Farewell
by Sergei Kostin and Eric Raynaud · 14 Apr 2011 · 485pp · 148,662 words
has performed a great service in translating the volume, expanded and updated with newly available information, including a Weiss memo published by the CIA, “The Farewell Dossier: Duping the Soviets.” And expertly duped they were, principally by sophisticated economic warfare expertly waged. But to reveal more here would affect the reader’s
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the book, a request which was respected. The fuzzy silhouette of the mythical Farewell was gradually becoming more precise; the character was becoming the man. Vladimir Vetrov was born on October 10, 1932, in Moscow, in the well-known Grauerman maternity ward, where so many generations of native Muscovites came into
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every extra slice of bread was a feast, even more so with a little bit of sugar. The building located at 26 Kirov Street where Vladimir Vetrov lived with his parents. In this neighborhood near the KGB headquarters, top members of the Soviet nomenklatura (ruling class) were living next to working
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reducing the number of Soviet residents was a constant concern for the DST until the massive expulsion of diplomats in 1983, closely related to the Farewell dossier, as we will see later on. It is somehow ironic that this very concern was probably the source of the confusion within the administration, resulting
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by helping his own country’s secret service. Whichever way we look at it, and in spite of the tremendous advantage France gained from the Farewell dossier, the consensus is that the reputation of Thomson-CSF in the Soviet Union was damaged by this affair. During his trips to Paris, Ameil had
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milieu in all independence, making decisions at their own risk, without reporting to anyone—a type of profile that, oddly enough, looked very much like Vladimir Vetrov’s. So, in March 1981, there was the DST who inherited the treasure recovered by Xavier Ameil in Moscow, faced with a substantial double
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the Soviet Union. Reagan’s mistrust toward Mitterrand was therefore much more muted than was thought at the time.11 When Mitterrand eventually mentioned the Farewell dossier, probably from notes written by Marcel Chalet, Reagan did not grasp its significance right away. His services would simply transmit Chalet’s note to
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this was “the first significant breakthrough of the West behind the iron curtain.” After having saved the very existence of the DST in France, the Farewell dossier had also represented for Marcel Chalet a genuine reconciliation between France and the United States. For this man who had started his intelligence activities during
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, and whatever its scope, one is forced to evaluate the risks versus the urgency of the measures to be taken.”16 The use of the Farewell dossier “had meaning only if the disclosed intelligence was leading to concrete measures; the arrest of the identified agents, reinforced protection of exposed targets, rethinking
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job, you know,” as he would simply put it. It was much later, when he reached retirement age, that he truly realized the role the Farewell dossier played in the outcome of the Cold War. According to Ferrant, the international context at the time undeniably counted in Vetrov’s treacherous decision, motivated
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the deployment of the euromissiles had no effect in the end. As will be seen later, when the Americans discovered, with the help of the Farewell dossier, the extent of the VPK’s dependency on technological espionage, they used it as a formidable weapon, and the trap closed on the “bad student
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s real name. Before letting the correspondent reveal anything on a source, he wanted to make sure they were indeed talking about the DST mole. “Vladimir Vetrov,” answered the CIA agent. Nart nodded to confirm, looking distressed, aware that the secret of the most precious mole the French secret services ever
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Chalet’s retirement only accentuated the feeling of having lost this “French connection,” already perceptible in the field. Chronologically, it marked the transition of the Farewell dossier from its gathering phase to its exploitation phase. From this perspective, the affair was just starting, and in that sense, Farewell had already accomplished his
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precisely at the time when Vetrov was about to leave for the Gulag in a third-class car with bars on the windows that the Farewell dossier started acquiring its true historical dimension. CHAPTER 28 The Cold War, Reagan, and the Strange Dr. Weiss There is no evidence that while he
