Julij Nickolaevich Kobjakov (1937-2006), known in the United States as Julius Kobyakov, was KGB Major General who from 1957 to 1997 served with the KGB foreign intelligence and later Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) as one of its “American hands,” including two New York postings for a few years from 1965 and again from late 1970s to 1982. Later in Moscow he was for some time assistant chief and acting chief of the American department of his service. In the final years of his career, Kobyakov was part of a group of advisers to the SVR director and was one of the ‘public faces’ of the service.

In his retirement, Kobyakov worked as book translator and was writing a book he planned to publish. In 2003, two chapters – ‘Jacob Golos’ and ‘The Paper Mill’ were published as part of the 6-volume semi-official history of the Russian foreign intelligence. The first was the first ever story of Jacob Golos, the key asset of the Soviet foreign intelligence in the USA from 1930s to 1943, based on his Moscow operational file. The second was the first ever story of Soviet espionage career of Ludwig Lore (although, at the time, obscured under his cover names of ‘Leo‘ and ‘10th‘), a former American communist and left-wing journalist, who was a mercenary agent-group leader for the Soviet intelligence from 1933 to 1937. ¹ Kobyakov also published a magazine story of Alexei Isidorovich Kulak, a foreign intelligence officer, who was a double agent recruited by the FBI under the cover name, ‘Fedora’, and a two-part magazine story of Vitaly Yurchenko, whose double defection made some stir in 1985 – both chapters based on Kobyakov’s personal experience with the two men and Western literature. ² Kobyakov translated into Russian the memoirs of Alexander Barmine, a pre-WWII Soviet defector; Cold Warrior by Tom Mangold, the biography of CIA counter-intelligence chief James Jesus Angleton, and a few other books.

I met Julius Kobyakov for the first time in early 2004, while researching for my future Russian documentary series on the history of Russian-US espionage wars of the 20^th century, and was struck with his command of that complicated history and, particularly, his knowledge of the historical archives of his service. General Kobyakov explained that he had a keen interest in the history of operations in the United States, particularly from the 1930s – 1940s period, which he described at the time as “purely academic.”

In early 2000s, Kobyakov shared his grasp of history with US scholars and students: his posts appeared at H-NET and H-HOAC discussion networks. As I learned later, he was also in correspondence with a few western scholars, two of whom shared some of Kobyakov’s letters with me.

In a December 22, 2003 letter to Roger Sandilands, Professor of Economics at Strathclyde University, Glasgow, UK, Kobyakov shed some light on his archival experience and, particularly, on his reading of the KGB files on two US New Deal economists, Lauchlin Currie and Harry Dexter White.

… Back in the late 80s I did an extensive research on the archive materials related to our intelligence work in the U.S. in the 30s and the 40s. From the scientific/historical point of view that was virtual “terra incognita”, but my interest was not purely academic. At that time as the deputy head of the American department I was interested in utilizing whatever positive experience could be gained from studying those archives. At the top of my list were, naturally, cases of our “penetration” of the White House, the State, the Treasury, etc. In this connection I examined the files on Currie (PAGE) and White (LAWER/YURIST) and was disappointed.

There was nothing in the PAGE file to suggest that he had ever wittingly collaborated with the Soviet intelligence. The file itself was put together in the late 40s when the damage, wrought by defections of Bentley and Chambers, was being assessed.

In fact, Currie was no more than a sub-source (if my memory serves me right – in the orbit of Nathan Silvermaster). However, in the spirit of machismo, many people claimed that we had an “agent” in the White House. I believe, Akhmerov like anybody else was prone to that weakness. Hence, Gordievsky’s reference to his conversations with Akhmerov on that subject should be taken with a spade of salt.

Equally unimpressive was a file on White. There was no record that someone had pitched or otherwise recruited him and set the terms of his cooperation with the Soviet intelligence. There was nothing in the way of clandestine communications arrangements, etc. White for all practical purposes might be categorized as a sub-source, which not necessarily denigrates the quality and value of the information that was attributed to him.

