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At the end of the 1950s (1959–1966), the Paris residency of the KGB was led by Colonel Anatoly Lazarev. As with other foreign intelligence residencies, one of its tasks was to work with the main adversary (gather intelligence on the United States and recruit agents from among Americans). This line of work was handled by a group of spies within the residency who had experience with Americans and knowledge about them.
In addition to the US embassy and the US consulates in France, the group's intelligence target was a sinister-looking building at the rear of Orly Airport, which was constantly guarded by American military personnel. Tracing the routes of incoming shipments from the United States, the residency registered American military personnel busily escorting bags between Orly Airport and that mysterious location, and from there onwards to American military bases and agencies in Europe.
The residency soon became convinced that this isolated building housed a carefully concealed dispatch communications center for the American military. Information received from other intelligence sources indicated that this dispatch center received all military mail from the United States intended for the US European Command, the US Navy in the Mediterranean, and the NATO headquarters. The incoming mail was dispatched from the center by special couriers, members of the US military. Conversely, the center also received mail from Europe, which was then forwarded by military couriers to recipients in the United States.
An external inspection of the target revealed that regularly, once a week, couriers arriving at Orly from the United States by plane, with bags attached to their wrist with a special lock, visit the center. A single massive door led to the concrete building, constantly guarded from the outside by an American soldier. There were no other entrances. That is, it was almost impossible to conduct an operation of covert physical intrusion (TFP – Russian: ТФП, операция тайного физического проникновения) to get access to the incoming classified materials.
A decision was made to prepare an operation to penetrate the dispatch center by means of agents. First, work was started to scan the lists of agents and recruitment candidates for American service personnel serving at US bases in France. Second, the residency approached other residencies through the top ranks of foreign intelligence for help in selecting the agent they needed.
Going through the residency's file cabinets, Lazarev came across the operational dossier of an agent by the name of Johnson. In the early 1950s, an American army sergeant, Robert Lee Johnson, had approached the Soviet garrison command in East Berlin for asylum in the Soviet Union for him and his mistress, an Austrian woman by the first name of Hedi (who became his wife in 1953). The motive was that he had been undeservedly insulted by his immediate superior.
The intelligence officer who received Johnson suggested that he earn the right to political asylum by continuing in his current service and carrying out individual assignments (Johnson was interested in substantial additional income). In the spring of 1955, he was transferred to a post in France, where he provided the Paris residency with all information about the American military base in Rochefort, including all current instructions and orders, details about armaments, and most importantly, information about the American officers and soldiers stationed there.
However, Sergeant Johnson's military service came to an end in 1956 and he returned to his homeland. By order of the center, the New York residency sought Johnson out in the United States three years after he had retired and, according to the instructions given to him, he re-entered military service. He was deployed to Texas. By taking steps that would facilitate his transfer to Europe, he achieved transfer to an American base in Orleans, France, by the end of 1959.
It was at that time that the Paris residency re-established contact with Johnson and began looking for ways to get him to a position at the dispatch center. Johnson began seeking a transfer from Orleans to Paris, citing the need to care for his sick wife, Hedi, who supposedly had to be treated at a Paris clinic. It was not until March 1961 that Johnson, by chance, met a person who offered him an opportunity to become a guard at the center (this had taken almost a year).
Now the process of close examination of the center began. Spending time alone near the target during off hours, Johnson learned in depth about the rules for guarding of the facility, the procedures and times of the handover of bags with incoming mail to European couriers, and got acquainted with all the service members working at the center, from whom he learned that on days off, when there was no guard outside, the military personnel working at the center had to take turns to perform round-the-clock guard duties inside the building.
Having made a good impression on an officer senior to himself, Johnson was transferred to a post within the center in late 1961.
Having made a good impression on an officer senior to himself, Johnson was transferred to a post within the center in late 1961. The residency now got to know about the internal workings of the center and the procedures for the receipt and dispatch of envelopes from the United States to Europe and from Europe to the United States.
