from officials in the field. Stalin also stayed close to the leaders of the
service: both Nikolai Yezhovand Lavrenty Beriawere frequent
guests at his apartment and vacation homes.
After Stalin’s death in 1953, Nikita Khrushchevreduced the au-
thority of the KGB vis-à-vis the Communist Party. KGB officers
could not arrest senior party officials without the permission of the
Central Committee. The party’s Administrative Organs Depart-
ment vetted all senior police appointments. For Khrushchev, the
KGB was the servant of the party—as well as its avenging sword and
shield. Under Khrushchev’s successor Leonid Brezhnev, the KGB
was even further restricted from reporting on developments in the
party. The years of Brezhnev’s rule were often referred to as “stagna-
tion,” as the party leadership in Moscow and the provinces became
more entrenched and corrupt. KGB officers reported on gross eco-
nomic malfeasance to chair Yuri Andropovbut were well aware that
their reports would rarely be acted on. In the years of stagnation, in
the provinces and in the center, KGB generals were co-opted by the
party. By the 1970s, senior KGB officials were appointed to the
Communist Party’s Central Committee. At the local level, senior
KGB officers were appointed to the Communist Party’s leadership
bodies. This interlocking directorate of party and police gradually
eroded the effectiveness of the KGB as a guarantee of political and
social cohesion, and it corrupted the KGB at the local level.
The Communist Party that Mikhail Gorbachevinherited in 1985
was a very dull tool for change. Efforts to raise political consciousness
by his twin programs of glasnostand perestroika were opposed by
both the party and the police, which saw it as endangering their pre-
rogatives. In a major speech in 1987, KGB Chair Viktor Chebrikov
attacked reform efforts as undercutting party authority. The Commu-
nist Party elite sourly accepted changes in the late 1980s, predicting as
they did that any reduction of party authority would lead to chaos.
KGB officers watching history unfold before them in the last years of
the Gorbachev administration knew they were witnessing the loss of
the Soviet empire that Stalin had created. The August putschin 1991
was the last desperate act of these traditionalists to change history.CONRAD, CLYDE LEE (1944–1998). Conrad was recruited and run
by the Hungarian military intelligence service (MNVK/2) for their54 •CONRAD, CLYDE LEE (1944–1998)06-313 A-G.qxd 7/27/06 7:55 AM Page 54