But to categorize an individual as an agent or a spy we need to prove that he “wittingly” cooperated with the “foreign intelligence service”, and “fulfilled the tasks”, assigned to him. That’s how the Soviet intelligence defines its agents, and, I believe, that American intelligence works along the same lines.

Among the members of my profession there is a sacramental question: “Does he know that he is our agent?” There is very strong indication that neither Currie nor White knew that. … ³

Boris E. Skvirsky

A Russian revolutionary and diplomat, who from 1922 to 1933 served as the Soviet unofficial representative in the USA and made a significant contribution into the US diplomatic recognition of the USSR in November 1933.

Boris Skvirsky was born on October 15, 1887, in Odessa, the Russian Empire (now in Ukraine) into the family of a landlord who soon went broke and turned to the trade of vodka making. He attended three years in a Jewish primary school and in 1906 graduated from a secondary school of commerce. Skvirsky joined the revolutionary movement during the first Russian revolution of 1905-1907. At its height in October 1905, he participated in the student protest movement in Odessa. He earned his living as a private tutor and in July 1907 applied for admission to the Tomsk Technical Institute, but failed the physics entrance examination. Afterwards, he joined his father in Harbin, Manchuria, where he earned his living teaching at a Jewish school and simultaneously participated in underground activities of the Russian Socialist Revolutionary party (commonly known as Eser party and its members as es-ery).  In June 1908 he was arrested and sentenced to a prison term in Harbin (which he served from June 1908 to June 1911) followed by “perennial exile.” In 1911, he was sent to exile in Yakutskaya Gubernia in the Russian Far East, where he taught at a Yakut school.  In Yakutsk from August 1912 to July 1913, he married Lydia I. Chevanova, a political exile and a former militant of the Eser party.  In July 1913, they escaped by separate routes and were reunited in Nagasaki, Japan.

From Japan Skvirsky proceeded to Brisbane, Australia, where he worked in various menial jobs while active in assisting political émigrés and in publishing a paper for Russian workers. Later, he managed to attend night classes in math and physics at a local university.  With the Russian democratic revolution of February 1917, Skvirsky became a  supporter of the democratic Provisional Government and sought its assistance to enable Russian political émigrés’ return to Russia. The Government gave money to send the émigrés back home, and on July 4, 1917, Skvirsky arrived in Vladivostok, where he found work as an office employee, joined the left wing of the Eser party and was elected a member of local Soviet (Russian revolution-bred form of government, which combined legislative and executive functions) from that party. In early 1918, after the right-wing socialists (commonly known as Mensheviks) and the Esers retired from the Soviets in protest to Bolshevik abuse of power, Skvirsky was elected member of the Vladivostok Zemstvo (the Russian system of self-government since 1864) and later vice-chairman of its executive council or Uprava. With arrival of the American Expeditionary Force Siberia (AEFS) in the Far East, Skvirsky managed to establish a rather close relationship with its commander Brigadier General William S. Graves. In 1920 Skvirsky occupied the post of assistant minister of foreign affairs in the Zemstvo Provisional Government of the Maritime Province.  After the departure of the AEFS in March 1920, the Japanese forces arrived in early April. By the end of the year, Skvirsky by then dissatisfied with the Eser party, established contact with the Far Eastern Bureau of the Bolshevik party (RCP (b)) and moved to Chita, the capital of the “buffer” Far-Eastern Republic (DVR) where he became an assistant minister of foreign affairs and in August 1921 applied for Communist party membership.

