The selection of Aleksei Yefimov to act as Lonetree’s handler reveals a lot of what was happening internally to the KGB at this time. In his mid-thirties, Yefimov was one of the new generation of KGB officers. He had joined the KGB through his own initiative, enlisting as a border guard; and when he proved to be smart and dedicated, his superiors recommended him for the Higher KGB school. Upon completion of his studies he was assigned to the department that oversaw Russians who had frequent contacts with foreign tourists and press people, and after attaining the rank of captain he had been promoted to the position of deputy chief of the branch that supervised UPDK workers at the American Embassy.
Although it was a step up, new pressures came with the job. The department was run with an iron hand by an old Stalinist wolf, Col. Aleksei Barovikov, a gruff, narrow-minded man who thought the new generation of KGB officers had it too easy. It was the department’s responsibility to collect information about the internal order of the American Embassy and American personnel, and the UPDK workers reported to his staff what they saw, whom they talked to, what they talked about, who paid attention to them—things like that. But nothing was absolute, and not everyone was reporting what they should. Some gave partial reports and kept things to themselves, such as favors Americans had done them and the extent of personal friendships. There had been a time when Russians would not have dared think of withholding information, but fear of the KGB was on the wane and these days you could never be sure who was telling the truth or who was playing tricks.
When Violetta had been escorted into his office and told him of her strange situation, Yefimov’s first thought had been, Why is she telling me this? She could have simply discouraged the Marine, and that would have been the end of it. That she didn’t, made him think she was personally drawn to intrigues and that maybe she was one of those pretty, nervy girls who wanted to work at a foreign embassy for the fun of “fucking around” with a Westerner, and who entertained the outside hope that she might possibly marry a foreigner and leave the country. Yefimov had become a cynic by this time. Russians who worked at the American Embassy knew the score, and he’d come to the conclusion that most of them accepted the conditions because they had some kind of personal goal in mind. Rather than their being exploited by the security services, which was the popular myth, he thought it was often the other way around.
Over the course of the next few months, as Violetta developed a deepening relationship with Lonetree, Yefimov was kept informed of its progress but was not involved in a direct way. Instead he was occupied with his own American Embassy contacts. In his position he had been authorized to meet regularly with specific State Department officials for informal exchanges of ideas and information, and since 1983 he had actively maintained a relationship with several diplomats, answering their questions about new members of the Politburo while making his own inquiries into American attitudes toward the Strategic Defense Initiative.
This made it all the more startling to him when Colonel Barovikov called him in and told him that the decision had been made “to use this situation for our purposes,” and that he, Yefimov, had been chosen to consummate the recruitment of the Marine guard.
Yefimov reminded the colonel that he had very little experience in intelligence gathering and operative work, and suggested that surely there were more seasoned counterintelligence agents who were trained for spywork. His superior said there was no one qualified who was available, and besides, to bring in an agent from elsewhere would only complicate things.
Yefimov made no further protest because he understood the situation. This operation already included several employees of the First Department, dozens from the Surveillance Department, and a number from the Twelfth, which handled secret technical observations, such as wiretaps and videotapes. To ask for a counterintelligence expert would mean more people, more bosses, another layer of bureaucracy. Barovikov’s desire to keep control of the operation rather than seek assistance was typical of a system that was based on rewards. If this operation was a success, credit for recruiting a foreign agent would have to be shared, and the colonel wanted to keep as much for himself as he could.
Before this, the closest Yefimov had come to being involved in the recruitment of an American was when a woman from the American Embassy driving her car along the Rublonsky Highway ran over a Russian citizen, and instead of leaving waited for the traffic police to show up. It was an opportune time to initiate a recruitment effort, but when they ran a check and found she was a legitimate diplomat, they decided she would probably report on their efforts, and they decided not to bother. So this was going to be his maiden effort, and to prepare him, counterintelligence specialists came over and reviewed the character of the target and the details of the situation with him, and discussed the strategy and tactics of this kind of operation. He was briefed on the “Uncle Sasha” charade. He was counseled that his interest in Lonetree should appear to be motivated by friendship and goodwill. He was reminded to appeal to Lonetree’s vanity, and let him know he was not alone, others had done what he was doing.
Finally, he was told that even though Lonetree’s awareness of his compromising activities with Violetta, together with his interest in continuing his relationship with her, should assure his compliance, it would be a good idea to develop with him an ideological justification for what he was doing before actually tasking him with questions and assignments. “The string to his soul,” Yefimov was told, would be to connect his minority status as an Indian and the plight of his people at the hands of racist, capitalist America with the Soviet Union’s ideological struggle against imperialism and desire for a society based on justice and equality.
It was a lot to keep in mind, and at this stage of the operation Yefimov’s feelings were complicated by ambivalence. Half of him was excited by the challenge of recruiting a foreign agent, and having only read about recruitments accomplished “with the help of a skirt,” he was curious to find out for himself how influential women could be. At the same time he was unsure that the outcome would be worth the effort. It had been his understanding that counterintelligence tended not to bother with the recruitment of military people, because even though they were more vulnerable, they had more structure and oversight than civilians and were required to account for their time almost up to the minute. That made it more difficult to maintain ongoing relations with them.
He was nervous too because it was a case with political ramifications. Bosses with high ambitions and great expectations would be looking over his shoulder and assessing his every move. If for some reason the operation went bad, if the Marine did not produce what the bosses expected, Yefimov knew that he could be held personally accountable—which was also the Soviet way.
Yefimov’s first impressions of Lonetree were strictly professional. Purposely he did not allow himself to have any personal feelings. He had been fully briefed on the Marine’s background and was aware that he was dealing with “a very sad and unhappy man”; but his understanding of Lonetree did not go so far as to include compassion, because that would have been inappropriate, and he knew that he was recruiting Lonetree on the basis of his shortcomings.