Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit [This is the first 25K of a total text of over 60K. For a full copy of this report, please send an email request to intelligence-adi@wanadoo.fr] Intelligence, N. 28, 8 January 1996, p. 1 BULGARIA: CODE NAME "PICCADILLY" - THE MURDER OF GEORGI MARKOV by Richard H. Cummings* (COPYRIGHT USA 1996 -- Richard H. Cummings -- All Rights Reserved) In February 1991, former dissident and Bulgaria's first post- Communist President Zhelyu Zhelev made a five-day visit to England. During the visit, he had lunch with Britain's Queen Elizabeth and met with numerous business and political figures. He had decided to also do something more personal on his last day in England, he left London and drove to a cemetery in Whitchurch, Southwest England. He participated in a short memorial ceremony conducted by a Bulgarian priest and walked over to one grave. President Zhelev stood quietly over the flower- covered grave and read the epitaph: In Memory of Georgi Ivanov Markov Novelist & Playwright Most dearly beloved By his wife Annabel His Daughter Sasha His Family & his Friends Born Sofia 1. 3. 39 Died London 11 .9. 78 In the Cause of Freedom President Zhelev then bent over and placed a wreath on the grave. After a few seconds, he stood up, turned to the small crowd, including Georgi Markov's wife and daughter, who had gathered around and said: "I am hopeful that Bulgarian authorities will soon reach some conclusions on who was responsible. The killing has shamed Bulgarian and mars it reputation abroad." On October 20, 1991, the CBS broadcast it's second "60 Minutes" television program about the murder of Georgi Markov. In his opening remarks, journalist Ed Bradley said: "In her wildest dreams Agatha Christie couldn't have conjured a more bizarre murder and a more bizarre murder weapon than the one that killed a Bulgaria writer named Georgi Markov who, while living in exile in London, wrote commentaries for Radio Free Europe. . . ." Who was Georgi Markov? Why is he buried in England? Why would the President of Bulgaria attend a memorial service, place a wreath on his grave and make such a provocative statement? How did he die "in the cause of freedom?" To understand how and why he died, one has to start with understanding who he was. PART ONE WHO WAS GEORGI MARKOV? When Georgi Ivanov Markov was born, his father was a career Bulgarian army officer. The Communist Party assumed power in Bulgaria 9 September 1944, and his father became a "class enemy" of the Communist regime. Georgi Markov was not allowed to attend a university reserved for family members from the ruling elite. He studied chemical engineering at the Polytechnic Institute but his first love was literature. He soon gave up his career in chemical engineering and started publishing short stories. When he was 32 years old, his first novel "Men" was published to rave reviews. Georgi Markov entered the privileged world of the Bulgarian literary and intellectual circles. His published works became very popular. He was financially so successful that he drove around Sofia in a German BMW, an impossibility for most Bulgarians. Markov joined the Bulgarian Writers' Union as an "officially" approved writer, an "insider." He started a new career as s successful dramatist and entered the cultural world of leading artists, actresses, and performers of the Bulgarian State theater. Markov was also accepted by the leaders of the Communist Party and government hierarchy who mingled within the theater and literary circles. He attended parties with them and knew the intimate details of their personal lives hidden from the public. This would lead to his success abroad and his death. But with all his material success and popularity among the elite, Markov was unhappy in Bulgaria. Though he secretly decided to leave Bulgaria, he did so with mixed feelings: "I tried to compromise as much as I could and it was eventually too much. And the whole atmosphere was in deep disagreement with myself. I don't want to say I am let's say braver or more honest than other people. Perhaps if I were more honest, I should have been there. Because if you are honest, your should stay there and fight about it there, not here." In 1969, Markov succeeded in getting official permission to leave Bulgaria, on the pretext of visiting his emigre brother, Nikola, who was living in Bologna, Italy. His last play was not well received in Party circles and friends advised him to leave Bulgaria as soon as he possibly could. On 16 June 1969, Markov left Bulgaria and drove through Yugoslavia on his way to Italy. Instead of returning to Bulgaria, Georgi Markov remained in Italy until 1971. He later flew to England, where he received political asylum. As a defector, he was branded a "traitor" by the Bulgarian media. Five years later, Bulgarian authorities tried him in absentia. The court sentenced Markov to six-and-half-years imprisonment, and confiscated all his personal property. After his arrival in England, he joined the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) and wrote