Contains information on KGB active measures to undermine the activities and credibility of Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe, and Voice of America during the mid 1970’s and early 1980’s. In one operation, personally authorized by KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov, the Spanish journal “Arriba” and 42 other Spanish journals published articles stating that Radio Liberty broadcasts into the USSR violated the Helsinki Accords because they impinged upon Soviet sovereignty, and were contrary to Spanish national interests. Following this activity, the Spanish leadership decided not to extend its agreement with the US which allowed Radio Liberty to broadcast from Spain. During a 1976 operation, an East German agent who worked as an international lawyer spread disinformation about Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty’s ‘illegal’ activities in 35 foreign embassies in Vienna. In October 1977, the KGB sent letters to a variety of Western news outlets, including the Washington Post, claiming to be from a group of Radio Free Europe employees. These letters were directed specifically at US Senators Edward Kennedy, Charles Percy, and Frank Church, and Representatives Edward Derwinsky, Clement Zablocky, Herman Badillo, and Berkley Bedell. In 1981, with the help of the journal “Pravda,” the KGB exposed the role of Radio Liberty in the ‘events’ in Poland.

In this entry, Mitrokhin draws upon KGB files to describe Ivan Illarionovich Ortinskii-“Vernii” (b. 1922), a native of the Lvov region, Ukraine. A priest in a Greco-Catholic church, Vernii pursued his religious studies at the Vatican and lectured at a seminary in Rome in 1964. Beginning in 1973, Vernii lived in Ingolstadt, Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). According to the entry, the KGB established contact with Vernii when the latter visited his parents and kin in Lvov in 1968. In 1971, Vernii was recruited as an agent by the KGB branch of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Between 1971 and 1974, collaboration between Vernii and the KGB took place within the territory of the Ukrainian SSR. As an agent, Vernii provided the KGB with information regarding his church, and the leadership of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).

Mitrokhin’s summary of KGB documents indicates that Vernii transmitted information to the KGB through his sister, Ukrainian SSR agent “Chestnaya” (born Ortinskaya).
Mitrokhin concludes the entry by stating that in 1978, Vernii informed the KGB from Vienna that he would no longer work as an agent, since he had aroused much suspicion within the Greco-Catholic Church.

In this entry, Mitrokhin draws upon KGB files to describe Erlich Vranni “Lucy” (b. 1948), a native of Bern, Switzerland and the secretary of the Swiss Ambassador to Indonesia from 1969-1970. Beginning in January 1970, Lucy collaborated with Sergei Nikolayevich Argunov, an agent within the KGB’s branch in Jakarta, Indonesia.

In this folder Mitrokhin reports on some spy techniques used by the KGB in major western European cities (including Helsinki, Geneva, Bucharest) in 1975. According to Mitrokhin, the main tasks for KGB residents trained in the use of operational techniques were to check post offices for foreign correspondence, to secretly receive information about meetings of officials of a certain country, and to videotape any acts of anti-socialist movements. This note provides detailed statistics on the photographs taken of foreign mail, telephone recordings, and radio-intercepts. Mitrokhin specifically focuses on operations which took place in Vienna. As his note states, KGB agents photographed thousands of pages of secret materials using the “Zagadka,” a mini-camera built into a regular pen. The KGB residency had their own “TS” correspondence service with 98 N-line—undercover agents operated by legal residents—around Europe. Residents used microdot script and steganography —the art of writing hidden messages—for agents of N-line. As Mitrokhin states, X-line—residency subunit of scientific-technical investigation—agents’ tasks were to provide materials for secret operations. They built in a recording device in an ashtray, used the inside of an automobile seats to keep secret materials, and batteries for cameras. Mitrokhin also provides the exact number and names of all KGB residency agencies in Vienna in 1975, and describes security techniques used for their technology and agents.