«…to talk about the KGB's use of terrorist groups» Publication time: 3 November 2006, 09:57 A new US citizen, Oleg Kalugin, who served 32 years with the KGB, visited a counterterrorism class at Patrick Henry College in Purcellville last month to talk about the KGB's use of terrorist groups and aspects of his former work, Loudoun Times-Mirror writes. Anonymous letters and death threats still find their way into the now-peaceful suburban life of Kalugin, 72. He told the class that "they still continue to kill political opponents." The former Soviet intelligence general added, "I send whatever I get to the FBI, so they can be aware that there is a threat on my life."
Kalugin completed six years of counterintelligence and foreign language training in Russia, then entered the United States in 1958 at age 24, posing as a journalism exchange student at Columbia University. During the next 12 years, he made two more visits to the United States, first undercover as a Moscow radio correspondent for the United Nations, and as a deputy press officer for the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C.
"I would recruit people. They would provide information, and I would send it back to Moscow. Some had access to top-secret information. Others had influence," Kalugin is quoted by the paper as saying. "The FBI may have known who I was, but I was never caught red-handed."
In the early 1970s, Kalugin was recalled to Moscow and appointed general, becoming the youngest man to hold the title in KGB history. Soon after, he became head of the agency's foreign counterintelligence. As Kalugin settled into Russian life, however, his perspectives on the Soviet regime began to shift, Loudoun Times-Mirror marks. Kalugin grew more critical of KGB operations and policies, and was demoted to first deputy chief of internal security in 1980. In 1987, he was formally dismissed from the KGB. Despite opposition from political opponents and the KGB, Kalugin was elected to the Soviet Parliament that same year. He continued to criticize the Soviet regime. In 1994, he published an autobiography, The First Directorate: My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage Against the West.
In 1995, Kalugin accepted a teaching position at Catholic University in Washington D.C., and has not returned to his homeland.
His political status in Russia further deteriorated after his departure. "I was singled out because I revealed secrets of the KGB [in my book]," he said. "[President] Putin, my former subordinate, called me a traitor." In 2002, the Moscow City Court sentenced him in absentia to 15 years of imprisonment for high treason.
Kalugin currently lives in the Washington suburbs, and conducts classes and lectures across the United States.
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