Akhmedov, Izmail Guseynovich
Although most of the Soviet intelligence officers who defected during World War II did so after being captured in combat, a few defected from a foreign assignment, more like those of other time periods. Ismail Guseynovich Akhmedov[i] was one of the latter, defecting in 1942 while serving as a Razvedupr officer under cover as a Tass correspondent in Turkey.
Akhmedov initially provided information to Turkish intelligence, and later British and American, much of which has not been declassified. His reporting supported counterintelligence activities in all three countries. He immigrated to the United States in the early 1950s and appeared publicly before U.S. congressional committees in the 1953 and 1956, and then worked as a consultant for American and British intelligence for the next three decades. He published a book in 1984, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU: A Tatar’s Escape from Red Army Intelligence, over 40 years after his defection, in which he described his story through a 1980s Cold War lens.
Akhmedov was born in June 1904, in Orsk, a frontier post on the Russian border with Turkestan (now Kazakhstan). His father was a Muslim imam, and Akhmedov was raised as a practicing Muslim. Although Akhmedov disassociated himself from religion during his Soviet career, he renewed his religious adherence after his defection, and he begins his book with the Muslim basmala.[ii]
He was raised on the steppe helping his father peddle goods to nomadic Kyrgyz tribesmen. His father was drafted into the Imperial Army during WWI, leaving Akhmedov as the oldest male in the home for several years as a teenager. His father returned from the front in December 1917 after having spent time in Moscow and witnessing the chaos of the revolution. The area where Akhmedov lived subsequently became a battleground in the civil war between Cossacks loyal to the Tsar and Red troops.
Once the Bolsheviks took control of the region, Akhmedov joined the Komsomol in 1919, hoping that it would improve his chances for education. He became a young enthusiast for Bolshevism and was nominated as a candidate member of the party at age sixteen. He was accepted to attend the Oriental Institute in Orenburg, which the Bolsheviks had established to train “messengers of Soviet goodwill” to non-Russian regions of the Soviet Union.[iii] In 1921, he was sent to Chardzhou near Bukhara to teach illiterate Uzbeks. He became a full Party member at age seventeen.
While teaching at the school, Akhmedov met a Turk, a fellow teacher, who convinced him to travel to Turkey to attend university. The Turk even gave him a written introduction to the Turkish consul at Baku. However, he never made it to Turkey, but instead wandered between jobs and homelessness in Baku and the mountains of Azerbaijan for the next four years until 1925, when he succeeded in obtaining a place at the Leningrad Military School of Signal Communications. His four years living among the Azerbaijanis had a strong influence on him, solidifying his sense of belonging among fellow Turkic peoples.
From 1925 to 1929, Akhmedov studied at the military academy, graduating as a junior lieutenant. Many of his professors were pre-revolutionary Russian imperial officers and officers from other pre-Soviet empires, such as Austria, whose expertise the Soviet Union needed to develop a functioning military, but who were later purged as the Bolsheviks gained greater numbers and confidence.[iv]
His first assignment as a new Soviet officer was to a radio battalion in Tbilisi, where he met his future wife, Tamara Yefimovna Perskaya, in a German language course. Akhmedov had enrolled in the course hoping it would help him in his technical studies and because the Soviet Army offered a language proficiency bonus. He passed exams in both German and Turkish, sending his career in an unforeseen direction—soon after the exams in the summer of 1930 he was transferred to the Razvedupr as a communications and cipher officer.[v]
Akhmedov’s initial task as a new Razvedupr officer was to read local files to become familiar with Razvedupr operations and to practice cipher skills. He recalled messages about a Turkish general staff officer returning from Moscow to Turkey via Batumi, Georgia, and the Governor of Tabriz, Persia, both of whose travel was facilitated by the Razvedupr. Akhmedov interpreted both of these events as signaling that the Razvedupr had recruited these foreign officials. He also read the file of an agent who infiltrated a group of Azerbaijani refugees fleeing across border into Turkey. The agent, who had formerly been a teacher of the escaping group’s children, facilitated a joint Razvedupr-OGPU Border Guard ambush of the group, ending in a shootout in which many of the refugees died. Such cooperative operations, conducted by Razvedupr пограничные разведывательные пункты (border intelligence points; PRPs), were typical along the Turkish and Persian borders, showing atypical cooperation between the usually rival OGPU and Razvedupr. Akhmedov felt sympathy for the Azerbaijani refugees, partly because he had lived among them during his wanderings in Azerbaijan, and partly because he felt an ethnic connection to fellow Turkic nationalities. He remarked with dismay to his commanding officer about the incident, but was dismissed with a warning about informing the local OGPU OO.[vi]
Akhmedov was assigned to the agent operations section, and after his initial on-the-job training, he began specific operational preparations. He began a study of Kurdistan, including details of Kurdish tribal chieftains, travel routes and paths, and sources of water in the region, local history and folklore, the origins of conflicts among the tribes and generally among the people of the Middle East, and the struggles between the various political parties. He planned operations for infiltrating insurgents through the mountains and the deserts and identified ways for Soviet advisors to appeal to and play on the national and religious feelings and customs of local populations. He also learned of Razvedupr radio communications equipment buried in remote locations outside the Soviet Union for use in future Soviet-sponsored insurgent activities. Twenty-five year later, he would conduct similar operations in the opposite direction—infiltrating agents into the Soviet Union in support of the CIA.
