KGB Lexicon

The Soviet Intelligence Officers Handbook

Vasili Mitrokhin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136343513
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia militar y marítima

In this volume Mitrokhin presents two dictionaries produced by the KGB itself to define their activities in both offensive and defensive intelligence work. The translated documents tell the story of the KGB's methods and targets and should interest the general public as well as the specialist.

INTELLIGENCE LEXICON

Chekist Terminology

A

Avariynyy shifr – emergency cipher

Cipher with a key that could be memorised, to be used in the event that the main cipher could not be used.

Agent (razvedki) – intelligence agent

An individual who consciously, systematically and clandestinely carries out intelligence assignments in pursuance of an understanding to cooperate secretly with an official intelligence representative or the representative of some organisation (sometimes legendary) in which an intelligence officer or agent plays a secret part.

Agent-boyevik — a combat agent

An agent carrying out special tasks, including those requiring the use of arms, explosives, special preparations and substances.

The categorisation of agents according to the intelligence tasks that they carry out is provisional; in practice, an agent is often entrusted with tasks of various kinds at the same time.

Agent verbovshchik — agent recruiter

A specially trained agent operating under intelligence instructions and directions to recruit new people for secret cooperation as agents.

Agent vliyaniya — agent of influence

An agent operating under intelligence instructions who uses his official or public position, and other means, to exert influence on policy, public opinion, the course of particular events, the activity of political organisations and state agencies in target countries.

Agent vneshney razvedki KGB iz inostrannykh grazhdan — a foreign agent of KGB external Intelligence

A foreigner drawn into secret cooperation by a representative (officer or agent) of KGB external Intelligence on an ideological-political, material or moral-psychological basis under Soviet or false flag, and systematically and clandestinely carrying out its instructions.

Agent vneshney razvedki KGB iz sovetskykh grazhdan — a Soviet agent of KGB foreign Intelligence

A Soviet citizen systematically carrying out secret instructions from external Intelligence on the basis of patriotic conviction, in foreign countries or on the territory of the USSR, and undertaking the obligation to keep secret the fact of his cooperation and its nature.

Agent-gruppovod — an agent group leader

An agent who, on intelligence instructions, directs the intelligence work of one or more agents, maintaining clandestine personal contact with them.

Agent-dezinformator — disinformation agent

An agent who consciously communicates to the intelligence officer with whom he is in contact patently false information on matters of interest to Intelligence, passing it off as genuine.

Agent-dobytchik obraztsov — agent supplying samples

An agent who, on instructions from Intelligence, periodically acquires in foreign countries samples of classified new technology and literature, concealing these operations from the controlling agencies of the producer countries.

Agent-dokumentalist — documentary agent

See agent-istochnik dokumentalnoy informatsii

Agent-dokumentalshchik-documentation agent

An agent taking direct part in documenting an illegal or obtaining on Intelligence instructions documents relating to the personal documentation of citizens of foreign states, and plain copies of these documents (passports, birth and other certificates, education certificates, civil registration documents, military service documents and others), which could subsequently be used to document an illegal.

See nelegal

Agent-istochnik dokumentalnoy informatsii (agent-dokumentalist) — documentary agent

An agent handing over to Intelligence material which he has obtained in the form of original documents or copies thereof.

Agent-informator — information agent

[Less common expression.] See agent-istochnik informatsii

Agent-istochnik informatsii (agent-informator) — information agent

An agent handing over to Intelligence classified information that he has acquired in written or oral form.

Agent-kuryer — courier agent

Seeagent-svyaznik

Agent-marshrutnik– route agent

An agent who, under intelligence instructions, carries out journeys along specified routes in a target country or in third countries and, in the course of these journeys, collects information of Intelligence interest through personal observation, the use of operational technical means, or his own contacts.

Agent-navodchik– talent-spotting agent

An agent used by Intelligence with the object of identifying or studying individuals of interest for recruitment purposes.

Agent naruzhnogo nablyudeniya — surveillance agent

An agent specially trained by Intelligence and used by it for covert visual surveillance of individuals of interest and other targets.

Agent-nelegal — illegal agent

A specially selected and trained agent supplied by Intelligence with foreign identity documents with particulars selected for him, or obtaining such documents under instruction on his own and settling on the basis of these documents in a target country or a third country, in order to carry out intelligence assignments.

Agent-nelegal vneshney razvekdi — illegal agent of KGB external Intelligence

A specially trained, reliable and experienced agent of external Intelligence who might be a Soviet citizen, a foreigner or a stateless person, who cooperates on an ideological and political basis and who settles temporarily in a target country or a third country with documents reflecting the new particulars attributed to him for the purposes of carrying out intelligence tasks.

Agent-pereprayshchik (agent-provodnik) — frontier-crossing agent (agent-guide)

An agent used by intelligence or counter-intelligence agencies for illegal crossings of the state border with cadre officers, agents and other persons.

Agent-provodnik — agent-guide

See agent-pereprayshchik (frontier-crossing agent)

Agent-provokator — agent provocateur

An agent infiltrated by the adversary, or turned by him, who secretly serves the adversary’s interests and clandestinely carries out assignments to organise provocations against Intelligence.

Agent-radist — agent radio operator

An agent specially trained and used by Intelligence to maintain clandestine radio communications between an illegal residency to which he belongs and the Centre [the generally accepted term for the Central Intelligence apparatus] and also between individual illegals, or agents, and the Centre.

Agent-razrabotchik — a cultivation agent

An agent who assesses individuals under cultivation, observes their behaviour at home and at work, identifies contacts, and the nature of their mutual relations, and carries out other Intelligence tasks against targets of cultivation. [See also extra later paragraph on razrabotka.]

Agent-svyaznik (agent-kuryer) — communication or courier agent

An agent used by Intelligence to maintain clandestine contact with intelligence outposts or individual illegals or agents located in target countries or third countries.

Agent-soderzhatel konspirativnoy kvartiry — an agent keeper of a clandestine apartment

An agent whose premises (apartment, office or other) are used clandestinely by Intelligence for meetings with an agent, for processing materials, storing operational technical devices and other purposes.

Agent-soderzhatel peredatochnogo punkta — an agent keeper of a handover point

An agent used by Intelligence to act as cover for, and operator of, a handover point. The agent’s official position must enable him to carry out clandestinely specific intelligence functions.

Agent-soderzhatel pochtovogo adresa — agent keeper of a postal address

An agent whose address is used by Intelligence for clandestine postal communication with particular illegals and agents.

Agent-soderzhatel prikrytiya — a cover agent

An agent operating on instructions from, and with the help of, Intelligence as the owner, or the actual owner of a firm or enterprise to which Intelligence clandestinely directs an illegal to take up work officially, in order to legalise his arrival and stay in the target country and account for his means for subsistence.

Agentura

(a) Collective term for ‘agents’.

(b) The main means of solving intelligence tasks.

Agenturnaya boyevaya gruppa — agent combat group

An organisationally distinct group of agents carrying out sp...