forces, and by his retirement in 1986 the GRU commanded the
largest unconventional warfare force of any army. While most KGB
chairs are well known in the West, Ivashutin kept a very low profile.
However, he played a key role in the Ministry of Defense in war plan-
ning and strategy as well as intelligence. His title at retirement, age
75, was Deputy Chief of the General Staff. See alsoPOPOV, PETR;
PENKOVSKIY, OLEG; SEROV, IVAN.IVY BELLS.The code name “Ivy Bells” referred to a top secret U.S.
Navy program to tap undersea Soviet communication lines using sub-
marines. The program was betrayed to the KGBby Ronald Pelton
in 1985. Pelton, in need of money, provided the Soviets with detailed
reporting, which ended one of the U.S. government’s most success-
ful and innovative signals intelligenceprograms. It cost Moscow
$35,000 to buy secrets of a program that had cost Washington hun-
dreds of millions of dollars to develop and implement.- J –
JOHN, OTTO (1909–1997). One of the most bizarre—and still unre-
solved—stories of the Cold Waris the defection of Otto John. John
was a member of the German resistance and was able to flee to neu-
tral Portugal after the failed assassination of Adolf Hitler in July- John made his way to London and cooperated with British in-
telligence. Following World War II, he helped the Western Allies in
their prosecution of German war criminals.
In 1950 John became head of the BfV (Bundesamt fur Verfas-
sungschutz), West Germany’s new counterintelligenceservice. But
he became increasingly discouraged with West German rearmament
and the employment of former Nazi officials. He shared his feelings
with friends, who happened to be agents of the MGB, the Soviet
Ministry of State Security. John was offered the opportunity to meet
with senior Soviet officials, and on 17 June 1954 he crossed into East
Berlin. He appeared at a news conference a few days later to say that
he had voluntarily entered East Germany and intended to remain in
the East. Over the next few months, he traveled to the Soviet Union
to be debriefed by the MGB. John, however, was not a happy defec-
124 •IVY BELLS06-313 G-P.qxd 7/27/06 7:56 AM Page 124