At the beginning of 1931, Akhmedov attended a course on agent radio communications. In addition to learning technical skills, training also included political courses, which Akhmedov claims included lectures about the United States being the most hated of world powers, the “base of world capitalism.” One of the most important Soviet objectives in the fight against “Anglo-American imperialism” was to control the Middle East and its oil.[vii] The tone of the lecture identifying the United States as a target of political subversion differs from the training mentioned by other defectors, which focuses on Great Britain and Germany, and is possibly a product of the time when Akhmedov’s book was published (1984) rather than the 1930s when the lectures were presented.
He returned to Tbilisi and for the rest of 1931 as a ham radio operator making contact with other ham operators in the region and recruiting them to assist with clandestine communications. One of these hams agreed to travel to Tabriz under Soviet diplomatic cover to work as a Razvedupr radio operator.[viii]
Akhmedov’s expertise in Razvedupr communications later formed a significant part of an FBI research study titled Soviet Intelligence Communications, published in September 1952. The study cited several defectors, particularly Akhmedov and Igor Sergeyevich Gouzenko, who defected three years after Akhmedov, and described the methods that Soviet intelligence organizations used to communicate between rezidenturas and the center. Akhmedov’s and Gouzenko’s debriefings provided insights into the structure of code rooms, the procedures for sending and receiving messages, the operations of couriers, and radio communications.[ix] This study circulated within U.S. intelligence over 30 years before Akhmedov’s book was published openly.
From November 1931 to September 1932, Akhmedov was deployed to a PRP on the Armenian border with Turkey. His presence was under cover as an OGPU border guard, but he ran Razvedupr sources into Turkey. He noted in particular a Kurd who crossed the border to provide information about the local Turks. Karavashkin notes that during this time, Akhmedov also made several trips abroad for intelligence purposes, although Akhmedov does not mention those trips.[x]
Akhmedov transferred to the Higher Military Electro-Technical School of the Red Army Command Staff in Leningrad in the autumn of 1932. His work during this time was not specifically intelligence-related, but included conducting engineering research for military radio communications. His time in Leningrad coincided with the assassination of Sergey Kirov, and Akhmedov remembered the anxiety of the ensuing purges within the school. He was largely spared the purge himself, however, and upon graduation from the school in 1936 he was accepted for postgraduate work in the electro-technical and radio control research division of the Signal Corps Central Scientific Research Institute in Moscow. He arrived at the time of the first purge trial in Moscow, and he rose quickly in position at the institute chiefly because those above him were being purged. As a Red Army officer, the 1937 trial of Mikhail Tukhachevsky and other senior military leaders had a strong impact on Akhmedov, although he claims to have immersed himself in his work to avoid politics as much as the Soviet system would allow.
