Commentary on Moiseyev's judgment by an expert on secret services' methods

THE CONCLUSION OF THE PUBLIC FOND 'GLASNOST' EXPERT

The FSB, with neither doubts nor exceptions, was obliged to inform the Ministry of Foreign Affairs authority that Cho Son U belongs to the Korean intelligence service - from formal position and from primitive ethics and moral point of view as well. The FSB should, as well, have informed Ivanov's office about a fact which the KGB legally kept hidden: that during his first visit in 1989, Cho Son U was actually a staff member of the secret service.

We now highlight some details which the defense failed to introduce.

The first point is that, according to the judgment, during more than four years of co-operation with the foreign intelligence service, Moiseyev was to have met with its representative no less than 80 times. This would entail meetings 1-2 times a month. On other pages in the judgement, this is disputed, however, and the frequency is said to be 3-4 times a month. (Can't you be more particular, Mr. Chekists, since you have so carefully counted all the meetings of Penkovsky, Popov, Filatov, Smetanin, Uzhin and others?)

The second point is that Moiseyev's meetings with the Korean took place in restaurants or cafes and occasionally at home.

And thirdly, they made an appointment to meet every time by telephone, after the Korean called Moiseyev's office or home.

Now, some words about what exactly was Moiseyev's status from the viewpoint of the Intelligence service. It we draw a parallel with GRU*, Moiseyev, who had a rank not lower than general-major (envoy extraordinary and plenipotentiary, class 2) held a position not lower than Deputy Director of a section in Operative Department (deputy Director of a Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs). This means that according to basic rules of intelligence activity, sacredly observed by any self-respecting intelligence agency in the world, whether it is the SVR** and GRU, the American CIA, the British MI5 or the Israeli Mossad, Moiseyev was a particularly valuable agent. And the rules of secret relations also carefully observed by any respecting intelligence agency prohibit meetings in person with such agents on the territory of the country which is the field of intelligence activity and where there is a strict counter-intelligence regime, one of which is traditionally considered to be Russia.

These meetings are recommended to be once a quarter, right from the beginning, and, after a year, decreased to two a year. Eventually, they are completely eliminated. It should also be noted that four years of co-operation between particularly valuable agents and the intelligence agency is a very impressive period of time.

Furthermore-and this is without exception-appointments between agents are never made by a call to a place of work or home. (In the very outset, a detailed plan of connections between agents is worked out, according to which all the meetings and contacts would happen in the specific places and at the specific times agreed upon). Meetings in public places as restaurants and cafes are discouraged. As for meeting at an agent's apartment, this would be the most incompetent, irresponsible and unprofessional thing from a secret service man could do, constituting malfeasance in office.

Taking into account all these obvious facts, any self-respecting professional would give Moiseyev a flat rejection in status. Not only would he not be a valuable agent, but his status as an agent would be revoked outright. I repeat: What is Moiseyev's status if we admit that "SVR information" is not a forgery known to be false? I strongly believe that Moiseyev became a victim of what I would call the "international corporate-bureaucratic career syndrome" due to somebody's betrayal, or else he was used to "cover" a real agent whose position should be as minimum as Moiseyev's.

Unfortunately careerists exist in all intelligence services of the world and the specification of such activity often serves for satisfaction of the corresponding ambitions of the people who work there. I'm almost confident that promotional success in the Korean Agency of National Security Planning as well as in the Russian SVR depends on the results of the agent's operational activity - or in other words - on the enlistment quantity. Naturally, an agent may have no idea that he is on the secret service's list as an agent due to a foreigner that he happened to have had a few lunches with. The point is that one can enlist as many "agents" as he wants because of the "sacred cows" of intelligence: conspiracy and strict observance of the "vertical connection" rule. At any time, a secret service man can have several agents, but each agent has only one leader among secret service personnel. This fact infinitely increases the security of the agency and secret net as a whole but at the cost that the leaders of the secret service man have to believe all the information he reports about his own agents because it's virtually impossible to verify any of it. Put simply, promotional success for a secret service man often directly depends on his adherence to principle (or rather the absence of this adherence), slipperiness, eloquence, IQ level and capability of reading the necessary newspapers┘

Of course, all of the above mentioned points were taken from the theory and practice of the home secret services. But on the other hand, these things are based on the simple expediency and common sense and may differ significantly between other secret service agencies.

Nevertheless, to talk about secret relations between Moiseyev and ANSP is not even funny. As for the appearance of documents, presented in court, if they are copies from originals it can be easily explained: it's beyond any doubt that SVR gave the documents to the FSB on the condition that the latter will guarantee the absolute anonymity and security of an SVR source in Korea.

Finally if we adopt the scenario of "covering" the real agent by Moiseyev (to my mind rather science-fiction than real version), then we should take into account the following: Moiseyev was chosen as a scapegoat deliberately because of his apparently outstanding activity (though this still doesn't add anything additionally to the question of his guilt).

General Intelligence Department of Ministry of Defense

External Intelligence Service

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