Farewell (14 page)

The next morning, Svetlana vented her anger.

“Do you realize what you’ve done? You came back home with a woman almost as drunk as you were! Shame on you!”

A few days later, sober and friendly, the woman came back to get a puppy. She was a translator working for Directorate T, in an office next to Vetrov’s. She told Svetlana that a colleague of hers would love to come to get a puppy too. By some kind of spontaneous intuition, Svetlana realized she was talking about “the other woman.” She also thought that if Vladimir’s mistress wanted to come to their place, it was not to look at her, the wife he was cheating on, but to see how they lived. She wanted to estimate the assets she could count on if Vetrov decided to live with her. So Svetlana told the visitor, curtly, that the other puppies had already been spoken for.

A year later, Svetlana ran into the translator again, who confirmed that her intuition was well founded. It was indeed Vladimir’s lover, Ludmila Ochikina,
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who had wanted to come to their place. The woman, she says, told her that Ochikina seduced Vetrov. “In fact,” she noted, “it could as well have been me instead of Ludmila. We were all together having fun and drinking. She was bolder, that’s all.”

Svetlana claims that, short of coming in person to their apartment, Ludmila tried to impose her presence in their life. She was constantly calling their home phone number without saying her name.

We are reporting these details about Ludmila without confirmation that they are true. Svetlana would not be expected to speak positively of her rival, and let us not forget she had a lover at the time.

Vetrov’s drinking was getting worse. He rarely came home sober. Svetlana could not take it anymore and decided it was time to confront him.

“Look at you!” she said. “You’ve turned into a drunkard; you’re finished. I could understand if it were for love reasons. But love elevates a person, while you are spiraling down. How can the KGB tolerate your behavior? I am not like them; I’ve had it, enough!”

Vladimir seemed to wake up. He hugged her and covered her face with kisses, asking for forgiveness. He told her she was his only love and that he did not know what had happened to him. Peace was restored in the household. The next day, though, he went to work and it started all over again.

From that time on, they lived separate lives under the same roof. Pretty soon, they had only their son and their assets in common—the three-room apartment on Kutuzov Avenue, paintings and antique furniture, and their country place they loved so much.

Svetlana found it harder and harder to recognize her husband. Over just a few months, he had become another man, although with the same features and body; he seemed inhabited by another being, a mean, grumpy character who spoke and behaved in ways that were not typical of the old Volodia. With a feeling of horror, Svetlana realized more and more that she was telling herself this man was not her husband. In other times, possession by the devil, bewitchment, or some kind of black magic trick would have been suspected. A woman of the twentieth century, Svetlana thought more along the lines of psychological conditioning by means mastered by the KGB or some foreign secret service. Was her husband the victim of such a conditioning? Was he being administered drugs unknowingly? Her delirious thoughts would be dispelled in the morning, only to come back at night even more vividly.

Eventually, Svetlana had enough. One evening when he came home, Vetrov could not recognize the place. Everything was upside down. The paintings had been taken down, and there were two suitcases by the door. Before he could even ask for an explanation, his wife poured out all the anger she had accumulated for weeks.

“We’ve spent many years together. We started from scratch. Everything we have, we built together. And now, you have another woman who wants to help herself to all of this. Fine! You think I am attached to it? I couldn’t care less! You can take anything you want—the paintings, furniture, even the clothes you gave me. Your clothes are in the suitcases. Take them and leave!”

Vladimir was no fool. He was aware that if he cast off his home base, he would drift away. He managed to calm his wife down, but it did not change a thing in the overall situation.

Svetlana remembers another quarrel. Coming back home, Vladimir did not find her at home because she was walking their dogs. He joined her in the park along the Moscow River.

“Why are you excluding me from your life as if I did not exist?”

“You’re right,” answered Svetlana. “I’ve crossed you out of my life. All this time, it’s me who has helped you and supported you. I always stood up for you, even when you were wrong, but that’s all over. You went too far. Now I can’t, and don’t want to, forgive you anymore. To me, you have ceased to exist.”

Whether or not Vladimir used the opportunity to remind her that she was not an angel either, she would remember later and regret her words. Even today, she holds herself to blame. She believes that had she not rejected Vladimir out of pique, his life might not have taken a fatal turn.

