Russians Among Us

5

Undercover

“IT IS LIKE walking a tightrope,” Donald Heathfield said of his double life as an illegal. “When you first step on it, you are scared. It is very high, you don’t know what to do. But if you keep doing it in the circus for ten years, you can do it with your eyes closed.” It took a full decade to learn the ropes, a decade of patiently building your cover, the thrill of clandestine work mixed with the mundane reality of everyday life. It was not glamorous. When Heathfield set up his own business in Canada, it was not the “Universal Export” of a James Bond front company. Instead, the deep-cover Russian spy drove a van full of baby diapers door-to-door. “Diapers Direct” sold a box of two hundred for twenty dollars for those who valued the price and convenience of a bulk order delivered direct to your house. Heathfield had a good feel for the capitalist West and the business generated publicity with a feature in the Toronto Star newspaper. At the same time, he was also taking a bachelor’s degree in international economics from York University. His wife, Elena, now Ann Foley, joined a Catholic church, its customs and rites having been taught in spy school. One thing they needed was people who could vouch for them as friends and perhaps sign the right documents. Foley went to a church where the priest was an elderly, warmhearted man. Foley first joined the choir and used that to get herself close to another young woman at the church who in turn introduced her to the priest. Every relationship served a purpose. Their family was also growing. On June 3, 1994, a second son, Alex, was born in Toronto.

For Directorate S, children posed a dilemma. In the Cold War, if one half of a couple remained in Russia there were special boarding schools for the children of illegals. In one case an illegal spent seventeen years abroad. His wife remained in Russia and his son would be brought to meet him in a Western European country the illegal could visit. This was “so that the boy saw what a worthy father he had,” Yuri Drozdov, a head of Directorate S, later said. “But a tragedy happened. The son, on vacation at camp, drowned, and the father came to the funeral for a day. One day.” That was all the time that was possible while retaining his cover before he had to return to the West.

Heathfield and Foley hid their old selves from those around them—including their children. They spoke little of their early life. Every family has its own quirks, and no one has grown up in another to know what is entirely normal and what is odd. At one point the children said they remember meeting people they thought were grandparents on vacation somewhere in Europe. When asked if they were speaking Russian, Alex replied, “I was really young, I have no idea.” Timothy says he remembered seeing them every few years until he was eleven. “If I had seen them when I was older, I would have realized that they don’t speak English—they don’t seem very Canadian.” The children would get Christmas presents from these grandparents. They were told they lived in Alberta, Canada. Photos showed them with snow in the background. It was really Siberia.

The life of an illegal involves sacrifice. Contacts with family back home were limited. The couple’s parents only learned of the arrival of their grandchildren weeks after the births. The parents had to send letters to a mailbox in Moscow, where they could be encoded. Sometimes when Heathfield and Foley were abroad and could meet KGB and then SVR officers in person, they would get an original handwritten letter. Once it was read, it had to be destroyed. Every three years or so they might be able to meet their family on a trip but there could be no promises about when it might happen again. Bezrukov’s father would die while he was undercover. He only learned about it weeks later. There was no way he could go to the funeral. “You must have a strong a core,” his wife would say. She missed the chance to pay last respects to her sister before she died. “It is a heavy burden for an average person. You have to be very strong and very certain you are doing the right thing.”

The parents were also prepared for questions from curious Americans. In the Soviet Union, citizens were given vaccine injections in a different place than Americans and it left a scar. Elena—now Ann—would try to keep the scar covered. She would have to explain she had grown up in an African or Asian country where it was done like that. In the Soviet Union, dentists also used a kind of cement filling for teeth that would never be used in America or Europe. The same excuse—early years spent in the developing world—would cover for that. Every detail mattered. When their predecessor, Konon Molody, had been caught in the United Kingdom, one thing that gave him away was the fact that he had not been circumcised. A doctor recalled that the real Gordon Lonsdale, born in Canada, had been.

For illegals, a double life meant long hours. There were full-time jobs to hold down plus the normal struggles of family life. And then there was the second career as a spy, seeking out contacts and composing messages to Moscow Center. Every time an operational act had to be carried out—a letter marked with invisible ink that had to be posted, a signal site checked—an illegal would have to spend at least two or three hours on foot and on public transport carrying out a surveillance detection route to make sure they were not being tailed. The couple was disciplined about never speaking Russian in the house. “Heathfield does not know Russian,” Bezrukov would later say of his old self. “If you wake him up in the middle of the night, he doesn’t speak it.” Nor would they discuss anything operational—just in case there was a bug. The same went for talking in their car. If they did need to talk, they would go for a walk in the park, often taking the kids with them; later they would go jogging together. Their old selves were buried deep. To adapt to the life in a foreign country, you have to give up everything you had from your childhood, “forget it, get rid of it,” Foley later said. “Otherwise, you will suffer from nostalgia. Any mention of Russia, Russian music, Russian speech in the street, throws you off the balance and provokes memories.” They created false memories drawing on real people or events and transferring them onto new people and Canada. At some level, they began to believe these were true and that they had indeed lived a different life. But there was always the knowledge in the back of your mind that one day something might happen that would knock you off your tightrope and send you tumbling down.