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was languishing in his cell in the Lefortovo prison Vetrov was aware of the developments the Farewell dossier was already having at the international level. By confiding in the French secret services, Vetrov had chosen first of all the surest way to take
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Mr. President.’ “‘That’s what I thought,’ concluded Reagan.”4 Here again, one can only notice a disconcerting coincidence. Almost to the date, in Moscow, Vladimir Vetrov was about to plunge into his solo adventure, revealing to the West the scope of the theft of technology and of anything that could keep
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through the KGB Line X. Since Vetrov’s revelations, the Line X network had no secrets anymore for the Reagan Administration. Actually, even before the Farewell dossier, the American government knew about technological spying by the Soviets. With the easing of restrictions on East-West trade under Nixon and Ford, however, the
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adviser on technology espionage. This time, his activities were fully in line with the Reagan administration’s ideology. By the end of 1981, when the Farewell dossier landed on his desk, Weiss was both shocked and triumphant, since this information validated all of his previous analyses. With such a treasure in his
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that was laying the golden eggs. In fact, mole arrests and expulsions would start much later. Gus Weiss had a better idea about using the Farewell dossier in a much more devastating way. The VPK, the organization centralizing technology requests from the military-industrial complex, compiled in what was informally called the
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charge of coordinating with their allies to limit, and even prohibit, technology transfers to the Eastern Bloc. This was where the Farewell dossier had its greatest impact. When Richard Perle received the Farewell dossier from the hands of a CIA agent, he was absolutely astonished: “Of course everybody knew the Soviets were stealing whatever
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11 The Defense Department was also interested in using this catalog to determine exactly which advanced technologies should be off-limit to the Soviets. The Farewell dossier was progressively being exploited in Europe as well. The Americans had directly transmitted elements of the dossier to their NATO allies. These pieces of information
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Yves Bonnet, was managing how the Farewell information was to be used. After a briefing in Langley by the CIA on how to use the Farewell dossier (the CIA agents knowing nothing of the French origin of the sources), Bonnet regained control of the situation and personally organized the process of informing
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gamma rays. This technology was far from being developed, although it would have been a formidable weapon since gamma rays are highly penetrating.”12 The Farewell dossier, as a matter of fact, included a document from a Soviet research lab wherein scientists were protesting the decision of Directorate T not to launch
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KGB agents. It was launched soon after Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars speech, causing a rift in French-Soviet relations, thus sealing the fate of Vladimir Vetrov, whose departure for prison camp 272/3, near Irkutsk, was already scheduled. CHAPTER 29 The Gulag Prisoner After his first trial, Vetrov spent a
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Jacky Debain picked forty-seven. François Mitterrand gave them the green light. The banished people left France on April 5, 1983. The exploitation of the Farewell dossier in France had begun. Wasn’t it a bit premature? The mole had disappeared from the picture over a year ago. How could one be
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(DST) had retired in November 1982. Before leaving his post, he had given his successor Yves Bonnet special instructions regarding the prudent exploitation of the Farewell dossier. Clearly, the new DST director retained as a priority what had been a constant concern of the service even under Chalet, to drastically reduce the
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of the document was enough to track back to Vetrov, Nart dismissed the argument out of hand and referred to the dilemma of exploiting the Farewell dossier: “Really, it was not for us to be the guardians of KGB secrets.”10 It goes without saying that a source is only useful
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of the KGB and DST In chapters 10 and 11, we attempted to draw the psychological portrait of a man as full of contradictions as Vladimir Vetrov. Naturally, his PGU colleagues, and the entire KGB, tried to understand a traitor’s personality and motivations. Those analyses, and there were several, give
