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  The Man with the Poison Gun

  “Serhii Plokhy has alighted upon a fascinating episode in the history of Soviet intelligence. Not long after Stalin’s death, Communist Party leader Nikita Khrushchev ordered a campaign of assassinations directed against defectors and those campaigning for the dissolution of the Soviet Union, most notably the Ukrainian nationalists led by Stepan Bandera. One of the most accomplished assassins, Bogdan Stashinsky, defected, however, and uncovered the entire ghastly affair in 1961. Plokhy, a leading Harvard professor, details the story in startling clarity and pinpoint accuracy from an impressive array of sources, German, Russian, Ukrainian, and American. Yet he carries his learning lightly, which makes for a very readable story that could as well have emerged from the pen of a spy thriller writer.”

  —Jonathan Haslam, George F. Kennan Professor, School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and author of Near and Distant Neighbors: A New History of Soviet Intelligence

  “This book often reads like an Ian Fleming spy novel, but it is actually about real events that occurred during the tensest phase of the Cold War in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Serhii Plokhy provides a riveting account of the exploits of a Soviet assassin who used poison gas to kill exiled opponents of the Soviet regime amid East–West preparations for all-out war. Plokhy’s meticulously researched book sheds valuable light on the Soviet regime’s continued use of political assassinations in foreign countries long after the death of Joseph Stalin. A wonderful read for scholars and spy novel fans alike.”

  —Mark Kramer, director, Cold War Studies, Harvard University

  Copyright © 2016 by Serhii Plokhy

  An imprint of Perseus Books, a division of PBG Publishing, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address

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  Designed by Cynthia Young

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Plokhy, Serhii, 1957– author.

  Title: The man with the poison gun: a Cold War spy story / Serhii Plokhy.

  Description: New York: Basic Books, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016019612 | ISBN 9780465096602 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Stashinsky, Bogdan, 1931– | Spies—Soviet Union–Biography. | Bandera, Stepan, 1909–1959—Assassination. | Rebet, Lev, 1912–1957—Assassination. | Espionage, Soviet—Germany—History. | Political refugees—Germany (West)—Biography. | Ukrainians—Germany—Biography. | Poisoning—Germany—History—20th century. | Political crimes and offenses—Germany—History—20th century. | Ukraine—Politics and government—1945–1991.

  Classification: LCC DK266.3 .P463 2016 | DDC 327.1247043092 [B]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016019612

  10987654321

  CONTENTS

  Preface

  Prologue

  PART I

  KGB MAN

  1 Stalin’s Call

  2 Master Killer

  3 Secret Agent

  4 Parachutist

  5 Streets of Munich

  6 Wonder Weapon

  7 Greetings from Moscow

  PART II

  PERFECT MURDER

  8 Red Square

  9 Herr Popel

  10 Dead on Arrival

  11 Funeral

  12 CIA Telegram

  13 Upswing

  14 Prime Suspect

  15 Active Measures

  PART III

  MOSCOW NIGHTS

  16 High Hopes

  17 Man at the Top

  18 Private Matter

  19 Award

  20 Proposal

  21 Introducing the Bride

  22 Month of the Spy

  23 Going in Circles

  PART IV

  ESCAPE FROM PARADISE

  24 Moscow Bugs

  25 Family

  26 Change of Plans

  27 New Year

  28 Back to School

  29 Telephone Call

  30 Berlin

  31 Down to the Wire

  PART V

  PUBLICITY BOMB

  32 Shock Wave

  33 Defector

  34 Investigation

  35 Press Conference

  36 High Politics

  37 Congressman

  PART VI

  TRIAL

  38 Karlsruhe

  39 Loyalty and Betrayal

  40 First Murder

  41 Big Day

  42 Doubt

  43 Prosecution

  44 Devil’s Advocates

  45 Verdict

  PART VII

  DEPARTED

  46 Unanswered Letter

  47 Guest from Washington

  48 Judex

  49 Vanished

  50 Kremlin Ghost

  51 On the Run

  52 Homecoming

  Epilogue: The Cold War Redux

  Acknowledgments

  Notes

  Index

  About the Author

  PREFACE

  In the fall of 1961, as American and Soviet tanks faced one another at Checkpoint Charlie in the newly divided city of Berlin, and David Cornwell, a British spy more commonly known as John le Carré, was contemplating the writing of his first bestselling novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, the West German police were interrogating a Soviet spy.

  The slim thirty-year-old man had papers in the name of an East German, Josef Lehmann, but claimed that his real name was Bogdan Stashinsky and that he was a citizen of the Soviet Union. Stashinsky admitted during questioning that he was singlehandedly responsible for tracking down and killing two Ukrainian émigrés hiding in Munich, where they had been conspiring to liberate their country and destroy the Soviet Union. He had used a new, specially designed secret weapon—a spray pistol delivering liquid poison that, if fired into the victim’s face, killed without leaving a trace. The Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who had spent a good part of his career in Ukraine, had regarded the émigré leaders as personal enemies. They had been the primary targets of multiple KGB assassination attempts, and ultimately victims of Stashinsky’s poison gun.