In 1938, Akhmedov entered the Soviet General Staff Academy. However, courses at the academy were suspended in November 1939 and all students sent to Leningrad for duty on the Finnish Front. He was assigned to non-intelligence work, but remarked about the weakness of Soviet maps and intelligence that led to Soviet operational failures. He noted in particular that the PRPs along the Finnish border—the equivalents of the unit in which he had worked in the early 1930s in the Caucasus—had done poorly at collecting intelligence to support operations against Finland.[xi]
He was assigned to an Army headquarters staff and witnessed the defeat of the 44th and 163rd divisions of the Northern Corps on the Finnish frontier in November 1939. He expressed to his commander his views about the Soviet Army deficiencies that led to the defeat, and consequently was assigned to investigate the incident. He reported that a lack of coordination, poor organization by the Army Staff, lack of sufficient machine guns and other automatic weapons, and the lack of ski troop support led to the destruction of the unit. A lack of intelligence about the terrain and enemy techniques, poor maps, and inadequate training were contributing factors. The report was compiled in cooperation with the NKVD, which participated to identify whether any criminal wrongdoing or treason was involved.[xii]
Akhmedov returned to the General Staff Academy after the Russo-Finnish war, but only a few months later in June 1940, he was deployed again, this time to western Ukraine. He left for the city of Kamenets-Podolsky to courier a classified order for the military commander to attack Romanian forces if Romania refused to cede northern Bukovina and Bessarabia to the Soviet Union. The plane in which Akhmedov was riding got caught in fog and could not proceed to the meeting point, and when he tried to reach the commander by car he was informed by radio that the order was rescinded because Romania had assented to the demand.[xiii]
Akhmedov graduated from the General Staff Academy in August 1940 and hoped to return to his research position. But in September he was recalled to GRU duties as Acting Chief of the Fourth Section, which was responsible for technical intelligence operations. Nigel West notes that while Akhmedov was chief of the Fourth Department, he took inspection tours of Razvedupr rezidenturas in Europe, and Mariya Iosifovna Polyakova, a GRU officer known for her later handling of the Rote Drei espionage ring in Switzerland during WWII, acted as his deputy.[xiv] Akhmedov’s acquaintance with Polyakova became an item of counterespionage interest years later when, in the mid-1960s, MI5 invited Akhmedov to London to ask him questions in relation to a mole hunt within the British government. Akhmedov discussed a woman, whom he initially identified as Vera, who controlled all GRU illegals in the West and worked directly under Akhmedov while he was chief of the Fourth Department. Vera reviewed communications from a source in London codenamed Elli who worked in British counterintelligence, whose identity is still a matter of debate. The communications were of such importance that Vera would take some of directly to Stalin.[xv] Akhmedov identified Vera as Polyakova in his 1984 book.[xvi]
Akhmedov’s responsibilities at Razvedupr headquarters also involved managing science and technology collection operations in the United States. He recalled an instance when he negotiated with the NKVD over the percentage of intelligence cover positions that would be allotted to the NKVD and Razvedupr at the Amtorg office in New York. The negotiation resulted in the Razvedupr receiving 40 percent of the positions and the NKVD receiving 60 percent. The NKVD argued successfully that it was responsible for both economic and S&T collection, so it deserved more positions. But Akhmedov was satisfied because Red Navy personnel posted to New York were also Razvedupr officers but did not count in the negotiated numbers, and Razvedupr officers’ wives added further to the operational staff.[xvii]
In his U.S. debriefings in the late 1940s, Akhmedov provided a biography of Artak Armenakovich Vartanyan, a GRU officer who had been posted to Amtorg from 1934 to 1939 to collect science and technological intelligence. Akhmedov indicated that Vartanyan was experienced both in intelligence work and electronics. Vartanyan was involved in similar activities as NKVD officer Gaik Badalovich Ovakimyan, whose posting to Amtorg covered the entire period of Vartanyan’s stay in the United States. Akhmedov knew Vartanyan well, because after Vartanyan left the United States he served for a time as Akhmedov’s assistant at Razvedupr headquarters.[xviii]
In mid-December 1940, Akhmedov’s office was involved in developing a Razvedupr assessment on Germany’s intentions. The Razvedupr assessed that Germany would not attack the USSR: “Hitler and his marshals ‘were not going to attempt suicide.’ They were not ‘maniacs or lunatics’.” The Razvedupr predicted that Hitler would bring the UK to its knees soon and the British possessions would be divided between Germany and Japan. The USSR would “liberate” the Balkans, “our brothers in blood,” and thereby open a way to the Middle East and its oil resources and strategic routes. To save the UK, the USA would attack Germany, and the capitalist states would fight among themselves until the USSR would come and liberate the rest of the world in their wake. The USSR developed two plans: Plan A—the USSR enters the fight on the side of Germany and Japan against the USA; and Plan B—the USSR enters into a “temporary” alliance with the United States to fight Germany. The USSR settled on Plan B, initiating a series of efforts to increase intelligence networks against Germany and identify intelligence cooperation opportunities with the United States.[xix]