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and was stamped “top secret.” When questioned about the incident, Ferrant thought the explanation was simple. The incriminating document could not have come from the Farewell dossier because Ferrant never left those documents out, and he always had them with him when he went to the embassy. What he remembers well, though
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considered an outgrowth of the police apparatus. The detractors of French counterintelligence, and their rival DGSE colleagues in particular, were quick to insinuate that the Farewell dossier was a complete survival fabrication by the DST. They had several reasons. The first being the humiliation caused by Vetrov’s preference of the counterintelligence
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spy hunters who were not even from the military, the DST being similar to the FBI. From this perspective, Pierre Marion’s analysis of the Farewell dossier was typical.14 In his book, the former DGSE boss answered quite a few disturbing questions. In particular, the choice of the DST over the
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CIA, although the Americans were the main beneficiaries of the Farewell dossier. It was also the unsophisticated character of the methods suggested by the DST, although they proved themselves in the end. Finally, it was the apathy
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with his former adversaries, Viacheslav Trubnikov, first deputy head of foreign intelligence, and Vadim Bakatin, then KGB chairman. They all had gentlemanly exchanges about the Farewell dossier. Fair play, the Russians admitted, “Well done!” CHAPTER 35 Hero or Traitor? Did Vetrov really change the course of history? Such a question is
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how impressive, says little about the value of the leaked material. Oleg Penkovsky gave British and American services close to five thousand documents, but the Farewell dossier is considered much more explosive. We obtained more accurate figures regarding the number of uncovered agents from the Soviet side. Vetrov admitted to giving the
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of defense, had summarized the situation in unambiguous terms: “The United States and other Western nations are thus subsidizing the Soviet military buildup.”5 The Farewell dossier laid bare the fragility of Western societies and the weaknesses in their defense and secrecy protection systems. Thus the Pentagon learned that it was not
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by Gus Weiss’s teams. Thomas Reed, who worked with Robert McFarlane on the SDI project, revisited in his memoirs the role played by the Farewell dossier in the significant weakening of the Soviet military-industrial complex at this critical point in time: “[As a grand finale,] in 1984–85 the U
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horses placed there by the U.S. intelligence community.”9 The disclosure of those events, which had remained secret until fairly recently, unquestionably puts Vladimir Vetrov’s role in accelerating the course of history in perspective. One can only be taken by the coincidences that precipitated the collapse of the Soviet
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Union, many had access to the Farewell documents, but very few had heard of Vladimir Vetrov, let alone of the French connection at the source of those documents. This makes it difficult to assess accurately the impact of the Farewell dossier on the end of the Cold War. There is enough material available, however
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in his country? This is doubtful. For the Russians, betraying one’s caste and homeland is inexcusable.15 NOTES: Introduction 1 Gus W. Weiss, “The Farewell Dossier: Strategic Deception and Economic Warfare in the Cold War” (unpublished essay, 2002, “for the sophisticates and esthetes desirous of the consummate espionage experience of the
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Americans use the word station). The station chief is called the resident. Chapter 4. The Good Life! Source: Svetlana Vetrova’s memories and those of Vladimir Vetrov’s colleagues. 1 Chalet, Les Visiteurs de l’ombre, 160. 2 Stanislav Sorokin, interview by Sergei Kostin, March 29, 2007. Chapter 5. The Mysteries
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later. Nart asked for the help of two general inspectors from the Ministry of Defense, appointed by General Gerthen to analyze and synthesize the impressive Farewell dossier. 6 Patrick Ferrant, interview by Eric Raynaud, January 24, 2003. 7 Ibid. 8 Chalet, Les Visiteurs de l’ombre, 174. 9 The date is
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Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 230 and following. 7 Ibid. 8 Gus W. Weiss, “Duping the Soviets: The Farewell Dossier,” Studies in Intelligence, #5. Available at https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/96unclass/farewell.htm