In mid-October 1921, Skvirsky was sent to Washington, D.C. as part of the DVR four-member “trade” delegation to the Washington Conference on Naval Disarmament and Far Eastern Affairs (November, 12, 1921 to February 6, 1922) and after it was closed continued for a few months as “acting chairman” of the Chita Delegation. After the DVR was incorporated into the RSFSR in November 1922, Skvirsky was appointed by the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs (NKID) as its “unofficial representative” in the United States and in 1923, he was assigned as the Soviet diplomatic agent. By September of the same year, he organized Russian (later, Soviet Union) Information Bureau, which began publishing its magazine, Soviet Union Review, devoted to propaganda of the achievements of the socialist state, as well as a few economic publications to encourage potential business. Skvirsky soon became an authorized representative of VOKS – the Soviet society promoting cultural contacts – and helped to establish a program of Soviet-American cultural exchange. For 11 years Skvirsky was the chief spokesman for the Soviet Union in the United States and was instrumental in facilitating the US official recognition of the Soviet Union  in November 1933. In February 1936, The Washington Star wrote,

Not since the days of Citizen Zenet has any foreign diplomat a harder task in this country than Boris Skvirsky. Never has one acquitted himself better under difficult circumstances. For 11 years he was without official standing, and to his patient and tactful work in building solid foundations goes much of the credit for the resumption of Russo-American relations in 1933.

Skvirsky was appointed charge d’affairs at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C. (later counselor) and continued with his diplomatic and cultural liaison functions until he was recalled to Moscow in February 1936 (to be succeeded by Constantine Oumansky.) In a farewell article, The Washington Post quoted Skvirsky as saying, “It has meant 15 years out of my life, but I have enjoyed it very much. I’ve come to have a very great respect for America, and I shall miss my many American friends…”

After a brief stay in Moscow, Skvirsky was sent to Kabul, Afghanistan as the Soviet ambassador, but was recalled to Moscow on November 1, 1937. In Moscow, he was immediately subjected to a vetting by a special branch of the Central Committee of VCP (b) – a routine procedure in the 1936-1941 period for communists returning from overseas postings, which, however, too often amounted to a purge. Meanwhile, the former ambassador was given a job of a head of “Medical Instruments” trust. Skvirsky’s “vetting” (or, rather, purge) was completed in late March 1938. Although he was cleared of the charges brought in the course of his party purge, its materials were transferred to the NKVD that arrested Skvirsky on July 15, 1938. According to the available information, Skvirsky spent almost three years in prison without trial. On July 8, 1941, soon after the Nazi attack against the Soviet Union, he was sentenced to death by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR “for participation in a terrorist organization and espionage” and executed on July 30, 1941 at the Kommunarka testing ground not far from Moscow, which since 1937, was one of the major sites of mass executions. He was rehabilitated in November 1955. ¹

A “street name” should not be confused with an operational pseudonym – a cover name used primarily in the ciphered cable traffic. As a rule, assets and contacts do not know their operational pseudonyms, nor operational pseudonyms of their handlers and couriers, whom they usually know only as Karl, Bill, Alex, Sam, and not by true name or even an alias.

An operational pseudonym should not be confused with a “street name” – a cover name used by an officer, an agent-group leader or a courier in the company of assets or contacts of an intelligence service.

Abram Einhorn was born in Odessa, a cosmopolitan Black Sea port of the Russian Empire (now in Ukraine) on August 20, 1899 in the family of a Jewish locksmith Ossip Einhorn. At the age of 14, after graduating from a 4-grade city school, he joined his father’s trade, but after a few years joined the Russian revolutionary movement. In 1916, Einhorn joined the Russian Social-Democratic Party (RSDRP – internationalists) and soon after the Russian democratic revolution of February 1917, he joined the Bolsheviks. Einhorn was one of the organizers of the Alliance of Socialist Labor Youth in his native Odessa, and in January 1918, he took part in the armed uprising, which resulted in the victory of the Bolsheviks. After the Red Army was driven out of Odessa, Einhorn took part in the Russian civil war in the Ukraine and in the Volga region. For some time he was fighting as part of a Red Army armored train team, when his comrades-in-arms gave him a nickname, “Taras.” Einhorn returned to Odessa with the Red Army in the spring of 1919 and soon became head of department of operations of Odessa city Cheka. However, the Red Army was soon driven out of Odessa once again. Einhorn stayed back in Odessa under the White Army and managed to organize an underground intelligence network. After the Red Army final return to Odessa, Einhorn became deputy head of the secret operations department of the regional Cheka. However, in 1920 he was dispatched to Turkestan in Central Asia, where for two years he served as Cheka authorized representative.