And so, at a critical moment of his existence, Vetrov was left on his own. He had nothing else to expect from the KGB, which only filled him with hatred and disgust. He was used to off-loading his troubles onto his wife, but now he was not allowed to talk to her any longer. Everybody thought he was finished, a hopeless drunk. Well, he would show them how wrong they all were about him. They took him for an underling at the end of his rope? He would become a great figure of the world of intelligence, one of those who had an influence on the destiny of the world and the course of history. They treated him like dirt? He would seek revenge by reducing to nothing the efforts of thousands of individuals, of the entire Directorate T. They had no doubt that he was just a drunkard losing his mind? He would mount a sophisticated operation that they would not be able to foil.

To turn around his destiny that way, he had to place himself on the other side of the fence; never mind if he played with fire and the slightest mistake could bring about his downfall. The success of the game he was about to begin would make up for all the humiliations and the frustrations of his existence.

Vetrov was ready to take the plunge. Confident in his ability and trusting his good fortune, he did not know he was about to leap into the abyss.

“The individual who decides to betray never presents the situation in those terms,” explains expert Igor Prelin. “No, he wants to sell his experience, just to make money out of it, or to get revenge on the service he detests. If what mattered most to him was safety, he would contact the British. They would think about everything, he would be extremely well covered during his handling, and would benefit from a first-rate exfiltration operation. Those whose only interest was money would contact the Americans; for them, money was not an issue. And last, those who wanted it all, money, safety, recognition, and revenge, where did they go? Bravo! That’s it—they’d go to the KGB. Except that in Vetrov’s case, that was not possible.”
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After working twenty years for the KGB, Vetrov knew perfectly well that his knowledge and the information he had access to through his analyst job were beyond price for any foreign intelligence agency. He was mindful of the extreme care and the huge means used by a major intelligence service such as the CIA to handle a source within the KGB or the GRU. For each case, the Americans created a special cell comprising several individuals who had to organize the operation down to the smallest detail. When their mole was traveling to the West, like Penkovsky going to London or Nosenko to Geneva, several agents would go to meet him for debriefing and to ensure the safety of the rendezvous. Furthermore, the Americans were extremely generous, offering a numbered bank account in Switzerland, princely gifts, a high rank in their own military hierarchy, and more.

If the story about the recruiting of Vetrov by the RCMP is true, which cannot be totally ruled out, did Vetrov think of getting in touch with his Canadian friends again? He did not.

In spite of the lures presented by the main intelligence agencies of the West, Vetrov chose the secret service of a country that did not aspire to international activity. Moreover, he eschewed an intelligence agency experienced in agent handling in favor of a service for which this would be new. Why?

In the eyes of the beneficiary, the DST, the decision seemed to stand to reason. First, Vetrov was a Francophile with family origins that nurtured this cultural attraction to everything French. Within the Russian bourgeoisie it was a must to have your children raised by a French governess.
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We know, however, that the thesis of Vetrov’s bourgeois and even boyar origins is groundless. Marcel Chalet also bragged about the DST’s excellence in approaching individuals in contact with Soviet circles. According to Chalet, those individuals helped discover the turn Vetrov’s life was taking, allowing the DST to take advantage of the situation.
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The reader will soon see that nothing is further from the truth.

In theory, the DST was enemy number one for all the Parisian KGB members since they did not always play the game by the rules, not hesitating to hit below the belt. There was nothing criminal, just a flat tire here, a broken windshield there, to better control a tailing. Thanks to Jacques Prévost, Vetrov never had to complain about those questionable methods.

Nevertheless, Vetrov was first and foremost an intelligence specialist even though a Francophile. The operational aspects of his defection, even though there might have been some emotional components involved, had to take precedence over any other consideration.

Actually, three main considerations dictated Vetrov’s choice, a choice which, although seemingly absurd, was the main reason for the success of what would later be called the Farewell operation.

First, his safety. Vetrov was well positioned to know how extensively major special services in the West were penetrated by the KGB. The CIA was no exception, and neither were the other major players, including the SDECE. Vetrov was not planning a suicide operation, so from this standpoint, the DST had an advantage.

France was not really considered an enemy of the Soviet Union. On the contrary, France was one of the pillars of détente and had a privileged relationship with the Brezhnevian regime in international affairs. As far as French special services were concerned, the KGB, obsessed with the CIA, did not take them very seriously.

