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Oleg
Kalugin
Information gathered by the American Policy Roundtable
Biography
Source:
The
Centre for Counterintelligence and Security
Studies
Oleg
Danilovich Kalugin is a retired Major General in
the Soviet KGB. Born in Leningrad in 1934, his
father was an officer in Stalin's NKVD. Oleg
Kalugin attended Leningrad State University and
was recruited by the KGB for foreign
intelligence work, serving in the First Chief
Directorate. Undercover as a journalist, he
attended Columbia University in New York as a
Fulbright Scholar in 1958 and then worked as a
Radio Moscow correspondent at the UN in New
York, conducting espionage and influence
operations. From 1965 to 1970, he served as
deputy resident and acting chief of the Residency
at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, DC. General
Kalugin rose quickly in the First Chief
Directorate, becoming the youngest general in
the history of the KGB, and eventually he became
the head of worldwide foreign
counterintelligence (Line KR). Serving at the
center of some of the most important
espionage cases of his period, including the
Walker spy ring, he quickly became known for his
aggressive operational methodology.
General Kalugin's internal criticism of
lawlessness, arbitrary rule, and cronyism within
the KGB caused friction with the KGB leadership,
and he was demoted to serve as first deputy
chief of internal security in Leningrad from
1980 to 1987. He recalls that for the first time
in his career, he saw that the KGB's internal
functions had little to do with the security of
the state, and everything to do with maintaining
corrupt Communist Party officials in power.
Kalugin retired from the KGB in 1990 and became
a public critic of the Communist system.
Kalugin's vocal
attacks on the KGB won him both notoriety and a
political following. In 1990, Soviet President
Mikhail Gorbachev signed a decree stripping
General Kalugin of his rank, decorations, and
pension. General Kalugin then ran successfully
for the Supreme Soviet, or
"Parliament" of the USSR. From that
post he continued his attacks on KGB abuses.
Following the August 1991 putsch, General
Kalugin became an unpaid advisor to reformist
KGB Chairman Vadim Bakatin, who succeeded in the
dissolution of the old state security apparatus,
but had little time to reform it.
In addition to
currently teaching regularly at The Centre for
Counterintelligence and Security Studies,
General Kalugin has taught at Catholic
University and lectured throughout the country.
He is also the Chairman of Intercon
International, which provides information
services for businesses in the former
Soviet Union. He contributes regularly to its
Daily Report on Russia and the former
Soviet Republics, and some other US
publications. Since 1998, General Kalugin has
been representing in the US The Democracy
Foundation, headed by Alexander Yakolev, a
former politburo member and close ally of
Mikhail Gorbachev.
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