  Stashinsky’s testimony, implicating the Kremlin rulers in political assassinations carried out abroad, was a bombshell, shaking the worlds of espionage and international politics. The Stashinsky case changed how the Soviets fought the Cold War, forcing the KGB to abandon its practice of foreign assassination. It also ended the career of the KGB chief Aleksandr Shelepin, who had aspired to replace Nikita Khrushchev and then Leonid Brezhnev at the top of the Soviet power pyramid. In West Germany, the Stashinsky trial changed how Nazi criminals were prosecuted. Using the Stashinsky case as a precedent, many defendants in such cases claimed, as had the Soviet spy, that they were simply accessories to murder, while their superiors, who ordered the killings, were the main perpetrators. West German legislators eventually changed the law to make it impossible for Nazi perpetrators to c
laim the “Stashinsky defense.”

  In the United States, Stashinsky’s case was investigated by a subcommittee of the US Senate, and the evidence he provided was considered in the conclusions of the Warren Commission on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Many conspiracy theorists still believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was trained by the KGB in the same facility as Bogdan Stashinsky.

  Stashinsky’s story captured the imagination of the Western world. It was featured in a long article in Life magazine, and made it into successive editions of Great True Spy Stories, compiled by former CIA chief Allen Dulles. In Ian Fleming’s last James Bond novel, The Man with the Golden Gun, Bond, brainwashed by the Soviets, tries to assassinate his boss by shooting him with a cyanide-loaded poison gun. The Stashinsky story served as the basis of a number of radio and television features around the world. It inspired numerous books and documentary films, at least two novels, two theater plays, and one movie.

  For decades, the KGB denied any involvement in the Stashinsky assassinations, and for decades, CIA officers could never be entirely sure whether Stashinsky’s story was true or false. Even today, some authors claim that Stashinsky was in fact a loyal KGB agent who had been sent to the West in order to bear false witness, and thereby shield the prized KGB agent who actually did the job. By tapping into new, previously unavailable sources, this book finally puts to rest many earlier theories and speculations about Stashinsky’s assassinations. It also places the Stashinsky story into the broad context of the Cold War—the relentless battle of ideologies and cultures between East and West—and demonstrates the crushing impact that the Soviet police state had on the population living east of the Iron Curtain.

  Most of what we know today about Bogdan Stashinsky, his crime, and his punishment comes from the testimony that he gave at his trial in Karlsruhe, Germany, in October 1962. We can now supplement that data with information from recently declassified files of the Central Intelligence Agency; KGB and Polish security archives; and memoirs and interviews of former KGB officers. The study of graveyard records in a Berlin suburb made it possible to corroborate parts of the story originally told by Stashinsky, and my interview with a former head of the South African police allowed me to trace the former Soviet assassin to that country. He is probably still living there, always looking over his shoulder, aware that the old habits of the KGB die hard, if at all.

  PROLOGUE

  On the sunny morning of October 15, 1959, a tram coming from downtown Munich made its regular stop on the Ludwig Bridge across the Isar River. “Deutsches Museum,” announced the conductor. The German Museum of Masterpieces of Science and Technology, which had housed the world’s largest collection of scientific exhibits before the war, was a few hundred yards away, its main building located on an island in the middle of the river. While the museum still showed signs of damage suffered during the Allied bombing of the city, the passengers could also see signs of postwar revival. The museum building was being restored, and new houses had been built on the bombed-out Zeppelinstrasse on the right bank of the river. The doors of the tram car opened, allowing passengers to enter and exit.

  A slim, flat-chested man with sloping shoulders in his late twenties waited on the Ludwig Bridge, but showed no interest in hopping onto the tram. He also missed a tram going in the opposite direction, toward Karlsplatz and the Hauptbahnhof—the main railway station. Nor was he on his way to the museum. He stood on the bridge, looking toward the river and Zeppelinstrasse. After a moment, he left the bridge, walking along Zeppelinstrasse toward building no. 67, near which a dark blue Opel Kapitan was parked. The man came close enough to read the sedan’s license plate. He then returned to his post on the bridge, where he kept an eye on the car and the building nearby. Finally, around noon, activity caught his attention: a man in his early fifties left the building with a younger woman and got into the car. The Opel Kapitan pulled away from the curb and proceeded along Zeppelinstrasse away from the Ludwig Bridge. The young man watched the car until it disappeared from sight. Then he boarded the downtown train.

  At a quarter past noon, the young man from the Ludwig Bridge was on the other side of the city, getting off the tram on the Massmannplatz. From there he walked toward the Kreittmayrstrasse and then in the direction of St. Benno’s Catholic Church at the end of the street. He paused at the recently constructed apartment building at no. 7 and looked into its archway, which led to the courtyard and garages, but the dark blue Opel Kapitan was nowhere in sight. He walked along the street once again, repeatedly checking his watch. Finally he spotted the Opel Kapitan approaching in his direction. He could see the license plate. It was the same car, but the driver was alone.

