was so extensive that the NKVD established a senior illegal to act as
“illegal rezident.” In the United States, Ishak Akhmerovserved in
this capacity for many years.
Following World War II, Soviet tradecraft mandated that officers
assigned abroad as illegals assume non-Soviet nationality and un-
dergo years of language training to master believable “legends” (cov-
ers). Illegals were supported by KGBand GRUofficers under diplo-
matic cover. These officers collected documents to establish cover
identities, frequently using a live double/dead doublestrategy, and
they maintained contact with illegals by dead drops and other forms
of communications. In the KGB, Directorate S of the First Chief Di-
rectorate trained and dispatched illegals, while Line N officers in le-
gal rezidenturasprovided support.
From the 1950s through the 1980s, KGB and GRU illegals were dis-
patched to Europe, North America, and Asia with mixed success. Ille-
gals were also dispatched during periods of crisis to allied East Euro-
pean states to monitor public opinion and target dissidentsfor arrest.
According to one defector, illegals provided the KGB with informa-
tion about developments in Czechoslovakia before Moscow intervened
in the 1968 Prague Crisis. See alsoPROGRESS OPERATIONS.INDUSTRIAL ESPIONAGE.Both the OGPUand the GRUbegan to
collect proprietary and classified industrial information in the late
1920s. As part of Joseph Stalin’s plan to modernize the Soviet Union
through a series of Five Year Plans, the intelligence service began to
recruit agents with access to industrial and technical information.
Among the first important agents recruited solely to collect industrial
information was Harry Gold, an American chemist with access to
sugar refining secrets. He was initially recruited by the OGPU to ob-
tain proprietary information for Soviet industry. During World War
II, he later became a critical agent in the Soviet nuclear intelligence
program.
One of the most famous industrial intelligence rings was one run
by Julius Rosenberg. Rosenberg, a staunch communist, recruited a
number of young left-wing scientists during World War II and passed
secrets they gleaned from American industries to the NKVDrezi-
denturain New York. Rosenberg and several other American agents
were also used to provide information on the Anglo-American120 •INDUSTRIAL ESPIONAGE06-313 G-P.qxd 7/27/06 7:56 AM Page 120