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Jean Guyaux, L’Espion des Sciences. Les arcanes et les arnaques scientifiques du contre-espionnage (Paris: Flammarion, 2002), 133. Chapter 29. The Gulag Prisoner Sources: Vladimir Vetrov’s letters and his family’s memories. 1 Igor Prelin, interview by Sergei Kostin, March 30, 2007. 2 Khinshtein, “The Lubyanka Werewolf.” 3 Inmates have
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a conclusion by experts evaluating the extent of the damage done by their disclosure. This being said, we can only base our analysis of the Farewell dossier on the information made public in the Western Bloc. There is, overall, no valid reason to doubt their veracity. Besides, the few clues found
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to the DST by Farewell. In a statement by the then secretary of defense Caspar Weinberger, Thierry Wolton has rightly noticed an allusion to the Farewell dossier. The report summary states that “only recently has the full extent of illegal Soviet technology collection efforts become known.” (Wolton, Le KGB en France,
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mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA160564&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf.) Published in 1986, Wolton’s Le KGB en France completes the picture of the Farewell dossier. But the volume of documents was such that it allegedly took years and years for secret service analysts to study them. In February 1987, the
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are deeply indebted to all of the witnesses who, willingly or not, contributed to reconstructing this story. Our gratitude goes, first of all, to Vladimir Vetrov’s family, his wife Svetlana and his son Vladislav. We thank with all our heart Ludmila Ochikina for her unhoped-for apparition. This book owes
Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America
by Giles Slade · 14 Apr 2006 · 384pp · 89,250 words
Weiss’s portfolio with the NSC and his Legion of Honor decoration, it was inevitable that this formidable body of intelligence—now known as the Farewell Dossier—would eventually come into his possession. By all accounts,Reagan had no reason to expect any such gift— and every reason to be suspicious of
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. 11. Philip Hanson, Soviet Industrial Espionage: Some New Information, RIIA papers (London: Chatham House, 1987), p. 18. 12. Gus W. Weiss, “Duping the Soviets: The Farewell Dossier,” Studies in Intelligence, 39, no. 5. Available at http://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/ 96unclass/farewell.htm. Downloaded December 21, 2004. Eventually, the CIA would
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(January 23, 1985), including reports in Financial Times, March 30, 1985, and Le Monde, April 2, 1985. 22. Cited in Gus W. Weiss Jr., “The Farewell Dossier: Strategic Deception and Economic Warfare in the Cold War” (unpublished essay, 2003), p. 2. These remarks were denoted “The New Brezhnev Approach” by the U
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, the unsuccessful English publisher Barley Scott Blair.Le Carré also appears to have substituted Soviet rocket scientist Sergei Korolev for a more realistic portrayal of Vladimir Vetrov. While it was too dangerous for Gordievsky to escape the Soviet Union with a copy of his KGB history,he later collaborated on a Western
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History of the Cold War (New York: Random House, 2004), pp. 266–270; Thomas C. Reed, personal correspondence, January 26, 2005; William Safi e, “The Farewell Dossier,” New York Times, February 2, 2004; Gus W. Weiss Jr., “Cold War Reminiscences: Super Computer Games,” Intelligencer: Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies (Winter/Spring
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2003): 57–60; Weiss, “Duping the Soviets: The Farewell Dossier”; Gus W. Weiss Jr., “The Farewell Dossier: Strategic Deception and Economic Warfare in the Cold War” (unpublished, 2003), pp. 7–11. 41. Schweizer, Victory, p. 62. 42. Leebaert, The
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. 43. Ibid., pp. 43, 71, 74. 44. Ibid., p. 83. 45. Ibid., p. 110; see also pp. 82–83. 46. Ibid. 47. Safi e, “The Farewell Dossier.” 48. Reed, At the Abyss, pp. 268–269. 49. Ibid., p. 268. 50. Leggett, The Carbon Wars, p. 67. 51. Leebaert, The Fifty-Year Wound
1983: Reagan, Andropov, and a World on the Brink
by Taylor Downing · 23 Apr 2018 · 400pp · 121,708 words
meeting Mitterrand astonished Reagan by telling him that the French intelligence service had recruited an agent in the KGB Centre in Moscow. This man, Captain Vladimir Vetrov, had been given the codename ‘Farewell’ by the French and he worked in the Science and Technology Directorate. He had passed on to the French
