Vasily Zarubin Vasily Mikhailovich Zarubin Василий Михайлович Зарубин ( 1894 – 1972 ) was a Soviet intelligence officer . In the United States , he used the cover name Vasily Zubilin and served as Soviet intelligence Rezident from 1941 to 1944 . Zarubin ' s wife , Elizabeth Zubilin , served with him . Zarubin was born in Moscow . He served with the Russian Imperial Army on the Eastern Front during World War I from 1914 . For agitation against the war Zarubin served in a penal battalion . Zarubin was wounded in March 1917 . He served in the Red Army and fought in the Russian Civil War from 1918 - 1920 . He joined the Cheka in 1920 and served in its internal security section . In 1923 he was appointed as the chief of economic division OGPU in Vladivostok and organized the fight with the smuggling of narcotics and weapons from Europe to China . In 1925 he transferred to foreign intelligence . In 23 years of service , 13 years were on the " Illegal " work in different countries . He served as a legal officer in China ( 1925 ) , a legal officer in Finland ( 1926 ) , " Illegal " Rezident in Denmark and Germany ( 1927 – 1929 ) posing as a Czechoslovak citizen Jaroslav Koček and his wife Liza , born Rosenzweig as Mariana Koček , an " Illegal " Rezident in France ( 1929 – 1933 ) , and an " Illegal " Rezident in Germany ( 1933 – 1937 ) after Adolf Hitler came to power . In 1937 , Zarubin returned to the USSR for work with the KGB ' s central apparatus and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for his work in creating the underground antifascist groups . From 1939 to 1940 he was one of NKVD ' s officers in Kozelsk camp for Polish prisoners of war . In Kozelsk his task was to investigate the Polish POWs in the camp . After most of the POWs were massacred in the Katyn Forest , he was reassigned to other duties . In 1940 he survived an accusation of working for the Gestapo . In the spring of 1941 he undertook an assignment in China . He is credited with obtaining information from a high - ranking German adviser to Chiang Kai - shek about Hitler ' s plans to attack the USSR in mid - 1941 . Zarubin became the chief of the KGB legal Rezidentura in the United States in the fall of 1941 . On 12 October 1941 , just as the Germans were on the outskirts of Moscow , Zarubin was personally directed by Joseph Stalin to his primary task : to discover if the United States would attempt to arrange for a separate peace with Germany . Zarubin actively participated in recruiting work . The Rezidency obtained political information from the United States Government , and the scientific - technical information that was highly valuable to Moscow and regularly reported to Stalin . The Rezidentura under Zarubin achieved large results and made the weighty contribution to strengthening of the economic and military power of the Soviet Union . Zarubin was recalled in 1944 to face a second accusation of working for the Germans , which he survived . For the results achieved during September 1944 Zarubin received the title of the Commissioner of State Security , and by the decision of the Council of People ' s Commissars of the USSR on 9 July 1945 became a Major General . After returning to the USSR , Zarubin became deputy chief of foreign intelligence and simultaneously deputy chief of " illegal " foreign intelligence . He worked in this capacity up to 1948 when he was discharged due to health status . Zarubin was awarded the Order of Lenin twice , the Order of the Red Banner twice , and the Red Star , with many other medals . Markov . One of the documents in the Venona collection is an anonymous letter , dated 7 August 1943 , to " Mr . Guver " ( Hoover ) . It identifies Soviet " intelligence officers and operations that stretched from Canada to Mexico . " It also includes accusations of war crimes against the KGB Rezident in Washington , D . C . , Vassili M . Zarubin ( a . k . a . Zubilin ) , and his deputy , Markov ( in the United States under the alias of Lt . Col . Vassili D . Mironov ) . The anonymous author asserted that Zarubin and his deputy Markov were directly implicated in the bloody occupation of eastern Poland during the Nazi - Soviet alliance of 1939 - 1941 and the murder of some 15 , 000 Polish soldiers — officers and NCOs , regulars and reservists — captured by the Red Army . The letter provided accurate and early confirmation of Soviet complicity in the executions in the Katyn Forest , where German occupation forces in April 1943 discovered a mass grave containing 4 , 300 Polish corpses . Only someone " in the know " could have revealed that Polish soldiers had been interned at Kozelsk and Starobelsk and that Polish soldiers had been killed " near Smolensk . " This information was known to only a handful of people in 1943 and was carefully concealed for almost 50 years by Soviet authorities . Semyon Semenov in New York City and Grigory Kheifets in San Francisco were also identified in the letter . Regarding Semenov , the letter said , " SEMENOV works in AMTORG , is robbing the whole of the war industry in America . SEMENOV has his agents in all the industrial towns of the U . S . A . , in all aviation and chemical war factories and in big industries . He works very brazenly and roughly , it would be very easy to follow him up and catch him red handed . " Pavel Sudoplatov , head of the NKVD ' s Administration for Special Tasks wrote in 1992 that the author of this letter is Markov . The letter caused Zarubin to be recalled to Moscow . An investigation of him and Elizabeth Zarubina lasted six months and established that he was not working with the FBI . Markov was recalled from Washington and arrested on charges of slander , but when he was put on trial , it was discovered that he was schizophrenic . He was hospitalized and discharged from the service .