  When the Opel Kapitan turned into the archway at no. 7, the young man headed for the main entrance and opened the door with a key. He locked the door from the inside and took the stairs to the ground floor, deciding to wait there until the owner of the Opel Kapitan entered the hallway. Suddenly he heard voices upstairs. “Wiedersehen—until we meet again,” said a female voice, and someone began to descend the stairs. The young man panicked; he was caught on the stairs between this unknown resident and the owner of the Opel Kapitan, who could appear any moment. Finally he decided to return to the ground floor, turned his face toward the elevator door, and pressed the elevator button. A few seconds later he heard steps behind him: it was a woman, as he could tell from the click of her high heels. She opened the door and left the building.

  Relieved, the young man returned to his previous position behind the first turn of the stairs, out of sight of anyone entering. A few moments later he looked out and saw the man he was waiting for—the owner of the Opel Kapitan from Zeppelinstrasse. The man was short, stocky, and balding. He was struggling to remove his key from the main door. He carried some bags under his arm. One of them was open, and the young man could see that it contained tomatoes. The young man bent down and pantomimed tying his shoelace—he knew that the gesture looked unnatural, but he wanted to avoid approaching the man with the tomatoes while the entrance door was still open. The young man straightened up and resumed his movement toward the door. “Funktioniert es nicht—Isn’t it working?” he heard himself say. “Doch es funktioniert—Now it’s working,” responded the owner of the Opel Kapitan.

  The young man grasped the outside doorknob with his left hand. His right hand, in which he held a rolled-up newspaper, came up, with one end pointed toward the man’s face. There was a soft pop. He saw the older man’s body moving backward and to the side. He did not see it fall. He stepped outside and closed the entrance door behind him. On the street, he unrolled the newspaper and removed the eight-inch cylinder which had been concealed within. The gun went into his pocket. The mission was over. Stashinsky had finally done it.1

  PART I

  KGB MAN

  1

  STALIN’S CALL

  Nikita Khrushchev, the balding, overweight, but surprisingly energetic future leader of the Soviet Union, was in the middle of a speech when a note was delivered to the podium asking him to call Moscow as soon as possible.

  It was December 1, 1949, and Khrushchev, then a party boss of Ukraine, was addressing professors and students in the Western Ukrainian city of Lviv. The city and its environs had belonged to Poland before World War II but were annexed to the Soviet Union in 1939 as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. After the short-lived Soviet-German alliance was dissolved, the Soviets lost the region to invading Germans in June 1941, but reclaimed it in July 1944. Ever since, they had unsuccessfully tried to convince the local Ukrainian population to accept life under Soviet rule. It was a difficult proposition: the Ukrainians wanted their own state. A few weeks before Khrushchev’s speech, Ukrainian nationalist guerrillas had scored a major victory by assassinating Yaroslav Halan, a communist author and one of the main propagandists of the new regime. Khrushchev came to Lviv to personally oversee the investigation and lead the hunt for Halan’s killers. One of them had turned out to be a student, and Khrushchev was now
addressing local college administrators and party activists among the students to alert them to the dangers of nationalism.

  The request to call Moscow caught Khrushchev by surprise. He finished his speech, calling on the students to fight nationalism in their ranks and stand on guard against the guerrillas, left the meeting, and placed a call to the Kremlin. On the other end of the line was Stalin’s right-hand man, Georgii Malenkov, the party boss responsible for the appointment and dismissal of Soviet officials. Khrushchev had been called back to the Kremlin. “How urgent is it?” asked Khrushchev. “Very. Get a plane first thing tomorrow morning,” came the answer. “I left ready for anything, trying to anticipate all sorts of unpleasant surprises,” recalled Khrushchev later.1

  Three years earlier, in 1946, Stalin had removed Khrushchev as first secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine, assigning him to the less important office of head of the Ukrainian Cabinet. The appointment was punishment for Khrushchev’s demands that Moscow help relieve the Ukrainian famine of 1946–1947. Stalin, whose insistence on high grain-procurement quotas had caused the famine, refused to listen or to help. Annoyed with Khrushchev’s demands, he replaced him with Lazar Kaganovich, one of the organizers of the Great Famine of 1932–1933, which had claimed the lives of as many as 4 million Ukrainians. Chastised, Khrushchev fell into line and showed no mercy in extracting grain from the exhausted Ukrainian peasantry. Close to 1 million people died as a result. In the fall of 1947, Stalin reinstalled Khrushchev in his former post of party boss of Ukraine.2

  But what did Stalin want now? Was the summons to Moscow related to the assassination of Yaroslav Halan and Khrushchev’s perceived inability to end the Ukrainian resistance? The guerrilla fighters were universally known as Banderites—a name derived from that of the leader of the “revolutionary” (most militant) branch of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), Stepan Bandera. Judging by Khrushchev’s memoirs, he had first heard of Bandera in 1939. That year, as head of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Khrushchev oversaw the incorporation of Western Ukraine into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Bandera, who was serving a life sentence for his role in the 1934 assassination of the Polish minister of the interior, had walked out of the prison in 1939 following the German invasion of Poland, slipping through Soviet hands. “We were impressed by Bandera’s record as an opponent of the Polish government, but we should have taken into account the fact that men like him were also enemies of the Soviet Union,” remembered Khrushchev later.