Vasili Mitrokhin | |
|---|---|
Василий Митрохин | |
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| Born | Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin (1922-03-03)3 March 1922 Yurasovo,Ryazan Oblast,Russian SFSR |
| Died | 23 January 2004(2004-01-23) (aged 81) |
| Nationality | Russian, British |
| Education | History and Law |
| Occupation | Military |
| Employer | KGB |
Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin (Russian:Васи́лий Ники́тич Митро́хин,romanized: Vasily Nikitich Mitrokhin; March 3, 1922 – January 23, 2004) was an archivist for theSoviet Union's foreign intelligence service, theFirst Chief Directorate of theKGB, who defected to the United Kingdom in 1992. Mitrokhin first offered his material to the US'Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Latvia but they rejected it as possible fakes.[1] After that, he resorted to the UK's MI6 which arranged his defection from Russia.[2] These notes became known as theMitrokhin Archives.[3][4]
He was co-author withChristopher Andrew ofThe Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West, a massive account of Soviet intelligence operations based on copies of material from the archive. The second volume,The Mitrokhin Archive II: The KGB in the World, was published in 2005, soon after Mitrokhin's death.
Mitrokhin was born inYurasovo, inCentral Russia,Ryazan Oblast,Russian SFSR. After leaving school, he entered artillery school, then attended university inKazakh SSR, graduating with degrees in history and law.
Towards the end of thesecond World War, Mitrokhin took a job inprosecutor's office inKharkiv in theUkrainian SSR. He entered theMGB as a foreign intelligence officer in 1948. His first foreign posting was in 1952.
During the 1950s, he served on various undercover assignments overseas. In 1956, for example, he accompanied the Soviet team to theOlympic Games in Australia. Later that year, however, after he had apparently mishandled an operational assignment, he was moved from operational duties to the archives of the KGB's First Chief Directorate and told he would never work in the field again.
Mitrokhin sometimes dated the beginnings of his disillusionment toNikita Khrushchev's famous speech to theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union congress denouncingJoseph Stalin, though it seems he may have been harbouring doubts for some time before that. For years, he had listened to broadcasts on theBBC andVoice of America, noting the gulf between their reports and party propaganda.
However, when he began looking into the archives, he claimed to have been shocked by what he discovered about the KGB'ssystematic repression of the Soviet people. "I could not believe such evil", he recalled. "It was all planned, prepared, thought out in advance. It was a terrible shock when I read things."[5]
Between 1972 and 1984, he supervised the move of the archive of the First Chief Directorate from theLubyanka to the new KGB headquarters atYasenevo. While doing so, he made handwritten copies and immensely detailed notes of documents from the archive. He retired in 1985.
During the Soviet era, Mitrokhin made no attempts to contact any Western intelligence services. After thedissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, he traveled toLatvia with copies of material from the archive and walked into the American embassy inRiga.Central Intelligence Agency officers there did not consider him to be credible, concluding that the copied documents could have been faked.[1]
He then went to the British embassy and a young diplomat there saw his potential. Following a further meeting one month later with representatives of theSecret Intelligence Service (MI6), operations retrieved the 25,000 pages of files hidden in his house, covering operations from as far back as the 1930s. He and his family were thenexfiltrated to theUnited Kingdom, even though authorities of Yeltsin's Russia were not impeding the free travel abroad of active or retired members of secret services or members of their families.Richard Tomlinson, the MI6 officer imprisoned in 1997 for attempting to publish a book about his career, was one of those involved in retrieving the documents from containers hidden under the floor of thedacha.[6] The notes given by Mitrokhin to theMI6 revealed exposures about some unknown number of Soviet agents, includingMelita Norwood.[4] However, Norwood was not charged with an offence.[7]
These handwritten notes of Mitrokhin are collectively referred to as theMitrokhin Archives.
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