In 1921, Einhorn shifted to the Intelligence Office of the Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and Crimea. In 1921-1922, he briefly travelled to Rumania and Poland with intelligence missions and then came to Moscow to study at the oriental department of the Military Academy of the RKKA, from which he graduated in 1924. After his graduation Einhorn briefly worked as a functionary at the Comintern’s youth arm – The Communist Youth International, but soon shifted to the INO – the foreign intelligence arm of Cheka successor agency, OGPU. His revolutionary nickname, “Taras“, became his operational pseudonym.  In 1925-1926, Einhorn was posted as a clandestine (“illegal”) operative in Turkey, France, Germany and Palestine. In 1926-1927, he was posted in Italy under an official cover of a diplomat. After his return to Moscow in 1927, he worked at the INO OGPU oriental section, where he supervised operations in Iran and India. In 1928-1929, he was an “illegal” INO station chief in Iran. ¹

In early 1930, Einhorn arrived in New York, where he became part of an “illegal”station under the cover of a businessman engaged in market surveys with a view of purchasing tools and equipment for his trade mission in Iran or in the Middle East. But his real mission was to obtain American industrial secrets. In the semi-official history of the Russian foreign intelligence Einhorn is credited with laying the basis for OGPU industrial espionage operations in the United States. In particular, he is credited with obtaining a complete set of drafts of one of the military aircrafts designed by Sikorsky. One of the INO’s reports written in 1931 recognized Einhorn’s successes as “enormous.” Among his achievements the report listed “materials on chemical industry (evaluated as a $1 mln. saving for the Soviet industry); a complete set of materials on a Packard diesel engine and establishment of “regular communication line with America,” which was described as “live, illegal.” ² 

Among Einhorn’s achievements the above cited account listed “obtaining letterheads of American and Canadian documents… for the Soviet illegal intelligence.” Soon after his arrival in the USA Einhorn established contact with American Communist, Jacob Golos, through whom he would ensure a continuous supply of authentic US documentation for the needs of the Soviet foreign intelligence. In 1931, Einhorn recruited Catherine (Kitty) Harris, a Comintern functionary and a former common-law wife of the leader of the CPUSA, Earl Browder. Harris would become a long-time special courier of the OGPU-NKVD foreign intelligence during the 1930s and 1940s. ³ In the same year Einhorn married an American Communist Leonora Sarney, who would soon become his intelligence associate. ⁴ While working in the USA, Einhorn travelled to China and Japan with intelligence missions. ⁵

Einhorn returned to Moscow in the spring of 1934 or late 1933 ⁶ and briefly worked as an operative of the Special department of GUGB NKVD before he was sent to Vladivostok in the Soviet Far East in March 1935. In the Far East, Einhorn supervised intelligence operations targeted at Japan, China and the USA. However, in August 1936 he was suddenly summoned back to Moscow. ⁷ According to available accounts, since August 1936 Einhorn worked as head of inspection in the Moscow regional NKVD office, which was an apparent demotion. In February, 1937 he was further demoted to a position of an employee for special assignments at the counterintelligence department of GUGB NKVD.

Einhorn was arrested on March 21, 1937 on standard charges of Trotskyism, German espionage and contacts with the “enemies of the people,” the list of which included his brother, who was a prominent official in the Young Communist League. After a two-year detention in NKVD inner jail, Butyrka and one more prison, he was sentenced to eight-year prison term on June 21, 1939, which he served in prison labor camps in the Russian Far East. Having served his term, he was set free in the summer of 1945, but was deprived of the right to live in Moscow and other large cities. For a few years Einhorn worked in low managerial jobs in small regional towns until in 1949 he was arrested again by MGB and sentenced to “a perpetual banishment for free settlement” in the far eastern Krasnoyarsk region. Einhorn was rehabilitated in late 1954 and returned to Moscow in December, 1954 suffering from a spontaneous leg gangrene and died on January 14, 1955. ⁸

