Russians Among Us

Andrey Bezrukov’s marriage, though, was no fake. This was an adventure that two young people set out on together. Elena Vavilova was a fellow history student at the university. She had been born in November 1962 in Tomsk, where her parents were academics. She was a cheerful, outgoing child who enjoyed figure skating, ballet, and acting. At university she played the violin as she studied for her degree. There she met Bezrukov. There was a confidence to him and also a sense he might take her out of the well-ordered world she had grown up in. “Andrey offered me something out of the ordinary, an adventure,” she later said. The young couple spent the night together in the university library, sneaking in before closing time and staying among the book-lined shelves. But they were caught by the director the next morning. There was a telling off but no punishment. Perhaps it was this spirit of adventure and the willingness to take risks together that got them noticed.

The young couple was approached by a man who had an unusual proposal. Did they want to serve their country? She was only twenty-one. “I wondered what would happen to our relationship,” Vavilova thought. “I believe we were selected separately, each of us could have refused the proposal,” Vavilova later explained to me. “However, since we were already romantically involved, it was more beneficial to have us as a couple for the training.” She would later reflect that love marriages among illegals were better than arranged ones because of the trust that was always there. Their first curator sat down with them and in long conversations began to see if they were suitable—their recruiter talked to them about their backgrounds, their lives, their friendships, and their studies, carefully probing them to make sure they had what it took. The strains of the life they were to live drove others apart but, in their case, it would bring them even closer together.

Why did Elena Vavilova agree to become a spy? “The concept of the Motherland—an amalgamation of everything that is important to you,” was her explanation later. Vavilova and Bezrukov were still living in the era of communism when they were approached by the KGB, but it was always as much defending Mother Russia as spreading communism that had motivated them. “For me the main motive that made me agree and accept this job was the desire to prevent another terrible war, like the Great Patriotic War,” Vavilova later said, using the Russian name for World War II. “As a teenager, all the films about the war and the suffering the people had to go through and the high price we had to pay for victory, all of this fostered in me a wish to be part of whatever could be done to prevent it from happening again.” This was the driving force for many Russian spies from the Cold War generation—the sense of threat to their country and the story of their near defeat at the hands of the Nazis before a victory that came at an enormous cost (one which many feel is rarely acknowledged in the West). Almost every family had lost someone in that brutal war. The illegals’ mission was to prevent it happening again by acting as a warning system. The early eighties, when the couple was approached, were years when the need for such warning seemed all too real. In Washington, there was an American president calling the Soviet Union “the evil empire” and who, Moscow feared, might be gearing up for confrontation and perhaps even a first nuclear strike. And at the same time, young men from the Soviet Union, including fellow students from Tomsk, were heading off to fight in a brutal conflict in Afghanistan.

In the West, the word spy refers to both heroes—the James Bonds—and villains—traitors like the Kim Philbys. But in Russia they separate the two concepts with different words—a spy is a betrayer of secrets. Meanwhile, their word for heroic intelligence officers translates more closely in English to “scouts”—in the sense of someone who is working behind enemy lines to scout ahead and report back, providing advance warning. The separating of the two ideas makes it easier in Russia to lionize the heroes and demonize the villains. It also explains how the illegals saw themselves as operating behind enemy lines in order to protect the motherland. They were the “soldiers of the invisible front.”

