cover, Agayants served as rezident(chief of intelligence) in Paris fol-
lowing World War II. Agayants established networks of agents in
France from among men and women who had began their service
during the war in the “Lemoyne” and “Henri” groups. Many of these
agents served out of deep ideological commitment and had been re-
cruited as agents from the French Communist Party. Agayants also
was successful in running agents within the French counterintelli-
genceservice. He was so scornful of French counterintelligence that
he referred to the service as a “prostitute” in a lecture to new officers.
Agayants was picked by KGBChair Aleksandr Shelepinin the
1950s to establish Service D within the First Chief Directorate to re-
build the service’s active measurescapacity. Agayants concentrated
Service D on finding ways to divide the United States from its NATO
allies, defame politicians seen as anti-Soviet, and link West German
politicians to the worst aspects of Nazism. In 1962, for example, Ser-
vice D spread rumors about then German Defense Minister Franz
Joseph Straus, aimed at weakening his position within the German
government.AGRANOV, YAKOV SAMULOVICH (1893–1938).An Old Bolshe-
vikwho joined the Communist Partyin 1915, Agranov was one of
the most effective of the early Chekistleaders. He advanced quickly
in the service as a counterintelligence expert to become deputy
chief. Agranov set up the first show trialin Leningrad in 1921 to
publicize and punish resistance to the regime among the Leningrad
intellectual elite. An intellectual, Agranov was close to a number of
leading writers, including Vladimir Mayakovsky and Maksim Gorky.
Following Sergei Kirov’s assassination on 1 December 1934,
Agranov took charge of the Leningrad NKVDand pursued the con-
spirators with zeal. Hundreds of men and women were shot in the few
weeks he was in Leningrad. Agranov was then given extraordinary
power by Joseph Stalinand NKVD chief Genrykh Yagodato pre-
pare a major show trial that would implicate the Old Bolsheviks and
Leon Trotskyin Kirov’s death. Agranov forced two of Vladimir
Lenin’s old comrades, Grigori Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev, to con-
fess that they had planned Kirov’s death and that they were Nazi
spies and saboteurs. It was a coup de theatre: all the defendants at the
trial confessed and were shot. Agranov had not, however, earned6•AGRANOV, YAKOV SAMULOVICH (1893–1938)06-313 A-G.qxd 7/27/06 7:54 AM Page 6