Anatoly Golitsyn was the most important Soviet intelligence officer ever to defect to the West.
Anatoliy Mikhaylovich Golitsyn was born in Piryatin, Ukraine, on 25 August 1926.
“…While a cadet in military school, he was awarded a Soviet medal ‘For the defence of Moscow in the Great Patriotic War” for digging anti-tank trenches near Moscow. At the age of fifteen, he joined the Komsomol (League of Communist Youth) and, at ninteen, he became a member of the Communist Party.
“In the same year, he joined the KGB, in which he studied and served until 1961. He graduated from the Moscow School of Military Counter-espionage, the counterintelligence faculty of the High Intelligence School, and the University of Marxism-Leninism and completed a correspondence course with the High Diplomatic School. In 1952 and early 1953 he was involved with a friend in drawing up a proposal to the Central Committee on the reorganisation of Soviet intelligence.
“In connection with this proposal he attended a meeting of the secretariat chaired by Stalin and a meeting of the Presidium chaired by Malenkov and attended by Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Bulganin. In 1952-53 he worked briefly as head of a section responsible for counter-espionage against the United States. In 1959 he graduated with a law degree from a four-year course at the KGB Institute (now the KGB Academy) in Moscow.
“From 1959 to 1960, at a time when Soviet long-range strategy was being formulated and the KGB was being reorganised to play its part in it, he served as a senior analyst in the NATO section of the Information Department of the Soviet intelligence service. He served in Vienna and Helsinki on counterintelligence assignments from 1953 to 1955 and from 1960 to 1961, respectively.
“He defected to the United States in December 1961. Subsequently, his contribution to the national security of leading Western countries was recognised by the award of the United States Government Medal for Distinguished Service.
“He was made an Honorary Commander of the British Empire (CBE). A promise of membership of the Legion d’Honneur made when President Pompidou was in power was not fulfilled owing to the change of government.
“Since 1962, the Author has spent much of his time on the study of Communist and international affairs, reading both the Communist and the Western press. In 1980 he completed, and in 1984 he published, ‘New Lies for Old’, a study of the Soviet long-range strategy of deception and disinformation.
“For over thirty years, the Author has submitted Memoranda to the Central Intelligence Agency, in which he has provided the Agency with timely and largely accurate forecasts of Soviet Bloc developments and on the evolution of Soviet / Russian / Communist strategy. By applying the dialectical methodology which drives the strategy, the Author has been able to score innumerable ‘bulls-eyes’. This unparalleled track record reflects the Author’s personal experience of four years in the KGB’s strategy ‘think tank’, together with his deep understanding of the dialectical nature of the strategy and the Leninist mentality of its originators and implementers.
“The Author is a citizen of the United States.”
Anatoliy Golitsyn, The Perestroika Deception: (London & New York: Edward Harle Limited, 1995), VI.
I would be prepared to cast aside such notions if I had any. At the moment all I have is a framework, if you’re familiar with international relations I’d call myself a doveish realist. That’s the way I tend to analyse things.
I’m also quite rigorous about the quality of work I read. I’ll admit to not having read Golitsyn’s work, but thats because I’ve yet to see any serious peer review of it. Even controversial works can get reviewed and published, even though strongly criticised, look at Huntington or Fukuyama for example.
Fergus,
You admit to having not read Mr. Golitsyn’s book yet you trash it because you’re the kind of thinking man who needs other thinking men to think for you because “that’s the way [you] tend to ANALYSE things.” Readdy? You call this “analysis”?
Socrates once spoke to this type of thinking when he said, “Condemnation without investigation IS stupidity.”
You see dear Fergus, had you read Mr. Golitsyn’s book you would have understood that his book was based upon a lengthy analysis of Soviet Strategic plans he did for the American CIA, top secret plans as a high ranking KGB agent he was privy to in 1958. And because Mr. Golitsyn put these hard to believe secret plans down in writing, Soviet strategic intelligence that said in the coming decades the USSR was going to STAGE it’s own governmental implosion, well the CIA thought he was playing with them and instead of thanking him, they locked his butt up in solitary confinement for three years! But the point you do not seem to comprehend – and I think we all know why now – you never read it before condemning it – the books value is, the MANY unbelievable PREDICTIONS HE MADE way back there in the late fifties, began to come true in the decades that followed! And if you can get a handle on that without having to consult others, perhaps you will even begin to comprehend that if more Americans could start thinking for themselves, then guess what, more of us would have been forewarned and – as the old saying goes – forearmed. But alas, no. Not enough Americans can think for themselves these days – forget reading – and so instead, we are in a rush to disarm. Besides, there ain’t no communism – ain’t no threat – be happy, right?
What’s your point fergus?
Golitsyn predicted the fall of the “wall” and the “demise” of Soviet communism well before they happened.
How, because he was involved in the planning of the long range strategy.
Golitsyn’s CV is beyond doubt and his predictions have been very accurate.
Should we not cast our pre-concieved ideas aside Fergus and listen to what the man has to say?
So all this famed ‘New CCCP’ business was written in 1980 when he had been out of the loop for almost 20 years ?
Excuse me while I go and ask Duong Van Minh about the situation in Vietnam