Soon after, the couple was married. Bezrukov’s parents came to the modest reception in Elena’s parents’ house. A few years later they would be married for a second time, this time as Donald Heathfield and Ann Foley (she chose to use her new middle name rather than Tracey). “The gap between our weddings was short, a few years, but those years were very intense,” Vavilova later explained. There was no honeymoon the first time. Instead, Bezrukov and Vavilova simply vanished from the life of friends and family as they headed to Moscow. Despite the excitement of being in the nation’s capital and the luxury of a two-bedroom apartment, this period was challenging. “The years before we left were quite taxing physically, psychologically and intellectually,” she would say. By the end of every week, they would be exhausted. They had to learn all the traditional “tradecraft” involved in being a spy—out on the Moscow streets they practiced brush-pass contacts, where one person hands over items to another surreptitiously—and tested on whether they could spot surveillance. Inside, they learned martial arts, how to shoot a gun, and how to evade a polygraph lie-detector test. But there was much more to the creation of an illegal than attending regular spy school. For a start, the training was provided to them as a couple by a small group of tutors. They did not mix with other recruits to protect their identity. But it also involved going much deeper. Each illegal required a staggering investment—around four years and by some estimates a million dollars. This compares to CIA and MI6 training for new officers, which is measured in months, not years. “It was not a mass production,” one head of the KGB said. “You do not train illegals … in the classes. It’s a piecemeal operation. You work with an individual, one on one. And only in such a way, we can make them look like an Englishman or a Spaniard or a German.”

As the Moscow snows came and went, Bezrukov and Vavilova’s education involved former illegals educating them in the history of the elite spies whose ranks they were to join. Moscow had developed its specialty in illegals after the 1917 revolution. Many countries did not have diplomatic relations with the communist Soviet Union so diplomatic cover was not an option. In those early years, there had also been a pool of ideologically committed communists of various nationalities who were willing to spy for Moscow. This led to the heyday of the illegals in the 1930s and 1940s. Richard Sorge operated undercover in Japan, moving in the highest diplomatic circles to provide vital intelligence about Tokyo’s relationship with Nazi Germany. In Europe, illegals recruited people who were students and some would slowly work their way into positions of power and influence. Some, like Kim Philby and the Cambridge spies in the United Kingdom, would reach the highest echelons of Western intelligence agencies. In America, illegals worked with the atomic spies who stole the most sensitive secrets imaginable, which proved vital in allowing the Soviet Union to avoid defeat in the early Cold War. Many of these early international illegals were rewarded with execution in Stalin’s purges.

In the mid-1950s, the KGB began a push for a new generation of homegrown illegals. They never quite matched their predecessors, although there were some successes. Among the best known was Konon Molody, who turned into Canadian Gordon Lonsdale. He came to London and ran a spy ring stealing naval secrets. Molody had previously worked as an understudy in the United States for another of the great illegals—Rudolf Abel, a remarkably talented individual who had been born in Britain and served in World War II on the front lines before embedding himself in New York. These were the footsteps Bezrukov and Vavilova were to follow in.

The illegals were treated as heroes in the Soviet Union, far more than their spy counterparts in the United States or Britain. There were stories of their daring undercover operations in World War II. The most fabled was Nikolai Kuznetsov. Films and books were based on his time posing as a member of the German occupying army in Ukraine during which he killed six senior Nazis. The accounts of World War II illegals were a central part of Soviet popular culture promoted by the KGB. One fictional work was turned into a 1973 TV series called Seventeen Moments of Spring. It featured a deep-cover illegal, a Soviet version of James Bond, who posed as a German aristocrat to infiltrate the Nazi SS and who prevented the Nazis from negotiating a peace deal with America. The series was a massive hit, reaching up to 80 million viewers, and was constantly repeated, embedding itself in the popular mind. Vladimir Putin was twenty-one when the series was first shown and he became desperate to sign up for the KGB. One of his first jobs in East Germany in the 1980s, he would later boast, was to work with illegals.

The CIA and MI6 have never had quite the same capability. They do use what Britain calls natural cover and the Americans call non-official cover (NOC) for their spies. When someone is recruited as a CIA NOC (pronounced “knock”) every trace of their contact with the agency is obliterated. Sometimes these officers became annoyed because they had to give up their salary for the cover job, which exceeded their CIA pay even though they felt they had earned it by doing both jobs. They also often felt on the margins of the CIA. Occasionally an individual with a private sector background suddenly gets a surprisingly high-level job at Langley—the reason is they may have spent their career as a NOC. The closest the United States got to Russian “illegals” was the recruitment of dual nationals into its NOC program. So a French-American recruit might end up as a French businesswoman but actually be a CIA officer. But the United States and United Kingdom have never really repaid the favor of sending their own long-term agents into Russia posing as citizens of a third country for extended periods. Why? There is a simple answer. What CIA or MI6 officer at the start of their career would relish spending two or three decades in Russia? The advantage for Russia was always precisely its weakness during the Cold War and after. People from other countries—including undercover Russian spies—want to live in the West. People in the West are less likely to want to go the other way and spend two decades working in Volgograd pretending to be a Ukrainian. It also takes patience, sacrifice, and long-term thinking to create an illegal, something the KGB’s competitors were not always so good at.