The Founding Convention of CPA that took place in Chicago, IL on September 1 – 7, 1919 drafted and approved a Constitution and a Program, as well as elected a Central Executive Committee of 15 and an Executive Secretary. ¹

In this dossier you may find discussion of problems with some of the cover names that appear in Vassiliev’s notebooks and as well of their treatment in the “Vassiliev Notebooks Concordance” file. For the convenience of potential users the cover names appear in alphabetical order – as they appear in the “Concordance.” The entries from the Concordance file are given in block quotes.

“Andi” (cover name in Vassiliev’s notebooks): See “Andy”.

“Andy” [Andi] (cover name in Vassiliev notebooks): Unidentified outgoing GRU station chief 1945.

A likely candidate for this NKGB “operational correspondence” cover name is Lev Alexandrovich Sergeev, the GRU station head (“resident”) in Washington, D.C. from 1940 through 1945. Less likely, Pavel Melkishev (Vice-Consul in NYC, Pavel Mikhailov), the GRU station chief in New York. Both were “outgoing” as of late 1945.

Anthony (Given name used as a cover name in Vassiliev notebooks): Likely Anthony Blunt. U.K. cover name of KGB agent/contact with relationship to Michael Straight, 1937-1939.

Blunt, Anthony: Soviet intelligence source/agent. Cambridge don, art expert, and British intelligence officer during WWII who was a Soviet agent from the mid-1930s onward, one of the “Cambridge Five”. Cover name in Vassiliev’s notebooks: “Anthony” (given name used as a cover name, 1937-1939), “Tony” (1940-42), & “Johnson” (1946).

“Johnson” [Dzhonson] (cover name in Vassiliev’s notebooks): Anthony Blunt in 1946. “Johnson” appeared in the Venona decryptions as an unidentified Soviet intelligence source/agent in the U.K.

In Alexander Vassiliev’s notes Anthony appears simply as Anthony Blunt’s first name and not as his cover name. In his draft chapter from mid-1990s, “The Washington Sources,” Vassiliev wrote, “…Straight communicated that he had received a letter from Anthony in London, apparently meaning Anthony Blunt…” ² It is the basics of tradecraft that operational cover names are not disclosed to other sources or contacts, but known only to the service’s operatives concerned.

According to an authoritative Russian account of Blunt’s Soviet service, his first cover name was “Tony.” The book, published in 2005, was written by Professor Victor Popov, formerly, the Soviet ambassador in London, and based on Blunt’s case file, which was exclusively released to the author. The book’s cover displays a photo copy of the cover of Blunt’s file with the file’s number and Blunt’s three cover names: FILE N 10676: “TONY” (a.k.a. “Johnson” and “Jan”) [ДЕЛО № 10676: «ТОНИ» (он же «Джонсон» и «Ян»]. ³

“Beam” [Luch] (cover name in Vassiliev notebooks): Soviet intelligence officer, 1933-1934. Described as a medical doctor working under Red Cross cover. Likely Dr. Grigory Rabinovich, a KGB officer operating under Red Cross cover who arrived in the U.S. in 1933.

In this case, “likely” may be dropped: the identification of “Beam” as Grigoij Rabinovich is firm. However, Rabinovich was not an officer of the NKVD foreign intelligence”: he was a healthcare administrator (official), who was sent by the INO OGPU to the USA as a substitute to the then head of Red Cross Soviet representative with the purpose of his additional use as their operative. Back to Moscow in 1939, Rabinovich resumed his work as a healthcare official.

“Belka” (cover name in Vassiliev’s notebooks): See “Squirrel”.

“Belka” was mentioned by Alexander Feklissov in his interviews with me in 1995 as a woman who in the spring of 1945 was scheduled to go to Los Alamos as a courier for David Greenglass, but later could not.

“Ben” (cover name in Vassiliev notebooks): Unidentified, known to Alexander Koral in the 1930s, possibly associate of Rosenbliett network.

