p. 161).

35. vol. 7, ch. 9.