There was no specific training on intelligence issues—nothing more specific than things like the value of not showing how well she understood the English language at first—but there was no misunderstanding either: She was being groomed to become a more efficient informer.
Throughout this training Violetta continued to work part-time in the administrative offices of the institute and to teach English on a freelance basis. She also served as an interpreter at different international congresses that were held in Moscow, and in the spring of 1985 she was recommended for employment at the Administration for Service to the Diplomatic Corps. Known by the initials UPDK, and pronounced Ooh-Pay-De-Kah, it was the Soviet agency that provided a Russian workforce to every foreign embassy.
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At this time in the Soviet Union the tentacles of the KGB reached into just about every organization, but its interest in UPDK was greater than most others because of the contact the members of UPDK had with foreigners. While a certain percentage of the UPDK staff at every embassy was professionally trained by the KGB, the majority owed their position to family connections. Every Russian who worked for UPDK was screened for “political correctness,” however, and all were required to meet with a supervisor on a weekly basis and report their observations. Everyone also knew that the time could come when he or she would be called upon to serve the security services in an active capacity.
When Violetta was informed in May 1985 that she was being recommended for a position in the American Embassy, she had mixed feelings. It made her nervous, because throughout her life it had been stamped into her head that America was the enemy and the American Embassy was staffed with professional spies. Indeed, at that very time she, like millions of Russians, had been transfixed by a popular espionage thriller series on Soviet television that pitted the KGB against the CIA. A James Bond-style adventure that starred some of the Soviet Union’s top movie actors, the program focused on a fictitious African republic with a pro-Moscow government that appealed to Soviet help to quell a CIA-backed coup plot, and the action included bloody assassinations, clandestine agents shadowing U.S. diplomats in Moscow, and codes transmitted by U.S. spy centers via shortwave receivers. Like many Soviet films, this one had a clear message: The United States was plotting not only against the Soviet Union, but also against nations friendly to it—and foreigners were not to be trusted.
On the other hand the embassy position was an exciting opportunity to meet and interact with Westerners; the salary was more lucrative than at any of the other foreign embassies; and she was told that Russian employees were even given a uniform allowance. A pittance by Western standards—$300 a year—but the right to flip through Neiman Marcus, Macy’s, and Sears catalogues and order things that were impossible to get in the Soviet Union was a big perquisite.
As it turned out, Violetta’s first position was not in the embassy proper but as a temporary replacement in Spaso House, the residence of the American ambassador to the Soviet Union, Arthur Hartman. She acted as sort of the house executive, sitting at a desk, answering the phone, and communicating with the domestic staff, but worked there barely a month before she was relieved of her duties because of a conflict with Donna Hartman, the ambassador’s wife, who found her sulky and uninterested in her work, and rated her performance as unsatisfactory.
Within a matter of weeks she was hired to fill a long-standing vacancy in the customs section of the American Embassy as a file clerk. She almost didn’t get the job because of what had happened at Spaso House, but UPDK advised the embassy that she was the only person available, her English was fine, and her clerical skills good enough. In her interview with the American General Services officer she projected a desire to prove herself worthy of a second chance.
Over the course of the summer of 1985 Violetta became “a stylish presence” at the embassy, in the words of one foreign-service employee. Her father, now a party boss, had reentered her life, and as if to make up for the years he’d been away, he bought her new outfits, so her attire was fashionably up-to-date. Dressed to kill, tall at about five feet nine inches, with shoulder-length brown hair and striking hazel eyes, she became the center of attention among male staff members at the embassy.
Much later, when NIS investigators would interview embassy employees, they would be given a tawdry portrait of Violetta that would support the impression she was on the make. “While an employee at the General Services office, she visibly spent much time doing her fingernails, reading trashy English novels, and displaying a brazen lack of interest in her job,” they would be told. “She made overt eye and facial expressions indicative of a sexual approach… and her frequent attempts to physically lure American personnel became an office joke. Coworkers referred to her as ‘the dangle.’ ” Some even assessed her as an individual who attempted to make herself attractive to either sex.
It’s hard to know what to make of these observations, because the way Violetta told it to her mother, numerous Marines made passes at her while she worked at the embassy, but she wasn’t interested. At least one political officer became a nuisance, calling her at home and inviting her to dinner and embassy functions, until finally she told her mother to refuse his calls. And when she first noticed Clayton Lonetree following her home from work, she was convinced he was a CIA agent, which was what she told the KGB when she called to report on him.
By the time Violetta made her call, Sgt. Clayton Lonetree was already under KGB observation. The Second Chief Directorate of the KGB was the Soviet counterpart to the FBI, its specialty internal counterintelligence, and to fulfill its charter it was divided into twelve departments. Because America was perceived as the primary enemy, the First Department directed its interest and activities toward the American Embassy and its personnel. On staff at the First Department was a chief; several deputies; about fifty staff officers, recruiters, and agent handlers; and several hundred professional surveillants who did nothing but follow people who came out of the American Embassy. These were the people who first noticed Lonetree, and they had filed several reports on his bizarre activities. He left the compound by himself in violation of the rules they knew were laid down for Marine guards. He rode the metro miles beyond the travel limits they knew were specified.
Those who worked in surveillance were a laconic bunch, and when their shift was complete, they would regularly go out for coffee or vodka and grumble about what had been written in the daily newspaper. These days the conversation invariably returned to the American Marine and what he was up to. They couldn’t figure it out. The guy was breaking every rule in the Marine book, he was doing it all the time, and nothing was happening to him.
Within the First Department, whose headquarters were a half mile from the embassy in an unassuming five-story building, analysts considering the Marine guard’s behavior were asking the same questions, and came up with a theory. It was a commonly held belief at this time that the CIA group in the American Embassy was the most reckless and adventurous of all the intelligence offices attached to any of the embassies in Moscow. This was perceived to be a direct reflection of the personality of the CIA’s current director, William Casey, under whose leadership the CIA had been willing to take more than the usual number of risks to recruit human sources. They speculated the Marine might be some sort of crude bait in yet another provocative CIA scheme.