scripts for the Bulgarian language broadcasts about cultural life in the West. Markov later married a fellow BBC co-worker, Annabel Dilke, and their daughter Sasha was born in 1976. He contributed his first free-lance program to Radio Free Europe (RFE) on 8 June 1975. It was called "The Debts of Contemporary Bulgarian Literature." For the next three years, he wrote more than 130 Sunday-evening programs in his series called, "In Absentia, Reports about Bulgaria." These programs were not only informative on cultural life in Bulgaria, but they also revealed the otherwise-hidden life styles of leading regime figures, especially Communist Party leader, Todor Zhivkov. There are eight million adults in Bulgaria. One listener survey estimated that five million adults listened to Georgi Markov's programs. One popular joke that circulated around Sofia was: "Why didn't the Politburo watch television Sunday night? Because they were all listening to Georgi Markov on RFE." In 1977, Georgi Markov's father was dying of cancer. Georgi Markov last saw him the day he left Bulgaria. He had falsely promised his father he would return in a few weeks. Georgi asked the Bulgarian regime for permission to return to Bulgaria, or have his father visit him in the West. The regime denied both requests. His father died in June 1977, without Georgi having the chance to say farewell. The tone of his programs over Radio Free Europe changed. His satirical series of eleven programs from November 1977 to January 29, 1978, were now called "Personal Meetings with Todor Zhivkov." This program series was relentlessly critical of Zhivkov's aristocratic and hypocritical life. These programs exposed a side of Zhivkov's personality and lives of the Bulgarian intelligentsia previously unknown in Bulgaria. The "Cult of Personality" was the rule in Bulgaria. No one told the Emperor he was naked. Because Markov's programs were so popular with his listeners -- even with jamming -- the mood in Zhivkov radically and dramatically changed because of Markov's revelations. Radio Free Europe's Bulgarian language broadcasts were heavily jammed. One frequency was deliberately not jammed so that a unit of Bulgarian State Security (DS), could monitor and prepare reports on the broadcasts. Communist Party Secretary, Todor Zhivkov, was very well informed about Radio Free Europe broadcasts. He daily received a highly-classified report and transcript of RFE's broadcasts, prepared by the Bulgarian State Security "Directorate for Struggle Against the Ideological Subversion." Also, he read another classified report called "Anti-Bulgarian Propaganda Bulletin" that included selected program transcripts of RFE, VOA, BBC, Deutsche Welle, the Vatican Radio. This report was produced by the Bulgarian Press Agency and distributed through Communist Party channels to Central Committee members and chief editors of the central press, radio and television. Zhivkov also knew of Markov's plans to publish a book of these interviews and other material included in his Radio Free Europe program series. Zhivkov was also upset with the rise of the Bulgarian dissident movement "Declaration 78" that appeared in spring 1978. "Declaration 1978" put out six demands including " an end to violations of human and civil rights" and "the abolishing of privilege in all spheres of public life." Zhelyu Zhelev, who later became Bulgaria's first democratically-elected President, was one of the dissidents influenced by Georgi Markov's RFE programs. Markov appealed to the nascent dissident movement. He was known as a "rebel" and once said, "I feel in myself a necessity to rebel against any kind of authority. If you want really to make me hate something, tell me that the authorities want, like or impose that music or that thing, and I would never accept it." KGB CONNECTION In Moscow, early in 1978, Georgi Markov's fate was decided during a meeting in a third floor office in KGB Main Headquarters Building, "The Center." Those in attendance were Yury Andropov, Chairman of the KGB, Vladimir Kryuchkov, then Chief of Intelligence (First Administration), his first deputy, Vice Admiral Usatov, and General Oleg Kalugin, Chief of Foreign Counterintelligence. Kryuchkov had been a long-time confidant of Andropov: he served in the Soviet Embassy in Budapest during the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, when Andropov was Ambassador to Hungary. (I had a lengthy meeting with former-General Oleg Kalugin in August 1991. Our conversation forms the basis for the reconstruction of the fateful meeting in Andropov's office.) Kryuchkov received an "urgent" telegram from Sofia, presumably through the KGB Resident, and invited Kalugin to the meeting. The meeting in Andropov's office started off routinely with discussions of normal operational KGB matters. Kryuchkov then told Andropov about the highly- classified telegram from Bulgarian Minister of Internal Affairs, Dimitir Stoyanov. Stoyanov asked them to help kill Georgi Markov. Kryuchkov told Andropov that Georgi Markov had escaped to the West and for the last few years has