As part of this German intelligence effort, Akhmedov traveled to Riga, Latvia, from January to April 1941, when Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to forcibly repatriate Germans still living in the Baltic republics after the USSR had annexed them in June 1940. This resettlement, which came to be known as the Nachumsiedlung (after resettlement), became a windfall for the GRU and NKVD, which competed to find recruits among the Baltic Germans before they departed. Most of the recruited agents returned to Germany, while a few, particularly Jews, were forced to emigrate to the United States and Britain. Akhmedov received praise for his efforts to recruit agents bound for the United States and Britain.[xx]
When Akhmedov returned to Razvedupr headquarters in April, he received a report dated 17 April 1941 from a Czech agent indicating that Germany was making plans to attack the Soviet Union, possibly in June. Stalin interpreted the report as a British provocation and ordered the Razvedupr to investigate its source.[xxi] Later, after Akhmedov arrived in Germany, he learned that the GRU rezidentura in Berlin had received another agent report in April claiming that about 180 German divisions were grouping on the Soviet border. The ambassador, Vladimir Georgievich Dekanozov, dismissed it as a figment of someone’s imagination.[xxii] Akhmedov later wrote, “We were praised for our second-rate information, but when we got something really important, nobody was even allowed to prepare for invasion.”[xxiii]
Akhmedov arrived in Berlin in May under Tass cover using the alias Georgiy Petrovich Nikolayev to fulfill Stalin’s order to investigate the Czech report. When Akhmedov later testified before a U.S. Congressional committee in 1956, he discussed in detail the Soviet use of Tass for intelligence cover, and identified the intelligence officers in Berlin who operated under Tass cover.[xxiv]
Akhmedov was in Germany only a few weeks when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, closed the Soviet embassy and interned the embassy staff. Having been raised as a Muslim, Akhmedov was circumcised, and thus treated as Jew in German custody, given duties to clean latrines and sweep sidewalks.[xxv] But he was in German custody for only a few weeks when Soviet internees were rounded up and sent to Turkey in exchange for German prisoners.
Akhmedov was scheduled to transfer back to the Soviet Union, but the Soviet ambassador in Turkey, Sergey Aleksandrovich Vinogradov, received orders from Moscow for him to remain as a press attaché in Istanbul to set up intelligence activities against Germany. He was to seek sources among Europeans expatriates, particularly from countries under Axis control (Poles, Czechoslovaks, Yugoslavs, French, Italians), and instruct them to return to their home countries and operate against Germany. He was also to obtain German identity cards, birth certificates, and ration cards to support future illegals in Germany.
In addition to intelligence collection, he also organized insurgent and stay-behind operations. His tasking included identifying cache sites in Ankara, Istanbul, Izmir and other Turkish cities, as well as in the open country near the Soviet border, in which to store weapons, communications equipment, and money for future use by guerrillas. He was to identify officers of the defeated Yugoslav royalist army and induce them to go to Moscow for guerrilla training, to be later air-dropped into Yugoslavia to lead partisan units. In this effort he was enthusiastically aided by Vladimir Perich, a royalist who working at Yugoslavian embassy. Perich identified a number of Yugoslav colonels who were in exile in Iraq who would be eager to rid their country of Germans. Perich also introduced Akhmedov to British officials in Istanbul, but Akhmedov received instructions from Moscow to “never trust the British.”[xxvi]
In November 1941, Akhmedov received a brief but earth-shattering note from Moscow: his wife, Tamara, had died suddenly. Despite attempts to learn more about her death, he received no further information. Her death cut the one binding tie he had to the Soviet Union. A short time later, he heard on the radio that the United States had entered the war, prompting him to approach the U.S. consulate general in Istanbul and offer to defect. A small, frail elderly gentleman met him, and Akhmedov gave his real name and told him that he was a Soviet military intelligence officer. The gentleman listened politely but responded that the he could do nothing for Akhmedov.[xxvii]
In January 1942, the NKVD rezident in Turkey briefed the consulate-based intelligence staff that the United States, as the wealthiest of the imperialist countries, was thus the enemy number one. The WWII alliance was a temporary phenomenon until the defeat of Germany, and, although he could be friends with British and Americans in 1942, he should always remember that the Soviet Union would fight them later.[xxviii] Although the Soviet Union did direct intelligence resources against the United States during WWII, particularly targeting science and technology information, this identification of the United States as “enemy number one” seems to predate other sources, which at the time focused more on Germany and Great Britain. This possibly reflected the amount of time that had elapsed between when Akhmedov was in Turkey and when his book was published.
Akhmedov came into contact with a number of other Soviet agents in Istanbul, who were primarily targeting Germany:
A Swiss couple carrying Brazilian passports, who reported on Germans in Istanbul. The couple traveled to Germany on “vacation,” via Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Austria to report on the military, political, and economic situations and to obtain German documents.
A Russian girl traveling on a Polish passport, who had emigrated from Russia with her wealthy family during the Bolshevik revolution. She was recruited in Latvia and sent to Istanbul to troll bars and nightclubs to spot potential agents.
