Vasili Mitrokhin
 Vasili Mitrokhin      ( spook, defector) | |
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| Born | Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin March 3, 1922 Yurasovo, Ryazan Oblast, RSFSR |
| Died | January 23, 2004 (Age 81) London |
| Nationality | • Russian • British |
KGB defector forming basis of possible British intelligence disinformation operation the Mitrokhin Archive. | |
Vasily Nikitich Mitrokhin was an employee of the archive department of the First Main Directorate of the KGB of the USSR, and later a defector to Great Britain.
During his 29 years working in Soviet archives, he gathered a vast collection of notes purporting to be written copies of KGB files. With the help of co-author Christopher Andrew, close to MI6, they formed the basis of a 1992 book naming a large number of political leaders and others of the UK, France, Germany and other Western countries as allegedly working for the KGB. The books and notes are possibly a British intelligence disinformation operation, created from a mix of already known facts, plus added suspicions and accusations now presented as firm evidence.
- Full article: Mitrokhin Archive
- Full article: Mitrokhin Archive
Contents
Education
Mitrokhin was born in Yurasovo, in Central Russia, Ryazan Oblast, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. After leaving school, he entered artillery school, then attended university in Kazakh SSR, graduating with degrees in history and law.
Career
Towards the end of the Second World War, Mitrokhin took a job in the public prosecutor's office in Kharkiv in the Ukrainian SSR. Three years later, he entered the Ministry of State Security (MGB) as a foreign intelligence officer. His first foreign posting as an MGB officer was in 1952, followed by several more undercover assignments overseas.
After the MGB was replaced by the KGB in 1954, Mitrokhin was assigned to accompany the Soviet team to the 1956 Olympic Games in Australia. Later that year, however, after Mitrokhin had apparently mishandled a KGB undercover operation, 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.
Defection
During the Soviet era, Mitrokhin made no attempts to contact any Western intelligence services. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, he traveled to Latvia with copies of material from the archive and walked into the American embassy in Riga. Central Intelligence Agency officers there did not consider him to be credible, concluding that the copied documents could have been faked. 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 the Secret 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 then exfiltrated to Britain, 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 and whistleblower, was one of those involved in retrieving the documents.[1]
Mitrokhin died in London in 2004.
