Oleg Danilowitsch Kalugin

Oleg Danilowitsch Kalugin ( Russian Олег Данилович Калугин ; born September 6, 1934 in Leningrad ) is a Russian secret service agent. The former KGB major general now lives in the USA and works there as a lecturer at the Washington “Center for Counterintelligence and Security Studies”. He has been a citizen of the United States since August 4, 2003.

Life until 1980

The son of an NKVD officer first attended Leningrad University and during this time joined the KGB. With a Fulbright scholarship in his pocket, he flew to the United States in 1958 to study journalism at Columbia University . He graduated in 1959 and claims to have recruited his first spy during that time, who later worked in the US missile industry. This was followed by activities as a radio correspondent for the United Nations in New York . In 1965 he became deputy head of the KGB residency at the Soviet embassy in Washington.

He was promoted to major general in 1974 and was the youngest KGB general in intelligence history at the time. From 1974 he was head of the department responsible for counter- espionage in the “ First Headquarters ” of the KGB. The murder of the Bulgarian writer and dissident Georgi Markow in London and the attempted murder of Vladimir Kostov in Paris also occurred during this period . Kalugin later made no secret of the fact that, on the orders of the then KGB chief Yuri Andropov, in 1978 he sent two KGB agents with the technically sophisticated tools of murder to Sofia to give them to the Bulgarian secret service KDS (Komitet za darschawna sigurnost) (Bulgarian: Комитет за държавна сигурност), who verifiably carried out the assassinations. According to Oleg Gordijewski, Kalugin received an award from the KGB for this operation.

Life from 1980

After differences of opinion and alleged intrigues in the KGB leadership, Kalugin was removed from his post in the counter-espionage department and made the first deputy head of the KGB branch in Leningrad. His main task here was to suppress tendencies critical of the regime and to lock particularly unruly people in prisons or psychiatric clinics . Kalugin later stated in numerous interviews that during this time he had his first doubts about the Soviet system. According to his own statements, he began to write letters to Mikhail Gorbachev and other Soviet reform politicians, in which he complained that the secret service was largely busy terrorizing the people over trivialities and covering up the corruption among the higher party officials. He also wrote public articles in the newspaper, with the help of his old college friend, the perestroika- friendly journalist Yegor Yakovlev . Kalugin was retired in February 1990. In the same year, on the orders of Gorbachev, his pension was reduced, he was demoted and all honors revoked.

Despite his previous career in the KGB, Kalugin gained popularity through his public criticism of the system and was elected to the Supreme Soviet in September 1990 . There he sat as a member of parliament for the Krasnodar Territory . He supported Boris Yeltsin in fighting the August coup in 1991 .

In 1995 he was offered a teaching position at the Catholic University of America . He lectured there and later coordinated a joint venture between AT&T and Russian telecommunications companies.

Kalugin currently works as a lecturer at the Washington Center for Counterintelligence and Security Studies. He has published numerous books in which details about the KGB can be found. However, Kalugin attaches importance to the fact that he has never betrayed colleagues and he does not want to be placed in a row with “traitors” like Oleg Gordijewski . On the other hand, he incriminated his former informant, the US soldier George Trofimoff , so that he was sentenced in 2001 to life imprisonment for espionage.

In Russia, Kalugin was sentenced to 15 years in prison in absentia in 2002. The US refused to extradite Kalugin and eventually naturalized him in 2003.

Kalugin regularly criticizes Vladimir Putin and called him a war criminal.

Ambiguities in Kalugin's biography

It remains unclear why Kalugin was actually deported to Leningrad. Kalugin's own versions range from the "close friend" who was suspected of espionage and whom Kalugin allegedly tried to protect, to the version that an American person he recruited was a double agent for the CIA.

Even the reason why he went to the United States is not clear. On the one hand, he claims that his criticism of the Chechnya war forced him to leave the country in 1995 because they wanted to arrest him. On the other hand, he stated that because of business matters, he ended up in the USA by chance and “got stuck” there.

literature

Oleg Gordijewski, Christopher Andrew: KGB. The history of his overseas operations from Lenin to Gorbachev. Bertelsmann, Munich 1991. ISBN 3-570-06264-3
Oleg Kalugin, Fen Montaigne: Spymaster: My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage Against the West. Smith Gryphon, 1994. ISBN 978-1-85685-071-1

Web links

Youtube half-hour interview with Kalugin (English)
CNN documentary about Kalugin ( Memento of February 21, 1999 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
cicentre.com ( Memento from June 21, 2002 in the Internet Archive ) Kalugin during the August putsch in 1991

Individual evidence

↑ Oleg Kalugin. Archived from the original on February 4, 2001 ; accessed on March 5, 2015 .
↑ Sweet ball . In: Der Spiegel . No. 7 , 1992 ( online ).
↑ Ex-KGB Aide Is Questioned In Poison Umbrella Killing. In: New York Times. November 1, 1993, accessed March 5, 2015 .
↑ Life Sentence For Spy. In: CBS News. September 27, 2001, archived from the original on March 5, 2015 ; accessed on March 5, 2015 .
↑ DONG-PHUONG NGUYEN: Ex-KGB agent details Trofimoff meeting. The retired Army colonel provided Soviets with top-secret CIA documents, the agent testifies Tuesday. June 20, 2001, archived from the original on January 20, 2011 ; accessed on March 5, 2015 .
↑ Kalugin convicted in absentia. June 26, 2002, accessed March 5, 2015 .
↑ Seven Questions: A Little KGB Training Goes a Long Way. Former KGB general Oleg Kalugin spoke out against the Soviet regime in the late 1980s. Now a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, he again finds himself at odds with the government of his homeland. With tensions growing between Russia and the West, FP spoke with this dissident spy about Putin's KGB past, the dangers of political activism, and the future of Russian democracy. In: Foreign Policy. July 2007, archived from the original on August 15, 2007 ; accessed on March 5, 2015 .

personal data
SURNAME	Kalugin, Oleg Danilowitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Калугин, Олег Данилович (Russian spelling)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Russian secret service agent
DATE OF BIRTH	September 6, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH	Leningrad

[1] Oleg Kalugin. Archived from the original on February 4, 2001 ; accessed on March 5, 2015 .

[2] Sweet ball . In: Der Spiegel . No. 7 , 1992 ( online ).

[3] Ex-KGB Aide Is Questioned In Poison Umbrella Killing. In: New York Times. November 1, 1993, accessed March 5, 2015 .

[4] Life Sentence For Spy. In: CBS News. September 27, 2001, archived from the original on March 5, 2015 ; accessed on March 5, 2015 .

[5] DONG-PHUONG NGUYEN: Ex-KGB agent details Trofimoff meeting. The retired Army colonel provided Soviets with top-secret CIA documents, the agent testifies Tuesday. June 20, 2001, archived from the original on January 20, 2011 ; accessed on March 5, 2015 .

[6] Kalugin convicted in absentia. June 26, 2002, accessed March 5, 2015 .

[7] Seven Questions: A Little KGB Training Goes a Long Way. Former KGB general Oleg Kalugin spoke out against the Soviet regime in the late 1980s. Now a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, he again finds himself at odds with the government of his homeland. With tensions growing between Russia and the West, FP spoke with this dissident spy about Putin's KGB past, the dangers of political activism, and the future of Russian democracy. In: Foreign Policy. July 2007, archived from the original on August 15, 2007 ; accessed on March 5, 2015 .