An Austrian Jewish refugee woman who, motivated by hatred for Nazis, spotted potential agents and reported on Germans in better restaurants and hotels.
A Czechoslovak journalist who also cooperated out of hatred for Nazis.
A Dutch communist who posed as an idealist.
On 24 February 1942, a Yugoslav refugee attempt to assassinate the German ambassador to Turkey, Franz von Papen. The would-be assassin detonated a bomb prematurely, killing himself but not seriously injuring the ambassador. Nevertheless, the event caused commotion in Turkey: the British and Soviets accused the Gestapo; the Germans accused the British.[xxix] However, the Turkish police quickly identified the assassin and arrested his accomplices, including an NKVD officer under cover at the Soviet trade delegation. Another NKVD officer implicated in the conspiracy hid inside the Soviet consulate in Istanbul. The Turkish investigation continued for several months, and a trial of the suspects commenced in April 1942.
At about the same time, Ambassador Vinogradov called Akhmedov into his office and ordered him recruit a prominent Turkish journalist to write pro-Soviet press stories and mobilize Turkish public opinion in favor of the Soviet Union. Akhmedov’s Razvedupr instructions, however, did not include operating against Turkey itself, for which Akhmedov was glad because of his personal affinity for the Turks. Akhmedov refused Vinogradov’s order on the grounds that he was a Razvedupr officer and was not obliged to take orders from the NKVD. The ambassador was furious.[xxx]
The Turkish trial of NKVD officers for attempted assassination caused significant embarrassment for the Soviet Union. During this period of disquiet, Vinogradov called Akhmedov into his office again and informed him that he was being recalled to the Soviet Union. Akhmedov interpreted the chain of events ominously, assuming that the ambassador was making him a scapegoat for the assassination operation’s failure in revenge for his refusal to follow an NKVD order. Akhmedov felt no option but to defect.
Initially he contacted Vladimir Perich at the Yugoslav embassy asking to inform the British embassy of his intent to defect. Perich put him in contact with a British friend, to whom Akhmedov explained his plans. The British friend wished him luck but offered no assistance. Akhmedov then wrote letters of resignation to the Soviet government, renouncing his Party membership and denouncing Soviet domestic and foreign policies, and in May 1942, he approached the Turkish police and requested asylum. The Turkish police welcomed him and offered him protection from possible Soviet retribution.[xxxi]
For several years the Turkish police moved Akhmedov around the country to avoid NKVD pursuit. During this time, Turkish authorities debriefed him and he gave the Turks details of Soviet intelligence activities in Turkey, including the NKVD’s hand behind the Von Papen assassination attempt and the real identities of the NKVD operatives.[xxxii]
Although Akhmedov was not aware, the Turks passed his reports to the Americans and the British during WWII. But the Turks debriefings reflected primarily narrow Turkish interests, and the material diminished after several years. Then, in February 1947, Kim Philby was assigned to Istanbul as MI6 chief of station, and Akhmedov’s fate became intertwined with Philby’s. Although Akhmedov places their first meeting during the summer of 1948,[xxxiii] Brook-Shepherd notes that Philby first traveled to meet Akhmedov in June 1947.[xxxiv] Akhmedov thought when he met Philby, “Where have they [the British] been since 1942?”[xxxv] Philby, however, delayed reporting his meeting with Akhmedov to London until October, and then claimed to have lost his report of the conversation. Philby then invited Akhmedov to Istanbul in January 1948 and interviewed him for 9 days, during which Akhmedov provided information about a variety of subjects:
Personal background, biographic data,
Motivations and step-by-step details of his defection to the Turks.
Several hundred Soviet military officers and other public figures and their characteristics and style of working.
Soviet High Command, the General Staff, the political directorate of the Soviet army and navy, their organization, policy, control, strategy, and doctrine. Military schools and academies. All personnel known by name, and their characteristics. Soviet military, scientific, and research organizations, their tasks, personnel, and their characteristics.
Signal corps of the Soviet army.
Border troops.
Purges in the Soviet armed forces; Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939.
Soviet military intelligence—functions of the GRU, strategy, operations, tactics, its history, chiefs and deputies, and organization.
Intelligence objectives and political aspects: the relationships between the Party, Soviet government, and the GRU.
Finances, operational doctrine, and methods of operation, agent handling and modus operandi, and communications.
Soviet diplomatic, commercial, and other establishments, such as Tass, as cover for Soviet intelligence activities.
Soviet intelligence professional standards, efficiency, and security.
Training establishments.
KGB history, organization, the relationship between GRU and KGB.
