15th Chief Directorate’s role is more shadowed in secrecy, and it was
apparently involved in the building and securing of a special subway
for the evacuation of the Soviet leadership in time of war. A former
Politburo member said the secret metro ran more than 20 kilometers
and was one of the single most expensive projects Moscow under-
took in the Cold War.
The Chief Directorate of Border Guardscommanded air, sea, and
ground military units and was responsible for the control of the coun-
try’s frontiers. In 1991 the Chief Directorate of Border Guards com-
manded a force of 240,000 troops with naval patrol craft, helicopters,
and armored fighting vehicles.
The KGB and its predecessors had offices at the republic, oblast
(state), and city levels. These provincial offices had much the same
structure of the central organization. For example, the Moscow
KGB had First (Foreign Intelligence) and Second (Counterintelli-
gence) departments, as well as other parallel departments that mir-
rored the center’s organization. One of the great strengths of the
KGB was its ability to communicate and react quickly. The Soviet
services also maintained extremely complete archives of its opera-
tions, agents, and targets. Andrei Sakharov’s wife, Helen Bonner,
was given over 500 KGB operational files following the collapse of
the Soviet Union.KHRUSHCHEV, NIKITA SERGEYEVICH (1894–1971). Khru-
shchev used the security service in his rise to power within General
Secretary Joseph Stalin’s inner circle and in his drive to succeed
Stalin in the 1950s. However, his rivals’ ability to subvert the KGB
led to his downfall in 1964.
Khrushchev’s career was made in the Communist Partyappara-
tus, and he was closely monitored by Stalin from 1930 until the lat-
ter’s death. Khrushchev’s first important experience with the security
service came in Moscow in the mid-1930s, when he authorized the ar-
rest of thousands of Trotskyites. Khrushchev probably carried out
this campaign so ruthlessly because he had flirted with Trotskyism in
the early 1920s. In 1938 Stalin assigned Khrushchev to lead the
Ukrainian Communist Party, with a mandate to purge enemies of the
people. According to all accounts, he did not disappoint his mentor,
ordering the arrest of tens of thousands of officials: a total of 168,000130 •KHRUSHCHEV, NIKITA SERGEYEVICH (1894–1971)06-313 G-P.qxd 7/27/06 7:56 AM Page 130