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was needed in the USSR. Mitterrand offered to pass on all that they had gathered to the new administration in Washington. The following month the Farewell dossier arrived at CIA headquarters. Thomas Reed, who would work on Reagan’s National Security Council, remembered that ‘It immediately caused a storm. The files were
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109 covert aid to anti-communist and resistance movements 110 directorates 109–10 and the downing of KAL 007 172, 174, 178–9 and the Farewell dossier 143–4 and the Geneva summit 301 Intelligence Directorate 109–12 intelligence misjudgements and failures 106, 111–12, 257–61, 278–9, 339–40 mole
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205 F-16 fighter 138, 205 F-117 Nighthawk 54 F/A-18 Hornet jet 53 Falklands War 118, 210 false alerts 189–201, 239 Farewell dossier 143–4 FBI 127 mole within 284–5 and Red Scares 24 Filatov, Anatoly 49 Finland 291 Winter War 40 ‘First Lightning’ atomic test 5
The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy
by David Hoffman · 1 Jan 2009 · 719pp · 209,224 words
recruited a defector in place in Moscow, whom the French had code-named "Farewell," and he had provided a huge treasure trove of intelligence. Colonel Vladimir Vetrov was an engineer whose job was to evaluate the intelligence collected by the KGB's technology directorate--Directorate T--responsible for finding and stealing the
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was supporting their national defense." 20 Rather than roll up the Line X officers and expel them, Reagan approved a secret plan to exploit the Farewell dossier for economic warfare against the Soviet Union. The plan was to secretly feed the Line X officers with technology rigged to self-destruct after a
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C. Reed, At the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War (New York: Ballantine Books, 2004), pp. 266-270. 20 Gus Weiss, "The Farewell Dossier," Studies in Intelligence, Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, vol. 39, no. 5, 1996. 21 Pelton volunteered information about the program as
The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal
by David E. Hoffman · 9 May 2016
some startling news. The French intelligence service had been running a secret and highly productive agent inside the KGB, a forty-eight-year-old colonel, Vladimir Vetrov. The operation was still under way. Vetrov had turned over to the French four thousand pages of KGB documents about a global effort by the
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as Line X, to carry out the heist. With Mitterrand’s approval, the French brought the documents to the CIA. The papers, known as the “Farewell Dossier,” showed in remarkable detail how the Soviet Union had hijacked Western advances in electronics and other technology to benefit its military machine. With Reagan’s
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pipeline joints and welds. The system exploded. The result was the most monumental nonnuclear explosion and fire ever seen from satellites in outer space. The Farewell Dossier was run right in Moscow. It reinforced something the CIA had concluded while running Tolkachev: it was possible to carry out penetrating spy operations under
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the KGB. 6. Casey, “Progress at the CIA,” memo, May 6, 1981. 7. Burton Gerber, interview with author, Jan. 30, 2013. 8. Gus Weiss, “The Farewell Dossier,” Studies in Intelligence 39, no. 5 (1996). On the explosion, see Thomas C. Reed, At the Abyss: An Insider’s History of the Cold War
The End of the Cold War: 1985-1991
by Robert Service · 7 Oct 2015
agencies had performed their work efficiently for many years. In 1981 France’s Directoire de la Surveillance Territoire (DST) recruited the KGB’s Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Vetrov, who supplied names of agents carrying out technological espionage in the NATO countries. Mitterrand told Reagan, and the Americans and their allies quickly closed down
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Secret Life: The Polish Officer, His Covert Mission, and the Price He Paid to Save His Country (New York: PublicAffairs, 2004) G. S. Weiss, The Farewell Dossier: Duping the Soviets (Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence); retrieved from www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi
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., 7 March 1984. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid., 17 May 1984. 32. T. C. Reed, At the Abyss, pp. 266–9. 33. G. S. Weiss, The Farewell Dossier: Duping the Soviets (CSI Publications: Studies in Intelligence); retrieved from www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol39no5/pdf/v39i5a14p
Near and Distant Neighbors: A New History of Soviet Intelligence
by Jonathan Haslam · 21 Sep 2015 · 525pp · 131,496 words
as usual, but in German. The Strange Case of Vetrov A key failure, the betrayal of the KGB’s entire military-industrial intelligence network by Vladimir Vetrov (agent “Farewell”) to the French in 1981–1982, seriously undermined a branch of the service critical to meeting the American challenge presented by the Strategic
