ORLOV, ALEXANDER• 403ering a period from 1940 to 1948, which were studied from 1944 to
1979.
The precise reason why the Soviets chose to duplicate some of the
pages remains a mystery, as does the method they adopted to gener-
ate the original numbers, although theGRUcode clerkIgor Gou-
zenko, whodefectedin Ottawa in September 1945, suggested that
an electric pulse device had been the source.OPERATIONAL INTELLIGENCE CENTRE (OIC).The Admiral-
ty’s war room, located in a blockhouse on the Mall in central London
during World War II, the OIC was where enemy air and naval move-
ments across the oceans were monitored and the countermeasures co-
ordinated based upon information fromultra,direction finding,
and other sources. Manned 24 hours a day throughout the war, the
OIC was a direct descendent ofRoom 40during World War I and
was headed by the deputy director of naval intelligence, Admiral Jock
Clayton. Within the OIC were four branches: an Italian and Japanese
Section under Commander Barrow-Green; the DF plotters, led by
CommanderPeter Kemp; the Submarine Tracking Room headed by
Captain Thring; and the German Surface Shipping section supervised
by Admiral Norman Denning.
ORLOV, ALEXANDER.The most senior Soviet intelligence officer
ever todefect, General Alexander Orlov had been theNKVDrezi-
dentin Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War but fled to the United
States in July 1938 with his wife and daughter. Born Leiba Feldbin,
Orlov feared liquidation in Stalin’s purges but remained silent until
after Stalin’s death, when he sold his story toLifemagazine and in
1953 publishedThe Secret History of Stalin’s Crimes.Embarrassed
to discover that such a senior figure had been living in the United
States for 15 years without detection, theFederal Bureau of Investi-
gation(FBI) subjected him to a full debriefing, but during the inter-
rogations Orlov neglected to mention that he had been the illegal
rezident in London before he was posted to Spain or that he had per-
sonally run a British journalist namedKim Philby.
Orlov died in April 1973 in Ohio, apparently on the verge of ac-
cepting an invitation from Georgi Feoktistov at the New Yorkrezi-
denturato return to Moscow. His FBI minder, Edward Gazur, later