This could only be a “street name,” since Koral would not know an operational cover name.

“Big House” [Bol'shoy Dom] (cover name in Vassiliev notebooks): Communist International. “Big House” was identified in the Venona decryptions as the Communist International.

“Big House” ["Bol'shoi Dom"] was also a common Soviet euphemism for the OGPU-NKVD lubyanka building and later KGB buildings in Moscow (in Lubyanka Square] and in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg, in Liteinyi prospect.)

Bill” (cover name in Vassiliev notebooks): Unidentifed KGB officer/agent. References to in 1935.

“Bill” was one of the “street names” used by the Soviet “illegal” operative and station chief in the USA, Iskhak Akhmerov during his two U.S. postings in 1930s and 1940s. In his interviews with me in 1998 and 2002, KGB General Vitaly Pavlov referred to Akhmerov as “Bill” discussing the period of 1939-1940.

“Callistratus” (cover name in Vassiliev notebooks): Alexander Feklisov. “Callistratus” was identified in the Venona decryptions as Aleksandr Fomin, pseudonym used in the U.S. by KGB officer Alexander Feklisov when under diplomatic cover.

Feklissov gave his cover name as simply “Callistrat” (Каллистрат) – a Russian name meaning “good warrior,” and not “Callistratus” – the name associated with Callistratus (Καλλιστράτος) of Aphidnae who was an Athenian orator and general in the 4th century BC. “Fomin” was a so-called “passport name,” that is, a fictitious name in the diplomatic passports of intelligence officers with a diplomatic cover - the term that appears in Soviet official documentation.

“Claude” [Klod] (cover name in Vassiliev notebooks): Soviet intelligence officer, NY station, 1948. “Claude” is described as directly supervising Morris and Lona Cohen. Yury Sokolov is identified as the KGB officer directly supervising the Cohens in this period in Albright and Kunstel’s Bombshell and, consequently Sokolov is a candidate for “Claude”.

Since early 1990s, Yury Sokolov has been identified in Russian publications as “Claude” ⁴

“Erna” (cover name in Vassiliev’s notebooks): Soviet intelligence contact. Described as traveling with “Betty”/Zarubin in 1935 to the U.S. to get passports renewed. Very likely Vasily Zarubin’s wife, Elizabeth Zarubin.

This identification may be upgraded to positive. In Russian publications “Erna” is mentioned as one of Elizaveta Zarubina’s cover names.

Frankfurter, Gerda: Soviet intelligence source/agent. Candidate for the circa-1937 cover names “Rita” or “Valet”.

In the semi-official history of the Russian foreign intelligence “Rita” amd “Valet” are described as agents who “handed over information” “on the political and economic situtation in the country and maintained liaison between Akhmerov and “legal” stations in Washington and New York.” More likely alternative cover names of Hede and Paul Massing. ⁵

“Gapon” (cover name in Vassiliev notebooks): Unidentified Soviet intelligence source/agent.

Likely an allusion to the name of a Russian Orthodox priest in St. Petersburg, who became notorious as a secret police provocateur and the leader of a peaceful mass workers demonstration on January 9, 1905, to the Russian Imperial residence, the Winter Palace, which was dispersed by troops, killing many participants. The day went down in Russian history as a “bloody Sunday” and is considered as a trigger for the first Russian revolution of 1905-1907.

“Glan” (cover name in Vassiliev notebooks): Unidentified KGB officer, London, who met with “Eric”/Broda in 1943. Both Andrew and Mitrokhin and West and Tsarev have KGB officer Vladimir Barkovsky meeting with “K”, an unidentified Soviet source who appears to be identical with “Eric”/Broda. Barkovsky, then, is a candidate for “Glan”. It is not clear that “Glan” in Britain in 1943 is the same as “Glan” the unidentified KGB officer at the New York Station in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

Barkovsky is a strong candidate for “Glan” in Britain, but not for “Glan” in New York, since Barkovsky did not work in New York in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

To be continued