Furthermore, a counterintelligence service is much more difficult to penetrate because spy hunters are usually more patriotic, more conservative, and less prone to be influenced and lured than intelligence officers. Vetrov, who had access to documents coming from the KGB residency in Paris, would have the assurance, at the time of his betrayal, that the DST was not infiltrated. Finally, since this police service did not operate outside of French territory, the DST would be the last organization to be suspected by the KGB of involvement in the manipulation of an agent. For a counterintelligence entity, identifying the adverse agency is the chief concern.

The second consideration which led Vetrov to choose the DST was the relative simplicity of establishing the first contact. KGB members were not allowed to meet with foreigners other than out of professional necessity, and they were duty-bound to document in writing each of such contacts; this rule applied only to operatives, however. Analysts were strictly and explicitly prohibited from meeting with any foreigners. Since he was an analyst, Vetrov would have had no excuse if caught in a conversation with a foreigner. He knew the enormous risk taken by an agent like Penkovsky to establish a connection with intelligence services of the free world.
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Unlike himself, Penkovsky not only was allowed to contact foreigners, it was part of his professional obligations. Vladimir also knew that many times, believing they were dealing with a lure, Western services had sent back to the KGB secret documents they had received from Soviet individuals, along with their collaboration offer, thus burning a true defector. Fortunately, thanks to Jacques Prévost, he had a discreet entry point with direct access to the DST.

The third reason for Vetrov’s choice was his Paris experience. He certainly had a good knowledge of French qualities and flaws. To implement a plan as risky as the one Vetrov was about to put in place, being familiar with one’s partners’ mindset and being able to anticipate their reactions in any situation was essential. By choosing France, a country not perceived as hostile by the Soviet Union, Vetrov’s feeling of treason may have been less acute than it would have been had he chosen the sworn enemy, the United States.
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Yet nothing in what we know about Vetrov indicates an attachment to democracy. To Vetrov, freedom was not a philosophical or an ideological concept, but a way of life with fewer constraints suiting his personality; in short, he wanted the right to a good life.

Of course, like any aware Soviet citizen, he must have had no sympathy for the regime in place, stagnating in an economic slump and rife with corruption, arbitrary rule of law, and nepotism. He told jokes about the living mummy Brezhnev had already become, and he repeated rumors about murky mafia-type deals involving Brezhnev’s relatives and entourage. Vetrov’s probable reasoning about the situation matched most of his compatriots and contemporaries: the Brezhnevian regime was a disgrace, but Marxism-Leninism was a just cause. Or, as went a popular sarcasm about Marxist theories at the time, “Communism is inevitable.” The feeling that communism was deeply entrenched in the USSR was shared not only by the Soviets but also by most “Kremlinologists.” From the Russian standpoint, nothing in Vetrov’s behavior substantiated the assumption that he was a shadow fighter against the communist system or a trailblazer for perestroika. That assumption, which seemed to be a certitude for the DST and the French media, was laughable to the Soviets who had known Vetrov.

On the French side, the interpretation is different. First,
as we already know
, Jacques Prévost had been quite surprised by Vetrov’s vindictive remarks about his superiors and even the Communist Party, indicating a possible early rejection of the regime. In Raymond Nart’s opinion, Vetrov was a defector in the making. “It is a unique case; here is a guy who defects intellectually, but stays in his country because he is too attached to his land.”
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His fatal decision would have, therefore, been made possible by a gradual detachment from his personal environment. “A guy who has lived in the West, then goes back to a society built on lies and isolation, is bound to flip out at some point,” concludes Nart. Vetrov was no longer involved ideologically, and he was even more detached professionally and sentimentally. Above all, he felt a passionate hatred toward the KGB, an institution Westerners had difficulty distinguishing from the Soviet regime as a whole. In Nart’s opinion, Farewell, therefore, did not take the plunge in a leap of death, but went simply a step further.

There is every indication that the motives attributed to Vetrov by the DST and the KGB correspond to the stereotypes prevailing in the collective consciousness of one or the other of these secret services. In the eyes of the DST, it was the rejection of the regime and a thirst for freedom. For the KGB, there was only one explanation: Vetrov was a mercenary.
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Although supposed to have better knowledge of the situation, the KGB, as we can observe, was further from reality than its French counterpart.

