Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Intelligence

vember 1994 to institute liaison between the Russian and American

services on drug trafficking, nuclear proliferation, and terrorism.

As intelligence chief, Primakov also conducted secret diplomatic

missions for the Boris Yeltsingovernment, visiting Afghanistan and

Tajikistan. During the next four years, Primakov became a national

and international spokesperson for Russian intelligence, emphasizing

the differences between the KGB of the bad old Soviet days and the

democratic SVR.

In January 1996 Primakov was appointed minister of foreign af-

fairs, and in September 1998 he was elevated to prime minister of the

Russian Federation. In May 1999, however, Primakov was fired by

President Yeltsin. Subsequently he became chair of the Fatherland

Party in the Russian Duma.

PRIME, GEOFFREY ARTHUR (1938– ). A major penetration of the

British signals intelligenceestablishment, Prime volunteered to the

KGBin 1968 while serving in Berlin. Prime was a tragic misfit who

lived a triple life as a sexual deviant, a British signals intelligence of-

ficer, and a KGB agent. He volunteered to work for the Soviet Union

for ideological reasons, and he was paid relatively little for the infor-

mation he provided Soviet intelligence. Prime was uncovered in 1983

during an investigation of his sexual assault on young women.

Though he had broken with Soviet intelligence, he had kept clandes-

tine communications gear. He also had the names of 2,287 young

women he had targeted. He was sentenced to 38 years imprisonment:

35 years for espionage and three years for his sexual activities.

PRISONERS OF WAR, FOREIGN. During World War II, the Red

Army captured more than 2.5 million Germans and Austrians and

held them as prisoners of war. It also took 766,000 soldiers prisoner

from the armies of Hitler’s Hungarian, Italian, and Romanian allies.

Treatment of these prisoners was harsh, in part because of conditions

on the Eastern Front and in part because neither the Red Army nor the

NKVDexpected to have so many prisoners. Of the 90,000 German

soldiers taken prisoner at Stalingrad in February 1943, 90 percent

perished in the first six months of their captivity. Conditions gradu-

ally got better, but over 40 percent of the German soldiers taken pris-

oner between 1941 and 1945 never saw Germany again.

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