What were illegals for? The simplest answer is that they were there to do the things that other spies could not. Konon Molody was used to run spies where it was feared that KGB officers under diplomatic cover might be spotted. Other illegals were used to gather specific types of intelligence—for instance, by being trained scientists who could infiltrate biological research establishments or analyze technical data from agents there. Others were deployed purely in case of war. If conflict did break out, then diplomatic relations would be cut and these illegals would take over the running of agents from embassy spies. Some sleepers—also called konservy, or “preserves”—were there purely to carry out acts of sabotage in the event of war. The scale of Soviet and later Russian investment can only be understood when you realize that some illegals were trained for years and then spent decades in their target countries and yet were never called on to do anything operationally. They were a sign that Moscow played the long game when it came to spying. But other illegals—like Bezrukov and Vavilova—were not “sleepers” in the sense that they were dormant, waiting to be activated. Rather, from the beginning of their deployment they were to be engaged in starting to work their way into Western society with the purpose of gathering intelligence.

An illegal could get deep into their opponent’s society in a way that a legal spy could not. That allowed you to understand your adversary and also meet people who would not engage with a Russian. Doing this required an actor’s talent, Bezrukov would later say. But an actor turns on his character for a performance and then returns to his normal self. That is not an option for an illegal. You had to become someone else—and never let that mask slip—and yet never lose your real self. Isolation was a constant worry. The illegal trainees were carefully observed, including by psychologists, to see if they would crack under the stress or if they could hold their cover. This was different from worrying if a secret agent would break under interrogation and torture. The stress instead would come from decades living in a foreign land. One person described the challenge as similar to training a flight crew of cosmonauts who were going to go out to space. The bonds between those out on a mission and those supervising them back home needed to be strong. A traitor among such a tight circle was almost unthinkable because of what it would mean. What Bezrukov could not have known was that at the very moment he was being trained in Moscow, the man whose fate would eventually determine his was undergoing his own training. A veteran of the Afghan war, Alexander Poteyev had been selected to attend the Red Banner Institute in Moscow—preparation to become a KGB intelligence officer.

Learning the language of their target countries took up the majority of Bezrukov and Vavilova’s day. They had teachers who had lived in the West but were also given videocassettes of films whose dialogue they would copy and learn. They had to push their own language back in their minds so that the first word they reached for was in their new tongues of English and French, even if they swore. It was not just language but lifestyle. You had to wear the clothes, eat the food, smoke the cigarettes, and even use the razor blades of the target country. “We trained authentic Americans and Englishmen on Soviet territory,” explained one head of the KGB. “Habits of how to fill out forms in a London post office; how to pay for an apartment in New York.” You had to listen to the radio, watch the TV, and read the newspapers while instructors—often defectors—would test you. When one illegal returned to Moscow, his boss spotted him at the airport in a restaurant, slowly eating his dinner with a knife and fork like a “prim Englishman”—even smoking a pipe as if he were back in England. Vavilova had to learn tiny details that might give you away—for instance, in America when you counted with your fingers you did not bend them like you did in Russia. She would also have to learn what she called the “peculiar American optimism,” which meant “keeping your face smiling.” No more dour Russian looks for her.