GRU activities abroad, the legal and illegal networks in Turkey, Europe, United States, and Asia.[xxxvi]
However, despite this large volume of material, Philby suppressed most it, providing only a truncated version; nine days of debriefings were reduced to 39 pages of material.[xxxvii] Akhmedov later suspected that Philby’s debriefing was driven more from Moscow than from London, designed more to identify the level of damage Akhmedov had done or could do rather than to exploit him for intelligence purposes.[xxxviii]
Nevertheless, small bits of Akhmedov’s information did make their way into British counterintelligence files. The MI5 file on Nikolay Yezhov contains a brief note giving Akhmedov’s impression that Yezhov controlled both the NKVD and military intelligence, similar to Ginzburg’s assertion that the NKVD was gaining increasing authority over the Razvedupr.[xxxix]
U.S. intelligence representatives debriefed Akhmedov later in 1948, and he provided a large amount of information about GRU operations in Turkey and the United States, Soviet intelligence officer names and agents, Soviet intelligence communications, and Soviet research institutes. He also provided material on the GRU’s modus operandi and aided in the compilation of a glossary of terms used in the KGB and GRU.[xl]
Once his information began to reach U.S intelligence, Akhmedov’s debriefings supported a variety of U.S. counterintelligence activities. Akhmedov’s material was often paired with information from Igor Sergeyevich Guzenko, who defected three years after Akhmedov, since both were GRU officers posted to Soviet legal establishments, and both were knowledgeable about communications. Only small portions of these debriefings have been declassified.
The FBI used Akhmedov’s information to identify GRU officers who had served in or were proposed for postings in the United States. For example, the FBI cited Akhmedov’s debriefings when investigating the background of Ivan Alekseyevich Bolashkov, who was nominated to be the Soviet military attaché in Washington in June 1948. Akhmedov identified Bolshakov as senior GRU office who was, at the time Akhmedov defected, the chief of the Razvedupr Sixth Department, which was responsible for specialized training in the use of technical and communications equipment.[xli] Akhmedov also provided biographical information about Sergey N. Kudryavtsev, another Razvedupr officer whom Akhmedov had known both in Berlin and Turkey. Akhmedov indicated that Kudryavtsev had been recalled from his position as legal rezident in Turkey to Moscow because the Razvedupr planned to use Kudryavtsev’s English language skills in the United States or Canada.[xlii] Gouzenko subsequently identified Kudryavtsev as a Soviet military intelligence officer to Canada during WWII.[xliii] A CIA study of the workings of GRU legal residencies distributed to CIA stations in August 1960 also cited Akhmedov’s debriefings on the organization of the GRU rezidentura in Turkey.[xliv]
In 1951, Akhmedov moved to Germany and then to the United States. He appeared several times before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws (known beginning in 1952 as the Jenner Committee). His first appearance was on 28 and 29 October 1953, when he testified about GRU activities directed against the United States, identifying Amtorg specifically as an intelligence front. He said that while he was in Moscow he had received reports and pictures of American tanks from the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland. He also noted that in 1941 Stalin gave Soviet ambassadors the authority to direct the activities of Russian agents abroad.[xlv] He later wrote that, because many ambassadors were NKVD officers, the policy effectively placed Razvedupr operations under NKVD control.[xlvi]
Just before his 1953 testimony, the FBI interviewed Akhmedov to clarify what the FBI perceived to be discrepancies between his earlier debriefings and the information he had given to Robert Morris, the Chief Counsel for the Senate Committee. Akhmedov indicated in this interview that Germany was the GRU’s prime target at that time, but, although the United States was not the highest priority for penetrations, the GRU was still interested in U.S. information. The GRU performed poorly while Akhmedov was working as the chief of the GRU Fourth Section, resulting from the purges of Soviet Army officers. New officers who assumed GRU positions after the purge mistrusted the agents who had been active under their predecessors, and many were recalled to the Soviet Union and replaced. One of these was an officer Akhmedov named in his testimony to the Jenner Committee to as Adams,[xlvii] a reference to Arthur Adams, a long-time communist who had come to the United States as an illegal in 1935 to collect science and technology intelligence, but was recalled to the Soviet Union in 1938. Adams somehow survived the purge to return to the United States in 1939 to resume his activities, eventually becoming a major player in the GRU’s atomic espionage.