been working for the BBC and Radio Free Europe. He added that Markov had become an open and very outspoken opponent of Communist Party Secretary Todor Zhivkov. He had been close to Zhivkov's family, friends, and prominent Communist Party members and knew many "kitchen secrets" of their private lives. Zhivkov personally asked the U.S.S.R. for this help, and Minister Stoyanov simply passed it through his KGB intelligence contact, according to Kryuchkov. He also said that Zhivkov approved the plan to murder Markov, by using a decree issued by Bulgaria's then-ruling Communist Politburo in 1977. Because Minister Stoyanov had sent the message requesting KGB assistance, Zhivkov was in a position to deny direct knowledge of KGB assistance in the killing; i.e., "plausible denial." THE JULY 1977 DECREE In December 1991, General Katsamunski, then Head of the National Investigative Office investigating the murder of Georgi Markov, would give a few more details of the July 1977 Politburo Decree. He said thatZhivkov had decreed in June 1977 that "all measures could beused to neutralize enemy emigres." The ruling Politburoapproved this measure. This 1977 decree created the atmospherewhich "freed the hands for individual decisions by Ministers,Secret Services and other organs." Katsamunski said, "InSeptember 1977, General Stoyanov ordered the Ministry ofInterior to act on this decree." ANDROPOV AGAINST MURDER! After Kryuchkov finished speaking, Andropov rose and slowly paced around the office. He paused and then emphatically said, "I am against political murders! I am against political assassinations!" He sternly added: "The days when this kind of thing could go unpunished are gone. We can't turn back the clock. I repeat I'm against it. We are being dragged into all sorts of situations. This is their problem; let them solve it on their own." Kryuchkov interrupted Andropov, who continued standing behind his chair: "Yury Vladimirovich, please understand, if we refuse the Bulgarians, we will put Minister Stoyanov in an awkward situation. Zhivkov will think that Stoyanov no longer has respect in the KGB. That the attitude toward Bulgarian Comrades is changing in the U.S.S.R., in the leadership here. In short, this may not be the best thing in terms of consequences for the development of our relations and, in particular, for Minister Stoyanov who helps us in everything." After some silent and tense moments, Andropov sat down and finally agreed, on condition there would be no direct Soviet participation in the killing itself: "All right, you have my consent to participate, on the technical side only -- no personnel involvement. Send an instructor, give them appropriate technical means and equipment. Let the Bulgarian resolve this problem on their own. That is all. This is as far as I am prepared to go." Like Zhivkov, Andropov also was in a position to deny any "direct" KGB involvement in the death of Markov. KGB PREPARES FOR MURDER After this meeting, Kalugin and Kryuchkov returned to the Foreign Intelligence Headquarters outside Moscow. Kalugin told me that he went to his office and called two of his KGB subordinates: General Sergei Golubev, Chief of the Security Service and specialist on "murder" and another KGB officer. He repeated it in various television interviews he gave in the immediate years following the collapse of Communism in the USSR and East Europe. He would later change this in his memoirs published in London, as we will see below. General Golubev had a distinguished career abroad: he had been assigned to New York in 1961; Washington, 1963-64; Cairo, 1967- 1969; and was one of those hundreds of KGB officers expelled en masse from Great Britain in 1971. Kalugin told Golubev: "We have an assignment, a job to do. You have to get in touch with the scientific division of the KGB that will provide you with the necessary poisons and weapons. We will give you instructions, and you then will go to Sofia to help the Bulgarians." RICIN At the KGB Center, Golubev visited the secret research Laboratory No. 12, which was a part of the KGB Operational Technical Support Directorate. Laboratory No. 12 was referred to in intelligence circles as the "Chamber," or "Kamera." KGB General Viktor Chebrikov, Andropov's closest subordinate in the KGB, was then the Director of the "Chamber." The "Chamber" developed, among many technical devices, chemical substances used to incapacitate political enemies and antidotes to these substances, if Western intelligence agencies used them against KGB agents. For example, Laboratory No. 12 successfully developed the "spray gun" and poison used to kill two Ukrainian Nationalist anti-Soviet activists in Munich in the 1950s: Ivan Rebet and Stefan Bandera. Golubev received instructions in the "Chamber," and the next week he flew to Sofia with Ivan Surov. Surov's job was to give the Bulgarian Intelligence Service practical instruction in the use of special poisons, which could not be traced after the victim's death. Golubev and Surov discussed with the Bulgarians intelligence officers the various options of killing