Evening star., 1961-08-06
Both Soviet and U. S. Intelligence
Are Subject to Variety Of Errors

CLl6 OnlC6Q SCaC6S, Is connected Dy
the State Departments directory
of Soviet officials to the KGB.
Some people believe Panyushkin
now heads the infamous second
directorate.
There is a subsection Of the sec
ond directorate known as Division
9 which specializes in murder, kid
naping and blackmail for Soviet
political purposes.
Division 9 operates not only in
the Soviet Union but throughout
the world. Division 8 has left q
trail of murder for all to see.
Here are some examples selected
at random:
In December, 1857, a Red Army
sergeant, Anatoli Ponomarenko,
deserted and ultimately reached
England where he went to work
for an emigre group writing anti
Soviet pamphlets.
After 10 days in England
middle-aged woman, posing as a
refugee, apparently doped the
the Sergeant's food and he woke
up in the Soviet Embassy.
The Soviet Embassy insisted he
had felt remorseful and wanted
to go home. Sergt. Ponomarenko
was spirited out of England some
time between March 14-18, 1859.
Arsenic Poisoning Case
In September, 1859, one of the
Vests more valuable Russian de-
fectorS, Nikolai Khokhlov, was
admitted to a Frankfurt, Ger
many, hospital suffering a form
of arsenic poisoning.
Khokhlov knew about such
things. He had been a member
of Division 8. The poison was
identified ultimately as a rela-
lively rare chemical compound
which could be absorbed through
the skin.
Khokhlov had detected to the
West after being sent to Germany
to assaSsinate Georgi Okolovish,
a leading member of an anti
Soviet refugee group in West
Berlin.
Khokhlov said he was to have
killed Okolovich with a poison
tipped bullet fired from a harm
less looking cigarette case. He had
the case to support his Storys
In December, 1859, police Off
cialS in Munich, Germany, finally
attributed three murders since
1854 to Russian agents from the
terrorist group. The three:
On November IL, 1854, ex-
Soviet Army Maj. Abdul Rata
libev was knitted in broad day
light on a busy street. He was
broadcasting for radio liberation,
an anti-Soviet station.
On October is, 1859, a man
identified only as "Bandera" -
Ukranian for fighter-was found
dead of poison on the threshold
Of his apartment. He led an
organization which carried out
clandeStine operations behind the
Iron Curtain.
In that same year a Slovak
emigre leader. Marcus Cernak,
opened registered parcel at the
Munich post office. 1t exploded,
killing Cernak and a woman by
stander.
1t is only rarely that these polit-
ical murders come to light for
there are those in the Western
world who hold that to publicize
them contributes to their terrorist
effect.
The list of murders laid at the
doorstep Of Division 9 is long
and includes Czechoslovakia's Jan
Masaryk and the assassination of
Leon Trotsky in Mexico.
The details and operations of
the Soviet espionage and intelli-
gence systems are known through
out the Western world as a result
OF the defections of Igor Gouzenko.
a Russian Embassy code clark, in
Canada in 1946, and that of Vladi-
mir Petrov, KGB member and
third secretary at the Russian EN-
baSsy in Australia in 1856.
There have been a host of other
defectionS.
In 1860 the then United States
Secretary of State Christian A.
Herter, estimated the number of
Soviet agents at large in the world
at about 100000. This figure in
cludeS between 10000 and $4,000
master agents working outside
the Soviet Union.
Since World War II some $50
individuals in II nations have been
convicted of espionage for the
Soviet Union, including 13 in the
United States.
On May 13, 1860, the German
Federal Republic reported that
over 1890 persons had been ar
rested in eight years in connection
with Soviet spy operations.
Soviet officioIs Expelled
Over the last 10 years, too, 48
Soviet officials have been expelled
from non-communist nations for
espionage and subverSion.
While these numbers may
sound impressive, they represent
only tiny fraction of the num-
bers engaged.
The 5 to million Communists
living outside the Iron Curtain
nations are all potential agents
and agitators, and the Soviets
make free use of them.
The Communists, of course, do
not have complete advantage.
The Western nations have poten-
tial agents among the millions
OF disilluSioned living behind the
Iron Curtain.
Even the Soviet Union itself is
not immune. Only 48 per cent of
the USSR's population is COM
prised of Great Russians. The ma
tion for the most part consists of
40 separate nationalities.
Some of these nationalities -
the Ukranians, for example-have