The mail, in the form of intricately sealed envelopes, was kept in a special massive safe, locked with a key with complex features. Access to the safe was prevented by a solid steel door locked with two combination locks.
Access to the envelopes in the safe was granted by a specially dispatched official who knew the combinations to the door locks and had the key to the safe. This official handed the envelopes to other officers, who sorted, registered, and placed them into special courier bags. These bags were then issued to couriers against a signature by another official, who locked the handcuff attached to the bag around the courier's wrist with a key. The same procedure was followed when receiving bags brought to the center for sorting.
Johnson learned that most officials were very dissatisfied with the periodic obligation to be on duty on their off days. There were enough of those who preferred to spend time with their ladies instead of being on duty, and Johnson made it known to his colleagues/officials that he was married and in dire need of money. They began to offer Johnson additional income, letting him stand in for them in return for money.
Now it was a matter of cracking the secret of the two combination locks, taking a print of the key to the safe and making a replica of it. A problem arose with only one of the code locks. The center instructed the agent to obtain the combination to the second lock by scanning the lock with a special portable X-ray machine. This was a unique invention of the special department of the KGB, of which only one had been made and which was used in all TFP operations where similar combination locks had to be dealt with.
On November 30, 1962, breaking into the safe by the agent was organized as a rehearsal. The first removal of documents took place by agreement with Moscow on the night of December 15, 1962. By this date, a team of specialists had been brought in to take care of the opening of the envelopes. For said team, a comfortable room had been prepared at the embassy, providing complete secrecy. It was considered that the time for processing the envelopes (up to 30 at a time) was very limited, no more than two to three hours.
The operation's timetable was tough: Johnson had to take the envelopes out of the safe by 11 p.m., place them in a bag with an airline logo on it and deliver it to a meeting point located a five minute drive from the dispatch center.
By that time, a spy who had spent several hours carefully making sure that they were not followed by counterintelligence arrived at the meeting point. The spy exchanged the bag with Johnson for a bag with an airline logo identical with the one used to bring dinner to the agent and then delivered the documents to the residency. By no later than 3:30 a.m., the spy followed a prearranged route to return the bag with the documents to the agent. For this, Johnson drove his car to a second meeting point, located a twenty minute drive from his workplace.
Between December 1962 and the end of April 1963, Johnson was regularly on duty twice a month, and almost every shift, he opened the safe and handed over the next batch of envelopes containing classified information of the American military. By that time, the residency had chosen a «double» for Johnson, about whom nothing is known to this day.
In May 1964, Johnson was sent to work at the Pentagon, and in July of the following year, he was put on trial.
In May 1964, Johnson was sent to work at the Pentagon, and in July of the following year, he was put on trial. This happened because of his wife, Hedi, who betrayed him and reported his collaboration with the KGB to American counterintelligence during a bout of mental instability.
In Soviet intelligence history, this operation became known as «Carthage». Of course, the officers at the KGB residency in Paris could never have imagined that, ten years later, this poorly educated black American with very limited abilities would have to play a decisive role in a successful covert physical break-in into the deeply hidden secrets of the United States.
One foreign intelligence resident wrote in his memoirs: «In the annual personal report to the center, the main three points were: 1) the number of recruitments, 2) the number of recruitments, 3) the number of recruitments.»
Therefore, agents are recruited on a broad front, as it is not known what role they will have to play in the future. Back in the early 1930s, Meer Trilisser, head of the OGPU's Fourth Directorate, developed an intelligence program called «asset recruitment», planned for many years in advance.
Oleg Kalugin writes: «If an agent's operational capabilities are limited, they should be directed to establish connections with government officials and opinion leaders to provide clues about those of interest to the KGB.»
And finally, one last thing. Those who are out there to catch spies must know that Putin is a maniac for documentary secret information. He does not believe anyone's words or anything spoken or printed. He is only capable of believing classified information (copies of documents from the desks of Western leaders). He has this disease from his time in the KGB. It is incurable.
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