Circle of Treason (17 page)

Despite Martynov's compromise by Ames before mid-1985 and by Hanssen in October of that year, the KGB was forced to keep him at his post in Washington for a period and let him carry out his normal duties. Again, according to Cherkashin's memoirs,
⁵
this was not from a lack of trying. They faced a dilemma. The KGB desperately wanted to return Martynov to Moscow, but they had to do so without raising his suspicions, which would surely result in his and his family's defection. Home leave was not an option. He had just returned from Moscow in the spring. Using ploys such as fictitious family problems in Moscow or an awards ceremony would not work. As an intelligence officer, Martynov would recognize them for what they were—ruses indicating that he was in
serious trouble. On 2 November 1985 Cherkashin was presented with the solution to the KGB's dilemma. Vitaliy Sergeyevich Yurchenko, the senior KGB counterintelligence officer who had defected in August 1985, appeared at the gate of the Soviet embassy residential compound wanting to return permanently to the Soviet Union. Yurchenko would be accompanied to Moscow by an honor guard of four, and Martynov would be one of the privileged.

On 6 November Martynov boarded the Aeroflot flight for Moscow. Immediately upon arrival he was arrested and taken directly to Lefortovo prison. His wife and children returned to Moscow several weeks later, after being told that he had injured his leg. A similar tale was put out by the KGB to cover what had really happened, and a version came to the CIA's attention. Specifically, the story was that Martynov was unable to travel and would remain in Moscow due to the flare-up of an old soccer injury that required surgery.

Martynov was tried and sentenced to death in the spring of 1987. He was executed later that year. By virtue of his position, Cherkashin was the central figure in the wrap-up of Martynov. He later wrote that he knew that Martynov, a gentle man whom he liked, was boarding a flight to his death. For Cherkashin personally, “It was one of the events in my career I most questioned.”
⁶

The recruitment of Sergey Mikhaylovich Motorin combined all aspects of a classic FBI counterintelligence operation—persistence, opportunism, and exploitation. He was not a volunteer and we submit he had probably never dreamt of committing treason.

Motorin's arrival in Washington on his first overseas tour coincided with that of Martynov, but they took different paths to cooperation with the Americans. Motorin's was caused by personal weaknesses that came to the attention of the FBI and that they used as leverage to convince him that he had no choice but to accede to their requests. As he came to understand, his only alternative was return to the Soviet Union where he would face disgrace, certain dismissal from the KGB, and possible criminal charges. In late 1982, after a lengthy period of FBI cajoling and prodding, he agreed to cooperate.

The FBI had to strike a delicate balance in the recruitment process of Motorin. In some circles exploitation of an individual's shortcomings is viewed as blackmail. The moral debate aside, such tactics often result in an uncooperative and unreliable asset, because participation has been coerced, not offered. In this particular case the FBI was fortunate. Motorin, although a junior officer with limited access, provided all within his purview. As an organization, the FBI deserves complete credit for the success of this operation.

What were Motorin's vulnerabilities? A tall, handsome man, Motorin loved to party and was not always discreet in his relationships with members of the opposite sex. However, this behavior alone did not result in his eventual recruitment. The FBI observed him trading his KGB operational allowance of vodka and other items for stereo equipment. At this point in the operation they inserted Special Agent Mike Morton, who identified himself as a government employee. Motorin flippantly dismissed the picture Morton painted of his situation, and so began Morton's relentless pursuit of the KGB major. All around Washington, and at every possible opportunity, Morton appeared unexpectedly in Motorin's path, showing him photographs and reminding him that the FBI knew about the women and the vodka.

The FBI selected Special Agent James Stassinos as Motorin's case officer. Stassinos assigned him the code name DIONYSUS, the Greek god of wine, fertility, and orgies, which was later changed to MEGAS. At CIA he was known as GTGAUZE. The CIA did not have any operational involvement in this case, which was handled solely by the FBI. However, we were responsible for disseminating his production to the intelligence community.

Meetings between Stassinos and Motorin continued until the latter's return to Moscow in January 1985. He did not have any internal communications, but the FBI did have discussions with the CIA as to whether he should have that capability. Fatefully, Ames participated in these talks and, therefore, knew the case quite well. As noted previously, in October 1985 Hanssen followed Ames' lead and identified Motorin as an FBI penetration of the KGB. With no hope of extraction, his fate was sealed.

Motorin was arrested in mid-January 1986, but later made phone calls to a former girlfriend in Washington at the behest of the KGB. These calls were simply another attempt by the KGB to deceive the CIA and
FBI regarding their lost agents. In Motorin's case, he was alive but certainly not well. Under arrest and facing trial, he was later executed as punishment for treason against the State.

