The Farewell Dossier
On July 19, 1981 (31 years ago today) newly-elected President Ronald Reagan met with French President Francois Mitterand in Ottawa, Ontario (the capital city of Canada) at an economic summit. At that time Mitterand informed Reagan about something called "the Farewell Dossier", a collection of documents that Colonel Vladimir Vetrov, a KGB defector code-named "Farewell", had gathered and given to the French in 1981.
Vetrov was an engineer who was assigned to evaluate information on western defense hardware and software. The information had initially been gathered by the "Line X" technical intelligence operation for Directorate T, the Soviet directorate for scientific and technical intelligence collected from western nations. Vetrov became increasingly disillusioned with the Communist system and decided to work with the French at the end of 1980. Between the spring of 1981 and continuing on into early 1982, Vetrov gave almost 4,000 secret documents to the French intelligence service known as the DST. His information included the complete list of 250 Line X officers stationed under legal cover in embassies around the world.
In the meeting in Ottawa, Reagan expressed great interest in Mitterrand's revelations and thanked him for having the material sent to the United States government. It was passed through Vice President George H. W. Bush and then to CIA. Reagan also passed this on to William Casey, his Director of Central Intelligence. After studying the list of hundreds of Soviet agents and purchasers (including one cosmonaut) deportation of the agents did not happen immediately. The CIA mounted a counter-intelligence operation that transferred modified hardware and software designs over to the Soviets. They instigated an operation of disinformation and faulty technology transfer.
Ultimately western nations undertook a mass expulsion of Soviet technology spies. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev became furious when arrests and deportations of Soviet agents began. The incident also had a tragic ending for Vetrov. In circumstances that are not clear, at a Moscow park he stabbed and killed a fellow KGB officer and then stabbed (but did not kill) a woman that he had become involved with. He was arrested, and his espionage activities were discovered. He was executed in 1985.
The story was retold in the 2009 French film L'affaire Farewell. The YouTube video below is of a trailer of the film with English subtitles.
Vetrov was an engineer who was assigned to evaluate information on western defense hardware and software. The information had initially been gathered by the "Line X" technical intelligence operation for Directorate T, the Soviet directorate for scientific and technical intelligence collected from western nations. Vetrov became increasingly disillusioned with the Communist system and decided to work with the French at the end of 1980. Between the spring of 1981 and continuing on into early 1982, Vetrov gave almost 4,000 secret documents to the French intelligence service known as the DST. His information included the complete list of 250 Line X officers stationed under legal cover in embassies around the world.
In the meeting in Ottawa, Reagan expressed great interest in Mitterrand's revelations and thanked him for having the material sent to the United States government. It was passed through Vice President George H. W. Bush and then to CIA. Reagan also passed this on to William Casey, his Director of Central Intelligence. After studying the list of hundreds of Soviet agents and purchasers (including one cosmonaut) deportation of the agents did not happen immediately. The CIA mounted a counter-intelligence operation that transferred modified hardware and software designs over to the Soviets. They instigated an operation of disinformation and faulty technology transfer.
Ultimately western nations undertook a mass expulsion of Soviet technology spies. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev became furious when arrests and deportations of Soviet agents began. The incident also had a tragic ending for Vetrov. In circumstances that are not clear, at a Moscow park he stabbed and killed a fellow KGB officer and then stabbed (but did not kill) a woman that he had become involved with. He was arrested, and his espionage activities were discovered. He was executed in 1985.
The story was retold in the 2009 French film L'affaire Farewell. The YouTube video below is of a trailer of the film with English subtitles.