In August 1995, the family sold off the business and house and moved to Paris, where Heathfield studied for a master’s degree in international business, living in a small flat near the Eiffel Tower. The same year that they left Canada, Alexander Poteyev, now an SVR officer on the rise, moved to New York. For now, he was a loyal member of the Russian intelligence service despite all the problems his country was enduring.

From afar, Heathfield and Foley could read the news about the turbulence back home in Russia in the 1990s. In their absence, their homeland was changing rapidly. These were difficult years as the country struggled to come to terms with its new status and economic crisis. Everyone was on the make, including the spies. Organized crime began to emerge, settling its scores with violence. A few sharp-eyed Russians bought up shares in privatized industries and accumulated huge wealth. They would become known as oligarchs. In the wild-west capitalism of the 1990s, wealth and power were tightly bound and a gun to the head settled disputes.

In the early evening of June 7, 1994, a remote-controlled bomb detonated as Boris Berezovsky’s Mercedes drove away from his office. The driver was killed but the target survived. A mathematician by training, Berezovsky had started a car dealership but then moved into everything from oil to TV to airlines. A brooding and pugnacious character, he would become the first among equals of the oligarchs and a power in the land, always ready to scheme and plot. A sandy-haired, serious-minded, thirty-one-year-old FSB officer named Alexander Litvinenko was assigned to investigate the assassination attempt. Litvinenko had been recruited into the domestic arm of the KGB in the late 1980s. In 1991, he had been sent to Moscow to work on organized crime. That gave him an education in how the security services had intertwined themselves in the new chaotic, corrupt, freewheeling economy. As well as investigating the Berezovsky assassination attempt, Litvinenko was also ordered to report back on the oligarch to the FSB. Later that year, a brutal conflict broke out in Chechnya and Litvinenko was sent to work on counterterrorism. His and Berezovsky’s paths would cross again a few years later. At one point the chaos was so bad that Boris Yeltsin looked as if he might lose the 1996 election—to, of all things, a communist. Yeltsin arranged a secret deal with the oligarchs. They would throw their money and influence behind his campaign in return for stakes in the vast state-owned natural resource industries and also more influence. Berezovsky organized the deal and became deputy head of the national security council in the wake of the election. As the decade came to an end, his power was reaching its zenith. But it would not last much longer.

ON AUGUST 20, 1999, more than a decade after first surfacing in Canada, Donald Heathfield and Ann Foley finally arrived in their “target” country. Heathfield and Foley had come to America—and would become naturalized American citizens—for a reason. Human intelligence is about people—people who have access to secrets, to power, and to influence. The job of the illegals was to find those people. “Our goal was not to steal a blueprint—as they show it in the films,” explained Elena Vavilova. “Our goal is to find that ‘somebody.’ ” That could be a diplomat or an engineer, a politician or an academic. The illegals’ mission was to subvert America from within, infiltrating deep into its society and in doing so identifying and helping recruit people who could aid Moscow.

Heathfield had landed at one of the best places for his particular line of business. Like any student, when he applied to Harvard, he knew it was a ticket to the big time, a chance to make contacts and open doors, to work his way into the elite circles of American life. The difference from most other students was that this would be for Moscow’s purposes and not just his own self-advancement. He was studying for a master’s in public administration at the Kennedy School of Government. The school was often looked down on by the traditional academic departments, but everyone knew the reason to attend was the connections it offered. The faculty was packed full of former officials and politicians. Former and current CIA officers, senators, and policy wonks all made it their home. And the students who came were ambitious and would make their way into government in the United States or around the world, especially in the midcareer program that Heathfield joined.

Heathfield arrived in late 1999 and gained a reputation as a sociable member of his class of two hundred students. He said he was from Montreal. If pressed about his accent, he would say he was the son of a diplomat and had been to school in the Czech Republic. Heathfield organized a drinking night in which fifty members of the class visited Canadian students to try high-end Scotch. “We called it the Royal Canadian Scotch Stagger,” one later remembered. The night ended at 3 a.m. at Heathfield’s house. The networking opportunities were ample. Among those in his year was Felipe Calderon, who would later become president of Mexico, as well as others who would run for political office in the United States and work with the US Army. Heathfield, fellow students remember, was particularly good at keeping track at what people got up to afterward. Harvard would provide the credentials for his future career but was also the first stage in trying to find that “somebody” who could—wittingly or unwittingly—serve Moscow. “The main task of an agent is constantly climb the social ladder, achieving contacts with more and more prominent society members. Because it is only there that you find really valuable information,” he later said.

