Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Intelligence

ligence officer insisted, was not hurting his country by providing in-

formation to an international cartel. In the 1930s and 1940s, NKVD

officers often pretended to be “Cominternrepresentatives.” Infor-

mation that was going to Moscow to help the international commu-

nist movement could not be considered espionage. Rather, it was sol-

idarity with the working class and the struggling Soviet people. See

alsoMOTIVATION.

FAMISH. Beginning in the early 1980s, the administration of U.S.

President Ronald Reagan searched for ways to reduce the Soviet in-

telligence presence in the United States. The “Famish” action was

precipitated in September 1986 when the KGBarrested Nicholas

Daniloff, an American journalist, in response to the Federal Bureau

of Investigation’s arrest of Gennadiy Zakharov, a KGB agent who

lacked diplomatic cover. At first, Moscow sought an exchange of the

Soviet spy for the American journalist, and Soviet leader Mikhail

Gorbachevand President Reagan traded charges about the arrests.

Reagan and his chief Soviet hand, Ambassador Jack Matlock, de-

cided on a radical reaction to break the Soviets of hostage taking. So-

viet diplomatic missions in New York and Washington were informed

they had to drastically reduce their staff, and 80 KGB and GRU of-

ficers were specifically deemed persona non grata and ordered to

leave the United States. The list of those expelled included all the

rezidentsand key intelligence personnel in the United States, includ-

ing 61 from Washington, 26 from New York, and 13 from San Fran-

cisco. While Moscow retaliated by expelling some U.S. diplomats

and withdrawing Soviet employees from the American embassy, the

Soviet services had suffered a major defeat. Daniloff and Zakharov

were later exchanged. See also SPY SWAPS.

FAPSI.The current Russian signals intelligenceservice is FAPSI;

the acronym stands for Federalnoe agentsvo pravitelstevennoi

svyazi i informatatsii(Federal Agency for Government Communi-

cation and Information). It was formed after the abortive 1991 Au-

gust putsch. Created from the Eighth (Government Communica-

tion) and Sixteenth (Communications Intercept) Chief Directorates

of theKGB, FAPSI acts as the Russian version of the American

National Security Agency (NSA). It is a crucial component of the

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