— Ch. 1 · Origins And Evolution —
KGB.
~11 min read · Ch. 1 of 7
The Committee for State Security emerged from the ashes of earlier Soviet security agencies on the 3rd of March 1954. Ivan Serov became its first chairman following a restructuring that followed the fall of Lavrenty Beria in June 1953. This new body replaced the NKVD and OGPU, consolidating foreign intelligence, counter-intelligence, and internal police functions under one roof. The agency operated as a military service governed by army laws, similar to the Soviet Army or MVD Internal Troops. It attached itself directly to the Council of Ministers, making it the chief government agency of union-republican jurisdiction. Throughout its existence, the KGB carried out internal security, foreign intelligence, and secret police duties across the Soviet Union. Similar agencies existed in each republic, but the Russian SFSR housed the headquarters where most power resided. By 1964, Secretary Leonid Brezhnev had overthrown Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Brezhnev grew wary of ambitious spy chiefs who held too much influence. He removed Aleksandr Shelepin, who served as KGB Chairman from 1958 to 1961, after Shelepin helped orchestrate the coup against Khrushchev. Shelepin later found himself demoted from his high post to chair the Trade Union Council between 1967 and 1975. Vladimir Semichastny followed Shelepin as chairman until 1967 before being reassigned to Ukraine. In the 1980s, glasnost policies provoked KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov to lead the August 1991 Soviet coup d'état. The failed attempt to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev marked the beginning of the end for the organization. On the 3rd of December 1991, the KGB officially dissolved after decades of operation.
Global Espionage Campaigns
Between the World Wars, the GRU recruited ideological agent Julian Wadleigh, who became a State Department diplomat in 1936. The NKVD established legal residency for Boris Bazarov and illegal residency for Iskhak Akhmerov in 1934. Communist Party USA General Secretary Earl Browder helped recruit Americans working in government, business, and industry. Low-level and high-level agents included diplomats Laurence Duggan and Michael Whitney Straight in the State Department. Statistician Harry Dexter White worked within the Treasury Department while economist Lauchlin Currie advised FDR. The Silvermaster Group, led by statistician Greg Silvermaster, operated within the Farm Security Administration and Board of Economic Warfare. Whittaker Chambers approached the Roosevelt Government to identify these spies but was ignored during the Second World War. At the Tehran conference in 1943, Yalta in 1945, and Potsdam later that year, Joseph Stalin knew more about Allied war affairs than they did about his own plans. Soviet espionage excelled at collecting scientific intelligence on jet propulsion, radar, and encryption systems. Stealing atomic secrets remained the capstone achievement of NKVD operations against Anglo-American science. British Manhattan Project physicist Klaus Fuchs served as the main agent of the Rosenberg spy ring starting in 1941. In 1944, New York City residents infiltrated Los Alamos National Laboratory by recruiting Theodore Hall, a nineteen-year-old Harvard physicist. After the Second Red Scare between 1947 and 1957, the KGB failed to rebuild most illegal resident networks in the United States. Reino Häyhänen betrayed Rudolf Abel, also known as Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher, in 1957. Recruitment then emphasized mercenary agents who proved especially successful in scientific and technical espionage. Private industry practiced lax internal security compared to the US Government. One notable success occurred in 1967 when John Anthony Walker walked into Soviet hands as a US Navy Chief Warrant Officer. Over eighteen years, Walker enabled Soviet Intelligence to decipher some one million US Navy messages. FBI counterspy Robert Hanssen operated from 1979 to 2001 while CIA officer Aldrich Ames worked from 1985 to 1994.