On a sunny day in May 2000, Donald Heathfield attended his graduation ceremony. He was all smiles. It was a proud day for all the family. Ann was at his side, looking smart with a pale blue jacket and a pair of sunglasses. At her side were young Alex and Timothy. The mission seemed to be progressing well. But what the family did not know was that they were being watched. Spotting an illegal in the wild is incredibly challenging—that is the point. They could be anyone—your neighbor, your coworker (even, in one case, your dentist)—they are almost impossible to find. Unless, of course, you have your own spy in their ranks.

Heathfield and Foley were ghosts—their identities stolen from the dead. But they were not invisible. Close to them at the graduation ceremony—just a few feet away—were people silently hovering around them. These figures furtively snapped pictures of the couple with their children. They were members of the FBI’s Special Surveillance Group—the SSG, often called the Gs. Decades earlier the FBI’s surveillance had been something of a joke—the regulation dark suits and white shirts were a giveaway. So they had learned from their British cousins at MI5 how to set up specialist teams who could blend in anywhere and looked like ordinary people—a mirror to what the illegals themselves were trying to do. And because their job was to be unseen as they tailed their targets, the Gs were also known as “Ghosts.” That sunny day at Harvard, ghosts were chasing ghosts.

6

The Source

IN THE LATE 1990s, as Donald Heathfield was arriving at Harvard, Alexander Poteyev was making his way every morning to the Russian mission to the United Nations. The mission is a slice of Moscow dropped slap-bang in the middle of Manhattan, a dull-gray Soviet-style twelve-story building at 136 East 67th Street. On the same block sits the 19th precinct station of the New York City Police Department and the 16th Ladder of the Fire Department. Directly across the road is a synagogue. In an act of defiance during the Cold War, the synagogue had a large plaque placed outside for Russian diplomats. “Hear the Cry of the Oppressed. The Jewish Community of the Soviet Union,” it reads. No doubt, the FBI also has a presence somewhere to watch those leaving and entering the Russian building. And in the late 1990s, Poteyev was of particular interest. He is an elusive figure whose life is deliberately shrouded in mystery. But while FBI and CIA officials adamantly refuse to confirm or comment on the identity of the origins of the investigation into Russian illegals and many of the details come from Russian sources, there is no doubt that Alexander Poteyev was the key figure. He was the reason why Donald Heathfield was followed at his graduation. It took a spy to catch the spies. Poteyev was “the source.”

POTEYEV WAS BORN on March 7, 1952, in the Brest region of Belarus, in what was then the Soviet Union. His father, Nikolai Poteyev, had commanded T-34 tanks with distinction in World War II, earning the title “Hero of the Soviet Union” for his role in battle in the Baltic front in September 1944, but died when Alexander was twenty. His son followed him into the army and in 1975 he joined the KGB, first serving in Minsk and then from 1978 in Moscow, though not yet as a spy. During these years he met and married Marina and they would have a daughter and then a son.

In 1979, Poteyev went on the Advanced Course for Officers (KUOS). The name was misleading. It was better known as “the school for saboteurs.” This was the KGB’s elite paramilitary training for those destined for either irregular combat or stay-behind and sabotage roles in the event of World War III and other conflicts. It came under the wing of Directorate S’s Department 8, which carried out “special operations.” These were unique roles that combined the ability to work undercover for long periods as a spy with high-end military training. Poteyev would soon get his chance to put those skills into action.

On Christmas Eve 1979, Soviet troops were ordered into Afghanistan to quell a growing insurgency and topple a leader insufficiently pliant to Moscow’s orders. Directorate S’s Department 8 had already tried to assassinate the Afghan leader by sending an illegal documented as an Afghan to get a job as a cook and poison his fruit juice. But the Afghan leader was suspicious enough to carefully mix his drinks. So Moscow resorted to an all-out assault on the presidential palace led by Directorate S and GRU special forces (the “illegal” cook had to hide to avoid being shot by his compatriots during the raid). Poteyev was sent early to Afghanistan as one of the Directorate S “Zenit” teams. The invasion set the scene for a brutal struggle as a bloody insurgency by mujahideen fighters gathered strength. This was fueled by weapons and money sent by Islamic states and the CIA (led, in part, by Milton Bearden), who saw it as a chance to give their Soviet enemy a bloody nose. It was a savage and dirty fight—the Soviet Union’s version of Vietnam—from which many young men returned in body bags. Poteyev was on the front lines. One of the only photos of him is as part of Zenit—a young-looking figure in fatigues with a blank expression. One KGB colleague from those days simply remembers Poteyev as someone who liked to drink and who had a good sense of humor.

