CIA Spymaster: George Kisevalter: The Agency's Top Case Officer Who Handled Penkovsky And Popov by Clarence Ashley III

Author:Clarence Ashley III [Ashley, Clarence III]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-07-07T01:34:00+00:00

The second time Penkovsky came to London he didn't have a delegation. He came in July as an assistant supervisor to a Soviet trade exhibition. He did have freedom of movement in the evenings so the members of the team were able to have more or less continual meetings when wished. During this trip, Penkovsky arranged to place himself in good stead with Serov, who was chief of the entire GRU intelligence system. Serov had been head of the KGB but was transferred to the GRU, in part because of the Popov case.

According to George, Ivan Aleksandrovich Serov was a man almost universally detested. He had been with Khrushchev in London in 1956 and was declared persona non grata when Lionel Crabbe, a navy commander and frogman, drowned underneath the Soviet cruiser, Ordzhonikidze. While the craft was docked at Portsmouth Harbor, Crabbe secretly tried to examine its hull and ancillary components; he accidentally drowned in the process.4 The British press, in reporting the incident, observed that Serov was aboard and referred to him as the butcher who assisted Lavrenti Beria in executing so many people. They then hounded him out of town, leaving Khrushchev there to salvage whatever relations were left. Thereafter, Serov was never welcome in London.

George continued, "This did not, however, prevent Serov's wife and daughter from enjoying the city of Big Ben. In fact, they decided to go there during Penkovsky's second trip. Before Penkovsky embarked upon the trip, Serov called him in and said, `Look, while you're there in London, just keep an eye open and make sure my wife and daughter are okay. You know, if they need anything, look after them a bit.' Naturally, Penkovsky made a big production out of the opportunity to ingratiate himself with Serov. First of all, when they arrived in London, the muttonheads at their intelligence station didn't have an embassy car waiting, so he called for one. He got it. He took them to a hotel. He wined and dined them even though the CIA-SIS team pleaded with him not to be too friendly with the attractive, young Miss Serov. He took them shopping. They ran out of money. He gave them money-CIA-SIS money! Serov would repay him when he got home. Penkovsky was making out like a bandit. He was getting them all kinds of stuff: sweaters, shoes, etc. They even wanted to get one of those put-it-together-yourself swings that you use in the garden. They needed a steamboat to haul all of this stuff back to Leningrad. The team members began to see that this was par for the course. `When you go there, pick me up this and that,' etc. Every secretary got lipstick, etc. Some of these handouts really got to rare proportions. There was some woman for whom Penkovsky was charged to acquire a whole suite of furniture smuggled from Czechoslovakia. A whole suite! One thousand and twenty rubles! I asked him, `Who the hell is this girl?' `She's the daughter of the chief of personnel,' Penkovsky replied.

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