There is one fear that haunts Moscow Center. Could those undercover Russians take to their new lives a little too much and literally go native? During training, illegals were tested with dummy missions. They would be tasked with meeting an agent, but the real purpose was for the agent to report back on the prospective illegal. In some cases illegals were even given a truth drug. Bezrukov’s final test involved being given an attaché case with a false bottom containing, he assumed, drugs to hand over to someone he was told was a crime boss. It was supposed to be a straight handoff, but when he met the recipient, they forced him into a car. The case was empty and Bezrukov was subject to interrogation—with a gun pointed at him—to see if he could cope with the unexpected.

When the training was complete, Andrey Bezrukov was going to disappear. Before they were posted abroad in the late eighties, Bezrukov and Vavilov, now about to become Heathfield and Foley, like every illegal, had to swear an oath to the party, the homeland, and the Soviet people.

There was always trepidation, their spymasters would recall, as an illegal was finally dispatched. It was like sending a child out into the world. Drozdov was something of a father figure to the illegals in these years and would personally check on their progress. But now it was time to let them go. Another head of the directorate compared the moment to taking someone you had just taught to swim and sending them far out to sea. You did not know if they would have the strength to cover the long distance that lay in front of them.

As the moment arrived, Bezrukov and Vavilova sat in front of an empty suitcase in their Moscow apartment. All the clothes they would travel in had to be carefully purchased outside of Russia so that nothing could give them away. They had cleared out every pocket so there was nothing like a coin or ticket stub. Into a box they placed the mementos of their old life that would be left behind—their love letters, Communist Party membership cards, and even their weddings rings. These would be handed over to the KGB for safekeeping. But there was one thing that Elena Vavilova held in her hand that she could not let go of—some pictures of her childhood. They were her last connection to Tomsk and to the life she was saying good-bye to. Those would come with her. It was a mistake that would come back to haunt her.

What was the most difficult emotional experience in departing for a new life? The farewells to parents were hard (there was a cover story of going to Australia). But the real fear was never returning. “There was a possibility we would never come back. We even contemplated the possibility of dying there,” Vavilova later said. “Strangers in a strange land, under alias.” Bezrukov was haunted by the thought of the Canadian cemetery his false identity had been born in and the fear he might be buried far away from Mother Russia. The tombstone would simply read “Donald Heathfield.” If you were an illegal, even your death would be a lie. That was the life the young couple had committed to as they set out.

3

Strangers in a Strange land

THE MONUMENT WAS at a picturesque site in Canada, although neither the man nor the woman who met each other there will say precisely where it was. The pair were playing at being tourists and strangers. The woman walked down the steps. She stopped for a moment looking for something in her handbag. The man happened to be standing in front of her. In these situations, a camera could be your best weapon. “Good morning. May I take your picture? You look so good in the sunlight,” the man said. Yes, she replied, and they began to talk. It seemed like a chance encounter but, in reality, it was the opening scene in a movie whose script had already been written. As their legend would have it, this was where the pair’s romance began. But the truth was they were not strangers. Rather they were already a married couple. The encounter at the monument was the cover story for where and how Donald Heathfield and Ann Foley first met and how their relationship began.

THE PAIR HAD arrived separately in Canada in 1987, the Cold War still under way. There was excitement at the chance to prove themselves but also fear. The initial journey to a target country was a moment of high risk. There had to be no chance you could be traced back to Russia. So a journey might go first to Eastern Europe, and then to Cyprus, to the Middle East, to Asia, and finally to Canada, at each stage a different set of documents used and then discarded. For Ann Foley, the final entry into Canada was the moment of greatest fear. “You also have to keep your emotions in check, keep calm, not show you are flustered or afraid,” she later recalled. There should be no sudden movements or looking around. But she had nothing to worry about. The Canadian authorities still do not know what identity the pair arrived under or even the date they came into the country. Once the disposable identities had been tossed away, the illegals switched to their new settled identities. First they had to meet and then melt into their target society. Canada was a long-established stepping-off point (the “host” country in the center’s terminology) to prepare to reach the “target country.” At least four of the eleven ghosts who would be the target of the 2010 arrests would have some kind of Canadian documentation. Canada was the ideal launching pad for illegals into America. The culture and language allowed an illegal to acclimatize and build up their identity while border and document checks were largely ineffective. “Canada is a lot like the US, only colder and with fewer people,” a KGB officer explained to one illegal in the 1970s.