Akhmedov was the earliest identifiable defector in this thesis whose name appeared in the 1969 KGB list cited by Vladislav Krasnov.[xlviii] However, as he defected during World War II, his name appears in the alphabetic listing of defectors in Krasnov’s book, but there is no entry for him among background descriptions in Krasnov’s papers.[xlix]
While he was in Turkey, Akhmedov took the Turkish name Ismail Ege, although he also continued to use the name Akhmedov, including for his book in 1984. He moved to Germany in 1951, and he worked in the Defector Reception Center near Frankfurt, participating in interrogations of Soviet defectors and Iranian refugees. He also wrote anti-Soviet propaganda materials targeted at Muslims in the Soviet Union, and the CIA valued his knowledge of Islam in preparing anti-Soviet operations. By 1956, his salary as a CIA contractor was $8,000 per year.[l] Using the pseudonyms Roger N. Witthof, and Hans Zuayter,[li] he was temporarily assigned to the CIA project AEACRE in 1956, which oversaw the interrogation, assessment, training, briefing and preparation of agents for infiltration into the Soviet Union.[lii] In 1957, he traveled to Pakistan to assist with interrogations,[liii] and in July 1958, he was transferred to the CIA base in Tehran, Iran, where he continued to support operations to infiltrate agents into the Soviet Union.[liv]
Using his name Ege, he later became an interpreter for the U.S. Department of State and other organizations. The Turkish writer Muammer Kaylan wrote of an incident when a group of Turkish officials traveled to Cape Canaveral, Florida, to witness the launch of a rocket to the moon. Ege/Akhmedov served as interpreter for the Turkish officials.[lv]
Unlike many other defectors who defected to the United States, Akhmedov’s motivation for publishing his book in 1984 was not to earn money; his salary as a U.S. government contractor was probably sufficient to live comfortably. His motivation for publishing a book was probably a combination or a desire to tell his story publicly, and a continuation of the anti-Soviet propaganda operations in which he had been involved in the 1950s-1960s.
Akhmedov died in January 1996 in California, having lived 54 years after defection, one of the longest living Soviet intelligence officer defectors.[lvi]
[i] Photo from Ismail Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU: A Tatar’s Escape from Red Army Intelligence (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1984), back cover.
[ii] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, p. xiii.
[iii] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, p. 23.
[iv] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, pp. 68-69.
[v] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, p. 77.
[vi] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, pp. 81-83.
[vii] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, p. 86.
[viii] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, p. 87.
[ix] FBI, Soviet Intelligence Communications, September 1952 CIA FOIA Reading Room, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP65-00756R000400090001-8.pdf.
[x ] Vitaliy Vasilyevich Karavashkin, Кто Предал Россию (Who Betrayed Russia) (Moscow: AST, 2008), p. 101.
[xi] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, p. 109.
[xii] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, pp. 119-121
[xiii] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, p. 123-124.
[xiv] Nigel West, The A to Z of Sexpionage (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2009), p. 222.
[xv] Peter Wright, Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer (New York: Viking, 1987), pp. 281-282.
[xvi] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, p. 130. Polyakova was the subject of a documentary film, Резидент Мария (The Rezident Mariya), Russia Channel 1, https://dok-film.net/10595-rezident-mariya-2015.html.
[xvii] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, pp. 132-133.
[xviii] Undated memo, “Arshak Armenakovich Vartanian, with aliases Artak A. Vartanian, A. A. Vartagnian,” forwarded to the 7970th CIC Group, 4 October 1949, NARA, RG 319, Entry 134A, Box 822.
[xix] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, pp. 133-135.
[xx] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, p. 135.
[xxi] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, p. 137.
[xxii] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, p. 145.
[xxiii] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, p. 148.
[xxiv] United States Congress. Senate. Judiciary Committee. Scope of Soviet Activity in the United States, 84th Congress, Second Session, part 3 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1956), pp. 60-72.
[xxv] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, p. 149.
[xxvi] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, pp. 156-157.
[xxvii] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, p. 159.
[xxviii] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, p. 160.
[xxix] Agostino von Hassell, Sigrid MacRae, Alliance of Enemies: The Untold Story of the Secret American and German Collaboration to End World War II (New York: MacMillan, 2013), p. 130.
[xxx] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, pp. 161-162.
[xxxi] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, pp. 168-171.
[xxxii] Eduard Prokopyevich Sharapov, Наум Эйтингон – карающий меч Сталина (Naum Eitingon, Stalin’s Sword of Retribution) (St. Petersburg: Neva, 2003), p. 105.
[xxxiii] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, p. 188.
[xxxiv] Gordon Brook-Shepherd, The Storm Birds: The Dramatic Stories of the Top Soviet Spied who have Defected Since World War II (New York: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989), p. 59. Brook-Shepherd’s coverage of Akhmedov is very brief, filling less than 5 pages and covering only his debriefing.
