SOVIET DEFECTOR KGB OFFICER PROVES MAJOR CATCH FOR WEST

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000303410012-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: November 11, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303410012-9
THE HOUSTON POST
11 NOVEMBER 1982
Soviet defector
KGB officer proves major catch for West
Ta - une, the Soviet Embassy in Tehran
made an ominous discovery: the car assigned
to Vice-Consul Vladimir Andreyevich Kuzich-
kin, 32, was found abandoned on a side street.
,Of Kuzichkin there was no sign, nor did quiet
but urgent investigations turn up any trace of
him.
The Soviet installations abroad have good
reason to tear such disappearances. Despite
continual checks, the use of family hostages
back in the Soviet Union (in Kuzichkin's case
a wife), and the immediate recall of officials
suspected of succumbing to the attractions of
We in the West, there is a continual trickle of
"detectors. Each such case is a propaganda
blow, to the Soviet Union's would-be image of
a social Eden populated by proud and loyal
citizens; intellectuals and ballet dancers are
bad enough, but Soviet officials take with
them potential diplomatic dynamite.
Kuzichkin, a well-educated, polished and
intelligent official who had received two spot
promotions, would be an especially severe
blow, and the Soviets had even greater reason
to tear his defection than the anticipated blast
from a bitterly disillusioned official who had
been the beneficiary of the best that Soviet
society had to offer. For despite his apparent-
ly low rank in the embassy, Kuzichkin was a
KGB officer with a remarkable back-
ground. He had served in the Center in Mos-
cow, in the Special ("S") Directorate of the
1st Chief Directorate of the KGB - the unit
which procures, trains and dispatches Soviet
Illegals emplaced throughout the Free World,
and he had spent five years in the KGB Rezi-
dentura in Tehran as the Diegals Support offi-
cer, collecting the documentation that would
be used by the Special Directorate to fabri-
cate the legends of Illegals destined for other
countries, and supporting the communica-
tions links of Illegals emplaced in Iran and
elsewbere.'In addition, of course, he was also
privy to all Soviet activities in Iran, and
knowledgeable about Soviet activities in Af-
ghanistan as well.
Among the score and more of major KGB
defectors in recent decades, not one had ever
served in the Special Directorate, or as an
Illegals Support officer abroad - and the So-
viets' worst fears were confirmed when Ku-
zichkin surfaced in England in October, in the
hands of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service.
He had been granted permission to reside in
the U.K., but had not as yet been given "po-
litical asylum" (which he may not have re-
quested). Of his movements between his dis-
appearance in Tehran and his reappearance
in England there were no details - nor are
any liable to be disclosed. It can be assumed,
however, that he was in touch with the SIS
from the outset - and possibly even before, as
a "defector in place" - and that he brought
documents with him.
British sources informed me that Kuzich-
kin has been fully cooperative, and that com-
plete reports of his debriefing have been
passed to the CIA, which is delighted. British
practice is to settle such detectors on the
economy as soon as practicable; Kuzichkin
has every intention of writing articles and
unquestionably a book based on his knowl-
edge, and the story of Soviet machinations in
Iran and Afghanistan from an impeccable
source should be in the public domain in due
course.
It is, however, Kuzichkin's credentials in
the Soviet Illegals program which strikes ter-
ror into the KGB. The Illegals Apparat is to-
STAT
tally distinct from the Legal Apparat - in
which case officers, under official cover in
their true (hence "legal") identities, recruit
and run agents. Soviet Illegals are citizens of
the Soviet Union, commissioned officers of the
KGB (or the GRU), emplaced under false
identities in the West. They are case officers
who handle agents recruited by the Legal Ap-
parat and turned over to them; since they
have no overt contact with the local Reziden-
tura based in the embassy, they are extreme-
ly difficult to locate. They are generally docu-
mented as resident aliens (who may be
naturalized in time), claiming origin in yet
another nation. They need know little about
the country they come to - only something of
the country they claim as their birthplace -
so there is no need of the mythical Midtown,
U.S.A., beloved of novelists, located in Siberia
where KGB officers are taught to pass them-
selves off as native Americans.
Soviet Illegals are used for the most impor-
tant agents: thanks to their cover they can
survive a break in diplomatic relations, when
the Soviets, Including the Legal Rezidentura,
may have to decamp.
Kuzichkin unquestionably can identify
many of the Illegals emplaced in Iran (who
may include ethnic members of any Mideast
group, drawn from the Soviet Central Asian
Republics), as well as Illegals emplaced else-
where, in whose communications links he may
have figured. And, thanks to his service in the
Special Directorate, he will be able to identity
many Illegals throughout the world, on whose
legends he once worked.
No such blow has ever before been suffered
by the Illegals Apparat; Kuzichkin beyond
any doubt ranks as one of the major intelli-
gence detectors of all time. Few Soviet Ille-
gals anywhere, active during Kuzichkin's
years in the Illegals program, will be able to
rest easy.
'Morris spent 17 years as a CIA oHltial, anpeped in
Soviet Counterespionage op-rerions, before r.Iiring In
1972.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303410012-9