Heathfield and Foley’s mission was long-term penetration of the “main enemy.” But what is staggering is that they would spend more than a decade building up their cover before they actually went to live in the United States. That was how long Moscow Center was willing to wait. There was occasionally contact with Moscow Center as orders and money were sent, but their main job was to forget Russia and immerse themselves in Canada. Vavilova would observe other young women whom she saw on the street or met and then try to copy their gestures or their style of conversation. A job was vital partly as it started you on a career that would lead to contacts but also because you needed to explain where your money came from. Some illegals started a business (with money from Moscow); Heathfield had little help though. “I had to get an education again, look for work, create a business … without anyone’s help and with minimal resources,” he later said. In Montreal, Foley enrolled in a course at the Computer Institute of Canada and took a job in accounting at a garment factory. Heathfield worked in accounts at a Honda dealership. It just about covered the bills. They were tough years with long hours, the hard graft of being an illegal. They moved to Toronto and on June 27, 1990, they had their first son, Timothy.

“Every undercover agents’ family have to decide, whether to have children at all,” Foley would later say. “This is a difficult decision to take.” You were bringing a child into the world whose family was living a lie. This was a heavy responsibility and some illegals decided against it. “We carefully weighed this, of course, discussed a lot,” she later said, acknowledging that “our leaders also had concerns.” But it was something the couple had always wanted. They also knew that from the outside, they would look more “normal” if they had children. Even the act of childbirth has risks. In the famous drama about illegals, Seventeen Moments of Spring, an illegal gives away her identity by crying out in pain while giving birth. The problem was she had done it in Russian. When it came to her time, Vavilova as Ann Foley took extensive precautions, attending prenatal classes to learn how best to control herself. She refused anesthetics to keep a clear mind and made sure her husband was present in case anything went wrong.

The summer after the birth of their first child, the couple watched the coup in Moscow and then the collapse of the Soviet Union. The regime they had sworn an oath to was gone. Suddenly, they were on their own. But where some illegals may have given up, Heathfield and Foley did not. It was a “painful period,” Heathfield later acknowledged. “We could not receive support from the Center. We had to fend for our ourselves and cover all our expenses,” recalled Foley. A sense of patriotism endured even as the ideology they had sworn an oath to vanished. But there was also a sense of jeopardy, the knowledge that chaos in Russia risked their exposure. The end of the Soviet Union did not mean the end of the illegals or the desire of its intelligence services to spy on the West, though. Far from it. It was soon clear that the game went on.

A YOUNG COUPLE approached the immigration officer in Helsinki airport on April 23, 1992, and showed their British passports. The man’s name was James Tristan Peatfield, from Surrey. She was Anna Marie Nemeth, from Wembley. But the immigration officer was suspicious. They seemed nervous. They had just got off a flight from Moscow but only had hand luggage and did not speak very good English. Who had won the British general election a few days earlier? They did not know. When their bag was searched, around $30,000 in cash was found inside an old shirt as well as a shortwave radio. Nemeth had some story about having been in Canada and working in an advertising agency. That was news to the real Anna Nemeth, who worked at a suburban Sainsbury’s supermarket and was left bewildered when police arrived at her door. She had visited Hungary four years earlier, when her passport details must have been copied. She had never met the real Mr. Peatfield, who was from Coulsdon in Surrey. The couple at the airport next offered a cover story that they were trying to emigrate illegally and had purchased passports on the black market with money from selling women’s underwear. Having such a cover story at the ready—usually involving some murky criminality—is standard practice for an emergency situation. The British intelligence officers who interrogated them in Helsinki had some hope that the woman might admit the truth, but she never did. The pair were deported to Moscow. They were illegals who had used the British identities of “live doubles” on a training mission and their failure was subject to a detailed review back in Directorate S. What it told the West was that the flow of illegals had not halted despite the end of the KGB.