Cherkashin addressed the KGB's killing of Motorin specifically, and the others generally, stating that he believed that “execution was wrong and entirely unnecessary.” Motorin appears to bother him particularly, because this young officer knew almost nothing of significance and therefore did little damage to the Soviet Union. In Cherkashin's own words, “I remain completely convinced that the spies Ames betrayed should have been fired and deprived of their pensions, but no more. What further harm could they have done?”
⁷

When we began our investigation of the 1985 compromises, one of the most baffling cases that we had to look at was the operation involving Gennadiy Grigoryevich Varenik. The case only lasted a few months. It was run tightly and professionally by CIA officer Charles (Chuck) Leven, and documented in detail. How could it have gone wrong?

Varenik was stationed at the Soviet embassy in Bonn, serving as a KGB Illegals Support officer. During his tour, he had become acquainted with a CIA case officer also stationed in Bonn. They had a cordial friendship, but this did not develop into a clandestine relationship. Eventually the CIA officer was reassigned to another European post. In March 1985, Varenik made a telephone call to this officer at his new post and said he wanted to arrange a personal meeting. This overture soon resulted in Varenik's recruitment in Bonn and extensive debriefings on the KGB's Illegals program and related matters. He was encrypted GTFITNESS.

One of the first items Varenik was eager to impart to us was the story of the KGB's “mini-bombs” operation, in which he was a participant. The operation, which was still in the planning stages, involved planting small bombs in venues such as restaurants and bars frequented by U.S. servicemen. As he understood it, this would result in the deaths of innocent men, women, and children, which he found totally unacceptable. The KGB's plan was to blame the bombs on German terrorists, thereby leaving the impression that the U.S. military was unwanted, and that the German government could not protect them. The hoped-for result was to sour U.S.-German relations.

When this reporting arrived at CIA headquarters, Director Casey immediately brought it to the attention of President Reagan, who saw it as further proof that the Evil Empire really did exist. While Varenik and Leven both believed that the KGB's operation would result in a loss of life, in retrospect one wonders a bit. Jeanne, who read the reporting with care, feels that it is susceptible to a more benign interpretation. These were indeed mini-bombs, which might only be capable of scaring people or at most inflicting superficial injuries. It seems strange that the KGB would run such a high-risk low-gain operation in a NATO country. The political fallout, were it to be discovered that the KGB was deliberately killing U.S. and German citizens, would be immense. In any event, it was a hare-brained scheme that the KGB planners should never have seriously entertained.

In early November Varenik was asked to attend a conference in East Berlin. He was also told that the mini-bomb project had been shelved for the present. (Of course, by this time the KGB had the benefit of Ames' reporting and knew about the fury with which the story had been received at the highest levels of the U.S. government. No doubt they assumed that Varenik would immediately pass to his CIA contact anything he learned about the mini-bomb project. They thus had a perfect vehicle for calming the situation.)

A few days later, after a short meeting with Leven to pass his information, Varenik left for East Berlin. He was immediately bundled on board a plane for Moscow. Needless to say, he never returned to Bonn. His wife and small children eventually followed him to Moscow. Like the others, he was tried and executed.

The majority of sources run by the CIA and FBI were met overseas, at least some of the time, and we were able to glean a fairly accurate idea of their motivation, access, and ability to withstand the rigors of espionage activity. Adolf Grigoryevich Tolkachev is an exception because he was not allowed to leave the Soviet Union. However, there were numerous personal meetings with him, supplemented by lengthy written communications, over a long span of time. This was not the situation with Sergey Vorontsov. We had only two meetings with him. We did not even know his name, or his assignment within the KGB.

Vorontsov, encrypted GTCOWL, volunteered to the CIA Station in Moscow using a State Department official as an intermediary. The first meeting with him was held in early 1984. There was a second meeting with him shortly thereafter. The station officer who handled this meeting was Mike Sellers. There was then a long gap in contact.

When Vorontsov first established contact with the CIA, he refused to identify himself, preferring to be known simply as “Stas.” He intimated that he was from the Second Chief Directorate of the KGB, a high-priority target for CIA because this directorate was responsible for internal counterintelligence, to include operations against our CIA Station in Moscow. Some believed that he was exaggerating his access, and that in reality he was assigned to the Moscow City Directorate, a target that did not rank as high in the CIA's priorities.

Paul Stombaugh, who had been expelled from the Soviet Union in June 1985 in connection with the Tolkachev case, was working in the SE Division internal operations group at the time. He wrote a memorandum supporting the theory that Vorontsov was from the Moscow City Directorate, which turned out to be the truth. This put him into conflict with Ames, who considered himself one of the Agency's greatest experts on the KGB. Also, it was Ames' job to decide such questions and he felt that Stombaugh was invading his turf. Ames disputed Stombaugh's theory, and an argument ensued. The only importance of this minor dust-up was that it sealed Vorontsov's fate because Ames studied the case carefully in support of his mistaken insistence that Vorontsov worked in the Second Chief Directorate.