Markov. They worked out one plan to use a poison that could be surreptitiously dissolved in tea, coffee, any liquid that Markov might drink. FIRST WARNINGS TO RFE In January 1978, the Radio Free Europe Security Office received the first warnings that Markov would be killed. Nikola Markov called and said he had been warned in a very brief telephone call that his brother would be killed. He said the warning came from a Politburo member and close political associate of Zhivkov who opposed the order to kill Markov. Nikola Markov said he could not identify the informant because it would endanger him. The Politburo member told Nikola Markov that additional information would come from a third party, a Bulgarian emigre living in Western Europe. Georgi Markov contacted the RFE Bulgarian Service Director and said that a Bulgarian emigre named Popov (pseudonym) visited his brother, a successful stamp dealer, in Italy and told him that "the Bulgarian Intelligence Service had planned to kill Georgi Markov in Munich in the middle of January." Georgi dismissed this possibility as harassment, but he postponed his visit to Munich. Nikola Markov later said in a 1991 interview with RFE that between January and the end of July 1978, the Politburo contact repeatedly told him , "Georgi Markov's days are numbered." Nikola passed along every warning to Georgi, whose reactions changed from disbelief to defiance and finally to resignation. Georgi Markov did not, at first, believe the Communists would harm him. Georgi had been a personal friend of state and Communist Party Secretary Todor Zhivkov. As time passed and the warnings persistently continued, Nikola says his brother became convinced that the Communists would not harm him because it would create a "world scandal." Georgi Markov did not exclude that the information, carried by Popov, to his brother in Italy, intended to frighten him and discourage him from publishing his planned book on Zhivkov. Popov later told Nikola Markov that two Bulgarian agents had been in Munich and attempted to learn full details of Georgi Markov's trip: where he would live, sleep, eat, etc. Popov told Nikola he should not question him about his continuing association with the Bulgarian Intelligence Service. He should simply accept this association as it was. Popov advised Nikola that the Bulgarian Intelligence Service had definitely "planted" someone within Radio Free Europe and was fully informed of all its activities. In spring, Popov added another reason why Markov was being targeted: the Bulgarian regime believed Georgi Markov was implicated in the defection of veteran Bulgarian journalist Vladimir Kostov in Paris in July 1977. Kostov had been the Bulgarian News Agency's Paris correspondent, and an experienced intelligence officer. He sought, and received, political asylum for himself and his family -- more on Kostov below. FIRST ATTEMPT TO KILL MARKOV? After a second postponement of his planned trip to Munich, Georgi Markov arranged to fly to Munich in May 1978. He telephoned RFE on 10 May 1978, and said he would keep his upcoming trip to Munich confidential. He planned to arrive on Friday, 19 May, and disclosed this to no one, except a few trusted friends in Munich. On Saturday, Markov intended to visit RFE and another editor at RFE, who then was seriously ill in a Munich hospital. Then Markov intended to fly back to London. The RFE Security Office notified Munich police, and other German authorities, of Markov's impending visit. Munich police decided not to interview Markov or provide protection, since the threats were too vague. Markov returned to London after an uneventful trip. Or, was it? According to former KGB General Kalugin, an attempt to kill Markov was made during one his trips to Munich in the spring 1978. One Bulgarian agent was to put a poison pill in Markov's drink in Munich during a party in his honor. The plan failed for reasons unknown. The Bulgarians, and KGB, decided to try something else. THE UMBRELLA IS BORN Golubev returned to Sofia to work out a new plan to kill Markov. The KGB decided to use a camouflaged weapon. A folding umbrella was adapted with a firing mechanism and silencer to shoot a small pellet at close range, one and a half to two meters. Golubev requested that the KGB Residency in Washington purchase several US-manufactured umbrellas and send them to the Center. The "Chamber" then adapted the umbrella tip to enable it to shoot the victim with a tiny metal pellet containing ricin a highly-toxic poison derived from castor oil seeds. Reportedly, ricin is seventy times stronger than cyanide, and one ounce of ricin could kill as many as 90,000 persons. The KGB was not the only intelligence agency interested in ricin as a toxic weapon. In the 1970s, the CIA publicly revealed that a U.S. Army team called the Special Operations Division (SOD) at Fort Derrick, Maryland, developed biological and chemical weapons for the CIA under a Top Secret project that would last almost twenty years. This project, MKNAOMI, was practically unknown at the CIA due to the extreme sensitivity of