Poteyev next served in “Cascade,” a new task force formed to fight guerrilla warfare. Like a US special forces team in Afghanistan in later years, their job was to seek intelligence and use it to hunt for the enemy and its agents in the towns and countryside. This included using illegals who could pose as fake mujahideen to lure others into ambushes. Out of Cascade, Yuri Drozdov, the head of Directorate S, would form a new special forces unit for covert action behind enemy lines called Vympel. The intervention in Afghanistan proved disastrous for the Soviet Union, but for Poteyev, it was a stepping-stone. He was awarded the Red Star and other decorations before being selected to attend the Red Banner Institute to be trained as an intelligence officer (at the same time as Bezrukov and Vavilova were being trained as illegals). Poteyev must have been effective as a spy, because in 1995 he was sent on a plum posting to New York. He arrived as a second secretary at the Russian mission to the UN and stayed through 1999. The Russian ambassador to the UN at the time was Sergey Lavrov—later Russia’s long-serving foreign minister.

When he arrived every morning at the mission on 67th Street, Poteyev would take an elevator up to the eighth floor. In the lobby were two steel doors. There were no signs, but one was for the rezidentura—the intelligence station—of the GRU, military intelligence. The other door led to the SVR’s rezidentura, where Poteyev worked. Officers would pull out a small piece of metal and touch the head of a screw in the lower right corner of a brass plate by the door. That would complete an electric circuit—sometimes giving the person a tiny jolt—and the bolt would slide open. Behind the door was a cloakroom. Under the watchful eye of a camera, everyone would have to leave their coats as well as any electronic items in a locker to make sure nothing could be smuggled in or out. Next came another solid steel door with a numeric lock that required a code. Beyond it, the GRU and SVR offices were known as “submarines” since they were tightly enclosed to prevent FBI surveillance. Special teams had been flown from Moscow to create the structure, which sat on top of springs, creating a space from the main building structure to prevent cameras and listening devices being inserted. The walls were several inches thick and coated with wires that vibrated to emit a white noise. There were dedicated electrical and ventilation systems. On the SVR side there was a corridor ninety feet long with offices on either side. These were given over to the different “Lines” with different roles—one carried out technical interception; another, Line X, looked for technological secrets; VKR studied American intelligence; PR sought political contacts and information. Poteyev would walk into an office in the far corner of the floor.

Poteyev was a Line N officer. These are the spies under diplomatic cover whose job is to support the work of Directorate S illegals. Sometimes this can mean doing the legwork to establish a false identity—they were the ones traipsing around graveyards and church registries looking for names of dead children. They would also be in charge of getting hold of documents or visa applications so that Moscow Center can produce convincing forgeries. It could also mean supporting illegals directly. The whole point of illegals is that they do not appear Russian, so direct contact with anyone from the embassy is kept to an absolute minimum. But there might be moments when some kind of indirect contact is required—it could be an emergency signal left somewhere if something is going wrong—that might require a Line N officer checking every week to make sure there is not a chalk mark at a particular place. Or there might be documents or cash to leave in a dead drop for an illegal to pick up. Line N officers might also pass off new documents to an illegal transiting through their country or they might meet an illegal in a third country (often Mexico or somewhere in Latin America for US-based illegals).

There were 60 SVR officers based in New York in the late 1990s. They were running about 150 sources. As well as the mission, there was the Russian Consulate at East 91st Street, close to Central Park. Poteyev would likely have lived in a large, dingy tower on West 255th Street, in Riverdale in the Bronx, that was the residential compound. The rooms were small and smelly, with plenty of cockroaches. There was a small bar with cheap liquor and cigarettes, even a sauna, a swimming pool, and a school so that the Russians were not too tempted by the bright lights and enticements of the city on their doorstep. Surrounded by a chain security fence, the compound had been built on a steep hill. This allowed antennas to be placed that could intercept communications, and on the nineteenth floor, Line VKR—foreign counterintelligence—ran a system called “Post Impulse,” which tracked FBI signals. If they saw several FBI signals in the vicinity of one of their SVR officers they knew they might be under surveillance. In New York, the top mission for the SVR spies was penetrating the US mission to the UN; next was the missions of other permanent members of the Security Council—the United Kingdom, France, and China, followed by Germany and Japan and other NATO countries. Next were New York financial institutions, then the universities like New York University and Columbia, and finally Russian immigrant groups and foreign journalists.