stolen material. Despite the COS’s vehement protests, he was
granted only one hour to copy the documents.
The documents were soon handed over to the Soviet Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, and the KGB predictably began hunting their sender.
It did not take long to identify him. Aleksandr Cherepanov, a 20-year
veteran of the security service, had fought in the partisanwar against
the Nazis. Assigned to the First (American) Department of the Sec-
ond (Counterintelligence) Chief Directorate, he had become disillu-
sioned with his jobs and sought to volunteer to the Americans.
Cherepanov, realizing that something was wrong, sought to escape.
After an intense month-long manhunt, he was captured near the Turk-
ish border. He was tried and shot shortly thereafter.
The Cherepanov affair illustrated how little Americans understood
the Soviet Union, even in 1963. In order to curry favor with the So-
viets, secret documents were to be handed back and a person’s life
was to be endangered. The documents provided by Cherepanov pro-
vided insights into how the KGB conducted operations against the
American embassy, including the use of a tracking chemical called
metka. The hunt for Cherepanov and his subsequent execution
showed how deadly serious the KGB played the game.CHERKASHIN, VIKTOR IVANOVICH (1931– ). One of the most
successful case officers in modern KGBhistory was Colonel Viktor
Cherkashin, who served as the deputy rezidentfor counterintelli-
gencein Washington from 1979 to 1986 and was responsible for the
recruitment and initial handling of Aldrich Ames and Robert
Hanssen. Cherkashin’s career in the security service began in 1952
and lasted for four decades. He began with the Second (English) De-
partment of the KGB’s Second Chief Directorate and took part in the
arrest of Oleg Penkovskiy. He then served several tours abroad as an
officer in the foreign counterintelligence component of the First
Chief Directorate.
Cherkashin’s greatest accomplishment was his handling of Ames
and Hanssen. First, he had to verify the bona fides of the two potential
agents: Ames volunteered to the Washington rezidentura; Hanssen
contacted the KGB by mail. Second, he had to devise ways to run the
agents in Washington under the watchful eyes of the Federal Bureau
of Investigation. Finally, he had to convince Moscow of the value of46 •CHERKASHIN, VIKTOR IVANOVICH (1931– )06-313 A-G.qxd 7/27/06 7:55 AM Page 46