THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 5, 1994 TAG: 9406010726
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: C3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOHN A. FAHEY
DATELINE: 940605 LENGTH: Medium
The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness - A Soviet Spymaster
{REST} PAVEL SUDOPLATOV AND ANATOLI SUDOPLATOV
Little, Brown. 509 pp. $24.95.
\ \ SPECIAL TASKS, the memoirs of Soviet security officer Pavel Sudoplatov, reinforces the old adage that although intelligence is the world's second oldest profession, it fails to achieve the moral standards of the oldest.
Assisted by his son, Anatoli, 87-year-old Sudoplatov provides an inside view of the shoddy behavior of Soviet security agents in the assassination of Trotsky; World War II espionage; atomic bomb spying coups; and Cold War successes and failures. Sudoplatov, an indisputable hatchet man, proclaims his innocence in beatings, murders and liquidations, on the basis that he did not initiate such dastardly deeds but acted according to military discipline in carrying out orders of higher authority.
Sudoplatov's credibility is suspect. Many of the author's recollections conflict with those of Nikita Khrushchev in Khrushchev Remembers, Marshal G. Zhukov in Vospominaniya i razmyshleniya, and Marshal I. Konev in Zapiski komanduyushchego frontom 1943-1944.
Sudoplatov continually contradicts historical events. For example, he disputes Khrushchev's observation of Stalin's fear during the first weeks after the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union. This is not surprising. In Khrushchev Remembers, Khrushchev referred to Chekist security agents like Sudoplatov as a ``despicable lot,'' whereas Stalin considered Chekists beyond reproach.
Sudoplatov's claim that intelligence and disinformation furnished by the Soviet Security Service (NKVD) contributed to the victory at Kursk (where the Soviet and Nazi armies waged the largest tank battle in history) is not supported by either Zhukov's or Konev's memoirs.
According to Sudoplatov, the NKVD channeled information on May 7, 1943, to the Soviet High Command that a German offensive was aimed at Kursk. This warning was not timely. By April 12 Zhukov had already planned to engage the German army at Kursk. On April 15 Hitler signed Order No. 6 for a Kursk offensive. Still in April, however, the NKVD suspected the German offensive to be in the Velikie Luki region, 400 miles from Kursk.
When Sudoplatov's mentor, Security Chief Lavrenti Beria, moved his office into the Kremlin in December 1945, Sudoplatov says he received for the first time a pass permitting him to enter the Kremlin at any time. Special Tasks even includes a photograph of this pass with the caption, ``Sudoplatov's pass allowing him access to any part of the Kremlin, dated November 7, 1941.'' Actually the Russian language pass translated into English reads: ``Pass No. 123 to anywhere on Red Square on the day celebrating the 24th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution on 7 November 1941.''
In April, Time magazine and the Russian Defense Ministry newspaper, Krasnaya Zvezda, showcased Sudoplatov's sensational charges about American nuclear scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer's alleged betrayal in providing information to the Soviet Union and planting Soviet moles in Los Alamos. A Russian headline read: ``The `Father' of the American Atomic Bomb Gave a Present to His `Child' Stalin.''
While Oppenheimer's left-wing leanings cannot be denied, how can historians accept undocumented allegations from a self-proclaimed master of disinformation? The Russian press also reports that according to Sudoplatov's former colleagues, he was not even privy to his cited intelligence operations.
Sudoplatov's credibility is not the only problem with Special Tasks. A case can be made against him based on what he does not cover. The orders, thoughts and personality of Beria, a main player in Sudoplatov's career, monopolize the narrative, until he is arrested. Then all accounts of Beria disappear from the memoirs. One must look elsewhere for intriguing tales of Beria's arrest, trial and execution.
Krasnaya Zvezda recently published a series on Sudoplatov's life based on a two-week interview. The Russian-language series omits the repression and fear experienced by Jews in the security service, beatings, spinal taps, deceit, intrigue, distrust and double-dealing described in Special Tasks. A Russian reader of Krasnaya Zvezda may well think that Sudoplatov's profession is noble. But an American reader of Special Tasks will recognize that this spymaster's intelligence activities place him in the lowest depths of the world's second oldest profession. by CNB