Timing Is Everything for Ex-Spy

MOSCOW —  When Soviet diplomat Vladimir Markarov began spying for the United States in 1976, the Cold War was in full fury, the Central Intelligence Agency was eager to recruit every Soviet official it could lay its hands on, and the KGB was just as determined to stop the Americans from luring errant diplomats.

If Markarov had been exposed at that time, his story would almost certainly have ended badly, with either a lengthy stay in the KGB’s Lefortovo prison or a bullet in the head.

But timing is everything in espionage, and Vladimir Markarov had the good fortune to come in from the cold in 1996, five years after the collapse of the Soviet empire that he had long since betrayed.

In a major spy case that has received virtually no attention in the United States, Markarov has not only survived his exposure and arrest, but he has received a remarkable pardon from Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, allowing him to live out his life freely in his homeland.

Such leniency has not applied to the old East Bloc spies uncovered by the United States since the end of the Cold War, from major figures like Aldrich H. Ames to long-dormant spies such as former National Security Agency clerk Robert Lipka, who have faced criminal prosecution.

Indeed, Moscow may be using the Markarov case to send a message to Washington that it is time to forget the sins of the old CIA-KGB battles, both former CIA and KGB officers believe.

After Markarov was arrested in May 1996 in Moscow, he quickly confessed all to Russia’s Federal Security Service.

“I acknowledge my guilt, plead guilty and damn myself for not having given myself up earlier. . . ,” Markarov wrote in a letter to Yeltsin that was recently made public by the Russian government. Later, Markarov confessed to espionage on Russian television.

His penitent attitude earned Markarov a public round of praise from Russian security officials. By identifying his CIA handlers, the 52-year-old Markarov enabled Russia’s spy agencies to “render harmless a number of CIA agents in Russia,” according to an article published in October by the Moscow newspaper Kommersant Daily.

Yeltsin pardoned Markarov in October and ordered him released from Lefortovo, commuting his seven-year sentence for espionage.

The fact that Markarov has avoided severe punishment signals just how much has changed in the spy battles between Moscow and Washington in the post-Cold War world.

While the two nations are still engaged in intensive espionage operations against each other, the collapse of communism and the rise of a democratic Russia have clearly taken some of the sting out of the Great Game that once so obsessed the CIA and KGB.

To be sure, Russia’s new intelligence and security services are the direct descendants of the KGB, and the recent arrest of American telecommunications technician Richard Bliss on espionage charges raised new questions about whether the Russians were reverting to their old habits.

But several U.S. intelligence experts now believe that Bliss’ arrest was ordered by regional security officials in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and did not represent a major change in policy by Moscow. Instead, several U.S. analysts believe the way Moscow has handled the Markarov case seems to hint at deeper change in Russia’s secret services.

CIA officials refuse to comment on the case, but other U.S. sources say they believe that Markarov really did spy for the CIA, and that his arrest and confession do not appear to be part of an elaborate Russian ruse to protect a double agent.

Yet in the West, questions still abound about his case, most notably how he avoided detection and betrayal by Ames, the notorious Soviet mole in the CIA and how the Russians finally uncovered him so long after the end of the Cold War. One explanation could be that Harold Nicholson, a senior CIA officer who began spying for the Russians in 1994 and was arrested by the FBI in 1996, betrayed Markarov.

But Markarov may have survived simply by being careful about when and where he worked for the CIA. A recent article about Markarov in the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta suggested that he spied for the United States primarily when he was outside of the Soviet Union and away from the intense scrutiny of the KGB’s massive internal security forces.

Initially recruited by the CIA in 1976 while he was assigned to the Soviet Embassy in Bolivia, Markarov spied until he was transferred back to Moscow in 1979, apparently providing the United States with insights into Soviet diplomacy in Latin America. He resumed his contacts with the CIA when he was sent to Spain in 1989, according to Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

That sort of intermittent espionage might have allowed Markarov to keep a very low profile with both the KGB and the CIA. In fact, former CIA officials say there were a number of Soviet officials recruited by the CIA during the Cold War who avoided capture because they spied only when they were outside the Soviet Union.

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About This Series

Once it was the world’s most mysterious and feared espionage organization, the “sword and shield” of the Soviet Union. But ultimately the KGB fell victim to the same forces of history that destroyed the empire it had served.

For the most part, the last KGB officers slipped away, retaining the cloak of secrecy. But now a group of former officers have stepped forward to provide an insider’s guide. Their tales, with some details verifiable and others not, are of friendship and betrayal, of bravery and cowardice, of stunning triumphs and humiliating defeats.

They agreed to a series of interviews with the Los Angeles Times, in part to put on the record what they see as their sacrifices and professionalism in a cause now widely denigrated.

After the failed 1991 coup by a group of Communist hard-liners that included the KGB’s own chief, the Kremlin’s new leaders tore the KGB’s massive security apparatus apart. Hundreds, if not thousands, of KGB agents were laid off. In the process, many became pariahs, their dedication scorned, their work of covert operations stripped of respectability. By telling their stories now, they hope history will record a different view, one in which the KGB will be known for its successes as well as its stumbles.

* Today: The spy who directed Aldrich H. Ames.

* Tuesday: Two enemies, two friends.

* Wednesday: The Gavrilov channel, the KGB-CIA hotline.