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The military ranks of technical services officers are major and lieutenant-colonel.
Radio Monitoring Station Officers
In contradistinction to TS officers, these are concerned with monitoring the radio networks of the police and security services. The technical services and the radio monitoring station are two different groups, independent of each other, both controlled by the resident. The difference between them is that the technical services work in the interests of the Centre, trying to obtain state secrets, but the monitoring station works only in the interests of the residency trying to determine where in the city police activity is at its highest at a given moment and thus where operations may be mounted and where they should not be mounted. Groups for the study of operational conditions are made up of the most junior officers who will eventually become operational officers arid be sent out on independent recruitment work. These are small groups who continually study the local press and police activities, endeavouring to obtain by means of isolated snippets a general picture of the police work in a given city and country. Besides their sca
The Operationa] Technical Group
This is concerned with the repair and maintenance of photographic apparatus, photocopying equipment and the like. At the disposal of the group there are dead-letter boxes of all types, radio transmission stations, SW (secret writing) materials, microphoto-graphy and micropantography. The officers of this group are always on hand to give the necessary explanations to operational officers and to instruct them on the use of this or that instrument or method. These officers continually monitor television programmes and collect useful items on video tape, giving to Moscow material it could not get from any other source. The officers of the group, together with the officers of the group for the study of operational conditions, are widely used for the security of agent operations, the carrying out of counter-surveillance, signals organisation, dead-letter box operations and so on.
Technical Perso
Only the very largest residencies contain technical perso
Some residencies, especially those in countries where attacks on the embassy ca
An accountant, in the rank of captain or major, is employed only in those residencies where the normal monthly budget exceeds one million dollars. In other cases the financial affairs are the concern of one of the deputy residents.
In our examination of the undercover residency, we have naturally to examine its cover, the official duties used by KGB and GRU officers to camouflage their secret activities. Without exaggeration it may be said that any official duty given to Soviet citizens abroad may be used to mask officers of intelligence organisations: as ambassadors and drivers, consuls and guards, dancers, writers, artists, simple tourists, guides and stewardesses, heads of delegations and simple section heads, UN employees and priests, intelligence officers conceal their true functions. Any person who has the right of official entry and exit from the Soviet Union may be used for intelligence tasks, and the vast majority of these are in fact only occupied in intelligence work. Some types of cover provide better possibilities, some worse. Some are used more by the GRU, some more by the KGB. Let us look at the basic ones.
The embassy is used to an equal extent by both organisations. Both residents and their deputies are in possession of massive amounts of information which would expose them to an un-acceptably high risk of arrest. For this reason the KGB resident and his colleague from the GRU, and usually their deputies too, are bearers of diplomatic passports, that is, they work officially in the embassies. Other officers of both organisations give themselves out as embassy diplomats too. They all prefer to concern themselves with technological and scientific questions, and questions of transport and communications; they are rarely found in cultural sections. The consulate is entirely KGB. You will almost never find officers of the GRU there and only very rarely genuine diplomats. This is because all exit and entry from and to the Soviet Union is in the hands of the KGB. KGB officers in the consulate issue visas, and the frontier forces of the KGB then control them later on. Every aspect of immigration and of flight and defection has some co
Aeroflot, the Soviet civil airline, is the exclusive domain of the GRU. This can be explained by the fact that aviation technology is of extreme interest to the Soviet armaments industry, and there is huge scope for any Aeroflot employee to inform himself about the progress of the West: international exhibitions, meetings with representatives of the leading aviation and space corporations, perfectly justifiable meetings with representatives of firms producing aviation electronics, oils, lubricants, fuels, high-tension materials, heat isolators and aero-engines. Usually the firms which produce civil aircraft also produce military aircraft and rockets, and in this field lie the GRU's richest pickings. Happily, those officers whom the GRU selects at advanced aviation institutes for work in Aeroflot do not need lengthy specialist instruction. Sometimes Soviet military and civil aircraft have identical parts. KGB officers are only rarely employed at Aeroflot, and then for the same reasons as the GRU in consular affairs. The merchant navy is almost identical, the only difference being that the officers there are selected to study cruisers and submarines and not strategic aviation. An organisation of exceptional importance to both services is the Trade Representation, that is the organ of the Ministry of External Trade. Literally swarming with KGB and GRU officers, this organisation provides exceptional access to business people whom both strive to exploit for their own ends. Representation in Tass, APN, Pravda and Izvestia are almost forbidden ground for the GRU. Even the KGB in this field has very narrow powers. Press matters are very carefully kept in the Central Committee's own hands, therefore KGB officers and officers of the GRU do not occupy key posts in these organisations. This does not mean of course that their secret activities suffer in any way.
Intourist is in the KGB's hands, so much so that it is not just an organisation strongly influenced by the KGB, but an actual branch of the KGB. Begi
Every GRU officer in an undercover residency, whatever his official duties may be, and under whatever cover he masquerades, has his place in the general structure of the secret hierarchy. What we see in daily life is only the performance the GRU wishes to show us. Internal relations in an undercover residency have no bearing whatsoever on external, official ranks. Military ranks play an insignificant role. The important role is the actual job of the officer in the residency. There have been cases where residents with an eye to cover have occupied completely insignificant posts within embassies. At the same time the resident remains the resident and his authority is unshakeable. Within the residency he remains the strict, tyra