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for space-based defence with the potential for a preemptive first strike against missiles in their launch phase. Born in 1932 to Muscovite industrial workers, Vladimir Vetrov came to the attention of the KGB in 1959 while working as an engineer at a computer factory. On July 9 he sent in a
The Secret World: A History of Intelligence
by Christopher Andrew · 27 Jun 2018
the best and most detailed intelligence on Soviet S&T operations in the United States had come from a DST agent in FCD Directorate T, Vladimir Vetrov (codenamed FAREWELL).47 The Commission might also have noticed that the secrecy of Gordievsky’s and Vetrov’s operations a decade earlier had been better
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Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, pp. 167–70, 280–87. 79. Hanson, Soviet Industrial Espionage. The documents and statistics supplied by the French agent in Directorate T, Vladimir Vetrov (codenamed FAREWELL), on which Hanson bases his analysis, complement the KGB files noted by Mitrokhin. On Vetrov, see also Kostin and Raynaud, Adieu Farewell; and
Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider’s View of Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Ahead
by Kenneth Rogoff · 27 Feb 2025 · 330pp · 127,791 words
University Press, 1982). 8. Angus Maddison, Economic Growth in Japan and the USSR (New York: Norton, 1969), 111. 9. Gus Weiss, “Duping the Soviets: The Farewell Dossier,” Studies in Intelligence (Center for the Study of Intelligence), 1996, www.cia.gov/resources/csi/studies-in-intelligence/1996-2/the
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-farewell-dossier/. See also Sergei Kostin, Eric Raynaud, and Richard V. Allen, Farewell: The Greatest Spy Story of the Twentieth Century, trans. Catherine Cauvin-Higgins (Las Vegas,
Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon
by Kim Zetter · 11 Nov 2014 · 492pp · 153,565 words
leaking intelligence to the French about a decade-long Soviet operation to steal technology from the West. Vetrov leaked about three thousand documents, dubbed the “Farewell Dossier” by the French, detailing a long list of technologies the Soviets had already pilfered from the West as well as a wish list of items
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Soviet supply chain, but in 2004, Thomas C. Reed, who worked with Weiss on the National Security Council, wrote a book that briefly mentioned the Farewell Dossier and attributed a 1982 Siberian pipeline explosion to the CIA scheme—the same pipeline explosion that Symantec referenced in its blog post about Stuxnet. According
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of the exploding pipeline is apocryphal; a former KGB official has denied the tale and believes Reed and Weiss confused their facts.21 Regardless, the Farewell Dossier operation did exist and served as inspiration for later sabotage schemes focused on Iran’s nuclear program. One such operation occurred after the CIA infiltrated
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discovered and the Iranians learned that their computers had been infiltrated, it would still be a win-win situation, as Weiss had pointed with the Farewell Dossier, since it would succeed in sowing doubt and paranoia among the Iranians. Even if technicians wiped their machines clean and reprogrammed them, they could never
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, “Iran Shielding Its Nuclear Efforts in Maze of Tunnels,” New York Times, January 5, 2010. 17 The newsletter was later declassified. See Gus Weiss, “The Farewell Dossier: Strategic Deception and Economic Warfare in the Cold War,” in Studies in Intelligence, 1996, available at https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study
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collapsed, evidence was found that the Soviets had been pursuing research on the laser technology. 19 The complete story of Vetrov’s life and the Farewell Dossier is recounted in Sergei Kostin and Eric Raynaud, Farewell: The Greatest Spy Story of the Twentieth Century. The book, published in French in 2009, was
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KGB in the region where Reed said the explosion occurred has said it never happened, and that Weiss may have conflated his memory of the Farewell Dossier incident with an explosion that occurred in April 1982 in a different region. But that explosion, Pchelintsev said, was caused by shifting pipes that moved
Next Stop Execution: The Autobiography of Oleg Gordievsky
by Oleg Gordievsky · 13 Apr 2015 · 438pp · 146,246 words
Stealth
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The Defence of the Realm
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The Hacker and the State: Cyber Attacks and the New Normal of Geopolitics
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