MITROKHIN ARCHIVE. Vasili Mitrokhin was a 30-year veteran of
the KGB, spent mostly in the First Chief Directorate’s archives. Be-
ginning in 1972 Mitrokhin began to take notes on some of the
300,000 operational files for which he was responsible. These notes,
which after 20 years totaled more than 100,000 handwritten pages, he
buried under his dacha outside Moscow. In 1992 Mitrokhin ap-
proached a British intelligence officer in the Baltic and offered his
“archives” to London. The publication of a book based on the
archives created a firestorm of publicity in Great Britain in 1999 be-
cause it named dozens of British subjects and foreigners who had
spied for the Soviet intelligence service between 1917 and 1989.
Mitrokhin went on to write a monograph on the KGB in Afghanistan;
his coauthor, Christopher Andrews, has been widely interviewed by
the British and American press on the “archives.”
The book’s bona fides were challenged by a number of scholars,
though at least two of the long-term agents named in it publicly ad-
mitted serving Moscow. Some journalists and scholars compared the
book to the infamous Zinoviev Letter, accusing Andrews of trying
to blacken the British left in a mini–Red Scare. However, the major-
ity of experts on security matters recognized the book as genuine.
Mitrokhin apparently had acted like many of the dissidentsthe KGB
had pursued during the Cold War: he wrote “for the dresser
drawer”—not in the hope of publication and fame, but out of the need
to somehow bear witness to the truth.MODIN, YURI IVANOVICH (1923– ).One of the most successful
Soviet intelligence case officers, Modin ran many important British
agents in London during the late 1940s, including Guy Burgessand
Donald Maclean. In 1951 Modin stage-managed Burgess and
Maclean’s escape and defection to the Soviet Union. Following his
success in Great Britain, Modin returned to Moscow, where he
served on the faculty of the KGB’sAndropov Institute. See also
RING OF FIVE.MOKROYE DELO (WET WORK). The NKVD used the terms
mokroye delo(wet work, or wet affair) and chornaya rabota(black
work) to describe executionsand assassinations. Later the KGBused
mokroye delofor foreign assassinations. In the 1930s the NKVD’sMOKROYE DELO(WET WORK)• 16306-313 G-P.qxd 7/27/06 7:56 AM Page 163