CIA VS. KGB 127known access to intelligence of interest and other factors. The CIA had
been monitoring Boris’s career for years, collecting extensive biographical
and assessment data, and had already validated this young KGB officer.
In a nutshell, because of his access and potential vulnerabilities, he was
deemed an extremely attractive operational target for assessment, develop-
ment, and recruitment. Boris’s adulterous affair in Central America told
us he was one of those rare KGB officers willing to run risks and break
Soviet rules. We knew he had an eye for the ladies, which could provide
interesting opportunities to get next to him. He also seemed to have more
freedom than most Soviet officials abroad, which might make meeting him
privately a real possibility. He was a loyal, rising Soviet star, but one who
liked to live on the edge. This made him an especially attractive target.
With the validation box checked, the next step was to orchestrate direct
but discreet contact between a station officer and the target. This task alone
might elude us for years if not forever. Fortunately, that difficult hurdle had
been surpassed when my wife and I “happened” to meet Boris at the afore-
mentioned reception, away from the prying eyes and ears of his Soviet
embassy colleagues.
The next stage was the most challenging of all: find a way to have sus-
tained and meaningful contact with the target in order to assess him while
slowly developing a friendship and relationship of trust, without having that
contact come to the attention of anyone from the Soviet or other bloc embas-
sies. This was accomplished in part by building and tapping into an extensive
network of human and technical sources that covered the target’s personal
and professional life without his knowledge. This kind of coverage would
not only provide more valuable insights into a target’s vulnerabilities, but it
would also result in information on his movements around town that would
enable a case officer like me to engineer a “chance” encounter with him on
the street. These choreographed, seemingly random meetings would give
me the opportunity to chat with him informally and set up the next meeting
time/place, without touching the monitored telephones of his embassy.
Aside from the obvious professional and national security reasons for
making sustained contact with Boris my top operational priority, I also had