Such oversimplifications are risky when trying to analyze a man’s decision to endanger his life and the well-being of his family. In Vetrov’s case, it was more about a tangle of inner impulses and external causes.

At the top of the list is the confusion and deep isolation Vetrov was in for the first time in his adult life. His parents were dead. His wife, whose support he was used to relying on, was not speaking to him. He was totally disoriented, and the difference between right and wrong did not mean anything to him anymore.

On top of his distress came a painful feeling of frustration and hatred for the service to which he had given his best. So that was it then? The KGB considered unworthy one of its most gifted operatives? No way! It was Vetrov who considered this collection of slackers and corrupt bastards unworthy. There was also the desire of accomplishing his destiny, of tearing himself away from a life without glamour and without a future, of playing a leading part before the curtain comes down. Vetrov probably articulated this in a more matter-of-fact way. Simply put, he was about to show what he was made of to those who underestimated him—relatives, friends, colleagues, in short to everybody.

Contrary to the KGB assertions, there is no evidence that the material and financial aspect played the role it could have had for a materialistic individual such as Vetrov. He was clearly motivated by much stronger feelings than basic greed. As he was satisfying his urge for revenge, however, Vetrov seemed to enjoy more and more the benefits of his new status as a paid source. As his relationship with his mistress evolved, it had an influence on the material aspects of the operation. As we will see later, the only formal requests Vetrov made to his handlers involved merely a few presents, the nature of which indicated clearly that Ludmila was the recipient.

Turning now to the technical aspect of the first meeting. It was already mentioned that, as a KGB analyst, Vetrov was not allowed to meet with foreigners. This was a hard-and-fast rule, a safeguard that made life easier for the PGU internal counterintelligence service. This being said, even though Vetrov knew whom to contact to be heard without delay by the DST, just contacting Jacques Prévost was not that easy for him.

His French friend was still working for Thomson-CSF, overseeing contracts between the company and the Soviet Union, and on this account was traveling regularly to Moscow. According to his KGB file, starting in May 1963, when he spent ten days in the USSR for the first time (in Kiev, at the occasion of a trade show), Prévost logged several dozen trips to the Soviet Union. The country had less and less secrets for him, and he had a good command of the language. By the end of the seventies, Sheremetyevo Airport became a familiar scene for Prévost. In preparation for the Olympics in Moscow, following an international call for bids, Thomson was awarded a contract for the modernization of Soviet TV. This was a huge deal, involving hundreds of millions of French francs in investments, hundreds of experts, engineers, and technicians shuttling back and forth between the two countries, and a vast construction site in Moscow for the new technical center for Soviet TV.

In 1979, at the peak of the games preparation, Jacques Prévost traveled to Moscow five times to oversee the advancement of the contract—once a month from February through May, and once more in October. In 1980, the year of the Olympic Games, he did not have much left to do in Moscow. He came back only once, from October 14 through October 18. He had no way of knowing that this was precisely the time when Vetrov was desperately looking for a way to contact him again.

Apparently, the DST had no expectations left regarding its Soviet study target. The last time Prévost had called Vetrov on the phone, it was around 1973, when he was traveling with “Pierre.” Since then, there had been the episode of the visa denied to Vetrov for a post in France, which put an end to the DST approach attempts. Friendship? In the world of intelligence, it is justified only if it serves a professional necessity. As such, friendship is an unnecessary and dangerous luxury.

As for Vetrov, it would have been too risky for him to make inquiries, even discreetly, about a foreigner. It was not until December 1980 that Vladimir found a way to reconnect with Jacques.

Svetlana had a brother who was six years older than she. Lev Barashkov was a well-known figure. A comedian by training, Lev was a star of Soviet light music as a singer, slightly on the downhill trend (he would disappear from the scene a few years later), but he was still popular at the end of the seventies. In the fall of 1980, he was about to leave for a tour abroad. The tour was in Hungary, where Soviet troops were stationed. Under Kadar, however, this was the most liberal country in Eastern Europe, the socialist community showcase. Unlike in the Soviet Union, the mail addressed to people abroad was not opened, or at least not systematically.