[xxxv] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, p. 189.
[xxxvi] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, pp. 192-193. Brook-Shepherd, The Storm Birds, p. 60.
[xxxvii] Center for the Study of Intelligence, Of Moles and Molehunters: A Review of Counterintelligence Literature, 1977-92 (Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1993), p. 53.
[xxxviii] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, pp. 191-192.
[xxxix] Reference to Akhmedov’s interrogation extract entered into the MI5 Yezhov file, KV 2/583, serial 22y. See MI5 Krivitsky Debriefing Notes, dated 31 January 1940, TNA KV 2/804, serial 20a; Compilation of Ginzberg’s MI5 debriefings, “Information Obtained from General Krivitsky During His Visit to This Country, January-February 1940,” TNA, KV 2/805, serial 55x, pp. 54-55; United States Congress. House. Committee on Un-American Activities. Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States, Vol. 9 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1956), p. 5735.
[xl] Frank J. Rafalko, ed., CI Reader: American Revolution Into the New Millennium (Washington, DC: Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, 2004), pp. 68-69.
[xli] FBI memo to U.S. Army Director of Intelligence, “Major General Ivan Alekseevich Bolshakov, Internal Security – R,” dated 20 September 1948, NARA, RG 319, Entry 134A, Box 86.
[xlii] Memo dated 10 December 1948, “Sergey N. Koudriavtzev,” NARA, RG 319, Entry 134A, Box 428. Although this memo shows Kudryavtsev’s middle initial as “N,” his patronymic was Mikhailovich. Kudryavtsev’s MI5 file is TNA, KV 2/1650, which contains a copy of a 1948 Akhmedov debriefing that mentions Kudryavtsev, serial 33a, from which Akhmedov’s name is redacted.
[xliii] United States Congress. Senate. Judiciary Committee. Scope of Soviet Activity in the United States, 84th Congress, Second Session, part 3 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1956), pp. 65-71.
[xliv] CIA, GRU Legal Residencies, August 1960, CIA FOIA Reading Room, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/REDCAP_0028.pdf.
[xlv] United States Congress. Senate. Judiciary Committee. Interlocking Subversion in Government Departments (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1953).
[xlvi] Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, p. 140. See also an extract from Akhmedov’s reporting the MI5 file on Yezhov, KV 2/583, serial 22y.
[xlvii] FBI Washington Field Office memo, “Ismail Akhmedov, aka Ismail Ege, Internal Security – R,” 27 October 1953, FBI file number 100-351199, FBI Vault, https://vault.fbi.gov/Walter%20Krivitsky/Walter%20Krivitsky%20Part%204%20of%208.
[xlviii] Krasnov, Soviet Defectors: The KGB Wanted List, p. 171.
[xlix] Алфавитный Список Агентов Иностранных Разведок, Изменников Родины, Участников Антисоветских Организаций, Карателей, и Других Преступников, Подлежащих Розыску (Alphabetical List of Foreign Intelligence Agents, Traitors to the Homeland, Members of Anti-Soviet Organizations, Collaborators, and other Wanted Criminals), HIA, Vladislav Krasnov Writings.
[l] CIA Memo, “Request for Amendment #1 to Project AEACRE for the Fiscal Year 1957," CIA FOIA Reading Room, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/AEACRE%20%20%20VOL.%201_0030.pdf.
[li] Frank J. Rafalko, ed., CI Reader: American Revolution Into the New Millennium (Washington, DC: Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, 2004), pp. 68-69.
[lii] CIA Memo, Project AEACRE (Renewal), 12 January 1956, CIA FOIA Reading Room, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/AEACRE%20%20%20VOL.%201_0025.pdf; CIA Memo, “Basic Plan AE-ACRE,” 29 December 1951 CIA FOIA Reading Room, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/AEACRE%20%20%20VOL.%201_0004.pdf.
[liii] CIA Memo, “Request for Renewal of Project AEACRE for Fiscal Year 1958,” 1 September 1957 CIA FOIA Reading Room, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/AEACRE%20%20%20VOL.%201_0033.pdf.
[liv] CIA Memo, “Request for Renewal of Project AEACRE for Fiscal Year 1959,” 12 June 1958, CIA FOIA Reading Room, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/AEACRE%20%20%20VOL.%201_0037.pdf.
[lv] Muammer Kaylan, The Kemalists: Islamic Revival and the Fate of Secular Turkey (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2005), pp. 255, 256.
[lvi] Death record for Ismail Ege, U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007.