But after Violetta’s call the picture became slightly clearer: Perhaps it was nothing more than the matter of a Marine falling for a Russian beauty, and a lapse in security vigilance at the embassy.
The individual who initially handled the case was a recent graduate of KGB school, a young man who went by the name of “Slava” but whose real name was Vladimir Pavlovich Gerashchenko. Slava worked in a department of the KGB that took the reports from the Russian workers in foreign embassies, specifically the branch that concerned itself with the American Embassy. He was relatively inexperienced but he was also a go-getter, anxious to move up in rank. He knew that a big concern within Soviet counterintelligence throughout the eighties had been that it had very few agents in the embassies of the main capitalist states in the U.S.S.R., and that its inside work was carried out mainly by Soviet citizens employed by the embassies. Therefore the idea of recruiting someone from the “stronghold of the spies,” as the American Embassy was known, could lead to a rapid promotion, even if it was just a guard. As the Russian proverb said, “When there is no fish, a shrimp will do.”
After interviewing Violetta in his cubicle at headquarters, Slava reported the results to his superior, who in turn sent the report up the chain of command, where it arrived finally on the desk of Gen. Rem Krasil’nikov, head of the First Department. A slim, white-haired man in his late fifties with sparkling brown eyes, Krasil’nikov had earned his position by being a very good operational officer. He was reputed to have successfully recruited American agents, including several from the CIA, in Lebanon in the early seventies. Normally a report like this would have captured his full attention, but at that very moment the general was dealing with bigger issues. His officers had recently arrested a Soviet expert in stealth technology by the name of Adolf Tolkachev, caught in the act of passing secret documents to U.S. intelligence agent Paul Stombaugh, who was posing as a second secretary at the U.S. Embassy; and Krasil’nikov was then investigating a hot tip that a double agent was working in his department. So he did not take a special interest in Slava’s report. His response was “Stay on top of it. See what you can get out of it. Keep me informed.”
Even though his boss may have been nonchalant, Slava was thrilled and called Violetta back in. She seemed nervous to him and said she wanted to tell the Marine to leave her alone, but Slava told her just to keep on doing what she was doing and see what happened. Outdoor surveillance would keep an eye on the Marine so she would be safe, and she should contact him immediately if she was actually approached.
Slava knew that the best recruitment scenarios were the simplest and closest to life. He also knew the critical step in any recruitment was the initial contact, and it would be best to let the Marine make the first move.
In the meantime an order went out to expand the “recruitment dossier” on Sgt. Clayton Lonetree. A file of this sort was kept on virtually every person at the American Embassy—from the smallest child to the ambassador—as a matter of course. It included all the paperwork required by Soviet customs before entry into the Soviet Union was allowed; special applications embassy employees were required to submit; and the résumés and biographies of everyone were factually checked by researchers working in the Soviet residency in the States. In this file details that were relevant to the development of an individual recruitment plan were noted, and in those cases where a diplomat was suspected of being an intelligence agent, or a weak link was identified, a special investigation was undertaken.
The dossier on Lonetree was fat by the time Violetta reported that he had approached her on the metro. At this point she was not technically an agent, so she was given a standard statement to sign that read: “I, Violetta Seina, agree to voluntarily cooperate with the organs of the Soviet Committee for State Security, for the sake of combating enemies of the Soviet Union and for the purpose of strengthening state security….” It ended that she was not to divulge to anyone that she was working for the security services, and she understood the full consequences if she were to break faith with them. She was then put through a series of brief but intensive training sessions with sophisticated teachers from the intelligence schools, who instructed her on how she should conduct herself in this matter.
Although technically this was a “sexual recruitment” and in internal KGB reports it would be referred to in this way, it was not a contrived sexual entrapment in the traditional sense. Gone were the days when the KGB relied on blackmail to recruit a foreign agent. In fact, in KGB school the anecdote was told about the Soviet “swallow” who lured a diplomatic official into bed so photographs could be taken of him in a compromising position; and when he was presented with the pictures and told they would be shown to his wife unless he agreed to collaborate with the KGB, the fellow had held the photos up to the light for a better look, complimented their high quality, and said he didn’t mind at all their being shown to his wife because they would prove how virile he was.
Experience had shown that blackmail subjected a person to great psychological pressures that backfired more often than not. The recruit would become resentful and angry toward those who were blackmailing him and would begin to look for a way out of his predicament. The modus operandi these days called for cultivation through emotional attachment. Gradually and subtly drawing the subject in through friendship, and then intimacy, so that when he agreed to become an agent he would be motivated by positive feelings.
Violetta was instructed not to rush things but to let each step evolve naturally. She could agree to meet with the Marine, but she should act with the discretion and caution he would expect of a Russian citizen who was breaking the law by seeing him. She should take steps to avoid the attention of authorities so he would become convinced that she was engaging in authentically clandestine contacts, and she should encourage him to behave circumspectly within the embassy so as not to draw attention to their relationship.
She was also told to write down the details of every conversation she had with Lonetree the day she had them or immediately the next morning, so she wouldn’t forget anything. Included was to be all he said that related to his background, his family, his friends, and his vulnerabilities as he verbalized them. This information would be entered into his dossier for the purpose of analysis and checked against the information that had come in from America.
For a nonprofessional Violetta played her part superbly, bringing the relationship along systematically, and over the next few months the development of Sergeant Lonetree proceeded by the book. The only people in the KGB who had reason to complain were the outdoor surveillance people who were assigned to follow Lonetree whenever he left the embassy, including the night details when they stood outside Violetta’s apartment in the freezing cold, cursing their jobs and “the American who lost himself in a Russian cunt.”
20
According to the KGB textbooks, the time for a professionally trained handler to enter the picture is that moment when the person realizes that if he tries to take a step backward it will hurt him more than if he continues to go forward. When he is caught and knows no amount of thrashing will throw the hook, in other words. Usually it took months and even years to reach this point, but in Lonetree’s case there was a scheduling consideration. He had already extended his Moscow tour of duty once and was supposed to be transferred to Vienna in March 1986. For this reason, sanction for the consolidation of his recruitment was given in December of 1985, and it was signed by Viktor Mikhailovich Chebrikov, chairman of the KGB since 1982, who had taken a personal interest in the case.