its mission. Few written records were kept. CIA personnel working at Fort Detrick used the cover of Special Support Staff of the Department of Defense. But a KGB agent at the Soviet embassy in Washington, both Kalugin and Golubev, could have easily discovered that on 23 October 1962, the U.S. Patent Office granted patent 3,060,165 to four persons "as represented by the Secretary of the Army. The patent was first filed 3 July 1952, Serial Number 297,142" for the use of ricin as a biological weapon. The strikingly honest descriptive language used to apply for this U.S. patent, in 1952, is very revealing: "Ricin is a protoplasmic poison prepared from castor beans after the extraction of castor oil therefrom. It is most effective as a poison when injected intravenously or inhaled, . . . a very fine particle size was necessary so that the product might be used as a toxic weapon . . ." In addition to the development of lethal biotoxins, the SOD developed special weapons, including concealed guns in fountain pens, walking sticks, and umbrellas. One adapted pistol developed by the SOD could fire a dart the size of a human hair over two hundred yards at a target. More on the significance of SOD operations below. Golubev then took the converted umbrellas to Sofia to instruct the assassin on how to use this weapon. The pellet was supposed to penetrate the clothing and be lodged in the upper skin layer. The selected Bulgarian agents first tried the poison on a horse. A dose of only one milligram was sufficient to kill the horse. After that success, the Bulgarians decided to shoot a prisoner who had been condemned to death, simulating "field conditions." A Bulgarian intelligence officer approached the prisoner, and shot the poison pellet into the victim. The prisoner cried out in pain and fear with the shot. To their surprise several days later, he was still alive with no sign of ill-health. Why he didn't die was unclear. The agents decided on another plan: kill Markov while he and his family were vacationing on the beautiful Italian island Sardinia. Kalugin told me that he believed they wanted to put some sort of poison on the car door handle, or on the walls of a room where he was staying. However, this plan also failed as the agents during their surveillance of Markov realized that Markov's wife or daughter might also be poisoned. The Bulgarian intelligence agents decided to postpone the operation until they perfected the umbrella weapon. As we will see, they selected the perfect date. Soon after this decision, the Bulgarian Intelligence Service agents assigned to the British Embassy intensified their surveillance of Markov. Even though he was under death threats, Markov continued to supply creative scripts to RFE. On 3 July 1978, he enthusiastically started a new series of Sunday night twenty minute programs: "Markov Speaks." His first program in this series was "The Mind Under House Arrest." These broadcasts would continue throughout the summer. One critic called the program series "A miniature classic of the genre....describing his reflections on listening to Radio Sofia broadcasting." Markov last visited RFE in August 1978. For the first time, he admitted that about four months earlier he had received a telephone call in London from a man who advised him to stop writing for Radio Free Europe. The anonymous caller had told him that if he did not stop these programs, he would be killed. The threatening calls continued sporadically. When previously threatened, Markov's response to the caller was to point out that his assassination would only make him a martyr. His murder would confirm the truth of his broadcasts: his death would demonstrate to the world the depth of corruption of the Bulgarian regime. He received the last threat just before he flew from London to Munich. This last threat was different from the others. Because of the tone and emphasis in the voice on the phone, he was deeply bothered this threat. "Not this time," said anonymous caller. "This time you will not become a martyr. You will simply die of natural causes. You will be killed by a poison that the West cannot detect nor treat." To ensure that Markov fully understood, he repeated the murder threat. After the phone call, Markov said he slept poorly. In the morning, he went to work at the BBC and told only his closest colleagues about the new threat. The brothers met at Heathrow, and Nikola told Georgi again of the threat information . This time, according to Nikola, Georgi said he was fed up with hearing about the murder plot and told Nikola to leave him alone. "If they want to kill me, they can do it." This was the last time the brothers saw each other. Then, as the days passed and nothing happened, he became preoccupied with other matters and pushed aside the threats. * [This is the first 25K of a total text of over 60K. For a full copy of this report, please send an email request to intelligence-adi@wanadoo.fr] ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 For more info, e-mail , or =================================================================